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EditorialVintage ConstantinoPublished online: 26 Jun 2007.

To cite this article: Vintage Constantino (2000) Editorial, Journal of ContemporaryAsia, 30:3, 413-416

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00472330080000341

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own benefit. They thus, are susceptible of becoming tools of these leaders who gradu- ally feed their minds with the fertile seeds of revolt.

The intellectual class with few exceptions has not shown enough interest in the welfare of the lower strata. They are inclined to take the masses for granted--to be indifferent to them to the point of considering them as a negligible element in the nation's life.

This erroneous notion should be rectified. We might as well ask ourselves---DOES UNIVERSITY EDUCATION KEEP ONE FAR ABOVE THE MASSES OR IN THE SERVICE OF THE MASSES? Are University graduates made sensitive to the sad plight of the poor mass so as to encourage them to sympathize with these people and utilize their University training in ameliorating their conditions? We need more con- scious efforts to wrest the poor and the ignorant from the clutches of the agitator, the usurer, the unscrupulous landlord and any other undesirable element that foment their minds with more discontent. Perhaps a study of the "elements" that "prey upon the slums" is helpful. Seeing how these people actually live and unearthing the untold misery they have suffered may make the University students who are being trained to serve, more conscious of the existence of the nation's backbone, and may awaken in them a more sympathetic attitude towards the masses.

How this sympathetic attitude towards the masses can be developed among our intellectual elite is one of the missions of the University, for it is an accepted truth that in the process of habit formation, the attitude one takes is of great importance in bring- ing about the act. Where a favorable attitude towards an act has been established there is every reason to hope that the desired action will not be remote.

---oOo---

Editorial*

Labour is the foundation of all social life and the source of all material and spiritual wealth. But in class-divided societies all sorts of mystifications are propounded to ob- scure this fact in order that the working class may continue to accept both its subordi- nate status in society and the appropriation of the fruits of its labour by a dominant few. The task of composing such mystifications is generally assigned to mental workers who have forgotten that they are workers too, and therefore dedicate themselves to propagating and reinforcing a superstructure of ideas and institutions to perpetuate the exploitation and oppression of the working class.

* This editorial appeared in JCA, Voi. 12, No. i (1982). This was the keynote speech of Renato Constantino at the JCA conference in Adelaide, South Australia (28-30 August 1981).

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414 JCA 30:3/R. Constantino

Aside from continually scheming to isolate manual workers from each other by manipulating race, nationality or religious differences, etc., the dominant classes also nurture a social division between mental and manual labour. Antagonism is fostered between these two segments of labour such that mental workers tend to look down on those who work with their hands as no more than unthinking beasts of burden, while manual workers perceive the intellectually inclined as parasitic idlers and associate them with the exploiting classes. The gap is further widened by the fact that mental workers in general earn more than manual workers and, therefore, maintain a style of life and a level of culture beyond the reach of the ordinary working people. This social division is made even more rigid by the elitist nature of the educational system which generally permits only the children of wealthy or upper-middle class families to obtain higher learning and specialized training.

In the advanced capitalist countries, the scientific and technological revolution has resulted in the numerical expansion of mental workers and the direct involvement of large numbers of them in production. Thus, many scientists, engineers, researchers and communicators have become salaried employees who now comprise a "skilled, self- confident, and above all, technically indispensable labour aristoc~cy" (E.J. Hobsbawm, Revolutionaries, New York, New American Library, 1973, p. 259). This privileged sec- tion of the so-called "new" working class tends to side with manual workers in labour disputeswith management, but in terms of political role it serves more as an effective reformist force.

The rapid development of science and technology in advanced capitalist societies has not liberated, but has instead, led to the increased exploitation of mental labour which is reduced to a commodity to be exchanged for the wherewithal of existence. The mental worker, therefore, experiences alienation in the same way that the manual worker does. Because of his higher level of intellection, the mental worker, when he is radicalized, tends to have a greater appreciation of the larger questions involved in the trade union movement and the basic defects of a private enterprise economy.

The academic institutions in the developed capitalist countries are part and parcel of the overall superstructure of class domination. In addition to propagating and per- petuating bourgeois ideology, they have the added function of training the new breed of mental workers to suit the sophisticated technological requirements of modern indus- try, and of contributing, through their research components, to the advancement of sci- ence for the end of maximising the profits of monopoly capital. A more dangerous development is the utilization of the brain power produced by academe for the benefit of the military/industrial complex and the justification of aggressive imperialist poli- cies which are driving the world to the brink of nuclear disaster. The distorted view of reality being expounded by bourgeois ideologies from their ivory towers or from their new-found places at the upper levels of the State bureaucracy has proven instrumental in the whipping up of a new Cold-War hysteria. As Marx said (Capital, Vol. 1, 1959, p. 59), "In place of disinterested inquirers, there were hired prize fighters; in place of

i genuine scientific research, the bab conscience and the evil intent of apologetics."

