Re: article on MR website

[Jurriaan Bendien]

I have an article posted on the Monthly Review website (www.monthlyreview.org) titled "Can the Working Class Change the World?"  It is a write up of a talk I gave to the Marxist School in Sacramento.  Comments welcome.   I think the working class not only can change the world, but does change the world, and thus, the only real political question for me is what that changing is changing the world into, and how to engender the confidence to change it in a specific future direction according to a vision of the future we have. But your title is good, insofar as it implies, as an open question, that changing the world is a practical thing, and not simply a question of typing a lot of words into a keyboard as I have been doing for months. Question is raised, what is the best way to use Monthly Review articles for political education ?   I think you writing style is excellent for political and educative purposes, because it is very clear and easy to follow, and you always provide relevant facts and illustrations to make you points very clear, and I can learn from that. But it is not my purpose to talk a lot about "changing the world" in the phase of life I am in, because I am having to change myself, if I may put it like that. As you know, the very word "change" is a loaded term these days, and I am a person who has to watch out with that. I have a lot of words, but I have to do a lot of things, nevermind my distractors, because if it is just words all the time, it's just noise or diaper talk.   Your most important point is really that "in the rich countries, the weaker the workers, the greater the inequality, and the less likely it is that workers will reach out in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in the poor nations". Mutatis mutandis, the stronger the workers, the more the inequality is reduced, and the more likely it is that workers will reach out in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in the poor nations. That is where workingclass politics starts, because now you have to know exactly what specifically strength means, and how you become strong, in every field of human endeavour, at a personal level and in what you do, so you can really operate this with assurance.   In one of his last appeals to the youth, the elderly Ernest Mandel said in all modesty: "begin to change the world" but although this sounds good in French, that is not what we say in English. What we say is that change is already happening unless you're blind, and in those currents of change, we have to find our own place, without losing our real identity or be smashed up by misleaders.   I don't think I am the strongest around and I have to watch what I eat, deodorant and so on, but with what I've got I can develop some strengths, and your writing is inspiring. If there is a problem with statistical abstractions, it is that you always have to try and bring that back to a human level so people can understand what it means personally in terms of active human subjects, and that in itself requires a good facility for abstraction and an organised, experienced life. You're good at it, as teacher.   Few songs that came to mind just now (I have this "jukebox" in my brain, although not a true radiohead):    We grew up together From the cradle to the grave We died and were reborn And then mysteriously saved.   Bob Dylan with Jacques Levy, "Oh Sister"   I remember Johnny - hey! Johnny come lately I remember her shoes like a ballerina A girl called Johnny who changed her name when she discovered her choice was to change or to be changed   - Waterboys, "A Girl called Johnny"   I gave her laughter, she wanted diamonds I was romantic, she treated me cruelly Where is the mercy, where is the love?   - Mick Jagger, "Hard Woman"   Love is you You and me Love is knowing We can be   - John Lennon, "Love"    Jurriaan