Proles? What proles baby? A service economy does not a working class make. Working class consciousness (in the Marxist terms) is formed by urban proletariat working social relationships. The deindustrialized US offers very little of that and therefore very few opportunities for working class consciousness to arise. It’s why our most effective left movements in the US occurred first pre-deindustrialization and second as a Maoist movement in the colonized African American population. We’d have to re-proletarianize some motherfuckers before we could pursue class consciousness. Otherwise why wouldn’t they be racist? If material politics aren’t on the table anywhere (and they aren’t because there’s no proletariat pressure available to be exerted) they might as well jump on the cultural politics that get their dicks hard and being racist does it for a lot of white people. Especially those in precarious material conditions who can reassert their superiority along these superstructural lines
We’d have to re-proletarianize some motherfuckers before we could pursue class consciousness.
What do you think happened to a good 3/4 of the millennials from "middle-class" families who went to college for a liberal arts degree only to end up having to work the sort of almost-minimum-wage part-time jobs that used to only require HS graduation or a GED? This process began after the 2008 recession and was likely accelerated as a result of the 2020 recession.
Proles? What proles baby? A service economy does not a working class make. Working class consciousness (in the Marxist terms) is formed by urban proletariat working social relationships. The deindustrialized US offers very little of that and therefore very few opportunities for working class consciousness to arise. It’s why our most effective left movements in the US occurred first pre-deindustrialization and second as a Maoist movement in the colonized African American population. We’d have to re-proletarianize some motherfuckers before we could pursue class consciousness. Otherwise why wouldn’t they be racist? If material politics aren’t on the table anywhere (and they aren’t because there’s no proletariat pressure available to be exerted) they might as well jump on the cultural politics that get their dicks hard and being racist does it for a lot of white people. Especially those in precarious material conditions who can reassert their superiority along these superstructural lines
What do you think happened to a good 3/4 of the millennials from "middle-class" families who went to college for a liberal arts degree only to end up having to work the sort of almost-minimum-wage part-time jobs that used to only require HS graduation or a GED? This process began after the 2008 recession and was likely accelerated as a result of the 2020 recession.
Goddammit now if that isn't the fucking doomer pill though