Working Class Man vs 'Pie-In-the-Sky' Intellectual

What is the difference between the working class man and the ‘pie-in-the-sky’ intellectual? Is it a simple lack of class consciousness? An anti-intellectualism or anti-communism sentiment? Sandy Carter defends Barbara and John Enrenreichs’ configuration of a third class, the Professional-Managerial Class, by attempting to explain the “peculiar” hostility between the working class and the left, between manual and intellectual labor. She argues that this hostility has, consistently and wrongfully, been chalked-up to differences in lifestyle and education as well as divisions born of a highly stratified working class. And yet, her intended focus on the texture and depth of the controversial PMC discourse due to its “human dimension” never seems to transcend this traditional explanation or provide the pragmatic enlightenment which Pat Walker so pathologically and defensively attributes to the works contained in Between Labor and Capital

The PMC theory displaces the antiquated Marxist viewpoint that the populace is divided into only two key classes, workers and owners. According to the Ehrenreichs, the PMC is shaped by its objectively contradictory position and function within modern, advanced capitalism’s social division of labor. For example, an engineer is forced to sell his labor for capital but he also functions to manage, maintain, and service the working class. Moreover, the interests of the engineer lie in the subordination of the capitalist and the continued subjugation of the working class. The development of this broad middle strata, as seen through the engineer, must fundamentally alter our conception of class struggle and relations.

With this in mind, Sandy Carter turns to interviews to capture “some of the primary complaints of the US working class regarding their labor” which underscore the enormous disparity between working class “income, jobs, community, family and sexual relations” and those of the PMC – the nature of class relations. Ultimately, the interviews paint a picture of a populace riddled with guilt, hostility, insecurity, and a significant deficit of intellectual capacity. Members of the working class are depressed because their lives are repetitive and, essentially, meaningless. In this analysis the distinction between the PMC and the capitalist is not given significant weight. The PMC is just another function of working-class oppression. Perhaps Carter could have explored how human psychology – our psychological needs and processes - allows for the reproduction of class as a system of identification or the nature reverse hostility, the elitism of the leftist, as a real complication to the notion of the proletarianization of everyone, as Carter calls it. The argument seems to simply establish that to be a member of the working class is a tough lot and the PMC, though infinitely better-off, should care about the feelings of their local beautician or plumber.

In conclusion, the PMC will not be the primary base of social discontent but an alliance between the two classes should be encouraged. “The working class need not be glorified and the PMC need not take on any false humility. What is required is a willingness to recognize and stuggle with the differences that left unchallenged will continue to replicate the relations of capitalist society”(113).

So, first thing first, substitute the PMC’s deeply engrained desire to instruct, lead and control with an understanding that knowledge and skill must be dispersed, shared and mutually developed.

So, first thing first . . . ?

The Function of the PMC

As I read the essays, I found that instead of understanding the notion of class divisions I simply had more questions.  I understand the Ehrenreichs definition of the PMC, made much clearer by Carter, but there are some contentions of the PMC that are still unclear to me.  Take the registered nurse example in Ehrenreichs on page 13. What defines one registered nurse from another in terms of where they are placed in the class spectrum?  Does the specialized training required place them in the PMC?  The Ehrenreichs said that “There is simply no way to classify registered nurses as a group.  What seems to be a single occupational category is in fact socially and functionally heterogeneous” (13).  But then they define the PMC in terms of profession, and state that a characteristic of the profession is “the existence of a specialized body of knowledge, accessible only by lengthy training” (26).  This particular example of the registered nurse as a profession also fits the other characteristics.   Therefore, wouldn’t a registered nurse automatically be placed in the PMC?  I suppose one issue I’m having is the difference in professions now compared to when the essay was written. 

I do think that the PMC is a class unto itself.  I like the way Carter sums up the definition created by the Ehrenreichs.  The PMC is forced to sell its labor to capital, but is also like the capitalist by engaging in planning and managing.  The PMC also functions to manage and service the working class (100).  I find that this definition helps to explain the PMC more clearly, but there are obviously some contentions with certain jobs in terms of where to place them within the PMC or outside of it, despite the working definition. 

I do think that the PMC in many ways rules itself, in terms of movement.  I think that today the PMC is still socially coherent because of the way children of the PMC still marry other PMC children.  I also think there is a shared common culture and that PMC occupations are not hereditary.  The only place I see a difference today is the role of women versus men.  I think that now in terms of childraising there is more of an equal footing.  There are still many women who chose to stay at home to raise their children, but there are also men taking on that role, as well as many women who chose to continue to work while raising their children.  I wonder how this has affected the PMC in terms of family dynamics and how it relates back to the culture or lifestyle of the class, since it is always changing.

