Simon Wrote in reply yo me:
>I sometimes think that if there are enough Trotskyist splinters they
>will make a whole crucifix :-)
The whoke point about the Split from the IS was as a break from
Trotskyism (I think the IMG was also Trotskyist but I amd not
absolutely positive). I am also not sure the RCP/LM view of
Trotskyism, I don't think they reject it outright like the RCG does
but they certainly don't stress it. Members I knew seem to take the
view that So read him and others didn't.
> I was actually running a trial argument past you
Oh thank you, how kind.
> that there is an economic working class, as the WSM would see it, which 99% of the
>world's
> population would fit into (without going into the "who is still a peasant"
> argument: assume of the capitalist world), and defined by their relations
> to capital, and a much smaller and dwindling group who have a historical
> tradition of opposition to capitalists
So does that mean that the sum total of the Bourgeoisie,
peti-bourgeoisie, lumpen proletariat and peasantry (however
constituted) make up only 1 per cent of the population (c.60 mil) !
And within this there is still a further section (perhaps like MArx
and Engels were) who for non-economic reasons are won over to the
struggle again capitalism.
> for example have never been in a union (NUS doesn't count...?)
The working class as only that section of the population restricted
to the Trade Union movement is not a definition I have found in
Marx's writings but only in the practice and propaganda of various
left groups.
> and experience capitalism as an overwhelming force rather than as a particular
> capitalist b***ard to be lynched.
The whole point about Marxist theory was that it is not individual
capitalists who were the problem but of captial as a force which acts
just as much on the bourgeois as the proletariat.
I'm not sure that this 'trial argument' comes to that cannot be found
just in the Communist Manifesto. It may be new and revalatory ti
non-Marxists in the historical tradition of opposition to capitalist
but I'm not sure it comes as a great surprise to most on this list.
The argument on the family I will deal with in another Email as it
appears to be quite distinct.
John Walker
>
> > What I actually said was that 'point of the family in bourgeois
> > society should IDEALLY be one that puts up with the worker's long
> > hours and difficult conditions and to selflessly (and at little or no
> > cost to capitalism) maintain and reporduce the worker.' That the
> > present crisises of capitalism make it more and more difficult to
> > maintain such an institution (even with the help of the Church) is
> > merely demonstative of its structural decline. Also I think you will
> > find that, far from an atomised society maintained by packaged
> > homecare utilities, for the most part many couples still have one
> > person who works as well dealing with the household maintanence. For
> > all the talk of 'new men' this role is still generally performed by
> > women working in low-paid part-time evening work and whatever form it
> > takes it is rarely paid for directly by capitalism.
>
> Hmm... I accept that that may be the position today. What I was saying is
> that the family is continuing to fragment, and capitalism's own raison
> d'etre supports that. The family would ideally do all the things you
> mention, but then again ideally the workers would reproduce their labour as
> work units in the cheapest manner possible. Capitalism has no particular
> use for the family unless it cheapens reproduction of labour, and I would
> say that it probably doesn't.
>
> Look forward to your reply,
>
> Simon
>
>
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>
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