Nikolai Bukharin writes: > ... the rentier, ... cannot imagine > a period in which persons of his type will not be collecting > interest on paper securities; his eyes close in horror at such a > possibility; he hides his face at the prospect of coming things > and tries not to see in the present the germs of the future; his > thinking is thoroughly unhistorical.
> Quite different is the > psychology of the proletariat, which presents none of these > elements of conservative thought. The class struggle, as it > unfolds, confronts the proletariat with the task of surmounting > the existing social-economic order; the proletariat is not only > not interested in the maintenance of the social status quo, but it > is interested precisely in its destruction; the proletariat lives > chiefly in the future; even the problems of the present are > evaluated by it from the point of view of the future. Therefore > its mode of thought may be declared outright — and particularly > its scientific thought — as distinctly and pronouncedly dynamic in > character. This is the third antithesis between the psychology of > the rentier and that of the proletariat. this is the psychology of a _class conscious_ and well organized proletariat.[*] On the other hand, in the non-class conscious and atomized working class of the US these decades, we see consciousness which is much more like that of the _rentier_. In fact, such institutions as the 401k push workers in that direction. -- Jim Devine / If you're going to support the lesser of two evils, you should at least know the nature of that evil. [*] alas is it also the pose of the self-chosen vanguardist who claims to speak for the proletariat. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
