From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Sat Dec 02 2006 - 07:27:36 EST
Yes exactly. There has been discussion about this on and off in various German periodicals including Die Zeit. But the controversy not limited to Germany, it occurs in most West European countries and indeed in the USA. The "underclass" is sort of like "the enemy within", along with "Islamofascists" and "darkies" sponging off the state. It feeds into status anxiety, and provides a way of negatively reinforcing class position. It is also part of a biological-racist theme, i.e. some people are just trash, and we need not have any sympathy or understanding for their condition, nor associate with them, indeed that would be wrong. Ernest Mandel mentioned an extreme example with reference to Brazil: "In the north of Brazil, there is a new race of pygmies which has arisen, with an average height 35 centimetres less than the average inhabitant of Brazil. The way the bourgeois ruling class and its ideologues characterise these people is to call them rat people. This characterisation is completely dehumanising, reminiscent of the Nazis, and has very sinister implications. You know what is done to rats." http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/1993/02/neoliberal.htm Jurriaan
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Dec 31 2006 - 00:00:04 EST