Video from our recent event on Reform, Revolution, and Resistance at NYU! Thanks to all the organizers, participants, and everyone who came out (and especially those who asked questions).
The point is interesting, IMO: there’s never been a revolution requiring an a priori theoretical revolution in order to take action. Moreover, the working class is not a class; the only thing that could be called a common class interest of the working class is competition among the members of the working class themselves to find buyers of labor power, in other words, atomization of the individual (and not coalescence of a class fighting for dominance against another class).
Frustration with and the eventual rejection of capitalist relations will not require theory since, as you know of course, consciousness lags behind material conditions.
Though I know it’s perhaps a bit anachronistic, I still generally feel that within a revolutionary moment (not saying we necessarily live in one), Lenin’s dictum rings true: “There can be no revolutionary party without revolutionary theory.”
I’ll find the time to watch this soon. Thanks for posting.
On why among the working class the forces of resistance are few and of revolution fewer:
http://pogoprinciple.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/my-may-day-post-the-marxist-academy-and-the-myth-of-working-class-consciousness/
The point is interesting, IMO: there’s never been a revolution requiring an a priori theoretical revolution in order to take action. Moreover, the working class is not a class; the only thing that could be called a common class interest of the working class is competition among the members of the working class themselves to find buyers of labor power, in other words, atomization of the individual (and not coalescence of a class fighting for dominance against another class).
Frustration with and the eventual rejection of capitalist relations will not require theory since, as you know of course, consciousness lags behind material conditions.
Though I know it’s perhaps a bit anachronistic, I still generally feel that within a revolutionary moment (not saying we necessarily live in one), Lenin’s dictum rings true: “There can be no revolutionary party without revolutionary theory.”
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