This small essay by Janine Brodie called “Power and Politics” has several other issues, but their most frustrating one is their outright DISMISSAL of Marxist class analysis for the stupidest reasons. Economic determinism? I guess if you yearned to softly dismiss marx by misrepresenting him.
God I fucking hate poli sci majors.
The previous page:
The next one:
I’m not the brightest crayon in the box but is it just me or does Doctor Brodie somehow make politics and power some sort of vague, unsolvable mystery? Like fr I don’t want just an echochamber of nodding heads plz help am I in the wrong?
I need help putting words to my issues with it.
Personally I don’t really think so. A slave is property, can be bought and sold, doesn’t have the freedom to attempt to find work elsewhere.
Ah, so it would just be a slave doing city things, going and getting groceries etc but avoiding that specific part of proletarianisation
Yeah, there were many urban slaves in the northern colonies/states in early America, for example, and they also did housework, waiting on their owners, childcare, and things like that.
I lost the thread on this conversation with my earlier reply. Yes, there were many urban slaves, no, they weren’t proles. Proles work for wages (or commission or salary) which they use to buy their means of subsistence; slaves work for free and are given means of subsistence (most of the time) simply so they can keep performing their duties.