This is a beautiful story...

Mike,

So, the moral of this little secular parable you recounted above is that middle class people will come to be revolutionaries based on some sort of appeal to their conscience?

I do not agree with that at all.

The way people see the world is deeply and intimately related to their relationship to the forces of production. Middle class people in our society are brought off by the system - the rulers buy their loyalty and political support with all sorts of economic privileges.

Thus, their basic material loyalties (the only ones that <b>really matter</b> in the final analysis) are with the rulers.

Revolutions happen when societies are in a deep crisis - when the ruling classes can no longer rule in the old way, and when the productive classes they rule over (in our case here in America, the working class) refuse to be ruled in the old way.

Nice little "based-on-fact" fables like the one above, about attempting to sway the morals of the privileged, do not in any way negate that fact.

Beyond that - I bet there's a much more logical explanation for the real life events that the above prose poem are based on.

Folks assumed the Asian American father and son in the vehicle were arrested - and they freed them from police custody, as they probably would have done for any person of color in the back of a squad car that day.

That version takes away from your little morality tale - but it's probably a lot more consistent with the actual facts of the situation.

[BTW - that quite repellent phrase <i>"non White"</i> is actually <b>very racist</b> - it would be far better if you used <i>minorities</i> or <i>people of color</i> as the generic - since it doesn't define us in the narrow framework of <b>your</b> race!]

<q cite="Mike E">There have been middle class people active in every radical and revolutionary movement in history — including in U.S. history (abolitionists, communist movements of the 20s and 30s, civil rights, Black liberation, the new communist movement, and so on.)</q>

And that's precisely the point. How have those "radical and revolutionary movements" turned out? The communist movement of the 20's and 30's was turned into reformist social democracy. Civil rights ended with "black faces in high places." Despite the "black liberation movement," black people aren't liberated. The "new communist movement" accomplished zip (other than making some middle class moralists feel good about themselves).

The Communist Manifesto said "the liberation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself." Every middle class "communist" since then has been trying to tell us how much we need them (and this how wrong this principle must be). History has shown where that road goes.

The proletariat has to organize on its own and act in its own interests. That's the only way forward.

If individual members want to fight along side of us (for however long) that's fine, but they don't belong in our organizations and they definitely shouldn't be our leaders.

<q>"The new socialist order needs to be rooted in the highest interests and needs of the oppressed, but it also needs to draw in people from many other parts of society in order to function and advance (and especially pull a new society out of the dissolution of an old order and the chaos of revolutionary changes in power.)"</q>

In other words: The working class can't run society on it's own so the existence of the petit-bourgeois must be preserved (in its positions as managers and experts no less!).

Spoken like a true petit-bourgeois socialist!

The irony is that you're showing how people act in their own class interests.

Last time I checked most people in the U.S. work in service industries. Classes today especially in countries like the united states are much more complicated then workers and none workers. Middle class and working class also may overlap.

Smith

<b>"The proletariat has to organize on its own and act in its own interests. That’s the only way forward."</b>

You are right on the money, comrade!

We need to have a workers revolution, led by actual <i>workers</i> (and, yes, Timo, that includes white collar and service workers, as well as those of us in the industrial workforce) not by condescending saviours who seek to rule us from a judgment hall.

I'm with Mike. GregB would have to repudiate old John Brown himself, and at least half of his team to boot, with this kind of reductionism. Class interests are a powerful factor shaping consciousness, but hardly the only factor. Plus on the individual level, there's no iron wall between the workers and the small producers.

Marx came from a priviliged middle class background, and wrote Capital while living off money sent to him by his mate Engels, who was a full-blown capitalist. Lenin came from a priviliged background and worked as a lawyer before he became the leader of the first worker's state. Depending on your view of 20th century revolutionary history, you could name easily another dozen leaders you held to be revolutionary socialists who came from priviliged, middle or upper class backgrounds. Class background does not set in stone one's political consciousness throughout your entire life, it's perfectly possible to reject your own background and align yourself with the cause of the oppressed... just as it is perfectly possible to claw your way up out of the proletariat and become a capitalist just as bad as the rest of them. Marxism is not a deterministic ideology, and Marx would be horrified at how rigid, dogmatic and formulaic people like Smith and Greg make out.