The Professional-Managerial Class

Babara and John Ehrenreich describes the rise of a professional-managerial class as a distinct group under the conditions of monopoly capitalism. According to Ehrenreich, the PMC, though comprising of those who do not own the means of production and who have to sell their labor power to the capitalists, exists in an antagonistic relation with the working classes, perpetuating structures of exploitation. The white collar workers such as scientists, doctors, engineers, and researchers belong to this category.

In today's late capitalist societies, the PMC is expanding as a class and acquiring more and more power and prestige, especially in the light of globalization and uneven flows of global capital. In the globalized, late capitalist societies, immaterial/biopolitical forms of production have acquired a hegemonic status, displacing the industrial modes of production. The PMC has come to dominate as a class within this paradigm with the increasing demand for highly specialized skills in industries such as software or finance. While the developed world with its capacity to train workers in research universities has an upper-hand when it comes to reproducing this class, the third world with its relative lack of facilities to provide necessary skills for the workers to fit specific modes of post-industrial production is lagging behind. As a result, the PMC is a small minority in the third world societies, comprising of those who have access to Western education.

On the other hand, the uneven flows of global capital has relegated the industrial production to the third world, where cheap labour is abundant. According to Lisa Lowe, this has augured racialization and feminization of labor and exploitation of women. In this context, the relations of production is not primarily a relation of class, but has a gender and racial dimension as well.

DOW

In “The Professional-Managerial Class,” Barbara and John Ehrenreich cite a pamphlet handed out at a demonstration against DOW Chemical in 1967 at the University of Wisconsin. The pamphlet reads: “We pick this week to demonstrate against DOW (chemical corporation), against the university as a corporation and against the war because they are all one” (Ehrenreich 37). This is interesting to me because I wrote a paper for Prof. Wynn’s Rhetoric, Science, and the Public Sphere course last term on DOW Chemical’s latest (2006) ad campaign “The Human Element.” In particular I critiqued Story of Our Planet which is a one-minute video that can be found on Dow Chemical’s website, http://www.dow.com/hu/ under, “The HU Campaign” tab.

In researching this topic I was able to find a lot of material on DOW’s problematic past (the creators of napalm and agent orange) and protesters reactions, such as those on college campuses. Even though DOW has continued to operate with detrimental effects on humans and the environment, the publications reporting on DOW’s ad campaigns have shifted. When at one point a previous ad campaign by DOW was critiqued in the New York Times for trying to put a positive spin on this company, the only publications I could find about “The Human Element” were found in very specialized PR periodicals that praised the ad campaign.

I think “The Human Element” ad campaign and the lack of a critical reaction is what happens when there is too much separation between different professions, between ad agencies and the capitalist critiques found in Between Labor and Capital. I believe it is becoming increasingly important to take these critiques and put them to work, because if corporations like DOW are allowed to “re-image” themselves every other decade, then we will all continue to be “shocked” when the inevitable crises these corporations perpetuate continue to occur. I believe that putting these critiques to work is necessary in order to avoid the situation Sandy Carter describes: “Marxists have remained shackled to antiquated theory” (Carter 98-9). To experiment with this I’ve taken a passage from the introduction by Pat Walker that I found interesting but not entirely useful to my DOW topic, and altered it for my purposes. The original reads:

“One way certain technologies help the capitalist to keep the upper hand is by depriving workers of their understanding of the production process. By separating the conception of the work from its execution, the particular technology makes it seem natural that mental work is separated from and higher than manual work” (Walker XVI).

To revise this for my purposes:

“‘The Human Element’ ad campaign helps DOW Chemical, Draft FCB, and Gollin Harris keep the upper hand by depriving anyone watching television between 2006-today of an understanding of larger historical processes. By taking advantage of the common conception that advertising is separate from critical inquiry (the mindset that “It’s just a commercial”), Story of Our Planet relies on a separation and hierarchy of mental work in viewing the news or a documentary film as higher then an advertisement.”

Impossible Revolution and the Appeal of the PMC

One of the big contentions with traditional Marxism is the two class theory. John and Barbara Ehrenreichs address this contention quite well in their essay which defines and discusses the Professional-Managerial Class. The description of them as “salaried mental workers” is broad enough so that it encompasses quite a large group of people. Even though this group is quite large they are recognized at the same time as being an unproductive form of labor, and antagonistic to both the working class and the bourgeoisie. Yet what was most interesting and confusing for me was how this group even with its seeming lack of bargaining power and relationship with the working class, is still a necessary piece for societal revolution. After all they are described as the “reproduction of capitalist culture.” Also their desire for advancement through education in many ways lends itself easily to class divisions. The Ehrenreichs also make a very interesting point concerning the source of antagonism between the working class and the PMC in that the working class is more likely to “experience humiliation, harassment, frustration, etc., at the hands of the PMC than from members of the actual capitalist class.” Knowing this and various other facts concerning the PMC, one could assume that the Ehrenreichs are under the impression that a revolution in the Marxist sense is unlikely to occur.

