How would YOU define working class?

Sorry for another post but...

Surely if 'most people konw what social class they are' that points towards issues of controle, keeping peole in their place? It sounds like something straight out of 'Disiplin and Punish' to me...

Our goal, I assume, is the creation of a society based on politi al and economic equality. Today, only one class of people produces the wealth and does not control another, the working class. Middle class people like managers are supporting the capitalists no matter what they are being paid. Some middle class and ruling class people will betray their class, but you never really escape the class you were born into, so they would always run the risk of infecting working class movements with middle class or ruling class ideas.

I also think that we cant just blame nebulous ideas like power, real people control this society, and real cops kill people, and real bosses are getting fat off our labor, and real middle class people are living well while others are not. It is not too absurd I think to imagine that some of these people will get what is coming to them in a revolutionary situation.

Also, I think it shows a real weakness in the anarchist movement that questions like these are even being asked. If more working class people were involved than I would imagine everyone would know what working class was, and middle class people (yes me included) would only have a support role. But I guess there are so few anarchists that wont happen any time soon.

Of course middle class people produce wealth. Doctors, teachers etc (who I know from your older posts you include in those you want to exclude from revolution) perform a service which has a value. And they do not own or control the means of production.

To be honest, I don't know why I'm bothering to respond to this. You've been shown up again and again and you're not learning anything. You need to grow up, ditch the middle class guilt and actually get a grasp of the realities of capitalism.

Fuck off back to Stalin's boudoir.

Class as a transmissable genetic disorder. Interesting.

Hi

Definitely. I agree with this.

Love

Chris

He's worse than me and my gender ratios

I'm sorry but if I'm reading thius corectly then wage slaves are class trators? Who's inocent then? I assume it would be the mythical Working Class?

Yay! the virgin queen! My new favourite poster!

Do I detect a wee Foucauldian influence there, your highness?

Does it show

Yup I'm a bit of a foucauldian

Foucualt is over rated! Seriously though his shit ain't that hot.

I'll alow you your opinion

Fantastic. I am now no longer "the only Foucauldian in the village."

8)

Took over 1,000 posts, mind.

Glad I could oblige

That's OK. No doubt we'll be at each other's throats in five minutes, on the relationship between governmentality & biopower.

nothing bettter than a good *debate* to clear the air

who was Foucald?

I just dont understand how we are supposed to be building a revolutionary movement if we cant point to enemies, or clearly define sides. How can there be a conflict if the enemy is power? Im not saying you folx are wrong, but if all this is the case how the hell are we going to win? And if doctors are as welcome int the revoltuion as min wage workers, how the hell do you build any type of class solidarity? My neigbors can barely afford the basics of life, how can I look them in the face and tell them that the capitlists are not to blame? Or that they should not resent people who make more money for no other reason than they are college educated. In my opinion middle class people are the scum of the earth, and this isnt just some class guilt thing, I gave up on that bc I cant change it. But I did grow up with these people and there is no getting around that they live lives of excess and comfort bc they benifit from the labor of the working class. I may not have as firm a grasp on the mechanics of capitalism as some, but it seems pretty basic that it is wrong, and that it causes people suffering. People should feel angry at the people that benifit from their labor and they have a right to defend themselves from the people who opress them.

I know I have frustrated the majority of people on these boards, but I really do want to see a more sucessful and powerful anarchist movement by the time I die, and I cant see how the current anarchist movement can win the majority to its side. I do think the primary problem is that we cant just buckle down and clearly define enemies and allies.

Anarch, you live in the US (just for fun North-Eastern US at a guess, somewhere like Philly?). Do you not think that the majority of the people in the US are materially better off than the working class in places like China, Africa, South America, Central Asia? Including Americans with massive debts, on minimum wage etc.?

Imperialism, and latterly international "free trade" agreements have kept the Western European and American working class relatively comfortable for some time, at the direct expense of working class people elsewhere. We accept that, just as we accept there's stratification within the working class. Your position leads to restricting the potential pool of revolutionaries to a very tiny minority of people in the entire developed world.

Class solidarity is built by finding and developing those things that unite us as a class, not finding excuses to write people off as counter-revolutionary at every opportunity.

Its a fair point, and I obviously agree with you on the material difference between western workers and workers in poorer nations.

However, I have always thought that a revolutionary movement would be the most useful if it was focused within one nation. In other words the american working class would rise up and take over america. Obviously borders and states are not the goal, but I agree with you that it would be difficcult to unite an african miner and an american wall mart worker, even if they shared politics, simply based on practicality. However, both poor and better off workers occupy the same position within their respective capitalist nations. This is why I dont resent a well paid factory worker but do resent a doctor. One is working class, the other is not.