Perhaps the greatest rebuttal to this line of thinking comes from the mouth of Zhou Enlai, when he was talking with Krushchev;

Nikita Khrushchev: The difference between the Soviet Union and China is that I rose to power from the peasant class, whereas you came from the privileged Mandarin class.

Zhou: True. But there is this similarity. Each of us is a traitor to his class.

But the point is that neither Krushchev or Enlai belonged to the proletariat. And look at what kind of systems they presided over. Where was the working class control of production in the Kruschev's USSR or Mao's China?

"Last time I checked most people in the U.S. work in service industries."

They are still workers. Read Marx.

"Marx came from a priviliged middle class background, and wrote Capital while living off money sent to him by his mate Engels, who was a full-blown capitalist."

This is an excuse used by every petit-bourgeois radical (who of course see themselves as modern day Marx or Lenins) when confronted with this question.

Marx lived his entire life in poverty. He gave up his privileged background. He was also a worker (writing for newspapers and publishers) for a large part of his life.

Engels was a clerk in his father's factory until he quit. Later he lived from money that came off his stocks. Let's see what he said:

“It is an unavoidable phenomenon, well established in the course of development, that people from the ruling class also join the proletariat and supply it with educated elements. This we have already clearly stated in the Manifesto. Here, however, two remarks are to be made:

“First, such people, in order to be useful to the proletarian movement, must bring with them really educated elements…

“Second, when such people from other classes join the proletarian movement, the first demand upon them must be that they do not bring with them any remnants of bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, etc., prejudices, but that they irreversibly assimilate the proletarian viewpoint. But those gentlemen, as has been shown, adhere overwhelmingly to petty-bourgeois conceptions. …in a labor party, they are a falsifying element. If there are grounds which necessitate tolerating them, it is a duty <b>only to tolerate them, to allow them no influence in party leadership, and to keep in mind that a break with them is only a matter of time</b>.

“In any case, <b>the time seems to have come</b>.” - F. Engels, 1879.

"Classes today especially in countries like the united states are much more complicated then workers and none workers. Middle class and working class also may overlap."

No, they may not "overlap." The capitalists have been working for decades to muddy the waters on class in the United States. "Comrades" like you have helped the process.

Class is determined by ones relation to the means of production. Those who own the means of production are capitalists. Those who manage and oversee the means of production and the laborers are petit-bourgeois. Those who have no way to survive other than by selling their labor power work the means of production or work along the lines of distribution where profit is realized. Read Marx.

Maoists are anti-materialist and bend reality to fit their own outlook. The materialist approach shows us that ideas and outlook of individuals and classes are shaped by their relation to the means of production and their corresponding life experiences. In the words of Marx "being determines consciousness."

If anyone from any class can fight for communism then class no longer matters. If people from the oppressing classes can simply be "convinced" to act against their own class interests, then revolution is no longer necessary.

All you need to do is win the bulk of the petty-bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie over to the "proletariat line" and they will give up their positions of power and join us in one big international happy commune!

I wouldn't expect any members of the petty-bourgeois here to agree with me. After all, you're acting in your own class interests. It's understandable. But you have no place in the working class movement. That's why you and your trend are marginalized and irrelevant.

If there are any workers here I'd advise you to actually study the writings of Marx and proletariat communists and rely on your own understanding - which is something the middle class radicals can never have. Start with the writings on petit-bourgeois socialism and go from there.

Who do you want to purge from the ranks, Comrade Smith? How many?

But first, you're a little muddled on class analysis yourself.

Here Davidson's 'down-and-dirty' tool on class analysis: See who signs your paycheck, assuming that's your main income. If someone else signs it, you're a worker. If you sign your own paycheck and no others, you're a small producer. If you sign other people's paychecks on accounts you own, you're a capitalist.

'Petit-bourgeoisie' means little capitalist, ie, someone who hires a relatively small number of workers, usually including themselves. Check out the small shops on any Main street, and you'll find scads of them.

What you're referring to as petit-bougeoisie--those who manage and oversee production--are what are properly called 'middle strata'. That means they span the classes mentioned above, ie, they can be workers, which most of them are, or small producers or capitalists, depending on their circumstances and what activity they derive most of their income from.

The same 'strata' analysis can also apply to the professional occupations, like doctors and teachers--they can belong to any of these three classes, depending.

