:
: Stoller:
: But property rights are NOT an ideological 'weapon,' Bill---property rights are a MATERIAL relation. Ideologies FOLLOW material relations---not vice versa.: Bill:
: No. Property RIGHTS Are an ideological weapon. The distillation into enacting law provides the cement for the Material relations.
Stoller:
: I think you've got the order wrong. FIRST come the relations, then the ideology.
: The bourgeois overthrew feudalism's claim to elite ownership of the means of production; they did not question elite ownership of the means of production (think of slavery in the U.S. as the 'Declaration of Independence' was being drafted).
bill:
Yes...those in power create the dominant value structure. Property rights are valued.
Stoller:
: Ideology FIRST didn't have much effect there, now did it?
Not a good example. The Civil War, as we all know, was a war between the economic elites of two regions. Slavery was not an issue, though the abolitionists (not part of the establishment) were growing in strength. Lincoln in 1862: "If I could save the Union without saving any slave, I would do it;..." The Emancipation Proclaimation came TWO years After the Civil War began - and it was issued to serve a military end (granting freedom specifically for those slaves in areas still fighting the Union. Thus the the appeal to an extension of human rights, became an ideological weapon.
I guess what I'm suggesting is that there are always forces at play (without getting into dialectic lingo) with each force clothed in conflicting ideologies. These ideologies are creations which emanate from and are produced by social relations - usually defined in Marxist terms as "class struggle". The dominant power will proclaim the dominant ideology the "Law of the Land". That does not mean the end of history. There is still an underclass with its own less well articulated ideology.
The ideology of "democracy" was used by capitalists against King George. As we all know from the Federalist Papers it was a sham - but it served its purpose. This was an ideology STOLEN from the disenfranchised class - "In the name of the people" ...yeah, right.
Staller:
: Obviously 'democracy' was promoted to those (the proletariat & peasantry) who ACTUALLY fought the bourgeoisie's wars FOR THEM . AND property rights (with the implication that there was plenty of property to go around...) was promoted to them as well.
bill:
Yes...using the proletariat's weapon against them. Subterfuge.
Staller:
: But we KNOW that 'democracy' is a MEANINGLESS term unless we ask: Democracy for WHICH CLASS?
bill:
Precisely.
Stoller:
: This still needs to be dealt with...
bill:
yes.
Stoller:
: Democracy in the workforce is NOT democracy for the bosses of the workforce.
bill:
yes.
Stoller:
: Until a NEW CLASS is installed in power, (bourgeois) elections are nothing but a cynical way to BLAME the disenfranchised voters for their LACK of meaningful choices in the first place.
bill:
yes.
: Bill:
: And underlying the threat of democracy was the potential articulation of Marx's concept of alienation - a concept quickly hurled into the garbage can once decisions about economic output, plant efficiency, surplus labor, etc. were removed from an exploited class.
: Stoller:
: But the property relations cannot stay as they are now.
: Otherwise, it's just more liberal blather---like the type General George and his homeboys sold to the proletariat and the peasantry over two hundred years ago.
bill:
True - but blather isn't selling well these days judging by the degree of cynicism in the electorate.
Stoller:
: There must be ACTION to BACK UP the talk.
bill:
Whose talk?
