The poor think of themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires - John Steinbeck
The entrepreneurial spirit, the spirit of hustling and bustling, hawking, and gambling, money grubbing, the spirit of making one's fortune, working too damn hard, is choking the American proletariat, the mass of makers of goods and services
thats a great steinbeck quote (i like quite a few steinbeck books, when i read books; i also liked vonnegut, twain, pynchon, ishmael reed, jack london (both from oakland), some baldwin and wm burroughs (junkie and a late one).
ReplyDeleteone of john's sons---johnson (or LBJ) once pointed out 'we could have socialism tomorrow if we had the votes', but the people divided will never be united. on facebook i saw a comment by a guy who studied sociology at U Chicago on gangs (the post was on the idea that black gangs originated as a reaction against white ones in LA who used lynching symbols ) . he pointed out there were many gangs in chicago at the time some interviewed by sociologists---they typically said 'yeah i'm just doing this now, but i want and plan to be a lawyer, doctor, etc. when asked how likely they thought that was, they'd say stuff like 'my uncle works at a factory and he can get me a job there'. (Both the person who posted it and commented are black as an aside, the poster is actually a member of NOI and commonly posts Farrakhan speeches, and is also the news director of local pacifica station WPFW).
btw, i thought it should be not 314150 but 314159 (which i use at times).
ps i sortuh joined a local sortuh marxist/socialist Jacobin magazine reading group; i've also been in anarchist, radical science, environornmental and others at various times (they tend to last abut 3 sessions---in fact, in my because while they emphasize a sort of cooperative as opposed to competetive (capitalist) ideology, in fact they are essentially stalinist ---a classless society where there is a dictatoriship of the proletariat, and stalin is the dictator since all animals are equal but some are moreso.i). . I'df say its loaded with jargon, hierarchy, hypcrisy (we're down with the working class but i like my job doing programming for a major corporation, we're antiracist but have from 3 out of 30 to 0 out of 15 nonwhites in the group). Also dumb downded triviality, and very outdated readings (jacobin is pretty shallow in my view, ans there heavy stuff is marx, braverman, e b dubois----all fine, but thats like reading aristotle, hegel, darwin and newton---its a history project and completely out of touch; but thats the point i think, just like religion---wasting people's time while taking their money---i even bought a sub. its no better than lbo-talk or others.) also some poor people do not think they are future millionaires; alot i know they are perpetual hustlers and just having a bit of life before they get locked up again, or else decide like grandmaster flash suggested in his message---just be a street sweeper.
ReplyDelete