Even though I agree that a revolution combining the PMC and the working class is unlikely, this idea of a third social class is extremely attractive. For one, nobody truly wants to be grouped in with what we would in the modern sense consider the bourgeoisie. With the recent economic crisis and much of the top earners in our country being labeled as selfish and greedy criminals, who care little about the work force which they employees, the rich have been labeled as the enemy. Commenting on this disgust of the top one percent, there have recently been various documentaries, articles, and news stories condemning individuals who in our minds make too much money. The culmination of all this hatred was seen in the tax hikes for “the rich” which Obama made a key pillar in his presidential campaign. Yet, even with this hate of the bourgeoisie, there is still a fear amongst many people that they will be considered in line with the proletariat. In many ways people fear the inability to actualize their desires due to the restrictions of their occupation. The PMC provides an answer to all of these fears. You can be educated, financially comfortable, socially mobile, and at the same time disgusted with the rich. Also, even though the PMC potentially acts as the face of the bourgeoisie, as the Ehrenreichs note, that still does not change the fact that they understand the hardships of the working class more than the top one percent. PMC is the perfect label for those who fear condemnation and a lack of ability to self-actualize.

Cultural Consciousness

In 1935, at the First American Writer's Congress, Kenneth Burke told an audience of writers, both of the communist and fellow traveler persuasion, that it was imperative that the working class must ally itself with the petty bourgeoisie against the capitalists. The audience did not heed his proposal; instead, he was viciously attached in both verbal and prose form.

This moment in the history of the left sprung to mind after I read Szymanski's response to the Ehrenreichs. Instead of talking about the PMC as a potential third class, Szymanski argues to retain the traditional Marxist third class category the petty bourgeois. The petty bourgeois, he argues, often attempts "seeking its own 'third path' if not effectively appealed to by the proletariat or the bourgeoisie (60). The 20th Century manifestation of this 'third path', he continues, has been fascism, which "would promise both the destruction of independent trade unions and working class parties sand the breaking up of the big corporations, banks and landed estates...[for] their redistribution to the petty bourgeoisie" (61). But, Szymanski reminds us, fascism, especially that of Hitler and Mussolini, only "fulfilled the anti-working class half of their program admirable, but forgot the anti-monopoly half" (61).

Szymanski's analysis here seems particularly apt when talking about the recent phenomenon of the the Tea Party, especially because of their backing by members of big business like the Koch brothers and their constant straw man criticisms of the so-called socialism we supposedly have here in the U.S. But while the motive of the latter does seem somewhat financial--the fear of losing what little or not so little property members have--a lot of it also seems political--the fear of losing power to Mexican immigrants, African Americans, homosexuals, etc.--as well as cultural. While Cohen & Howard argue for a political rather than economic analysis of class and revolution, what about analyzing class consciousness in terms of culture?

Here's where I think Gramsci's notion of the national-popular would come in handy. How can the left articulate the national beliefs and values both in their past and present form? How can it re-appropriate an idea behind the "tea party" (or the founding fathers) commensurate with its own hopes and goals as well as the influence of present historical circumstances? Should it conceive of another qualifier for consciousness? Instead of class or political consciousness, would it be better to say cultural consciousness? One thing seems apparent: solely using economic and/or political appeals to make alliances with the PMC, petty bourgeois, or whatever you want to call it is probably not going to be enough to create effective change.

What Is Class Really About?

I studied the pivotal article for this week’s readings, “The Professional Managerial Class” by Barbara and John Ehrenreich for Jeff William’s course on professionalization last semester. We obviously studied this article from the aspect of does this new professional managerial class really represent a group of professionals, but I think that question goes hand in hand with the question or questions of class. I do not think we can study this article or the accompanying responses to this article without studying both the professionalization and the class involved. The Ehrenreich’s define class in two parts in their article, and this definition to me is the key point of their article. The first is “at all times in its historical development, a class is characterized by a common relation to the economic foundation of society-the means of production and the socially organized patters of distribution and consumption.” They go on to state that “a class is characterized by a coherent social and cultural existence; members of a class share a common life, educational background, kinship networks, consumption patterns, work habits, beliefs” (11). These words-common, coherent, they show us that although the Ehrenreich’s are ultimately talking about what they believe is a new class, and one they fully discuss and analyze as the professional managerial class, they are first and foremost showing us what makes any class.

