>>12 I think you just made a point against yourself here. This "amorphous mass" of lumpens, religious zealots, and nationalists form a reactionary force. When they revolt, they don't revolt for their own self-abolition. They may create "death to the Shah", but nothing further. Terrorism, adventurism, whatever you want to call it just reproduces bourgeois democracy, "regime change", not the abolition of regimes. As you said, throughout history nomads and peasants have rioted and invaded the cities. Rarely have they won. They are in a mutual relationship. The invention of the city / state created the nomadic raider, the nomadic raider can't destroy cities as a form because she relies on them, she only exists in so far as she exists in relation to them. "Crashing the system", a physical DDOS attack, pure negation, the server comes back up the second the attack stops. The unemployed curb dweller also requires a curb, and a job to not go to.
This isn't to say I disagree completely, Marx was a high modernist, he did look down on the peasants while taking the form of their communes as his base. I also think he is too harsh on the lumpens, that he valorizes "labor". But still, I'm not sure he can be completely thrown away so easily.
I think you just made a point against yourself here. This "amorphous mass" of lumpens, religious zealots, and nationalists form a reactionary force. When they revolt, they don't revolt for their own self-abolition. They may create "death to the Shah", but nothing further. Terrorism, adventurism, whatever you want to call it just reproduces bourgeois democracy, "regime change", not the abolition of regimes. As you said, throughout history nomads and peasants have rioted and invaded the cities. Rarely have they won. They are in a mutual relationship. The invention of the city / state created the nomadic raider, the nomadic raider can't destroy cities as a form because she relies on them, she only exists in so far as she exists in relation to them. "Crashing the system", a physical DDOS attack, pure negation, the server comes back up the second the attack stops. The unemployed curb dweller also requires a curb, and a job to not go to.
This isn't to say I disagree completely, Marx was a high modernist, he did look down on the peasants while taking the form of their communes as his base. I also think he is too harsh on the lumpens, that he valorizes "labor". But still, I'm not sure he can be completely thrown away so easily.