Is there an anarchist definition of class?

Question

Or do anarchists take their cue from the Marxian conception of class.

Comments

Are you asking this as a genuine query or are you asking this as an anarchist who already has an opinion about it?

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This is a genuine query. I'm just curious, because I know the Marxian concept of class has pervaded much of anarchist discourse on social and economic stratification. However, there's also a more sociological (sociological knowledge) conception as well (ie. Weber). But since class was so integral to Marx's ideas, and since Marx called for one class to rise up and sweep the other classes away in the pursuit of a classless society ( a seemingly authoritarian project at least on the face of it), I was wondering whether anarchists, who also use the term ubiquitously, might have a slightly different take on class.

Answer 1

I have broken this down by different ideas on this question among anarchists, since they are many.

1. Very many anarchists accept the Marxist definition of class. That is, they accept Marx's analysis of the classes into which society is separated (even if they argue that class composition has shifted since then) as being based on relations to the means of production, they accept the argument for the proletariat as revolutionary subject, and so on. This seems to be the predominant definition, but only when one looks at the most official anarchists, who are actually a minority of anarchists.

2. Many anarchists accept the sociological definition of class, even if at some points they also accept the Marxist definition. This definition of class is the (more or less) official stance of most of the government, its institutions, economists, the educational system, etc. It is the idea of stratification on the basis of relative income, completely ignoring the relations to means of production which according to Marxists are the basis for the common class interests of people who earn vastly different incomes, and antagonisms between individuals who earn relatively similar incomes. This idea of class would be considered problematic by most Marxists and many anarchists because it turns the proletariat against itself and produces false consciousness of the way capitalism functions. But for better or worse many anarchists are very influenced by this definition of class.

3. There are some new and interesting definitions or interpretations of class (the developers of these being more Marxist than anarchist for the most part):

* Jacques Camatte, coming from a Marxist background, argues that the class distinction is diffused in late capitalism through the total domestication of humans and the establishment of a capitalist human community. This does not mean there are not classes, but their conflict is pacified and their relations are shifted. The relevant conflict (if any) comes to be between humans and capital or individuals and their own domestication, rather than between proletariat and bourgeoisie.

* The Invisible Committee have said something similar to Camatte but different. One way they put it is the conflict is now between those who refuse work and those who want to work.

* The proletariat defined as the dispossessed. This is the original definition of the term and it is there in Marx but there's a shift in significance from the industrial proletariat (which in Marx's context was the position most former peasants dispossessed of their land found themselves in) to more accurately reflect the context in "post-industrial" societies where surplus populations have become much larger since technological progress gradually displaces the need for human labor.  

4. Many anarchists accept the Marxist definition of class but not the centrality of its importance.

5. Some anarchists are not revolutionaries. Shocking I know, but definitely true.

In sum, anarchists are too diverse in economic thought to be pigeonholed in this, and for the most part have not developed economic theory independent of Marxism, even if they feel free (a very common tendency for anarchists) to adapt, reject, intersect, play with, or diminish the importance of what they've inherited from the old man. Could any anarchist definition of class be developed that escapes entirely from Marxism (especially as this, whatever faults it may have, is based on real situations that persist today even if in different forms)? I doubt it--except, of course, in the very course of the abolition of the class society whose functioning Marx set himself to describing. To actually realize this abolition in practice so that new relations can flourish is, of course, a worthwhile task which generations of anarchists have striven at--much more so, I would argue, than Marxists as a whole.

Comments

"* Jacques Camatte, coming from a Marxist background, argues that the class distinction is diffused in late capitalism through the total domestication of humans and the establishment of a capitalist human community. This does not mean there are not classes, but their conflict is pacified and their relations are shifted. The relevant conflict (if any) comes to be between humans and capital or individuals and their own domestication, rather than between proletariat and bourgeoisie."

This strikes me and has always struck me as humanism. A related question is what was Camatte's class background? I'd like to know.

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see also "From proletarian to individual: Toward an anarchist understanding of class" by Wolfi Landstreicher

http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Wolfi_Landstreicher__The_Network_of_Domination.html#toc4

sabotage: I don't know Camatte's class background. All of Marxism is founded upon humanism, I guess it's arguable whether or not Camatte is  heretical in this regard.

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anok - can you say more about point 5? what is the relation of that comment to the rest of your answer/the question? (also you using the phrase "false consciousness" about class definitions is evocative, intentionally so?)

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It's been a few months and now point 5 seems kind of excessive, but it is there to point out that there are many different kinds of anarchists. On this question, there are anarchists who aren't revolutionaries, so they aren't really concerned with the question of class. Particularly, in analfisting's comment they mention that there could be a conflict between Marx's concept of revolution and anarchism. Anarchists have responded to this in a variety of ways, one is by not being revolutionaries. This could overlap with point 2, point 4, but could be worth considering on its own. Revolutions have often been class-based, more often they are national, but anyway a lot of anarchists have an idea of anarchy independent of revolution, for a lot of different reasons which would warrant their own separate question to be explored.

My use of the phrase "false consciousness" should be evocative, yes. I was indicating the position of proper revolutionaries. If you want to know what I really think, I do think the idea of class that people are encouraged to internalize (striation by income) is idiotic, but then I'm far from uncritical of the proper class consciousness and what goes along with it.

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I should add (I can't believe I didn't think of this before) that Bonanno and other anarchists developed a different idea of class in which the position of the proletariat is not central to revolution. The terminology generally used refers to the exploiters and exploited.