summeroflove said:
Pretty funny. So you know what Marx's 'class allocations' would be? Even though Marx supposedly never explained what he meant by 'class'?
I have read a great amount of Marxs various transcripts, from Das capital to the Communist Manifesto. Trust me I am heavy into Political Science and History (amongst other fields) and while he attempted to define the general nature of classes and wrote vast volumes about the class struggles in his philosophy of Dialectical Materialism (based heavily on Hegel’s writings) he could not define what constitutes a social class, he gave loosely fitting allocations like Proletariat, bourgeoisie, Lumpenproletariat and various other terms to describe positions like land lords, farmers, middle class off shoots (petty bourgeoisies), peasants etc which were mostly subdivisions of the first two.
But Marx did not complete the manuscript that would have presented his overall view of social class; I believe this was because he realized in his attempts to circumscribe it into an axiom that could be applied, he was more or less dealing with constantly changing variables that would have interfered with a complete and final static definition. So the majority of his writings focus on or concern the class structures of capitalism (it’s a very critical doctrine obviously), and he more or less specialized on the dynamics of the capitalist class struggle, political power and supposed competing classes, and then moved on to theorize from this the development of a classless society and how to create that expectation in his ideal world.
However his entire view of the class structures he proclaimed exist under capitalism was based on the labor theory of value (Adam Smiths definition) and can be derived from this theory which meant it was somewhat flawed to start with as it should be noted that Labor is not the only and/or root source of value, for as the Austrian Economists like Ludwig Von Misses and Hayek rightfully proclaimed “values are subjective†they shift and constantly fluctuate from person to person from each moment to the next and are not fixed to an individuals labor specificaly.
The most important thing to note here is that the "classes" that Marx distinguishes within a capitalistic society have a continually fluctuating membership. Class affiliation under capitalism is not always a hereditary quality. It is assigned to each individual by a daily repeated plebiscite, as it were, of all the people. Generally the buying public, the consumers, by their buying and abstention from buying, determine which companies should survive and therefore in a around about kind of way who should own and run the plants, who should work in the factories and mines, who should play the parts in the theater performances, and who should write the newspaper articles. They do it in a similar way in which they determine in their capacity as voters who should act as Members of Parliament and Prime Minister. Every dollar spent is more or less a vote of approval. In order to get rich in a capitalistic society and to preserve one's acquired wealth one must satisfy the wishes of the public.
In the unhampered market economy, not sabotaged by concessions and exemptions accorded to powerful pressure groups, there is no protection of vested interests, no barriers preventing anybody from striving after any prize (granted that’s certainly arguable in regards to monopolies). But essentially access to the Marxian-designated classes is free to everybody especially those with cunning and ambition.
The supposed members of each class compete with one another just as much as anyone proclaimed to be above or below them; it’s not a class conflict as such its the same for every individual in society. People are not united by a common class interest and not opposed to the members of other classes by being allied either in the defense of a common privilege, which those wronged by it want to see abolished, or in the attempt to abolish a legal disability which those deriving advantage from it want to preserve?
Let’s face it, regardless of his attempts to loosely define “classes†his doctrines are full of holes and is contains a lot of loaded terms and sophistry.
summeroflove said:
Sorry to get you guys so defensive. I never said that electronic producers are not real musicians. Just that, in Hamilton, the bands are doing way more. Whether it's good or not is beside the point. They are just doing way more. There are gigs every weekend, actual gigs, as opposed to club nights. With promotion, like posters, radio ads, articles in the papers, flyers etc.
It is no surprise that bands are doing far more in Hamilton as a large portion of the culture seems to have a history predominantly influenced by Rock Music; it has a larger support base and more monetary support. There are all sorts of various reasons we could explore as to why this is, but I believe it has a lot to do with the farming communities where a lot of the our students come from initially when they move to Wakatio University (a major part of the township) also taking note that we loose a lot of these same people to Auckland or overseas once they gradate meaning their wages are not always spent back into the local township and the money that is spent during the Uni years is restricted around what’s cheap and affordable (which isn’t a lot during that time). So there are economic forces involved (I could almost name the most lucrative industries in Hamilton in a few bullet points for those who do stay there too) it also has to do with the people who have influence over and control what is played on the mainstream radio stations (limited exposure), these peoples musical tastes and respective biases not to mention the prospect of what will bring in profits to the owners not necessarily what will develop a diverse culture in the long term. In some ways it’s a very insular and stagnate rugby/rock culture and will always have those elements which to me is somewhat unfortunate. Not to mention Rock has for the most part had a huge head start.
summeroflove said:
I think electronic music in Hamilton could be massive, it's just that there doesn't seem to be anyone actually doing anything. Hamilton producers don't seem to be on Contact or George (or bfm, Control or Active for that matter). You never see any posters for local DJs, only out of town ones. You never see any CDs by local producers in the shops. Do any hamilton producers/DJs have websites? I can't find any, nor any links to any.
Perhaps the scene is so 'underground' that you guys don't want anyone else to bre involved further than getting dressed up on a weekend and going to catalyst. Handbag city!
Well there is quite a history to Hamilton’s dance culture, which I honestly can’t be bothered going into with great depth, but there have been a number of different peak years spanning back to the early 90’s where there was better and more enthusiastic support base and generally better exposure (think Paul Medias Biosphere show) also bigger groups of promoters like Anomaly and Adrenaline, along with smallish clubs like ecstatic, pulse and various warehouses that were utilized, private house parties, and student flats utilized (think cook street flats) etc. However overall it has always be a relatively small underground culture and possibly always will be? There has also been a numbers of different factors involved which haven’t helped it to grow, like for instance the 3am closing times by the conservative city council along with groups splitting and moving on to greener pastures over time. A few years back when the Catalyst was Motion (of which I was a resident for) we had a good little following for a while, but after a few short bursts (spanning over a couple of years) it was found not to be sustainable (there were a number of competing interests involved which helped to destabilize it though). I don’t know how things are these days as I am in Melbourne now but from my understanding it still has a small support base and limited capital being developed and invested which reflects in these areas you mention. Without professional commitment, financial support and a growing support base (helped partially by exposure) it will remain this way. However it also has to be considered that its a very young scene and while there are producers working away in the pipe line (can be counted in my hand) its not likely they will all reach full productive maturity until a few years to come, though I may be wrong about that. It just depends.
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