Then there's a large number of people who have no direct relation to production, but make up the base of large social movements--students, housewives, the retired, the generationally unemployed.

Here's my point. Almost all classes and strata have an interest in fighting the ravages in our society from its current domination by finance capital, many from a progressive position. Many of them in addition to workers would also benefit and continue to thrive in a transitional socialist society, and can be shown that they have a stake in it.

Within all that, naturally if you're a Marxist, the working class has the most consistent and radical interest, what Marx called 'radical chains,' ie, when they break their chains and eventually abolish all classes, including the working class, they emancipate not only themselves, but all humankind.

There's some truth in what you're saying here. The October League, for instance, since it came out of RYM2 in the youth and student movements in the 1960s, had a policy for several years of only taking new recruits from the factory cells. They wanted to get a decent 'proletarian core,' which they did. Then after a while, they loosened up and recruited some revolutionary intellectuals, such as myself. I had worked in a few factories and had working class family roots, but I mainly survived over the years as a writer and as an independent teacher as a private contractor with the public schools.

But you seem to want to do much more here. The working class movement needs all the allies it can get from outside 'the point of production,' while you're pointing in the opposite direction.

Besides, as Chou En-lai supposedly pointed out in the classic joke, class betrayal is a two way street. I visited his living quarters when I was in China once, after his death. It reminded me of a monk's cell. Simple bed and washstand. Small desk and a few books. Three suits of clothes--one new looking for banquets, the other two well worn. A pair of slippers and two pair of shoes, one polished. That was it, the sum total of his possessions. If we had more like him in every country, we'd be much better off.

Mike: You ignore the key points and repeat the tired old Maoist banalities. I'm not surprised. It's typical RCP hijinks without the endless Avakian quotes.

Please answer these questions:

1. If being doesn't determine consciousness, then what does?

2. If members of the exploiting classes can fight for (and usher in!) communism, why do we need a revolution? Can't we simply win over the ruling classes and their middle class helpers with moral arguments and pictures of children killed in U.S. bombing runs on Afghanistan and the like?

3. Why did Marx, Engels and Lenin say that the liberation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself?

4. Why did Marx say that the working class must organize itself into a party of its own against all other classes?

5. Why did Engels say that members of the petit-bourgeois should only be tolerated in a communist organization if absolutely necessary (and even then only for as long as it took)? Why did he say they should never be allowed to assume leadership positions? Why did he say that the days of individual members of the petit-bourgeoisie coming over to the side of the workers had largely ended over a hundred years ago?

6. How do your politics differ from those described by Marx, Engels and Lenin as "petit-bourgeois socialism"?

"Who do you want to purge from the ranks, Comrade Smith? How many?"

Everyone who doesn't belong to the proletariat.

"Here Davidson’s ‘down-and-dirty’ tool on class analysis: See who signs your paycheck, assuming that’s your main income. If someone else signs it, you’re a worker. If you sign your own paycheck and no others, you’re a small producer. If you sign other people’s paychecks on accounts you own, you’re a capitalist."

That tool is broken. You'd better take it back to the shop.

According to that "class analysis" cops, judges and military officers are fellow workers and shopkeepers who hire one employee are a part of the capitalist ruling class.

The petit-bourgeois as independent producer is constantly disappearing, just as Marx and Engels said would happen.

"In countries where modern civilisation has become fully developed, a new class of petit-bourgeois has been formed, fluctuating between proletariat and bourgeoisie, and ever renewing itself as a supplementary part of bourgeois society. The individual members of this class, however, are being constantly hurled down into the proletariat by the action of competition, and, as modern industry develops, they even see the moment approaching when they will completely disappear as an independent section of modern society, to be replaced in manufactures, agriculture and commerce, by overlookers, bailiffs and shopmen." - The Communist Manifesto

The petit-bourgeois as independent producers that existed at the time this was written in the capitalist countries were being destroyed. They were being replaced by petit-bourgeois as appendages of the capitalist class as overlookers (managers &amp; supervisors), bailiffs (cops &amp; private security) and shopmen (small businessmen).

Today that transformation is largely complete. The petit-bourgeois as a class has a place "ever renewing itself as a supplementary part of bourgeois society."