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In a neocolony like the Philippines or Malaysia, where a dependent type of indusuialisation is developing under the aegis of global capitalism, the co-optation of the intellectual elite, especially those based in academe, is being accelerated. With prod- ding and funding from the World Bank and other imperialist institutions, the educa- tional system is being remoulded to suit the labour requirements and the need for expertise of the transnational corporations which dominate the neocolonial economy. Thus, there is an increasing emphasis on vocational and technical skills which must be acquired by cheap but qualified manpower through a newly tailored educational sys- tem. At the upper rungs of the educational system, scientists, engineers, economists, communicators, etc., are being recruited en masse to serve as government bureaucrats or as consultants of big business on a part-time or a full-time basis.

All this is not to say, however, that mental workers in general, and academics in particular, are a hopelesslot who cannot in any way align themselves with the masses in the task of transforming capitalist or neocolonial society. History is replete with ex- amples of intellectuals and academicians who have distinguished themselves in work- ing class and national liberation movements and who in fact provided these movements with their guiding theory. However, their decision to break away from the mould im- posed by their own milieu and involve themselves in such movements, is more a matter of individual choice and inclination, rather than an overall position of the strata they belong to.

But, precisely because it is caught between the masses and the ruling class, the intelligentsia is a vacillating force with fluctuating commitments. In general, it serves the capitalist or the neo-colonial system. However, individuals within the strata who suffer from economic insecurity or who, through a process of intellection, reject the essential inhumanity of the prevailing system, may suddenly join social movements meant to usher in a more just and humane society. But, they may just as easily leave such movements due to the hardships wrought by the harsh realities of mass struggle, which may be too much for impatient men or women to bear, or to the availability of career opportunities which they can take advantage of by embracing the system once more.

There are some intellectuals, and among them academicians, who nevertheless stick it out through thick and thin with the forces of change. Some have leading roles in both united front organizations and mass movements waging an anti-imperialist struggle in the neocolonies. In the developed capitalist countries where the trade union move- ment has always been dominated by manual workers, the mental workers are a rapidly growing sector whose activity is most fruitful when it either converges or merges with the larger mass, A movement of intellectuals which is separate from the overall labour movement "may settle down as one or both of two things: as a powerful and effective reformist pressure group of the new professional strata, of which consumer agitations and environmentalist campaigns are good examples, and as a fluctuating radical youth and student movement, oscillating between brief brush fires and relapses into passivity

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416 JCA 30:3/R. Constantino

by the majority, while a small activist minority indulges in frenzied ultra-left gestures" (Hobsbawm, p. 265).

The necessity of uniting the forces of the mass trade union movement and progres- sive intellectuals, including academicians must be recognized. Although progressive intellectuals are already contributing useful analyses of world developments in their own individual capacity, there will always be a certain impotence in their isolation and in the long run this very isolation from the fundamental force for change will diminish the intellectual's analytical insight, or even distort it.

But beyond a coming together of mental and manual workers, a true integration should take place. For this, mass leaders must transform themselves into working-class intellectuals and progressive intellectuals must integrate themselves with the mass move- ment. This will serve the higher aim of ushering in and building a society where divi- sion between mental and manual labour will diminish and gradually disappear, where labour is at last freed from the shackles imposed by capital, and allowed to create a material and spiritual culture with which the working man can rise to his full height as a complete human being within a truly humane social system.

---oOo---

The Opposite of Marcos?*

President Aquino has repeatedly stated that she will be the opposite of Marcos. In many instances she has demonstrated her determination and capability to be the antithesis not only of the former dictator but of his wife as well. Unlike her, she dresses simply; unlike him, she speaks without bombast. We are mercifully spared the former First Lady's frivolity, inconsiderate tardiness at public functions, greed and prodigality. We are glad to be rid of the former President's kilometric extemporaneous speeches and barefaced lies.

Another contrast between Aquino and the Marcoses is the indecent eagerness with which the latter sought to inflict their names on roads, bridges and towns, whereas the former objects or at least is reluctant to name a school or the international airport after her husband.

The contrasts, while certainly welcome, are those of personal qualities and style. Her public pronouncements on basic issues are another matter. It is in these less

visible areas that one can pose the question of whether she is the opposite or the conti- nuity of Marcos.

* This column appeared in the Malaya newspaper, 23 June, 1986.

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