• amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
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    3 months ago

    But they said it isn’t ironic and is “a reference to reality”. I assumed joke inversion too, at first, which is why I didn’t come out swinging. Now I’m concerned they are actually carrying water for some kind of reactionary thing of putting all of the blame on the people and siding with the ruling class.

    • qba@lemmygrad.mldeleted by creatorOP
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      3 months ago

      putting all of the blame on the people and siding with the ruling class.

      Oh, no. Absolutely not. The American ruling class is still American people.

      The alienation of the working class is not the product of a conscious will of the bourgeoisie.

      • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
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        3 months ago

        I’m still not sure what you’re trying to say. The US ruling class is not a separate species from the rest of the US people or something, but it IS a distinct form, that’s part of what class analysis is for, is to recognize those distinctions and where they arise from. The development of bourgeoisie and proletariat is not by pure force of will on the part of the bourgeoisie, but it is also not arising from mechanical materialism inevitability either. There is a definite conscious choice on the part of the exploiting classes to develop and reproduce the exploitative form; members of that class consciously wage class war, even if not all among them are conspiring participants.

        All I can guess is that you are trying to say that the US ruling class and US “people” are not distinct because they both partake in exploitation, but this only muddies the waters. There is already a term for explaining why the US proletariat is not more radical: labor aristocracy, the working class being bought off with the spoils of empire, essentially. But labor aristocracy is a different form than capitalist class and develops out of different conditions. If we muddy them together, we could think that every country with capitalists should also have a labor aristocracy, but that would not make sense because every country does not have imperial spoils, nor the same kind of unspoken racialized and gendered caste that the US tends to have.

      • Orcinus@lemmygrad.ml
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        3 months ago

        “The American ruling class is still American people.”

        Then why not wish harm on the American ruling class?

        • qba@lemmygrad.mldeleted by creatorOP
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          3 months ago

          Yes, I also disagree with that part of the tweet that specifies they don’t wish harm on the ruling class. I would say more like “I do not wish harm only to the ruling American class…”