Richard Gunn's Notes on Class
Sep 9 2009 23:58
I went over Gunn's 'Notes on Class' in a reading group last night and quite a few problems were raised. If class bears no relation to things like your relation to the means of production then how does one recognise class struggle in the first place? How can you talk about class struggle in the first place without recourse to talking about who is struggling and why?, i.e. about wage-labour? How can you distinguish class struggle from other kinds of struggle? Here is Gunn below:
"2. Marxism regards class as, like capital itself (Marx 1965 p. 766), a social relation. That which is a relation cannot be a group even a relationally specified group; nor can it be a place (relationally specified place) in which a group may be constituted, or may stand. Setting aside such views, we can say that class is the relation itself (for example, the capital-labour relation) and, more specifically, a relation of struggle. The terms 'class' and 'class-relation' are interchangeable, and 'a' class is a class relation of some particular kind.
3. In other words: it is not that classes, as socially pre-given entities, enter into struggle. Rather class struggle is the fundamental premise of class. Better still: class struggle is class itself. (This is how Marx introduces 'class' in the opening sentence of The Communist Manifesto.) That 'class struggle' is intrinsic to 'class' is Marx's point when he stresses that existence 'for itself' – i.e. the oppositional, struggling existence – is intrinsic to the existence of class (Marx 1969 p. 173)."
It seems to me that class struggle becomes a bit mystical in this kind of thinking, devoid of historical content. I recognise what Gunn is polemicising against (primarily Althusser, Erik Olin Wright, etc.) but can anyone help me to better understand where Gunn is coming from? His background could be useful as well.
Thanks
Malcolm
Sep 10 2009 21:44
#2
I suppose I'm asking if there is a hidden presupposition of something like the "sociological" conception of class behind the primacy given to class struggle as constitutive of the social relation of class. I'm all for giving primacy to class struggle but you need to acknowledge your starting point, right? The two understandings of class run through Marx's work and seem to me to be interdependent. How can you really say one is more authentically Marxist?
The other thing others in the group couldn't get a handle on was what kind of politics Gunn was advocating. We can see what he is not advocating, reformism, vanguardism, etc. but the others seemed to think that Gunn's understanding led to a kind of anti-organisational paralysis. I'm not sure I agree but I'd like to know what other people think.
Sep 16 2009 23:20
#3
No-one's read Gunn's article then?
Sep 18 2009 11:44
#4
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How can you really say one is more authentically Marxist?
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because in Capital (the book) the main point is that capital is a social relation.
but we don't care what is more marxist, what is important is what fits better to reality, what helps more to understand and change it. and that is the main reason why it is important to think class as a social relation which is a struggle.
by the way what you ask about Gunn presupposition, what he is polemicising against, etc. is explained in the introduction of Open marxism (don't remember which one maybe both), the books Wellclosed Squared mentionned.
and please excuse my poor english (I'm french).
Sep 18 2009 22:45
#5
I get the point that capital is a social relation. I would agree thoroughly with this as well as agreeing that it is good to prioritise class struggle when trying to understand capital, but the way I was reading Gunn is that he was rejecting any 'sociological' understanding tout court. My question is can he do this in a logically consistent way? BTW it is Gunn who uses the words "authentically Marxist" not me. I agree that we should not be worried about this, that we are trying to understand reality in order to change it, etc. What I am worried about in Gunn is really the logical consistency of his argument.
I know the Open Marxism books. What I don't know about is Gunn's actual political activity "on the ground", so to speak. You know, what kinds of practical activity, forms of organisation has he been involved in? Hope this makes sense.
M.
Sep 18 2009 22:49
#6
Also, I should say that I brought Gunn's article to my reading group because of its emphasis on class as a social relation, something I thought would be very valuable to the others in the group who are relative newcomers to reading Marx.
Sep 21 2009 00:49
#7
Have you read E.P. Thompson's Making of the English Working Class? From what I can tell Thompson seems to be close to making the argument that you're sketching above. Basically Thompson argues that class is a happening, it something that occurs through struggle. It is only in this way that we can know that class exists: it exists because groups of people behave in class ways. I don't know whether Gunn is taking a cue from Thompson, but there seems to be somewhat of a similarity.
Sep 21 2009 14:43
#8
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but the way I was reading Gunn is that he was rejecting any 'sociological' understanding tout court. My question is can he do this in a logically consistent way?
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yes maybe it is a problem. how to understand the struggle of the workers whithout its ground in their place in production relations? and it seems it has to be, at least for a part, sociological in a way. but maybe Gunn wouldn't deny this?
about Gunn's political activities I don't know at all, sorry.
Sep 21 2009 16:08
#9
Khawaga wrote:
Quote:
Have you read E.P. Thompson's Making of the English Working Class? From what I can tell Thompson seems to be close to making the argument that you're sketching above. Basically Thompson argues that class is a happening, it something that occurs through struggle. It is only in this way that we can know that class exists: it exists because groups of people behave in class ways. I don't know whether Gunn is taking a cue from Thompson, but there seems to be somewhat of a similarity.
Class is neither a 'structure' nor 'category' but 'something which in fact happens (and can be shown to have happened) in human relationships'. It has a fluency 'which evades analysis if we attempt to stop it dead at any given moment and anatomize its structure'. The 'finest-meshed sociological net cannot give us a pure specimen of class, any more than it can give us one of deference or of love', because the relationship is always 'embodied in real people and in a real context' - from The Making...
Thompson was a major influence on the historian Peter Linebaugh, who's been associated with the Midnight Notes group (published by them at any rate).
Gunn co-edited - with Werner Bonefeld and Kosmas Psychopedis - the two volumes of Open Marxism(Pluto Press 1992) and Emancipating Marx: Open Marxism 3(1995), with John Holloway and the above-named pair. In a nutshell I suppose he fits in with the autonomist Marxist milieu associated with Negri, Cleaver, etc.