Belphegor posted:

Starting a new, fresh thread for this interesting question without all the embarassing old posts!

Who are the revolutionary subjects in the west? Is anyone writing about this in 2017?

first world socialist organizing wont directly create a socialist revolution, but it can hamper imperialism. in that case, the "revolutionary subject" are people that can be organized around dismantling imperialism. considering the class structure of the us, canada, and europe, this seems like a realistic goal that can find a relatively broad base of support. with imperialism in decline, socialist projects will be able to develop more successfully in the periphery and work their way towards the core.

With regard to her claims on class (structure), let's start with the statement of hers that i used to open this section:

In general, Fanon agrees with Marx that history runs dialectically, through the struggle of faction against faction. But whereas Marx categorized factions in terms of economic class, Fanon claims that race is the key categorical term in colonial situations.

i don't think Wyrick has studied socialism, nor done extensive or critical reading of the works of Marx. If she had, i doubt she'd use the phrase "economic class," because it's a sure giveaway of a superficial, economistic, and bourgeois orientation. Marx didn't perceive class formation and function in purely economic terms. Wyrick's phrase is the kind that Fanon would find dangerous and misleading.

Contrary to popular belief Marx didn't write on the subject of class in the definitive or detailed manner in which We too often believe that he did. It's said that he was about to define "class" in the third volume of Capital, but the work breaks off before he could do so.

However, We find a useful example of Marx's concept of class in The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, where he holds:

In so far as millions of families live under economic conditions of existence that separate their mode of life, their interests and their culture from those of other classes, and put them in hostile opposition to the latter, they form a class. In so far as there is merely a local interconnection among these small-holding peasants, and the identity of their interests begets no community, no national bond, and no political organization among them, they do not form a class.

Clearly, Marx didn't see "class" in purely economic terms, and it isn't the mere objective economic similarity of interests that make class formation and function. While economic conditions are surely part of the criteria for class formation, Marx gives us other indispensable criteria, which could be listed as: 1) that class members must share a common position in their relation co the means of production, i.e., common economic conditions, relative to their labor and the appropriation of the social surplus; 2) that they must share a separate way of life and cultural existence; 3) that they must share a set of interests which are antagonistic to other classes; 4) that they must share a set of social relations, i.e., a sense of unity which extends beyond local boundaries, and constitutes a "national" bond; 5) that they must share a corresponding collective consciousness of themselves as a "class," and; 6) they must create their own political organizations, and pursue their interests as a "class."

Present in this passage from The 18th Brumaire, is a distinction between a "class-in-itself" and a "class-for-itself" which Marx also made in The Holy Family. There, he used the term "in-itself" to capture the contingent character of that group which merely met the first of the criteria listed above. That is, the group which only shared an objective, common relation to the means of production wasn't a "real" or "complete" or revolutionary class-it wasn't the gravedigger of capitalism that We tend to equate with the term "working class" or "proletariat." The transformation of the group into a class "for-itself" depends upon the acquisition and development of the remaining elements, i.e., the group must develop consciousness of itself as a class; create political organizations; engage in unified action to oppose and defeat its class enemies; begin to build a society free of all forms of exploitation and oppression, and eliminate all class divisions.

i suspect this should give us pause when evaluating the labor aristocracy on the sole basis of whether a worker's wage falls above or below a global MELT. if the MELT is $10, and they make 9.75, but then get a 3% raise on Tuesday, are they proletarian on Monday and labor aristocrat on Wednesday? it's an important part, but clearly far from the only one when evaluating class, or in this case subdivisions thereof

(incidentally, one of the great strengths of Cope's work is making me aware of awesome stuff like this)