I found that the responses whether good or bad to the Ehrenreich’s article centers on their professional managerial class for the most part and whether or not they are right in their assumptions and establishment of a such a class, but these critiques do not always come back to what is a class. I do think the best example of this is Sandy Carter’s response “Class Conflict: The Human Dimension” because Carter does ultimately give class a human aspect. Carter gives us a personal look into the division between the working class and the professional managerial class which is what I find lacking in many of the other response articles. To me this class on class we are taking should not only show an overall view of classes, but should show the personal side as well. To me it is not enough to just say what a class is or critique the lack or too much attention of Marxism or Leninism to what the Ehrenreich’s are saying. What needs to be said is what Carter says with personal examples and testimonials. To me class is very much linked with history, which is what I think they Ehrenreich’s are saying with their definition of class, and I do not believe we can study history with facts and figure. I believe we need to study history with personal accounts that coincide with such facts and figures and I believe with class being so much caught up in history that it needs to be studied in much the same way.

New Classes, New Markets?

While I found the Ehrenreich's analysis of the PMC thought provoking and at least an important step forward in understanding class in the US, I found many of the critiques far too theoretical to take seriously. However, Sandy Carter's examination injected a level of reality into the collection as a whole, reorienting theoretical marxism to lived life. Carter's analysis of the PMC did not start from a theoretical grounding of Marx's definitions, categories, subcategories and subsubcagetories, but from a real historical-anthropological look into people's experiences and relations. And while Cohen and Howard tried to use the concept of social relations, they used a blunt theoretical term instead of actual social relations in the real world. They wind up sounding like nitpicking schoolmasters furious at a student for forgetting a Latin noun declension. By starting from people's lived experience, Carter shows us that there is some sort of social division between managers/professionals and the working class that demands attention by social theorists even if it does not represent the emergence of a new class. The methods of historical materialism pioneered by Marx cannot simply rest on authority, but need to dynamically look into lived social relations and conditions. And in the United States, at least, one cannot talk about a unified “working class” in the same sense that one could in 19th century England.

If the PMC exists, I think that it would be fruitful to begin to think about the production of labor as a commodity, and a fetishized commodity at that. While Marx pays a lot of attention to labor as a commodity that can be bought and sold, he does not differentiate between different types of labor or different ways of producing laborers. However, it is imbedded in the language of the education system, where universities talk about “producing scholars” and the “job market.” Labor, whether mental or physical, must be produced just like any other commodity, and the 20th century did a great job of branding just what kind of labor we all possess. You only need to look on craigslist to find the job market divided between the sorts of jobs you can get with a high school diploma, a GED, an MA, a BA, a JD and a million different types of certificates or licenses. Regardless of whether or not there is one working class, the labor market seems to have changed a lot since our friend Mr. Moneybags first bought a man's labor power in Capital. Therefore, the underlying phenomenon of the Ehrenreichs' study of the PMC must reveal some fundamental shift in the way capitalism has developed in the 20th century, with an expansively complex market for labor. Even if this simply means a diversified proletariat, or a new petty bourgeoisie, the implications of this new development must be taken seriously for marxist thought to go anywhere, and we need to craft new questions to push this thought forward. Is there one labor market, or many? What do managers really do? Can class consciousness be achieved within a diversified class? What happens during major recessions when people drop down a class?

Without questioning Marx's definitions and explanations, we cannot come up with a complete model for the economic and cultural world.

The "Actual" Class Consciousness

Compared to the other readings for this week, I enjoyed Sandy Carter’s essay, “Class Conflict: the Human Dimension,” the most as it spoke to the sometimes forgotten human element of class. Some Marxist theorists like to speak of class-consciousness, but then refer to it as an abstract idea. Something has to be alive to have a consciousness. Therefore, Carter’s essay brings humanity back into the equation.

Rather than speaking in only theoretical terms, Carter uses many first-person accounts of the “working-class encounter with the PMC.” It is one thing for a theorist to write of the disparities between the two classes and quite another to hear a factory worker speak to the uneasiness he feels when surrounded by intellectuals. When discussing Raymond Williams, we said that he studies Marxists, rather than Marx himself. Carter speaks to this notion in pointing out that “classical Marxism easily forgets [that] class always remains more than an objective relation.” (115) She continues by returning to the source: the mode of production “must not be considered simply as being the reproduction of the physical existence of individuals. Rather it is a definite form of expressing their life, a defining mode of life on their part.” (115) Abstract notions of class difference only lend itself to such theoretical examinations. When one utilizes the human factor, it opens the theoretical to a true notion of class-consciousness.