I dont know if I see what unites a doctor and a wall mart worker, except I suppose that they both work for a wage, but other factors like their different level of power would seem to put them at odds. Even if a doctor and a worker shared the same goals, I think it would limit our ability to generate effective conflict. I just think our propaganda is more effective if we can assign blame on capitalists and middle class people. It may not be perfect or pretty, but I would bet that people are more likely to pick up a gun if they have soemeone to aim it at. It is the same thing as putting forth the position that cops are class enemies even if they come from working class backgrounds. We need them gone to build a better society, so it only makes sense to advocate their removal by and means necessary, peacefully if possible but violently if necessary. The same logic should apply to the middle class. They can help if they are willing to concede to the working class vison of society, but if they will not they will not be included.

But lets just say all this is bullshit and I am wrong, where would the lines be drawn? Hire and fire? The ammount of weallth people have? If it is not drawn somewhere I dont think anything will ever happen.

Where it can be isolated, blockaded, stagnate or be subdued by internal and external reaction then?

Difficult yes, but it needs to be done, and ultimately both stand to benefit from a libertarian communist society.

Not necessarily true at all. Jobs can have significantly different status between nations.

Conflict arises naturally out of class society. The idea isn't to create unnecessary conflict, but to turn existing conflict towards productive forms of activity which will eventually be able to end the conflict by ending class society. Persuading people to fight for shit reasons has got nothing to do with being an effective revolutionary.

I posted on the "post-structuralist anarchism" about the police, getting rid of individual police officers doesn't deal with the need for a police force in present society, nor does it help to develop the organisation that will be necessary to deal with anti-social behaviour in a libertarian communist society.

Capitalism has increasingly made the ownership and control of capital more and more difficult to define as it relates to individuals. The point is not to find easily defined enemies, but instead to build our strength, pretty much from a standing start as it stands in the UK and US in 2005, aif there's a strong, militant working class again, counter-revolutionaries, whether individuals or sections of society, will make themselves known soon enough.

God anarch you're a fucking dickhead.

You want people to be told bullshit lies by middle class anarchists like you, just so they point guns at middle class people, like you, just so there's *some* kind of conflict?

Why don't you just fuck off and grow up. You never contribute or learn from any threads, you've been talking the same shit on here for 2 years.

so theres this doctor right and hes working with homeless people in the city centre based at the homeless centre and Anarchs outside whipping up a riot and then the mob rushes in and shoots him in the head. all that energy, compassion, empathy, intelligence and medical knowledge gone in half a second. really intelligent way to build a better society. if thats the way its gonna be i'll die defending middle class people from arbitary execution...

yeah honestly Anarch, sort yerself out.

Hi Anarch

Medics, fire fighters, some social workers, some engineers, some teachers, draughtspersons etc etc etc. Catch me on a good day, and I could be convinced that some doctors and architects are. One of the things about middle class jobs is that some people who have them are working class, and some are bourgeois in a politically useful sense of the word.

Of the three, I’d choose the veteran first, then the WalMart worker and I probably wouldn’t bother with the peasant. If the veteran’s a piss-head, he’s out.

If you feel a doctor has political power over you then you need to see a doctor. They’re more frightened of you than you are of them.

I sort of agree, but such a tiny minority of people suffer from paralysing orthodox internationalism, you can’t blame people for wondering why you should bother labouring the point.

True, but “picking up a gun” is a means to an end, not an end in itself. People will act if you can show that it will be in their best interests to do so. If you want a target I suggest you adopt Lazy Riser Class Theory. It owes something to Andy Anderson, so you might find it soothes your mind…

http://libcom.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=57867#57867

First, consider the lilies. Now, consider the rows of the Lazy Riser Truth Table of Class (LRTTC). Your mission is to turn rows 7 and 8 (Working class 1 and 2) against the enemy on rows 2 and 4 (Ruling Elite and Middle Class 1). I like to call them the working class and the bourgeoisie. It’s not perfect, the notion of the “Middle Class 2” on row 6 is particularly precarious, as it is in real life.

Please bear in mind that I am largely considered to be off my loop in this matter, but it gets me through the day insofar as it enables me to make sense of the world.

When it comes to class sectarianism I think it’s rather poor form to sit to “the left” (if you’ll indulge my term) of Andy Anderson. And so, I give you…

http://www.openlyclassist.org.uk/working%20class%20academics.htm

You should get back behind that line or suffer having your taste being called into account.

John and Catch are reasonable people with sound politics. It may be worth adapting your perspective a little to accommodate their objections, because you’re going to have a much harder time convincing whatever hapless sons of toil you’re currently targeting than a couple of ready made comrades like these.

Anyway, peace and love etc

Chris

Riser: OC are known to Anarch, as he is to them:

http://www.openlyclassist.org.uk/archsub.html

He also sent me a PM saying he thought Class War in the UK had at least 1,000 members.

I#m going to do us all a favour and shoot Anarch before he gets a chance to shoot half of us for being counter-revolutionary.

Hi John.

Ah yes. Now I remember....

Do you think I might be able to "cure" him, or is he genuinely beyond hope?

Love

Chris

My problem with your recipy for a revolution Anarch is that it sounds more like a 'Great Leap Forward.' If we don't include doctors, teachers ect then how do we build a sociaty afterwards?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault

I think he's great. An opinion not universally shared in these forums.

Apparently I look a bit like him, too.