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Lou wrote: *Finally, relief came in the form of new societies created in virgin territories in the British colonies like North America, New Zealand (where the film was produced) and Australia where the class system did not have the chance to consolidate, or at least not to the extent of Europe. Unfortunately, the film does not refer to the fate of the indigenous peoples but frankly there’s not much attention paid to them in Marx either*. My comment: I enjoyed as always Lou’s film review. It would be great to see his reviews published as a book one day. My only comment is on the above snippet. When I came to Australia in 1975, I was regularly told that my ideas were wrong, because Australia did not have a class system. I also had the same discussion with a visiting American academic who told me the USA did not have a class system. I simply could not find a way to understand such rubbish never mind argue against it. Quite a vicious class system was everywhere I looked in Brisbane. Soon after I arrived, I went on teaching practice supervision to Coorparoo High School. I sat in a class room where there were holes in the walls. Up the hill about a 1000 meters away was Brisbane Grammar an elite school that had better facilities than at my college. Yet the staff at Coorparoo would have told me there was no class system. Not until I read Gregor Tamas’ *The truth about class* did I grasp what was going on. Australians were saying to me “There is no caste system in Australia (America)”. BTW it is the residue of caste consciousness that has meant that 34 of the UK's Prime Ministers have been from Eton School, where caste consciousness is alive and flourishing. comradely Gary _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
