>Well, Lenin did write the following:
>
> 'We have said that there could not have been social democratic consciousness
> among the workers. It would have had to be brought to them from without.
> The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by
> its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness ... The
> theory of socialism, however. grew out ofd the philosophical, historical and
> economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied
> classes, by intellectuals.' (*Works*, vol. 5, p 375)
>
> Which rather ignores the unprecedented level of education and critical
> capacity of today's workers, and also seems to me a rather one-sided notion
> of praxis.
It's not self-evident that today's workers are more militant, better informed, more
socially aware or have a better understanding of the inner dynamics of capitalism
and of what must be done to end it, than did workers in Germany or England or Russia
in the 1900s, or in Chicago or elsehwre in the US for that matter. I don't think we
should be patronising. And Lenin's point is the simpel one that workers are too busy
surviving to have much chance to educate themselves in political theory. The work
has to be done by others with more time and opportunity, and they by definition are
not workers. This lesson was being thoroughly learnt by the masters of the mass
media and mass education just at the time when the left was forgetting it, which has
resulted in the dumbing down of today's workers.
Mark
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