Hi
Not many w/c in Mexico, China or S.Africa own new cars, TVs, internet, PS2s, tumble dryers, SKY tv and go on holidays abroad.
So they should emulate our techniques of struggle, then they too can enjoy our level of luxuriant decadence. Do you think there are no poor in, say, Inverness? People are thrown into soup kitchen poverty daily through demands to repay back tax credit over allocations, poll tax and water bills. You can get locked up for watching TV without an expensive annual license.
What’s this “not many” anyway? Aren’t cleaners in Ilfracombe worse off than Network Technicians in Bangalore? So much for western privilege.
not wanting to derail you
Cease the moment. Let’s go…
But if you believe there's no inherent difference between a worker in the City and Addis Ababba…
Not so fast comrade. There’s a difference, but it’s one of historical logic not “privilege”. Neither am I asserting that first-world workers are “superior” to their comrades abroad, but we are products of our material conditions, and the quality of our material conditions are the only worthwhile measure of our success.
then how can you seriously argue there's a big difference between a "middle" and "working" class person here, when comparatively the difference is utterly minute in comparison with the former?
Why would I want to argue that? Is there some worthwhile advance coming our way if I do? There are all sorts of viable models of class, you’re free to choose one that works best for you.
Imagine for a moment that middle class people are driven predominantly by individual desire for high social status. If we ended hierarchal society, whilst their living conditions would, presumably, stand a chance of being maintained; their all-important relative social status would be removed.
This a 2-class Anderson-style perspective with society split by those whose relative social status would be curtailed by the working class libertarian project. Now it may not be technically 100% satisfactory, but if it lets you solve problems of policy to your advantage then it’s a viable model. Bad class analysis is a largely victimless crime.
Love
LR
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Not many w/c in Mexico, China or S.Africa own new cars, TVs, internet, PS2s, tumble dryers, SKY tv and go on holidays abroad.
Isn't china now the biggest consumers of mobile phones?.I know a lot of people treat the indigenous working class as some sort of blot on the workers movement. Not quite as pure and untouched as those sexy south Americans and rawkus middle easterner's. A spirited vanguard rather than a lumpen mass of lscum from the estates.