Eva:
>It turned out that the the best way to fight capitalism is
>a united and goal-conscious working class.
>That working class contains highly educated if
>unconcious (!!) masses now, especially in Europe.
>What other - democratic - ways are there?
I believe that the method you propose was tried several times during the
past century. Unions were formed as a means of mobilizing the working class
against powerful industrial interests. Political ideologies were fashioned
as formulas for the development of ideal states in which the working class
was to have owned the means of production. Alas, what seems to suggest
itself in retrospect is that the working class is something of a myth. What
it seems really to have wanted is a ticket to the good life or at least the
best life possible under the circumstances. Once this happened, it would
seem that the working class's interests shifted to maintaining what it had,
and not the general betterment.
Besides, is there still a "working class"? Was there ever a "working
class"? Perhaps it never really was anything more than a theoretical
construct and political generalization which conveniently glossed over the
probability that society consisted of essentially self-serving and
competitive interests. Ask a computer programmer if he feels his interests
to be identical or even similar to those of a miner or factory worker.
I would add that the use of terms such as "unconscious" or "masses" in
referring to working men and women is the height of insult and arrogance
(perhaps also ignorance). I know a lot of working men and women, and there
are very very few among them that have struck me as being either unconscious
or part of some "mass". Most have a pretty realistic view of their world,
are getting on with their lives as best they can and have little time for
nonsense ideology.
Ed Weick