"Then there’s a large number of people who have no direct relation to production, but make up the base of large social movements–students, housewives, the retired, the generationally unemployed."

Again, not as much confusion as the ruling class and their mouthpieces (and you!) who have us believe. Read Marx. Try to gain a materialist understanding. Everyone has some relation to the means of production.

Unemployed workers are, wait for it, workers.

Retired workers are, wait for it, workers.

Housewives in working class families are workers. They take part in the reproduction of the class.

Some students are workers - they come from working class families and they will use their education to help them get jobs. They have no way to survive other than by selling their labor power and they have no control over the means of production. A lot of these students are fond in community and public universities.

Other students belong to the petit-bourgeois and bourgeoisie. Their education is paid for by value drawn from the labor of workers. They're the next owners, managers, supervisors, coordinators, and "specialists" in training.

The "large social movements" are largely made up of and certainly lead by petit-bourgeois democrats seeking to better their conditions. Again, read Marx.

"The democratic petty bourgeois, far from wanting to transform the whole society in the interests of the revolutionary proletarians, only aspire to a change in social conditions which will make the existing society as tolerable and comfortable for themselves as possible.... As far as the workers are concerned one thing, above all, is definite: they are to remain wage laborers as before. However, the democratic petty bourgeois want better wages and security for the workers, and hope to achieve this by an extension of state employment and by welfare measures; in short, they hope to bribe the workers with a more or less disguised form of alms and to break their revolutionary strength by temporarily rendering their situation tolerable." - Marx

"The working class movement needs all the allies it can get from outside ‘the point of production,’ while you’re pointing in the opposite direction."

Wrong. The proletariat in the majority and the class that carries out all production. We don't need any privileged middle class wankers to show us what's what.

Even if we did need "outside help" that still wouldn't negate the fact that the working class needs to organize on its own and in its own interests. If members of others classes say they want to help, for however long, they're free to set up their own organizations and fight along side us. They don't belong in our organizations.

"The relationship of the revolutionary workers' party to the petty-bourgeois democrats is this: it cooperates with them against the party which they aim to overthrow; it opposes them wherever they wish to secure their own position." - Marx

Again, you're petit-bourgeois by your own admission, so I wouldn't expect you to understand. I write this for the benefit of any fellow workers who may happen across this.

You're muddying the waters again to try to maintain a place for your class in the workers movement.

Fortunately, not even a new leftover like you (with all your "radical and deep" sounding Maoist slang) can bend the words of the people you claim to follow when they're so straight forward.

"Against the collective power of the propertied classes the working class cannot act, as a class, except by constituting itself into a political party, distinct from, and opposed to, all old parties formed by the propertied classes. This constitution of the working class into a political party is indispensable in order to insure the triumph of the social revolution and its ultimate end -- the abolition of classes." - Karl Marx

"The emancipation of the workers must be the act of the working class itself. All the other classes of present-day society stand for the preservation of the foundations of the existing economic system." - Lenin

Sorry Mike, maybe you didn't hear but "No one will grant us deliverance, Not god, nor Tsar, nor hero. We will win our liberation, With our very own hands." [personal attacks snipped by moderator.]

So you want to purge "Everyone who doesn't belong to the proletariat"?

Are you for real, Comrade Smith? What's the name of your group, and when and where is the next meeting? I'd love to check out you and your workers. By you're description, they're completely unlike any I've ever met or worked with

On my rule-of-thumb tool, which obviously is not entire accurate, you say:

<blockquote>According to that "class analysis" cops, judges and military officers are fellow workers and shopkeepers who hire one employee are a part of the capitalist ruling class.</blockquote>

A sleight-on-hand here, Smith. Not every capitalist is in the ruling class, if 'ruling' is to have any meaning. In fact, a good number of the smaller ones suffer from the policies of the ruling class at any given time. And the foremen in the factories I worked in didn't own any means of production, and produced surplus value from their role in production as much as the rest of us.

Then you add:

<blockquote>The petit-bourgeois as independent producer is constantly disappearing, just as Marx and Engels said would happen.</blockquote>

This a part of the picture. It's also true that they are constantly being regenerated, especially in the information era, when the means of prouction are often the skills between your ears. You admit this yourself, so what's your point? They exist on a mass scale and are not going to disappear anytime soon.

