Re: [OPE-L] Lawrence Krader on objective and subjective value

From: GERALD LEVY (gerald_a_levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Sun Nov 11 2007 - 09:17:30 EST 

>Why should we concieve of classes as subjects, why should we concienve of
>them as agents rather than classes?


Hi Paul C:

Agency is a constitutive element of class.  If one does not grasp the
duality of
class as object and subject, one can neither adequately theorize class
behavior
nor understand it in more concrete terms.   If one conceives of class
entirely as
subject then there is no necessary connection between the material world and
class behaviior.  If one conceives of class entirely as object,  then one is
led to
one-sidedly  and mechancally view class action as simply a knee-jerk
response to
the actions of the 'other' class.  If one does not grasp the duality of
class one can
make no sense of the strategic behavior of classes in particular periods of
time
and space - whether one wishes to refer to "regimes of accumulation",
"social
structures of accumulation", "stages theory" or "conjunctural analysis".
Without
grasping this duality, one can not grasp either the nature of day-to-day
class
struggles under capitalism or the possibility of a revolutionary
transformation.


There are other concepts which, of course, are required as well, including:

1.  a fuller understanding at a more concrete level of abstraction of the
duality requires
that the character mask assumption be dropped.

2.  one must also conceive of class not as simple unity alone but also as
difference and
unity-in-difference.

3. one must grasp the ways in which national (and gender and race) divisions
affect
class behavior.

In solidarity, Jerry

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