I paste below the final paragraphs of Gáspár Miklós Tamás: Telling the truth about class. (The whole essay may be found at http://www.grundrisse.net/grundrisse22/tellingTheTruthAboutClass.htm
I think these paragraphs provide a useful supplement to the issues discussed in this thread on pen-l. Note that Tamás agrees with Tom on the possibility of radical reforms _inside_ capitalism. Carrol ******* Neither value nor labour are perennial qualities of human existence, nor is class. Class, in contradistinction to caste, is not a framework for a whole life or a Lebenswelt. This is why the disappearance of the cultural identity of the old working class does not change the fundamental character of capitalism one whit. Class, not being a human group with common interests and common moral and cultural values such as, say, solidarity and contrariness, but a structural feature of society, is not an actor. Contra E.P. Thompson, it is a thing.58 Class is that feature of capitalist society which divides it along the lines of peoples respective positions in relation to reification/alienation, i.e., their degree of autonomy vis-à-vis subordination to commodities and value. The concomitant differences in wealth, access, etc., could, in principle, be remedied by redistribution and mutual recognition. But greater equality of this kind (which may appear as a utopia right now, but there are very strong forces pushing towards that utopia which is well within the realm of possibilities) can achieve better consumption, but not better production that is, not unalienated labour. Equality, arrived at through redistribution, does not and cannot preclude domination and hierarchy a hierarchy moreover that, unlike in aristocratic systems, does not build upon a cosmology and a metaphysics that could effect a reconciliation with reality (and what else is reality than servitude and dependence?). No doubt the cruelty, craftiness, low cunning and high logistics used in the expropriation of surpluses goes on as always, but the enemy is less and less a culturally circumscribed bourgeoisie as described in Benjamins Arcades Project,59 but a capitalism without a proletariat and without a bourgeoisie at least, without a proletariat and a bourgeoisie as we know them historically, as two distinct cultural, ideological and status groups not only embodying, but representing socialism and capitalism.60 It is this representation which happens to be obsolete, and perhaps it was secondary to begin with, in spite of its mobilizing force which makes the blood ?ow faster when listening to the Marseillaise or the Internationale (curiously, both were played at East European demonstrations at the beginning of the twentieth century). The truth about class is not a proud self-representation through a legitimizing ethic: this belongs to an era of con?ict between rebellious universalism (read: egalitarianism) and particularism (read: aristocratism and the esprit de corps of haughty elites from dukes to abbots). The dominant ideology of the new, purified capitalism is, naturally, freedom. Freedom, as conservatives have been pointing out since the late eighteenth century, means the uprooting of corporate, standesgemäß identities and replacing them with mobility, ?exibility, elasticity, ease, a propensity to, and a preference for, change. It is, in appearance, classless. But it isnt. It does not prefer the bourgeoisie as a closed, culturally identifiable, status group (estate); instead it underpins capitalism as a system. Some people mistake the absence of identifiable cultural and status groups on either side of the class divide for an absence of class rule. But this is false. The capitalist class rules, but it is anonymous and open, and therefore impossible to hate, to storm, to chase away. So is the proletariat. Legal, political and cultural equality (equality here only means a random distribution of very real advantages and privileges) has made class con?ict into what Capital makes it out to be. Class con?ict is dependent on the extraction of surplus, and it is not a battle between two camps for superior recognition and a better position in the scheme of (re)distribution. That battle goes on still, to be sure, but it is essentially the battle of yesteryear. The bourgeoisie is by now incapable of autonomous self-representation; the representation of its interests which is taken over more and more by the state. Since the state represents, and looks after, capitalism, the old-style self-representation of the working class is moribund, too, but the state is not supplanted as was the case, at least symbolically, in the past by political institutions of counter-power. Thus revolutionary proletarian movements, although they now barely exist, are cast into the outer darkness. The truth about class is, therefore, that the proletariat had, historically, two contradictory objectives: one, to preserve itself as an estate with its own institutions (trade unions, working-class parties, a socialist press, instruments of self-help, etc.), and another one, to defeat its antagonist and to abolish itself as a class. We can now see that the abolition of the working class as an estate, as a guild, has been effected by capitalism; capitalism has finally transformed the proletariat (and the bourgeoisie) into a veritable class, putting an end to their capacity for hegemony. Class hegemony of any kind (still quite vivacious and vigorous in Gramscis time) was exactly what was annihilated. Class as an economic reality exists, and it is as fundamental as ever, although it is culturally and politically almost extinct. This is a triumph of capitalism.61 But this makes the historical work of destroying capitalism less parochial, it makes it indeed as universal, as abstract and as powerful as capitalism itself. What political form this may take, we dont know.62 Nevertheless, it is now truly the cause of humanity. There is no particular, local, vocational, guild bias to this cause, nor is any possible. The truth of class is of its own transcendence. The proletariat of the Manifesto could stand outside because it could lose nothing but its chains. No one is outside now although not in the sense of Antonio Negri: nation-states and classes continue to exist, and they do determine our lives.63 The question is, could there be a motivation for a class that exists in deprivation and is now even deprived of a corporate cultural identity to change a situation which is dehumanizing and dangerous, but not humiliating to the point of moral provocation? We dont know. What is certain is that the last ?owers have fallen off the chains. The working-class culture which inspired so much heroism and self-abnegation is dead. That culture was modernist in the sense of taking aim at hierarchy and trying to achieve a secular, egalitarian and rights-based society. This the working class mistook for socialism. It is not. It is capitalism. Capitalism could be itself only if and when aided by socialist delusion.64 We are now free of this delusion. We see the task more clearly. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
