Back to the Basics-Theoretics

There are different definitions of "class" in political theory. My prefered one is that a class is determined by its objective material conditions. Thus, depending on the kind of house you live in and the amount of money you have to spend on food you are a member of a certain class. The potential difficulty with such a definition is that it is too elastic to be useful for political analysis. If a middle-class university professor and a young executive have to be lumped together in the same unit of analysis because they live in the same suburb the concept of class is not going to be any help in trying to understand the different social roles of the two men.

However, this snag can be overcome by limiting oneself to those segments of each class that are directly linked to the processes of economic production, i.e., to those groups whose economic interests completely encompass the inner-most, primary level of the working of the American economy. Thus the crucial sub-classes to focus on are the Rich--all senior business executives, the Technostructure-Rich--junior business executives, engineers, technicians and scientists in the big corporations, and the Workers--all the people who work in factories (that's what they still are no matter how civilized the conditions) producing consumer goods and war material, all construction workers, and all such people as policemen, firemen, etc.

All the other sub-classes play secondary roles as mere agents. This means that professional people such as doctors or teachers are irrelevant while those who are lawyers or consultants are servants who live off the core of the system but cannot determine it. Also, someone like an entertainer could be very rich but he would not be one of the Rich because he does not take part in the production of goods and hence has no bearing on the decisions that are made in that sector. Equally, middle income people such as clerical staff are not in a position to participate directly in the running of the economic system.

It is important to recognize clearly that the sub-classes that have been singled out are at the two ends of the class-system, the richest and the poorest. This is because these are the only two sectors which have the capacity for acquiring power. The elements of power are: 1) Wealth 2) Institutional Leverage--this means control over the few tightly organized sectors of society, the government, business (big and small), and the communications networks, and 3) Numbers -- any group, if it is sufficiently large, can get its way.

The Rich, by definition have wealth and control over the business sector. Indirectly but, in a potent way, the Rich, because they have wealth and power in business, also have power in government institutions and the communications branch.

The Technostructure-Rich owe their power mainly to their institutional positions in business, i.e., they can often make decisions that, as Galbraith demonstrated, cannot be overruled by their superiors within business or by any forces outside.

The Workers do not have power at the moment. The only possible means for them is to mobilize in large numbers. Their flirtation with Wallace was an attempt to acquire some institutional power in government. Traditional politics, the Democratic and Republican parties, do not offer them this institutional role.

The traditional radical approach to this situation is the Marxist one of plumping for the aim of mobilizing these workers to overwhelm the power of the Rich by sheer weight of numbers. This was to be done by explaining to the workers that their interests were not being looked after in the prevailing state of affairs, which realization supposedly would so enrage the working class that they would do something about redressing the situation.

It need hardly be added that the two rich sub-classes do in fact use their power to look after their own interests and these necessarily conflict with the interests of the Workers.

Nevertheless, radicals have had, and are likely to have, very little success in this attempt to convert the Workers into agents of the revolution. This is because the Workers believe deeply in the existing value-structure which necessarily is one that is designed to perpetuate the present relationship of power. Specifically, this is the ethic of individualism which says that each man must try to acquire as much wealth for himself as he possibly can. The index of a man's standing is measured exclusively in terms of the goods he possesses which ensures the smooth functioning of the growth-economy and legitimizes the wealth of the richer sub-classes.

There are subtle ways too. The subway system in New York is in revolting condition. To improve its state would reduce the incentive of those who have to suffer it today to abide by a value-system which suggests that each man try to improve his own position until he need no longer use the subway. No business organizations will ever give money to the State of New York to improve the subway system and it is not politically feasible for State government officials, even if they wanted to, to allocate the sums of money needed out of their tax revenues. That option does not exist for the governors. One of the first moves of the post-revolutionary government in the Soviet Union was to construct an elaborate subway system so that Moscow today has the most palatial and opulent subway stations in the world--they look like opera houses inside. This is a highly meaningful symbolic difference.

The value-structure that legitimizes capitalist society has been too deeply imbedded in the people of this country for it to be pried loose in any short time. It will take a long time.

The most vulnerable part of the system to a radical attack is the Communications sector and luckily, this is also the only one of the three means of acquiring institutional leverage that is desirable or possible.

The radical must then do two things. He must renounce in his own life the ethics of individual struggle against others for personal advancement and secondly he must try to get a foothold in Communications. The only way that the values of a better way of life, one in which struggle is minimized and material goods are not an obsessive passion, can be spread is by patient education-inculcation. This means that radicals must either choose to teach in schools or they must work on newspapers or magazines or in television or films. It is better to work in an independent shoestring operation than to work for the establishment media because the latter is not independent of the power of the rich sub-classes. But it is better to work for the establishment media than it is to enter the System. Breaking from the System means that under no circumstances should anyone join the techno-structural elite, or worse still, the Rich.

The values of the new system must be aimed primarily at the young of the Workers because it is practically impossible to hope that the present generation of American Workers can be converted from their presently held views in the short time left. It is easier to compete for fresh young minds that have not already been molded.

Ultimately, of course, this strategy depends, just as inevitably as the Marxist, on the third means of acquiring power, that of Numbers, since the other means are not permissible. Thus one has to wait until enough people have been converted to the new faith which means a long wait.

Some people object that the urge to fend for oneself in as aggressive a manner as possible is basic human nature. This is not so. It is all a matter of human conditioning and any conditioning can be de-conditioned.

Some radicals say that until institutions have been changed you cannot expect people to change, no matter how much you condition them. This kind of rigid social determinism is discredited by the empirical truth that the institutions of the Soviet Union have largely been changed but its people seem just as avaricious as any in the world. The two developments are linked. Capitalism breeds a capitalist mentality but its grip is not unshakable. A man can, of his own free will, renounce his old mentality for a new one. Radicalism will breed just as fragile a radical mentality. The choice belongs to, and remains with, each man.

Some say that a society cannot be run on idealistic lines because, to speak symbolically, someone has to collect the garbage. I disagree. Why can't machines do the collecting? Why is it impossible that everybody might help? If actions were not dictated by your desire for wealth, garbage collecting would be like any other job. There is no theoretical barrier to a good society. One just has to try to achieve it; other animal societies have. The bees, for example, and they have evolved for at least a billion years longer than man so there must be something rational about the direction.