Then you claim:

<blockquote>Everyone has some relation to the means of production.

Unemployed workers are, wait for it, workers.

Retired workers are, wait for it, workers.

Housewives in working class families are workers. They take part in the reproduction of the class.</blockquote>

Almost everyone has some relation to production for much of their lives. But there are long periods where many don't, as in the examples I gave. The unemployed and retirees are not wage-labor, since they get no wage. That doesn't mean they aren't oppressed; just that they're not directly exploited. Housewives are not wage labor; they indeed produce social value in the reproduction of the next working class, but not surplus value from commodity production

This one you get sort of right, Smith:

<blockquote>Some students are workers - they come from working class families and they will use their education to help them get jobs. They have no way to survive other than by selling their labor power and they have no control over the means of production. A lot of these students are found in community and public universities.

Other students belong to the petit-bourgeois and bourgeoisie. Their education is paid for by value drawn from the labor of workers. They're the next owners, managers, supervisors, coordinators, and "specialists" in training.</blockquote>

But the students you call 'workers,' unless they have part-time jobs, are really 'workers-to-be' not yet wage-labor.

Then you say"

<blockquote>The "large social movements" are largely made up of and certainly lead by petit-bourgeois democrats seeking to better their conditions. Again, read Marx.

"The democratic petty bourgeois, far from wanting to transform the whole society in the interests of the revolutionary proletarians, only aspire to a change in social conditions which will make the existing society as tolerable and comfortable for themselves as possible.... As far as the workers are concerned one thing, above all, is definite: they are to remain wage laborers as before. However, the democratic petty bourgeois want better wages and security for the workers, and hope to achieve this by an extension of state employment and by welfare measures; in short, they hope to bribe the workers with a more or less disguised form of alms and to break their revolutionary strength by temporarily rendering their situation tolerable." - Marx</blockquote>

What Marx is saying here is appropriate for a revolutionary situation. But do you really want to denounce efforts by the workers to defend or improve their conditions as a 'middle class bribe' in today's situation? Lots of luck.

Then you go on, quoting me:

<blockquote>"The working class movement needs all the allies it can get from outside 'the point of production,' while you're pointing in the opposite direction."

Wrong. The proletariat in the majority and the class that carries out all production. We don't need any privileged middle class wankers to show us what's what. </blockquote>

Do I detect some old-time syndicalism here? Do you think revolutionary theory arises from the struggles in the factories of its own accord? Marx and Engels did write up all theory for all time. Don't you think we could use a few more like them?

Next you back step a little:

<blockquote>Even if we did need "outside help" that still wouldn't negate the fact that the working class needs to organize on its own and in its own interests. If members of others classes say they want to help, for however long, they're free to set up their own organizations and fight along side us. They don't belong in our organizations.</blockquote>

But even this is rather odd. I don't know of a problem where small producers are clamoring to join trade unions. Nor do I know on any revolutionary organizations largely comprised of workers with masses of non-worker revolutionaries clamouring to get it.

So that's why I asked if you were for real. Because the practical implication is that you're demanding a split in existing organizations, not on the basis of political perspective or agreements, but on how people make their living. In other words, you've organized nothing of you own that I can see, but you want to wreck and split elsewhere.

The you quote Marx:

<blockquote>"The relationship of the revolutionary workers' party to the petty-bourgeois democrats is this: it cooperates with them against the party which they aim to overthrow; it opposes them wherever they wish to secure their own position." - Marx</blockquote>

Of course, in this period, the workers were a minority in society, and securing their independent position especially important. But Marx here is making my point as much as yours.

Finally, you make an amusing jab at me:

<blockquote>Again, you're petit-bourgeois by your own admission, so I wouldn't expect you to understand. I write this for the benefit of any fellow workers who may happen across this.</blockquote>

No, I'm actually a retiree living very modestly on social security. I claimed to be a revolutionary intellectual. I hire no workers, so I'm not a small capitalist. I was for a period of three years when I had a few students I hired in my computer shop. But for longer periods of my life, I worked as wage labor, or sold my own skills as a teacher.

No matter. I'm no concerned about labels. You can use that one if you like. Post-Maoist Neo-Bukharinite revisionist, for those who use such things, would probably tell you more about me, but would miss the point anyway.

