Talk:Class struggle/Archive 1

Untitled Comment

I was reading this page and some of it said what the Marxist point of view was, but it seemed to be from someone who only had a cursory idea of what the Marxist point of view was so I editted it. People can edit this as they see fit, I would ask though if you are going to attribute an idea to Marxism that it be what that Marxist idea is. -- Lancemurdoch 06:05, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Not bad! While most other articles related to Socialism are chaff this one is actually very informative. Good job! BL 10:04, Jan 21, 2004 (UTC)

Vandalism

Reverted to prior edit today. Vandal from 162.83.220.116 replaced a good chunk of text with random keyboard-mashing. Tarc 00:33, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Source needed

Whoever added this tidbit needs to source it:

"In the United States, Congress made it illegal for managers and security guards to join workers' unions."

Salvor Hardin 09:06, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Why is the template Socialism and not Communism?

The Socialism template should be removed from the article, otherwise, several other templates can be included. Mário 19:48, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I would think that the Marxism tag would be the best fit. Tarc 03:47, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Why? Because class struggle is an essential part of all socialist movements, no matter what form they take: anarchist, social democrat, communist... as a matter of fact, if anything, I'd like to see the socialist template kept and the marxist template gone. Jobjörn (Talk ° contribs) 17:36, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Awesome summary

The summary on the class struggle and how Karl Marx saw the transition from a capitalist society to a classless society is amazing for a person like me who is just starting to read about this stuff.

Foucault's views

I believe that presenting Foucault's views in this article at the present time represents undue weight given to a fringe view (calling something a "fringe view" does not imply that the view is somehow extremist; it merely implies that the view is only supported by a tiny minority of authors - in this case, one author). I have searched for the phrase "race struggle" throughout the Marxists Internet Archive and came up with only five results [1], none of which links "race struggle" to "class struggle". A notion only mentioned five times among the thousands of available Marxist documents certainly counts as a fringe view. That letter from Marx to Engels was nowhere to be found; I therefore consider it somewhat dubious and request the full text of the letter, or at least all the information that Foucault offers on it. -- Nikodemos 01:27, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see anything controversial in his views. In one of his main works, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, Engels explicitly equates working class with a race: In view of all this, it is not surprising that the working-class has gradually become a race wholly apart from the English bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie has more in common with every other nation of the earth than with the workers in whose midst it lives. The workers speak other dialects, have other thoughts and ideals, other customs and moral principles, a different religion and other politics than those of the bourgeoisie. Thus they are two radically dissimilar nations, as unlike as difference of race could make them, of whom we on the Continent have known but one, the bourgeoisie. Yet it is precisely the other, the people, the proletariat, which is by far the more important for the future of England. [2] -- Vision Thing -- 18:37, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Vision Thing, you can hardly believe that Engels was speaking literally when he used the word "race" in the above quote. Nowhere does he argue that the working class is biologically different from the bourgeoisie (which would be a ridiculous notion indeed). He says that "the workers speak other dialects, have other thoughts and ideals, other customs and moral principles, a different religion and other politics than those of the bourgeoisie". A race is not defined by its dialects, ideals, customs, religion or politics. A race is defined by its biology, and Engels uses both "race" and "nation" as metaphors in the above quote to emphasize the huge gap between classes (his argument is, in effect: "differences between classes are greater than differences between nations or biological races").

And, in any case, he does not even hint that the struggle between classes might have something to do with a struggle between races. -- Nikodemos 21:02, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

As for Foucault, here is the paragraph where he quotes Marx: The interpretation of dissymmetries, the rekindling of a war, the reactivation of the war-there is more than this to the revolutionary discourse that has constantly undermined Europe since at least the end of the nineteenth century, but it is still an important strand within it, and it was shaped, defined, established, and organized in the great counterhistory that began to speak of the race struggle at the end of the Middle Ayes. After all, it should not be forgotten that toward the end of his life, Marx told Engels in a letter written in 1882 that "You know very well where we found our idea of class struggle; we found It in the work of the French historians who talked about the race struggle." The history of the revolutionary project and of revolutionary practice is, I think, indissociable from the counterhistory that broke with the Indo-European form of historical practices, which were bound up with the exercise of sovereignty; it is indissociable from the appearance of the counterhistory of races and of the role played in the West by clashes between races. We might, in a word, say-that at the end of the Middle Ages, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we left, or began to leave, a society whose historical consciousness was still of the Roman type, or which was still centered on the rituals of sovereignty and its myths, and that we then entered a society of-let's say it is of the modern type (given that there is no other word for it and that the word "modern" is devoid of meaning) - a society whose historical consciousness centers not on sovereignty and the problem of its foundation, but on revolution, its promises, and its prophecies of future emancipation.