**In addition, the various first-person examples used in the Carter essay made me question the basic notion of the working class. How do we categorize movie stars? At the basic level, there are forced to sell their labor (acting) on the market for profit. Does this then make them members of the working class when their personal wealth can be astronomically higher? Just a thought…

foolish, i say!

al szymanski's essay "a critique and extension of the professional-managerial class" refutes the ehrenreichs' claim that class has to be defined by social function, not just by its relationship to production. szymanski finds fault with the characterization that two engineers, for example–one employed by a company and the other working independently–may be of two classes (51). but why can't this be so? it seems to me perfectly reasonable, and indeed often a point of contention, for many such people that those without their own means of working independently, have to adhere to the standards of the company they work for. and i would add that even between two people who work for the same company in the same, or similar positions, may come from two different classes if you consider their socioeconomic backgrounds, because even at the same job, they may view their work and themselves differently from each other.

for example, a young man from a poorer family in the ghetto who has either not had access to higher education, or who does not value it, may see a job at mcdonald's as unpleasant but nevertheless an inevitable future for himself. he may resign himself to the job, or even come to like it, but more likely he sees the job with feelings of futility. a young man from a fairly affluent family in a suburban community, who is either on his way to college or is looking for "short term" employment afterwards, may take the same job at mcdonald's but sees it as a temporary position, and hardly defining of "who he is." his socioeconomic background assures him not only that he is cut out for better things, but that if it really became necessary, his family would be able to support him economically so that this job is not the same "inevitable future" that it might be for the young man without the support of so many resources. i make generalities, obviously, here.

yet i think this could serve as a model for many people. szymanski says "according to the ehrenreichs, a doctor who goes to work for kaiser hospitals or a lawyer who leaves general motors to set up his own practices, changes classes. by the ehrenreichs' own criteria, this does not seem reasonable" (51). szymanski wants classes to be static, and indeed in the example i gave, it seems like they are so. but on the other hand, that example also shows that occupation is not necessarily tied to class, and if not, there must be something else tied to class, which is what the ehrenreichs were coming back to: ideology. in this sense, then, class is not static. that young man from the ghetto might have parents who couldn't afford college, but who manage to help him find his way into a degree; or perhaps they have a relative who owns a thriving business with our without a college education, who invites the young man into partnership.

the model that szymanski promotes is, like marx's, just too rigid for me. i see value in some of his critiques–where do we draw the line at defining the PMC, for example, and are independent artists purveyors of capitalist culture? yet the ehrenreichs are even flexible on that count–they say quite openly that the classes more or less merge into each other. to deny that our social relationships are not an important piece of our identity, or tied to the relations of production, seems just foolish.

Communication Revolution?

Williams understood culture to be a whole way of life, not merely the body of high intellectual and creative works, “the best that has been thought and said,” as Williams’ theoretical predecessor Matthew Arnold had argued. And though Williams maintains that the interests of the ruling class shape society, he believes that society can be influenced by culture just as culture can influence society. Consequently, the self-identified “cultural materialist” was deeply invested in revising the traditional Marxist conception of culture. In Karl Marx’s definition of “determinism” he used a spacial metaphor of a“base and the superstructure” to describe the way in which the economic means of production constitute the “base” of human life while elements such as politics and culture constitute the “superstructure” born of that economic base. Williams, of course, sees this relationship as interactive, fluid, and, above all, inevitably effected by our ever-changing word.

In Culture and Materialism, he undermines the strict Marxist dichotomy through, one, a theoretical reconfiguration of communication. According to Williams, the means of communication are both products and means of production. As socially and materially produced forms and the manifestation of the productive forces and social relations of production, Williams treats the means of communication – specifically television, film, and the printing press – as powerful windows into the enigma of social order and relationships. Moreover, these medium represent the power of class ideology, predominantly that of the bourgeois, in manufacturing consent and thwarting resistance. I am particularly interested in, what I would deem, Williams “solution” to the dangers of unequal access to the means of information production and, more fundamentally, our consciousness regarding the true nature of communication production and consumption.
Williams calls for “the recovery of a ‘primitive’ directness and community” as well as “the transformation of elements of access and extension over an unprecedently wide social and inter-cultural range.” This abstract proposal will inherently generate new means of production – new, advanced, complex means that will benefit community. I think Raymond Williams would be overwhelmingly disappointed with youtube, the world of blogging, etc…which suggest a disproportionate, explicit focus on the means of production and institutional reform in his work and a desire for a revolutionary consciousness rooted in a socialist, liberal wisdom. It seems that while Williams’ desires must be practically rooted in theory based on, at least superficially, economic/material structures like the means of production, his desire bears much closer resemblance to a moralist revision of social order.

