[microsound] Re: history of the middle class

[tasty radish <tastyradish@xxxxxxxxx>]

this is an excellent discussion, imo. 

i wanted to provoke a slightly different vantage point
into this. 

it more operates around a cluster of questions, that
have to do with the present:
 

1. is the digital era a revolution culturally (akin to
the industrial revolution)? Or a shift
technologically. In other words, do things like JIT
(just-in-time) technologies make an extraordinary
difference to the culture of capitalism, or represent
a kind of ramping up (a kind of hyper capitalism)? 

2. As Negri & Hardt argue in Empire, the development
of today's Neo-Liberal order -- Globalization --state
was specifically created by the ruling class to
essentially push back the working class and
post-colonial self-determination struggles which were
making popular, mass inroads into such things as
quality of life issues (healthcare, education, etc.
etc), as well as simply the wage.  So, this communist
possibility was 'sensed' by the politicos/economists
of the ruling class and it was beaten back, stripped
clean at its roots, so as to allow for "unfettered
markets". The first structural adjustment being Sept
11, 1972 in Chile, which installed not only Pinochet
but also let the  "chicago school of economics" run
with the ball. This 'school' was the first imprint of
the new Neo-Liberal economic system (hallmarks being
no welfare state, no 'dangerous' workers unions,
environmental protections, reduction of education
programs, etc as much as possible), to be put into
place. So, now almost forty years later, with
globalization -- as a cultural order or general
concept -- considered not only "inevitable" but
virtually the-way-things-are by most everyday people
in europe and north america, I wonder where is the new
point of rupture or change? In wildcat strikes in
China (thousands are occuring every month), in mass
uprisings in the global south (Oaxaca being a recent
example)?  There is a disparate quality to all these
actions, as if against the police state of the
Neo-Liberal order are events which are acts of
resistance and genuine desire for moral sense, but
which are not nonetheless, 'enough' to create a sense
of global momentum across regions.  Why are they not
'enough'? The media? Or are we -- the 'first' world --
so invested/socialized/scared into our corners of the
hi-lo ghettos of the Terrordome vis-a-vis the non-stop
sex-war-shampoo Spectacle that we can't possibly
imagine 'others' as in any way our brothers and
sisters (to use decidedly old fashioned terminology). 

3. Theoretically speaking, what could a new
post-globalization, socialist art look like?   What
would decidedly be its tenor, its thrust, at this
point?  Does a kind of melancholic glitch 'space' go
beyond a humanistic soulfulness and actually challenge
hegemony, at the level of the imaginary?  Is
singularity important (or rather how could singularity
work without becoming the Great Author of the Work)?

-Andrew

 there would
> be difficulty in  
> 'opening' european markets due to the proliferation
> of workers unions
> which was an outgrowth of and directly influenced by
> communist/ 
> socialist/anarchist/marxist (I'll call this
> 'leftist' for ease of  
> typing) parties
> so the US devised this program called the Marshall
> Plan
> which had two purposes:
> one was the help rebuild europe (in our own
> likeness) thereby  
> establishing markets for the US overproduction of
> goods
> the other was to bust the unions and discourage
> 'leftist' political  
> philosophy from spreading in europe
> thus making it cheaper for american businesses to
> operate there
> 



 
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