[Marxism] DISILLUSIONED WITH MARXMAILers!

[Haines Brown]

> Haines Brown: "I suspect the term "Marxism-Leninism" is broadly used
> as an (arguably unfortunate) label to refer to the developing
> ideology of the working class. As such, it can't "die off", for the
> working class is permanent and so too is its ideology, whatever form
> it takes."
> 
> The "developing ideology of the working class"? WHAT "developing
> ideology" of WHICH "working class"???

You are making things unnecessarily complicated. I meant the word
"development" generically, such as the working class tends to learn
from its mistakes and acquire a better understanding of its emergent
circumstances.

One could object that the working class has not done very well at
this, but I'm not sure that is so if we are considering global working
class as a whole while limiting our attention to what outlook suites
the working class situation instead of what workers on the whole
happen to be actually thinking. Without these two considerations, I
don't know that it is possible to talk about working class ideology at
all, for there is no definable frame of reference that can be used to
evaluate the sense of any statements we might make about the working
class. 

If instead your question presumed that there are multiple working
class ideologies (rather than differences within the working class
ideology) and different working classes (as distinct from different
sectors in one working class), then I'm afraid you have to offer some
support for these these contentions. I suggest that you begin by
stating explicitly whether you plan to adopt a Marxist position in
regard to them. To approach the issue from a Marxist viewpoint, you
obviously have to start with a shared definition of "relation of
production" if you expect to be intelligible. If you instead adopt an
empiricist perspective, you may be fighting an uphill battle.

> What is "the developing ideology of the working class" in the United
> States?  THERE IS NO SUCH THING. The workers gaily share in American
> imperialism's exploitation of the Third World and their views by and
> large reflect this.

See my comments above. I can't share your alienation from or hostility
to the working class. Whatever the shortcomings of the working class
movement in the US may be, that is who I am. It's like pointing out
that I am not very smart. Well, what could I say in response to that?
So be it; I am what I am. If I don't meet your expectations, that's
your problem.
 
> Contrary to your statements, "the working class" is not permanent;
> nor is there such a thing as "working-class ideology per se."
> Ideology is an extremely complex social product and it is simply NOT
> TRUE that there is such a thing as "the ideology of the working
> class" abstracted from time, place, circumstance and the specific
> forms (down to VERY concrete details) of the class or anticapitalist
> movement.

And why isn't the working class permanent? I can't imagine how any
society could survive without production. I must be missing your
point.

The word ideology is defined in several ways. The manner in which I
use the term is to refer to those aspects of a world view that are
constrained by a person's economic situation as defined by the
person's relation of production. 

  1. Note that "constraint" implies that the empirical specifics of an
  ideology are only probabilistically determined by the person's
  economic situation.   
 
  2. Note also that even if not a single worker had a working class
  outlook, that would not negate the reality of working-class ideology
  as a real potency (yes, I presume the position of scientific
  realism, which is now the consensus). 

  3. Note also that I presume the emergence of a _critical_
  consciosuness depends on acquiring an understanding of contradictory
  society "as a whole", which goes beyond the outlook suited to one's
  own particular relation of production. However, the working class
  necessarily acquires that understanding because it brings social
  capacities to bear in the industrial labor process. That is why
  industrial labor is the natural leader in the development of a
  critical class consciousness.  

  4. Note finally that all ideologies in class society are
  necessarily one-sided in that they are a function of the particular
  economic circumstances of a particular class; the ideology of the
  working class, however, has the _potential_ for becoming universal,
  because the circumstances of labor have the potential for being
  universal in a single-class (i.e., no class) society. 

I believe this definition addresses all your objections. There is
nothing in my definition that suggests any empirical homogeneity, for
both the empirical specifics of ideas and of circumstances may be
quite diverse. However, it does presume a tendency toward acquiring a
functional outlook; I believe this presumption that systems move
toward equilibrium is generally accepted (note, however, that I'm
discussing a subsystem, not the contradictory "whole"). There is
nothing in my definition that would suggest that working class
ideology is static or insensitive to changing circumstances. In fact,
deviations from the most probable outlook defined by one's changing
circumstances imply weakness in one's control over them.

> Contrary to what most self-described Marxists believe, without a
> revolutionary MOVEMENT there is no revolutionary THEORY in the real
> sense of the word.

That point has been argued, such as by Ronald Aronson, _After
Marxism_. There seem to have been quite a few people, who because of
their objective class location and/or because their cultural
development took place within the framework of the New Left (both of
which applies to Aronson), abandoned the working class to end up
either anarchists or neo-conservatives. Aronson makes the same
association of Marxism with a Praxis as you do and concludes that
since the Praxis died, so too did Marxism, which survives only as a
number of interesting or useful ideas that have little to do any more
with the working class.

However, I believe this deconstruction of Marxism is premature for
many reasons that I'll not enter into here because I'm not writing a
review. The fact is that there are people the world over who share the
same relation of production; the fact is that whether it is struggling
to get a better contract or to mount the barricades, a Praxis in
various forms exists; the fact is that where there is some kind of
Praxis, there is also some kind of ideology. Also, we can't make the
mistake of substituting the career of one or more working-class parties
(as Aronson does) for the working class itself; we can't infer from
the fact that perhaps little of substance is being accomplished that
the potency for such action does not mount as do the objective
conditions making it more possible.
 
-- 
 
       Haines Brown, KB1GRM