Practice

In merging Marxism with (to put it bluntly) reality, Williams’ made Marx’s political theories relevant to me when he said, “The critical demystification has indeed to continue, but always in association with practice”(62). I think this process of “demystification” coupled with “practice” can have a large impact on digital media. Because “the modes of ‘naturalization’” in television and film are “so powerful, and new generations are becoming so habituated to them,” (62) demystification is essential. However, in television and film this process of demystification is pushed to the margins in our society. For example, it took a college education for me to come into contact with the basic principles of continuity editing in film. So only through higher education was I able to witness “the real activities and relations of men” that were purposely, “hidden behind a reified form, a reified mode, a ‘modern medium’” (62).

So although it is possible to come into contact with (if you have enough time, money, and curiosity) processes of demystification in television and film, these processes are still removed from common consumption. However, through the use of Williams’ “practice,” and in the “the production of alternative ‘images’ of the ‘same event,’’ (62) I believe there is great promise. For me, Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the creators of South Park) have come to exemplify the possibility of demystification through “the production of alternative ‘images’.” Through a mainstream television show they have been able to provide social critiques that help demystify messages produced by dominate institutions, such as BP. In Episode 11 from Season 14, they provide a relevant response to BP’s apologetic ads (e.g., at: 11mins 24secs): South Park's Episode 11. Although Frontline also had a great response (more informative and critical than South Park’s), it addressed a more specific audience; an audience that can watch television without entertainment value (an educated audience): Frontline on BP.

Through the use of comedy and satire, South Park is able to balance relevant social critiques with mass appeal, reaching many who don’t have the time, money, or curiosity to mistakenly wander into a college film studies course (like I did). So in the production of messages that critique other highly produced messages of the same medium, it becomes possible to show others “the real activities” that are, “hidden behind a reified form.” As USC professor, Henry Jenkins would say, social networks and YouTube open up the possibilities for sharing “fan art” in ways that were never possible before: Henry Jenkins Clip . Although, the web provides a great opportunity for demystification and practice, it currently has not come close to reaching its potential in this area.

So what happens when questions of Furbies and Soviet atrocities cannot be answered (for obvious reasons, he’s dead) by Marx? As Luke says, people either dismiss Marx or cling to an outdated model. In adding “practice” into the discussion, Williams provides an option that refuses to choose between dismissing and clinging.

An Imagined Utopia

As I read the essay “Utopia and Science Fiction,” I could not help but think of the film Metropolis.  It is a silent German expressionist film about the working class rising up against the rich society that controls them.  It clearly begins as a dystopian society where the machine is valued above the workers lives.  The movie shows many of the different modes of Utopia and Science Fiction.  For starters, it is about “social despair, the mood of a declining class or fraction of a class, which has to create a new heaven because its Earth is hell” (203).  The working class is trying to rise up against a society “primarily defined as technology and production…transcending the deep divisions of industrial capitalist specialization, of town and country, of rulers and ruled, administrators and administered, are from the beginning the central and primary objective” (206).  Before reading this essay, I had never made a connection between stories of social classes rising up against the machine/rulers/administrators as also being a story of fighting for a utopia.  It seems far more obvious now, especially in relation to the film, but I never thought of fighting for a better life as fighting for utopia, maybe because I’ve always imagined utopia as something unattainable. 

I think it is especially significant that the film is showing the working class fighting against a capitalist society in which they have no control over, but are simply used to the advantage of the administrators.  I think in many ways the film demonstrates how the rights of workers can and are taken advantage of, which is why revolutions and reform are so common among the working class.  What is also interesting about this film is that it does not necessarily assume that utopia will be achieved, but it shows that the possibility of reform can occur.  The son of the man who created the capitalist society is the one who becomes the mediator, trying to bring about social change after experiencing the degradation of the working class himself.  “It is probably only to such a utopia that those who have known affluence and known with it social injustice and moral corruption can be summoned” (212).  It is through him that a new world of reform and unity among the classes can possibly be achieved because he has lived both above and below the city, and understands the problems at hand. 

what makes us human?

i really like matt's idea (if i understood you correctly) that previous cultural modes and values such as the pastoral can become "emergent" when they are transposed into science fiction. if i follow your logic, it takes me to connect williams' ideas with those of, say, joseph campbell and the world of myth. myth would be a good case, actually, for studying class values. myth, maybe a lot like the pastoral, is something that crops up again and again in literature, film, art, etc., in a reassessment of its own value. think of the hero's journey in harry potter, for example. or even back to the future (such a great trilogy).

