The indignity of service work | My experiences as a fast-food worker | Part 2

“In an article comparing Antonio Gramsci’s ideas about domination being based on a somewhat consensual hegemonic order with Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas about domination being partly resultant from a misrecognition of social domination by the dominated, Michael Burawoy talks about his experiences working on a factory shop floor. Burawoy talks about the types of concessions given by management to the workers in order to legitimise and make more consensual their relationship, which is analogous Burawoy and others like Gramsci could claim, to the class relationship in broader society, between capitalists and proletarians. One of the sources of consent-making identified by Burawoy was the consititution of work as a game.” … More The indignity of service work | My experiences as a fast-food worker | Part 2

Critique of “US is an Oligarchy?” Part 3: Oligarchy and Public Policy

“The kinds of policy that would benefit a potential class of oligarchs is easily thought of when considering that their wealth is based on inequality. Policies that allow them to maintain their vastly unequal share of wealth also allow them to keep their vastly unequal share of political power. 3 main policy themes would be in the interests of an oligarchical class to manipulate- international economic policy, monetary policy and tax policy. This evidence shows that these policies currently and historically favour potential oligarchs- the solution is redistribution of wealth, and therefore redistribution of power.” … More Critique of “US is an Oligarchy?” Part 3: Oligarchy and Public Policy

On Makhaevism: Knowledge Capitalists and Authority-Discourses

“Jan Machajski’s big idea, Makhaevism recognised that simplified Marxist classifications of intellectuals as proletarian ignored the privilege they had due to them possessing an unfair monopoly on knowledge. An anarchist, he encouraged relentless questioning of authority. Foucault showed how knowledge discourses with public authority anonymously dominate individuals and legitimise governments. The solution to the problem of the knowledge capitalists is free education for all.” … More On Makhaevism: Knowledge Capitalists and Authority-Discourses

Critique of “US is an Oligarchy?” Part 2: The US case

“The following evidence could be quite shocking. These amounts of money are incomprehensible to mere plebs like us. Consider that every citizen has an individual power profile based on the power resources he or she can deploy. The power share of the top tenth of 1 percent of US households may well be sufficient to dominate politics on key issues of most intense interest to that group. They are bound together by material self-interest and political clout, not by social ties.” … More Critique of “US is an Oligarchy?” Part 2: The US case

Personal Thoughts | August 2015 | Materialists should not blame individuals for their being, as their consciousness arises from their material conditions, but we should not forget radical freedom.

“[…] One of the most beautiful truths of dialectical materialism is the realisation that consciousness is a product of material conditions- not the other way around. What this means is that our personality is a result of the environment in which we develop. […] Although our will is limited, denial of radical freedom is bad faith.” … More Personal Thoughts | August 2015 | Materialists should not blame individuals for their being, as their consciousness arises from their material conditions, but we should not forget radical freedom.

Critique of “US is an Oligarchy?” Part 1: Theory of Oligarchy

“[race, women, gays, ethnicity, religion, morality, guns, or the environment] are issues of great importance to many ordinary citizens, but of only limited and cross-cutting concern to the wealthy. […] the skewed distribution of wealth in the United States is a source of oligarchy, and [one] that US political scientists […] ought to pay much more attention to these issues. […] The political left has been shouting about this the whole time and being ignored (or not given it’s fair share of publicity by the oligarchical mass media apparatus) perhaps because it isn’t part of the privileged intelligentsia that “labor as salaried advocates and defenders of core oligarchic interests”.” … More Critique of “US is an Oligarchy?” Part 1: Theory of Oligarchy