"The conclusion you can draw from these characteristics is that you have an uneven development of class activity and an uneven development of class consciousness in the working class"
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Mandel’s sentence has the blunt, diagnostic feel of a Marxist field report: the working class isn’t a single actor moving in lockstep, and anyone treating it that way is doing politics by bedtime story. “Uneven development” is doing double duty here. It borrows from the Marxist idea that capitalism modernizes in jagged, contradictory bursts across sectors and regions; Mandel applies that same logic inward, to workers’ capacity to act and to recognize themselves as a class.
The key move is separating “class activity” from “class consciousness.” People can strike for wages, vote for a labor party, or riot over prices without arriving at a stable, shared understanding of capitalism as a system. Conversely, pockets of high consciousness can exist with little leverage or organization. Mandel’s intent is to warn against shortcuts: don’t mistake episodic militancy for durable political clarity, and don’t assume a correct analysis automatically produces mass motion. Organization, leadership, and institutions matter because consciousness doesn’t “mature” naturally; it’s shaped in conflict, mediated by unions, parties, workplaces, media, and the state.
The subtext is polemical. He’s pushing back on two temptations: economism (reducing politics to shop-floor struggles) and romanticism (treating “the workers” as a ready-made revolutionary subject). In the context of postwar Europe’s boom-bust cycles and the New Left’s turbulence, Mandel is explaining why setbacks, contradictions, and surprising alliances are not anomalies but structural features of modern class politics. The line is less prophecy than a discipline: analyze the fractures, or you’ll misread the moment and misbuild the strategy.
The key move is separating “class activity” from “class consciousness.” People can strike for wages, vote for a labor party, or riot over prices without arriving at a stable, shared understanding of capitalism as a system. Conversely, pockets of high consciousness can exist with little leverage or organization. Mandel’s intent is to warn against shortcuts: don’t mistake episodic militancy for durable political clarity, and don’t assume a correct analysis automatically produces mass motion. Organization, leadership, and institutions matter because consciousness doesn’t “mature” naturally; it’s shaped in conflict, mediated by unions, parties, workplaces, media, and the state.
The subtext is polemical. He’s pushing back on two temptations: economism (reducing politics to shop-floor struggles) and romanticism (treating “the workers” as a ready-made revolutionary subject). In the context of postwar Europe’s boom-bust cycles and the New Left’s turbulence, Mandel is explaining why setbacks, contradictions, and surprising alliances are not anomalies but structural features of modern class politics. The line is less prophecy than a discipline: analyze the fractures, or you’ll misread the moment and misbuild the strategy.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
|---|
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