it is a fascinating connection to me, however, to think of science fiction's rising popularity coinciding really with these social and political thinkers. i had never considered the matter before but it makes so much sense. i really love science fiction and i think that part of it is for that very reason: sci fi poses the question constantly of "what if?", forcing us to think critically about the dominant values that we more or less take for granted as fact–which williams describes as "the scientific character of 'the laws of human development' is cautiously questioned or skeptically rejected" (198). what motivates us as a species? what if that were taken away, or drastically altered by some force? what would make us still human?

williams cites h.g. wells, and aldous huxley, in their terror of the possibilities of human evolution, but we know that science fiction is full of countless other such powerful narratives that caution us to question how we live: george lucas's fear of nazi imperialism in his creation of the cold, mechanical empire in star wars, or james cameron's environmentalist commentary in his creation of ruthless capitalist developers, determined to rape a planet of its natural resources in avatar.

if we want to connect this back to class…i note that williams ties a lot of these sci fi narratives to the question of communism and socialism, or at least, to questions of what kind of social structure will ensure the survival of the human race and the greatest possibility of general happiness and prosperity of that race. "socialism as the next higher stage of economic organization" (202), is how he phrases it, and indeed i think in modern science fiction, whether the world is a utopia with one corrupt element, or a total dystopia that needs to be overthrown, there is still a dominant theme wherein the protagonists/society engage in some kind of struggle for human rights.

The Appeal of Reductionism

In first mentioning Marx’s theory of “base” and “superstructure” Raymond Williams highlights a common criticism of Marx in describing it as a “practice of reductionism—the specific human experiences and acts of creation converted so quickly and mechanically into classifications which always found their ultimate reality and significance elsewhere” (19). Williams proceeds later in the chapter to remedy the strict definition of “base” which he describes it as more than just a static state; as something that encompasses the many relationships that occur in a socio-economic setting. This reclassification of a basic idea of Marxist theory does serve as a remedy for a mistake in reductionism, yet it also highlights an obvious question. Why does a school of theory which at times can barely be applicable to real world social constructs have such a hold on studies concerning class? After all, many academics have built careers and written volumes attempting to make Marxist theory applicable to their specific notions of class.

Perhaps, it is in the reductionism highlighted by Williams where the strength and endurance of Marxist theory lies. In dismantling the complex nature of class and economic relationships to their more basic forms Marx opened up his theory to various other applications and disciplines, making it applicable to seemingly arbitrary topics. The criticism of Marx as simplistic thus works counterintuitively. As we have seen in Williams, and will most-likely see in our other readings, one cannot help but acknowledge the shortcomings of Marxist theory, even at times condemning the theorist. Yet, following our criticism closely is reevaluation and modification using that which we disapprove of as well needed foundation. Thus, Marx continues to endure through censure.

“The Welsh Industrial Novel” and Out of this Furnace

As I was reading Williams’ essay “The Welsh Industrial Novel” the elements that comprise his industrial novel reminded me of many of the elements of the novel Out of this Furnace by Thomas Bell. Although an American novel, I found the similarities between Williams’ definition of an industrial novel too great to not discuss. Out of this Furnace is a more recent publication (1976) and is actually a novel about Pittsburgh published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. The novel was one I studied not only in high school, but in a Pennsylvania history class in college. It centers around the vastly industrial city that was Pittsburgh during the turn of the century. I first thought of Out of this Furnace as coinciding with Williams’ ideas of the industrial novel when he first begins describing what he sees as such a novel: “The movement towards the industrial novel is then, in this phase, a movement towards describing what it is like to live in hell, and slowly, as the disorder becomes an habitual order, what it is like to get used to it, to group up in it, to see it as home” (214). Out of this Furnace begins and centers around a Slovak immigrant and his life and his family’s life working in the steel mills of Braddock. The story encompasses three generations, and their daily struggles in what can only be described as hell on earth are what made me connect this novel with Williams’ ideas of the industrial novel. These three generations of immigrants literally grow up in the hell Williams’ describes, and become accustomed to it, just as he says.

Williams goes on to discuss what sets an industrial novel apart from realist and natural novels with his conclusion being that the society shown in the novel is vital to the development of its characters; they could not exist without the industrial setting which literally engulfs them (221-222). This is very true of Out of this Furnace. While there are important characters throughout the generations of steel workers what remains central to the story is always the steel mill itself. The steel mill is the most powerful and influential part of the novel. The working steel mill towns and its residents would obviously not exist without the industrial powerhouse that is the steel mill. The family, however, is still very important as Williams tells us (223) and to me it seems that for the industrial novel to exist it must have both the family and the industry, which Out of this Furnace does, and represents brilliantly.