But the bottom line is this. Revolutions are not made by an entire working class, but a militant minority of that class. Other sections will be passive or even in opposition. At the same time, the radicals for non-working classes are also going to be active, and will number in the millions. The ruling class will try to win as many as it can to its side and use them for its purposes. Our job is to win as many as we can to the side of the working class, not only in the area of popular struggles, but to bring the best and most revolutionary among them into the revolutionary organizations as well. Your view does the former rather than the latter.

Don't the middle class have a lot to lose if a Communist government takes over? Doesn't a Communist government want to redistribute all the wealth, thus taking away much of their well-being? I don't know enough but I'd say the middle class where I come from would not want to be part of your revolution...

"...The defence of property is, in American politics, cosubstantial with the defence of the prevalent racial order." - Richard Seymour in the following analysis:
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/08/race-mixing-is-communism-or-race-is.html

Once we start identifying politics by rigid notions of class membership, it's only a small step to designating non-proletarians and even former exploiters as "objectively" counter-revolutionary whether they are engaged in any such activity or not. From there, one can conclude that even if they are not busy subverting revolution today, they surely will tomorrow since it's in their class nature. We already know how this movie ends, is it really a lesson that needs to be re-learned?

There's something a bit too abstract about this debate. Somewhere in the future there's going to be a workers' revolution and then the leadership of the workers party will debate about whether or not to accept help from the middle-class (which they can't really define)?

Bringing it down to concrete reality, if a Harvard grad joins your Trotskyist party and sells 8 times more newspapers than any other member, will he really get the heave ho once he reveals his family came over on the Mayflower?

On a more serious note, I DO think it's a legimate criticism of the RCP that they waste too much time trying to recruit from the elites. How much money did WCW waste on NY Times ads just to raise more money to, um, take out more NY Times ads? How much time was wasted recruiting at Colombia with almost no results when you could have been at Hunter or Queens instead?

And how much are protests, events, organizing drives centered around professional activists instead of people who work 9 to 5?

Zerohour and Stanley,


Actually, the borders between the different classes really are quite rigid.

Especially the two primary classes - the capitalists and the workers.

Some folks make their living by selling their labor power (the workers - and yes, that includes white collar and service sector workers too)

Some folks profit by exploiting the labor of the workers (the capitalists)

There are middle classes that exist between these two classes - the small business owners, the commercial farmers, the middle class professionals (technically paid a wage but, due to the autonomous and privileged nature of their jobs, actually not proletarian at all) - and there are a layer of privileged workers as well, who are more properly viewed as part of the middle classes rather than part of the working class.

But the two basic classes are easily defined.

And, our interests and theirs are diametrically opposed.

It's quite simple, really - if you view it the Marxist way.

Now, if you hold to one of the many middle class revisionist theories - Maoism, Stalinism, Social Democracy, many of the variants of Trotskyism ect - then you come up with all sorts of excuses as to why the middle class should lead the working class movement.

But, we've tried that - for almost a century, we workers have let middle class people and labor aristocrats lead our movements.

And it's been an unmitigated disaster all around.

It's time we ditch the condescending saviours, send them back to their judgment halls, and take the reins of class struggle into our own hands, with no privileged outsiders involved at all.

Where do professional activists (eg Cindy Sheehan) fall?

Most left/Marxist/anti-war/etc. movements aren't led by capitalists or by workers. They're led by professional activists, usually low paid, who support themselves via both donations and by the labor power of volunteers.

Do you completely do away with professional activists and relay only on people who work 9 to 5? That might work, but it would radially change the nature of the movments, maybe for the better.

Can you hire laywers? Can you hire accountants?

There are a lot of organizational skills where you might be better off training people who work 9 to 5, but some skills are a bit too specialized and require too much time.

Once again, if someone comes up to me and says "well we only want workers here" I usually smell "scam artist" or "bullshirt artist". It usually means "we want the power to emotionally blackmail you into spending a lot of time on the phone raising money for us". And in the meantime, "adult" politicking goes on.

Mumia has a laywer, does he not? Leonard Peltier has a lawyer, does he not? Are you willing to say "well you two guys just represent yourselves. No middle-class laywers for you."

