[iDC] Class and the Internet, New Capitalism, and (True New) Socialism for the 21st Century

[Saul Ostrow]

I wish people who reference Marx actually have read him - this characterization is closer to Gramsci and Lukacs - for Marx history and the industrial revolution are key - history is our continuity in time moving us toward self determination - the industrial revolution was to make scarcity un-necessary and therefore advancing the project of our emancipation from nature- and therefore bringing an end to the Hegelian master slave dialectic - class consciousness was meant to make the proletariat aware that they were the historically determined agent of this process and that capitalism having created mass production had become a fetter on that history in that because of their false consciousness could not step aside and allow humankind to fulfill its destiny - Marx was not interest in injustice other than as a indicator of how much of a fetter capitalism had become on humanities advancement to a state of self-determination - now if we still believe self-determination is our destiny - we have to determine what under present circumstances advances it, rather than appears to  - and what retards it - rather than appearing to - for instance the destruction of the middle classes may advance it, for the illusion of advancement  under capitalism comes to an end, while inversely the cultural, economic, and social state of the middle classes becomes a general model of well-being

On 6/21/09 6:19 PM, "Brian Holmes" <brian.holmes at aliceadsl.fr> wrote:



It seems to me that in Marx's way of thinking, the
productivity of the working class was the key element that
would allow this class to understand itself not just in
itself, as a kind of naturally existing category of the
human species, but instead for itself, as an active force.
And it is also true that the worker, him- or herself, is the
one who sells labor power to the capitalist. Is it important
in your theory to understand the audience as, at least
potentially, a class with a consciousness, a class for
itself? If so, how would you -- or do you -- see such
consciousness developing and expressing itself?


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