According to marxist.org there are several letters that Marx wrote to Engles in 1882. [3] Since Foucault is a well known and highly respected scholar, there is no reason not to trust him on this, specially in the light of Engles comment I quoted above. -- Vision Thing -- 18:37, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

The burden of proof is on the person making the affirmative claim. You see no reason to distrust Foucault. I see no reason to trust him. Let me go a bit Kantian on you and invoke a sort of categorical imperative here: If you are saying that we should assume any quotes offered by Foucault are genuine because he is a well known and highly respected scholar, then you are saying that any well known and highly respected scholar is allowed to put words into other people's mouths and we must accept all such claims without proof. I see that as an unacceptable principle. A direct quote can only be considered genuine if we have proof that the person it is attributed to actually did say it. Perhaps Foucault made a mistake. Perhaps he was misinformed by someone else. Perhaps that quote is just hearsay. Who knows? -- Nikodemos 21:02, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

People are innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. If you can find that some says that he misquoted Marx, or even that he has a history of misquoting other people, then I would agree that we shouldn't use his quote. Also, following your logic, we shouldn't trust any source, because maybe the publisher is putting his own words in other people's texts... -- Vision Thing -- 20:37, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, people are innocent until proven guilty, which means that the burden of proof lies on the affirmative claim. You are asking me to prove that Marx did not say something, which is an absurd request. We may use second-hand accounts, but certainly not second-hand quotes. -- Nikodemos 11:00, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

According to which policy? Btw, I must notice that you used second-hand Hitler's quotes in Fascism and ideology to illustrate an argument that he wasn't a socialist. Don't let me start assuming bad faith on your part... -- Vision Thing -- 21:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

• Sigh* I suppose you have a point, though Foucault's alleged Marx quote looks to me like the equivalent of a Hitler quote saying that Nazism had Jewish origins (that is, extremely dubious). However, common standards must be maintained across all wiki articles. The quote stays. -- Nikodemos 07:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

In any case, the reason I object to the addition of Foucault's views in this article is because we are not dealing with his opinion on class struggle, but with his opinion on other people's opinions regarding class struggle. He is not talking about class struggle itself, but about the discourse of class struggle. -- Nikodemos 21:02, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, I don't think that I gave an undue weight to Foucault's view. Only view currently represented in this article is that of the Marxists. Outside views on the issue of class struggle are completely neglected. -- Vision Thing -- 18:37, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Again, I do not object to the addition of other views on class struggle, but Foucault talks about the discourse of class struggle. He gives his opinion about the way other people (specifically, Marxists) formed their opinions. Not exactly very relevant, and quite suspect if the people in question (the Marxists in this case) say nothing similar about the way they formed their opinions. -- Nikodemos 21:02, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Everything is properly cited, Foucault is notable scholar and it is clearly stated that these are his views. I will put the section back in, with one more reinforcement. You are free to add other content to it. -- Vision Thing -- 20:37, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is properly cited, and I do not dispute the fact that your material should be included on wikipedia. I dispute the claim that it should be included in this specific article. I propose creating a race struggle article, moving your material there, and linking to it from here. -- Nikodemos 11:00, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Allow me to explain what I mean by saying that your text is "tangential". Suppose someone edited the article on communism to include a discussion of the historical symbolism of the colour red. The colour red is a symbol of communism, so its cultural significance may indeed have some bearing on communism. But I'm sure you'll agree with me that the connection is simply not relevant enough to warrant the inclusion of a discussion on the symbolism of the colour red into the communism article. That is how I see our situation here. The notion of "race struggle" is entirely absent from Marxist literature, with the possible exception of that one letter. Therefore, including it in this article would constitute undue weight. -- Nikodemos 11:08, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

First, question from where did the concept of class struggle came from is certainly not tangential for the article about class struggle. Second, the notion of race struggle isn't entirely absent from Marxist literature, Moses Hess also talks about it. -- Vision Thing -- 21:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Fine, I will temporarily rename the section "Foucault's views", and I will search for alternative accounts of the origin of the class struggle concept. Notice, however, that Moses Hess disagreed with Marx precisely on the issue of class struggle. And what is the "true socialism movement"? -- Nikodemos 07:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

See [4] [5] -- Vision Thing -- 21:20, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Non-Marxist Views

It seems that non-Marxist views would be on-topic for the article. I would suggest covering Ricardian Socialism/Radical Liberalism, mutualism (& Tucker's model of the four monopolies), syndicalism and agorism for starters. Jacob Haller 07:24, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Templates

The article's opening sentence reads Class struggle is the active expression of class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. With this in mind I question why Communism and Marxism are the only included templates. The concept of class and class struggle is crucial in all socialist ideologies, be they communist, anarchist, social democrat, or whatever. I would suggest removing "communism" and replacing it with "socialism" - possibly also "anarchism". The Marxism should be kept, for not only did Marx define and theorize the concept of class (and claass struggle), but his works (or parts thereof) are of great importance even for many non-marxist socialists.

What do you say? Jobjörn (Talk ° contribs) 17:24, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

This has come up several times. For some reason, the socialism template keeps getting removed. Jacob Haller 03:07, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Infobox

I've removed all three infoboxes from the article, as that is excessive. Please form a consensus as to which infobox is most appropriate, if any, for this article. Cheers! Vassyana 03:05, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Very well done!

I find this entry to be well written and exceptionally unbiased. It appears the author's intent was not to nuance the subtle (albiet important) differences between the various pespectives on socialism. But rather, to provide an overview of class struggle that is, indeed, a part big part of all the world's conflicts.

Adam Smith

Yeah, I noticed that this article is talking about class struggle from a strictly socialist point of view later, in fact, I was about to take it off when I noticed it was already done. Unfortunately, the article on the more general "class conflict" doesn't have a section for author's views, so I guess I'll just leave Adam Smith to himself. --200.222.30.9 19:57, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Origins of the idea

It is surprising not to see any references to Guizot, Thierry or Thiers. Indeed, Marx clearly wrote in a letter to Joseph Weydemeyer in 1852 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/letters/52_03_05-ab.htm) that he is not responsible for the discovery of class struggle, but bourgeois historians are. It should be at least evoked in the introduction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Romainbrasselet (talk • contribs) 14:37, 28 April 2009 (UTC)