"Now, if you hold to one of the many middle class revisionist theories – Maoism, Stalinism, Social Democracy, many of the variants of Trotskyism ect – then you come up with all sorts of excuses as to why the middle class should lead the working class movement."

Nobody here was saying that the middle class should lead the working class movement. The debate was if they can/should have a role in the working class movement. Smith was saying that they should have no part in it while others were saying they may have a role to play. By no means was any one saying that the middle class should lead.

Stanley,

You can hire lawyers by the hour - just as long as you only use them for very specific tasks that require the services of an attorney and they NEVER get to make policy.

As for accountants - the biggest problem of the American trade unions is that they have way too much money - and all those mountains of assets make them terrified of ever doing anything that might risk a lawsuit, plus it pulls lots of pro capitalist financial service professionals into the leadership of the working class movement.

Two of the most destructive leaders of the mid twentieth century trade union movement were accountants - Allan Dorfman and John Dio Guardi (look em up on wikipedia) - they are living proof as to why we do not need CPAs in our movement.

As for the revolutionary movement - we absolutely do not need any of those guys on our side of the barricade.

That goes for fundraisers as well - especially in this modern age of the internet, when you do not need office space, furniture, printing presses or a newspaper distribution network. All we need now is access to computers and cellphones and that is dirt cheap.

I advocate a workers movement run by actual workers - and run on the cheap, on shoestring budgets, with no offices, no treasuries and no paid activists at all, just a whole lot of workers doing politics in their spare time after work (kind of like the way I do my activism).

Timo

If middle class people were content to come into our movement as humble foot soldiers, it wouldn't be so bad.

But, historically, they come in our movement to order us around, and to - intentionally or just due to subconscious class arrogance - to use our movement for their class ends.

If they come in as individuals like Marx and Engels, to come live like us and to serve us and to fight, live and die for us, cool (as long as there aren't too many of them).

If they come to boss us around (like they have done in every case) then they are not welcome.

Just to add to that, to follow up on the idea that only workers should play a leading role in "the movement" I think the logical outcome of following this kind of organizational philosophy would be a sort of decentralized, almost anarchist kind of movement.

It would probably be based on small affinity groups you develop at work. How would you then organize on a larger scale? Perhaps along the lines that "usenet" runs, decentralized, distributed organization. Maybe you use social networking websites or phone trees or e-mail lists.

At some point, would you elect permanent representatives to some kind of larger council? Or would you rotate through the group?

I think Greg and Smith are being too abstract but I DO think they've correctly identified a problem, that mass organizations led by professional middle-class leaders have failed and failed badly. But I think the debate has to go beyond generalities to really mean anything. When you find yourself bringing up points like "well Marx and Lenin were from upper class families" you're not wrong. But you are being too general to be of much use.

Stanley,

Yes, there's more than a little bit of anarchism (or, to be more precise, and to use an ancient term "anarcho syndicalism") in my ideas.

Yes, I do believe that workers on the job should be united by what might be described as "affinity groups" (or "workers councils" - or whatever they want to call them) - and those groups should be united on an industrywide level and on a neighborhood, citywide, countywide, statewide and national level by councils of workers delegates (or whatever name they pick for them - the Russian workers called em "soviets" back in the day...cause that was the Russian word for "committee" but these workers can - and will - call them by whatever name they choose)

Example - in my industry, you would have a committe (or whatever) representing furniture installers who work in Manhattan - we'd send delegates to a council of delegates representing all the carpenters in the city, and we'd also send delegates to bodies representing all the workers in Midtown and the Financial District, and we and the other carpenters would elect delegates to a committee representing all the workers in Manhattan, a committee representing all the workers in New York City, and similar statewide and national councils of delegates.

That's one example - there's a bunch of other ways it could be done, and the workers of the future will think of them.

But that's a rough idea of what I'm talking about here.

I don't know what the job description of a "professional activist" entails. However If an adult activist does not have some sort of job, well it seems to me that could lead to a distancing from the masses. If one was to not only be an activist but also worked, they would not only be working for the masses but would be part of the masses.

"Nobody here was saying that the middle class should lead the working class movement."

Exactly. The reality is that all revolutions have had participation from members of other classes and not begrudgingly either. Here's a quote from Victor Serge from <b>Year One of the Russian Revolution</b>:

"As a matter of fact, the counter-revolutionary attitude of the middle classes was not rigidly predetermined by their class interest...Doubtless, the middle classes are not fated always to have the same hostility towards the proletarian revolution: it is more probable that, in the social struggles of the future, the power and resolution of the working class will incline them towards an attitude of, first neutrality, then support."

Apparently the Bolsheviks wanted MORE middle class involvement, not less.

And, Gregory, classes are not airtight constraints that lock in ideology. Part of the problem here is this notion of an "objective" class, i.e., economic, interest that somehow overrides all others. It may not be in workers interests <b>as workers</b> to be exploited, but as long as men have social power over women, whites have advantages over non-whites [this term is no more "racist" than some illusory "people of color"; after all, what is the basis of unity for that category except that they are all on the receiving end of white supremacy?], they consider exploitation an acceptable trade-off. In other words, capitalism is in their interest for reasons outside economics, until they decide it's not. Also mobility between classes entails the mobility of some contradictions. Women and people of color petty bourgeois still face social discrimination and this may radicalize them given the right circumstances. In the mid-60s, Donald Cox was a small businessman who ran a print shop in San Francisco. He was even a member of the Chamber of Commerce. By 1970, he was Field Marshall and Central Committee member of the Black Panther Party.

It would be unrealistic to expect the petty and the "high" bourgeoisie to be won over to revolutionary politics en masse, but it's just as unrealistic and perilous to assume the certain individuals, or even small sections can't be won over or at least persuaded into taking a neutral stand.

"we workers have let middle class people and labor aristocrats"

How do workers "let" this happen? I think this is a failure to come to grips with Marx's point that the ruling ideas of a given age are those of the ruling class. In other words, workers' ideology is bourgeois ideology. There is no pure working class politics waiting to be unleashed, freed from the shackles of mis-leaders. Such a politics has to be forged and fought for, usually by a determined minority within the class, sometimes in league with sympathetic allies from outside. Carl Davidson's point about John Brown is well taken here. Working class conditions may prompt demonstrations and revolts but many stay within the confines of capital, not just because of middle class leaders, but because the workers themselves have middle and upper-class aspirations.

I agree with Zerohour. There is often a trend to elevate the idea of "material interest" to a cult standing, where someone is completely powerless to the drive of economics. The Third Worldists, MSH and MIM, in particular, state that because FW workers appropriate surplus value from the Third World, it is necessarily not in their 'interest' to struggle for Revolution. This is bullshit. This is something that Badiou resolves and I think is one of his more crucial points: politics are prescriptive.

One thing that does need investigating is how a world-wide socialist revolution would affect the distribution of income, whether it be in money or real goods and services. As it stands, an egalitarian distribution of resources amongst the world (Clearly, the U$A and the Imperialist nations would need to service reparations to the periphery) would cause workers and oppressed in the U$A to "lose out" in a strict economic sense, yet, gain the power to control their own destiny. Perhaps what MIM/MSH has right is the rejection of the Theory of the Productive Forces. What does everyone think?

Mike,

Thanks for the post.

For the folks who have commented here, I have one question: Where is the discussion on the ways in which race/racism/white supremacy are informed on a discussion around "white privilege" and "complicity"?

In my experiences around the RCP and in other communist parties (and frankly, in the discussions above), race is always construed as an epiphenomenon of class. This ahistotrical discussion and analysis fails to account for the intersectionalities of class, race, and gender...What would have happened if that "young teenage Asian man" had not been there and instead, it was a white person and instead of freeing him, folks of color (wrongly) attacked him (similar to the Reginald Denny in the '92 LA Rebellion)? How would our discussions look like here? I read all of the comments above and I'm more shocked not by what I read, but by what I didn't read: the centrality of racial/colonial formations in the U.S. in a discussion around "white privilege" and "complicity".

Mike,

First, you are right, I shouldn't assume what the discussions would look like but I am only going on what I have read here.

Second, I would also hope that, along with the a discussion and analysis on some of the things you mentioned above (intentions of the state, targeting the real enemy etc.), that we also engage on the racial dynamics of a city like LA and how this plays out in the overall discussion.

How hard is it to address my earlier question: "Where is the discussion on the ways in which race/racism/white supremacy are informed on a discussion around 'white privilege' and 'complicity'?"

palante, Kyle.