Jurriaan Bendien (djjb99@worldonline.nl)
Fri, 22 Oct 1999 00:20:36 +0100
Incidentally, I think there is another structural reason for the relative
"indeterminacy" and lack of theoretisation of class struggles in Marx's
Capital. Because in fact what he shows in Capital is that bourgeois society
is a bella omni contra omnes (war of all against all). It involves
continuous social conflict along not one, but three axes, i.e. a threefold
competition: (1) between the employers, nationally and internationally, for
profits and markets; (2) between capital and labour (a class conflict, not
necessarily a class struggle) over the division of the social product in
all its aspects; and (3) among groups of workers and among individuals for
jobs, promotions, incomes, conditions etc. Only occasionally, at certain
turning points in history, do the direct producers attain sufficient unity
among themselves that they genuinely become a class "for themselves" and
engage in a genuine class struggle. Class conflict occurs continuously, as
a result of the normal modus operandi of capitalism. Class struggle doesn't.
In solidarity
Jurriaan
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