Science Fiction and the "Emergent" Potential of the Pastoral

I've found Raymond Williams' categories "dominant," "residual," and "emergent" very useful in conceptualizing and writing about cultural and social modes and values. And every time I read his discussion of them, whether in Marxism and Literature or Culture and Materialism, I come to a new (and hopefully clearer) understanding of the three categories. In much of my own critical work thus far, I've attempted to identify and describe the pastoral as a residual mode, one surviving from an earlier social organization but still periodically appropriated and "incorporated" by dominant and alternative cultural and social orders. The consensus is usually, and I think Williams' himself makes this point at least somewhat in The Country and the City, that the pastoral as a residual mode attempting to express alternative values usually ends up only either masking dominant and exploitive social relations or creating new ones.

But does science fiction provide a path to avoid these two projected pitfalls of the pastoral as an alternative cultural and social mode? Could we view the pastoral as an emergent rather than residual value through science fiction, especially since it has the ability to far remove us from the particularity of our world while still allowing us, according to Williams, "a reworking, in imagination, of all forms and conditions" (209)? I'm thinking that it actually could, that the pastoral could become a viable emergent mode. This was suggested to me by the film Dark City (1998). In the film the pastoral is just an artificial memory created in a laboratory that the main character eventually stops trying to remember and instead attempts to create. I've only just started thinking about this so it's not fully formulated in my mind yet. But I think it would make a good research project and interesting article.

What is a Piano Worth?

When discussing the relationship between the base and the superstructure, Williams points to Marx' use of the piano as an analogy. The man who makes the piano is a productive worker, but does this title relate to the piano distributor as well? Williams says yes, as the distributor contributes to the overall surplus value of the piano. The productivity of creation ends, however, with the piano-player. He is not a productive worker, but he who is able to benefit from the creation of the commodity. In its simplest form: "the piano-maker is the base, and the piano-player, the superstructure." (35)

Adding an additional layer to this process is the labor-power itself, as a commodity. Marx defines labor-power, or the capacity for labor, as "the aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities existing in a human being, which he exercises whenever he produces a use-value of any description." (Capital, Vol. 1, Ch. 6) If the use-value is a question of how much utility one gets from a certain commodity, how does this apply to the "artistic" commodities of the superstructure? There is no great life utility from a piano, but it will have exchange-use, considering its monetary worth on the market. Does labor power only exist when concerning commodities with use-value or does it extend to the luxuries of the superstructure? Will the labor-power of a blacksmith be worth more than that of the piano maker?

The Conservatism of Revolution

One of the things that I really like about Raymond Williams is his focus on process rather than category. Much of Marxist theory relies on categorization and finagling a correspondence between Marx's economic model and lived reality under capitalism. However, a lot has changed since the publication of Marx and Engles' Manifesto in the mid-19th century, and the economic and social structures have qualitatively changed. How do we account for the “use value” of a commodity like a Furby? How do we deal with the atrocities in the Soviet Union under a socialist regime? How do we deal with international capitalism and “off shore” manufacturing? The response from many thinkers has been to either throw out Marx altogether or participate in increasingly far fetched revision to fit the lived world into a Victorian model of production.

To me, Williams manages to take the baby out of the bathwater. His focus on Marx's careful attention to social relations reveals the human element at the root of the socialist project. His revision of the term “determines” in “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory” subtly reinserts humanity into the economic theory of Marxism. He shows that a historical-materialist framework cannot be used unless we are careful to embrace the whole experience of living within a society. If an economic understanding of industrial production cannot explain a harpsichordist's steady employment, it is not the harpsichordist's fault. By modifying the “base” of society to a process, Williams helps us understand that we live in a dynamic world of relationships (human and economic), including some archaic forms. Therefore, it is a shame that many theorists (Marxist and Neo-liberal) are committed to a 19th century production model. As Williams writes: “What 'Marxism' is at any time seems dependent, finally, less on the history of ideas, which is still among most Marxists the usual way of defining it, than on the complex developments of actual social being and consciousness” (275).

The status of Marx as the messianic communist seems to have gotten in the way of a dynamic view of social relations. Even within Williams, there is a slight conservative bent when it comes to Marx's texts, and he tends to attempt to revise interpretation rather than revise Marx's actual words. If historical materialism is a central tenet of Marxism, the appeal to any text's canonical authority undermines efforts to understand real lived social relations. Williams breaks with tradition by expanding our understanding of economic base, and allowing for a broader incorporation of cultural expressions into Marxist theory.

Welcome to the Class Class!

Welcome to the Class on Class! Every week please take 30 to 40 minutes before 12:00 noon on Monday before class to reflect on the reading. I will use your post to help guide and shape the class discussion. DON'T over think this assignment, or spend more than 60 minutes on it. While long posts are often entertaining, my goal here is for you to process some of what you read before we meet.