4 ms·

>The class conflict [...] is really the driver of much of social progress. How so?

by jml7c5 7y ago

TeMPOraL 7y ago
I'm thinking: because it gives people a strong, active, positive goal to pursue. Members of each class want to migrate to the higher one, or at the very least, have their children break into the higher one. If you're discriminated or treated unfairly by a group of people, the natural reaction would be to separate yourself from that group of people, not fight it. But if for some reason you really want to join that group - perhaps because they're of higher socioeconomical class - then you have a motivation to fight and reform things.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  Except that the article says that the working class in the US - and the UK - don't want to migrate. They just want to complain and break everything. They don't want to improve anything for anyone in a strategic sense. They want textbook authoritarianism with a daddy figure lying that he loves them, and telling them who to hate so they can feel better. It's an utter infantilisation, and the right are happy to sponsor it and farm it for their convenience. But attacking the left for pointing out that it's not really a solution seems to be part of the rhetorical package it's wrapped in. The right are always happy to demonise the left for the working classes, because duh - of course they are. The problem on the left - and I wouldn't consider most of the US Democratic Party as the left, incidentally - isn't so much "be like us" as a failure to understand just how murderous, dishonest, and literally criminal the elites on the other side are, and how limitlessly violent, self-serving and treacherous they can be in pursuit of their aims. This wasn't a problem for the old turn-of-the-19th-century left, which had direct experience of being beaten up and shot at. But by the time you've been through college and acquired a fairly comfortable job it's hard to remember what your comfort is built on. These facets of political history are conveniently erased from official nation-building stories of "progress" in the UK and the US, and people have to make a real effort to find out about them - which hardly anyone does now.
  - shadowprofile77 7y ago
    Oh of course. We can summarize the conflicts, complaints and angry points of the working class as nothing more than an urge to "complain and break things". I'm sorry but that's a load of dismissive nonsense. So is the notion that only the "far right" seeks to build text-book authoritarianism with a daddy figure who tells the working class how to feel and who to hate. Either you've completely failed to pay attention to modern history or are deliberately ignoring a huge part of it but the left is just as guilty of the right of that very thing. They just (and even this only lightly) couch their authoritarianism and drive to spread hatred in different terms. In some countries (such as where I live), the left is just as nationalistic as any rightist. To also claim that the elites with murderous, dishonest and literally criminal intentions are mostly unique to the self described right of politics is absurd.
- gumby 7y ago
  > I'm thinking: because it gives people a strong, active, positive goal to pursue. Your statement comes from your philosophical stance. As it happens I share your view about my own motivations. Despite that I recognize that most people do not. Also: your position sounds American (are you?). The idea of “class” and most of the literature around it is European, where class is not something that people can typically change. Even in the US there is little class mobility.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    I'm from Europe, though I have enough exposure to US culture that my own thinking does blend European and American ideas (to the extent you can even define "European" vs. "American" thinking). Anyway, I think class mobility is actually a real thing over here. For one, a good chunk of Europe was under Soviet rule until ~1990, and in the early days of proper market economy, a lot of enterprising individuals moved up a few rungs in the ladder. Secondly, it's hard to not see our industry as a perfect way for easy upward mobility. Myself, I jumped up a level just by virtue of preferring computers to sports as a kid.
  - llamataboot 7y ago
    In fact, the US has some of the lowest class mobility in the industrialized world. It's the first and most basic fact that anyone who argues that US-style corporate capitalism is "meritocratic" should have to contend with. Many European countries have far more class mobility, especially ones with strong social welfare systems like the Scandinavian ones https://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobility/ https://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobi...

>The class conflict [...] is really the driver of much of social progress. How so?

by jml7c5 7y ago

>The class conflict [...] is really the driver of much of social progress. How so?

I'm thinking: because it gives people a strong, active, positive goal to pursue. Members of each class want to migrate to the higher one, or at the very least, have their children break into the higher one. If you're discriminated or treated unfairly by a group of people, the natural reaction would be to separate yourself from that group of people, not fight it. But if for some reason you really want to join that group - perhaps because they're of higher socioeconomical class - then you have a motivation to fight and reform things.

TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
Except that the article says that the working class in the US - and the UK - don't want to migrate. They just want to complain and break everything. They don't want to improve anything for anyone in a strategic sense. They want textbook authoritarianism with a daddy figure lying that he loves them, and telling them who to hate so they can feel better. It's an utter infantilisation, and the right are happy to sponsor it and farm it for their convenience. But attacking the left for pointing out that it's not really a solution seems to be part of the rhetorical package it's wrapped in. The right are always happy to demonise the left for the working classes, because duh - of course they are. The problem on the left - and I wouldn't consider most of the US Democratic Party as the left, incidentally - isn't so much "be like us" as a failure to understand just how murderous, dishonest, and literally criminal the elites on the other side are, and how limitlessly violent, self-serving and treacherous they can be in pursuit of their aims. This wasn't a problem for the old turn-of-the-19th-century left, which had direct experience of being beaten up and shot at. But by the time you've been through college and acquired a fairly comfortable job it's hard to remember what your comfort is built on. These facets of political history are conveniently erased from official nation-building stories of "progress" in the UK and the US, and people have to make a real effort to find out about them - which hardly anyone does now.
- shadowprofile77 7y ago
  Oh of course. We can summarize the conflicts, complaints and angry points of the working class as nothing more than an urge to "complain and break things". I'm sorry but that's a load of dismissive nonsense. So is the notion that only the "far right" seeks to build text-book authoritarianism with a daddy figure who tells the working class how to feel and who to hate. Either you've completely failed to pay attention to modern history or are deliberately ignoring a huge part of it but the left is just as guilty of the right of that very thing. They just (and even this only lightly) couch their authoritarianism and drive to spread hatred in different terms. In some countries (such as where I live), the left is just as nationalistic as any rightist. To also claim that the elites with murderous, dishonest and literally criminal intentions are mostly unique to the self described right of politics is absurd.
gumby 7y ago
> I'm thinking: because it gives people a strong, active, positive goal to pursue. Your statement comes from your philosophical stance. As it happens I share your view about my own motivations. Despite that I recognize that most people do not. Also: your position sounds American (are you?). The idea of “class” and most of the literature around it is European, where class is not something that people can typically change. Even in the US there is little class mobility.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  I'm from Europe, though I have enough exposure to US culture that my own thinking does blend European and American ideas (to the extent you can even define "European" vs. "American" thinking). Anyway, I think class mobility is actually a real thing over here. For one, a good chunk of Europe was under Soviet rule until ~1990, and in the early days of proper market economy, a lot of enterprising individuals moved up a few rungs in the ladder. Secondly, it's hard to not see our industry as a perfect way for easy upward mobility. Myself, I jumped up a level just by virtue of preferring computers to sports as a kid.
- llamataboot 7y ago
  In fact, the US has some of the lowest class mobility in the industrialized world. It's the first and most basic fact that anyone who argues that US-style corporate capitalism is "meritocratic" should have to contend with. Many European countries have far more class mobility, especially ones with strong social welfare systems like the Scandinavian ones https://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobility/ https://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobi...