Dear Ross,
Like Steve, I, too, am interested in exactly how you see the indivdualizing
effects of power "blowing away" the Marxist concept of class struggle. Can
you walk me through the steps?
Thanks to both Ross and Steve for their coherent conbtributions to this
list. It's much appreciated. :-)
chloe
>The examples you give may well suggest that what Foucault says about
>"the individualising effects of power" has some "empirical" support.
>Fair enough. The examples also suggest, more generally, that Foucault
>has some interesting things to say, and that those interested in
>social theory (etc.) ought to take his ideas seriously. I would be
>the LAST person to deny that.
>
>However, you haven't made it clear why you think that the ideas in
>question "blow away the Marxist concept of the 'class struggle,'"
>which you even enclose in scare-quotes (perhaps suggesting that there
>is no such thing).
>
>First of all, do you really think that an account that tells people,
>as you put it, how "they became pawns" is capable of replacing an
>account of how it is that groups of people act collectively (as they
>sometimes do) to radically transform political and economic
>structures?
>
>(By the way, I think Foucault's notion of power, which explicitly
>entails that power cannot operate except in a context of antagonistic
>interaction -- i.e., in the face of resistance --, specifically rules
>out the idea that human beings can be made pawns, strictly speaking;
>but either way, Foucault does not seem to offer a competing theory of
>social-structural change, "a theory of social evolution," as Habermas
>calls historical materialism).
>
>Finally, I will ask a very specific question: do you think that any
>conception OTHER THAN the Marxist conception of class struggle can
>offer a credible accout of what was happening in France, from October
>to December of 1995, when literally MILLIONS of French workers
>participated in a strike wave, supported by millions more who joined
>them in hundreds of mass demonstrations. This wave of POLITICAL
>STRIKES, in which millions of workers attempted to use their potential
>power to stop production as a means to enforce changes to a government
>austerity plan, is readily intelligible in Marxist terms. If any
>perspective hopes not only to supplement Marxism, but to "blow it
>away," it would have to be capable of explaining the French strike
>wave at least as well as Marxism can. Nothing in your post indicated
>how Foucault's insights into the "individualising effects of power"
>were capable of doing any such thing.
>
>(Marx's idea, of course, is that the events like those in France are
>"political struggles, i.e., struggles of class against class," and
>that it is struggles of THAT KIND that account for radical
>social-structural changes, such as the transition from Feudalism to
>Capitalism. Strictly speaking, Marx had a much more complicated
>theory, which distinguished between the "immediate" cause -- class
>struggle -- and the cause "in the last analysis" -- the dialectic of
>forces and relations of production. But I don't think that these
>matters are relevant here).
>
>The question is: can we dispense with the concept of class struggle,
>even in our efforts to understand CURRENT EVENTS (e.g., the USA's
>"Contract with America", the French strikes, and so on)?
>
>Steve D.
>SoBlo
>Toronto
>(C.U.P.E. Local 3902!!!)
>
>
***************************************************************
"The women who hate me cut me
as men can't Men don't count.
I can handle men. Never expected better
of any man anyway.
But the women,
shallow-cheeked young girls the world was made for
safe little girls who think nothing of bravado
who never got over by playing it tough" Dorothy Allison
***************************************************************
Like Steve, I, too, am interested in exactly how you see the indivdualizing
effects of power "blowing away" the Marxist concept of class struggle. Can
you walk me through the steps?
Thanks to both Ross and Steve for their coherent conbtributions to this
list. It's much appreciated. :-)
chloe
>The examples you give may well suggest that what Foucault says about
>"the individualising effects of power" has some "empirical" support.
>Fair enough. The examples also suggest, more generally, that Foucault
>has some interesting things to say, and that those interested in
>social theory (etc.) ought to take his ideas seriously. I would be
>the LAST person to deny that.
>
>However, you haven't made it clear why you think that the ideas in
>question "blow away the Marxist concept of the 'class struggle,'"
>which you even enclose in scare-quotes (perhaps suggesting that there
>is no such thing).
>
>First of all, do you really think that an account that tells people,
>as you put it, how "they became pawns" is capable of replacing an
>account of how it is that groups of people act collectively (as they
>sometimes do) to radically transform political and economic
>structures?
>
>(By the way, I think Foucault's notion of power, which explicitly
>entails that power cannot operate except in a context of antagonistic
>interaction -- i.e., in the face of resistance --, specifically rules
>out the idea that human beings can be made pawns, strictly speaking;
>but either way, Foucault does not seem to offer a competing theory of
>social-structural change, "a theory of social evolution," as Habermas
>calls historical materialism).
>
>Finally, I will ask a very specific question: do you think that any
>conception OTHER THAN the Marxist conception of class struggle can
>offer a credible accout of what was happening in France, from October
>to December of 1995, when literally MILLIONS of French workers
>participated in a strike wave, supported by millions more who joined
>them in hundreds of mass demonstrations. This wave of POLITICAL
>STRIKES, in which millions of workers attempted to use their potential
>power to stop production as a means to enforce changes to a government
>austerity plan, is readily intelligible in Marxist terms. If any
>perspective hopes not only to supplement Marxism, but to "blow it
>away," it would have to be capable of explaining the French strike
>wave at least as well as Marxism can. Nothing in your post indicated
>how Foucault's insights into the "individualising effects of power"
>were capable of doing any such thing.
>
>(Marx's idea, of course, is that the events like those in France are
>"political struggles, i.e., struggles of class against class," and
>that it is struggles of THAT KIND that account for radical
>social-structural changes, such as the transition from Feudalism to
>Capitalism. Strictly speaking, Marx had a much more complicated
>theory, which distinguished between the "immediate" cause -- class
>struggle -- and the cause "in the last analysis" -- the dialectic of
>forces and relations of production. But I don't think that these
>matters are relevant here).
>
>The question is: can we dispense with the concept of class struggle,
>even in our efforts to understand CURRENT EVENTS (e.g., the USA's
>"Contract with America", the French strikes, and so on)?
>
>Steve D.
>SoBlo
>Toronto
>(C.U.P.E. Local 3902!!!)
>
>
***************************************************************
"The women who hate me cut me
as men can't Men don't count.
I can handle men. Never expected better
of any man anyway.
But the women,
shallow-cheeked young girls the world was made for
safe little girls who think nothing of bravado
who never got over by playing it tough" Dorothy Allison
***************************************************************