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APPENDICES 113 from which long-forgotten echoes arise; and in the dexterity of the shorthand typist the petit-bourgeois desolation of the piano etude. The authentic symbolic centres of this world are the 'pleasure barracks': stone, or rather plaster, incarnations of the employees' pipedream. In exploring these 'shelters for the homeless', the author's dreamlike language displays all its subtlety. Astonishing how flexibly it moulds itself to all these atmospheric artists' cellars, all these tranquil Alcazars, all these intimate coffee-nooks, in order to cast them as so many tumours and abscesses and expose them to the light of reason. Wunderkind and enfant terrible in one person, the author here tells tales out of the school of dreams. And he is far too knowing to consider such institutions as mere instruments of stultification in the interest of the ruling class, or to make the latter solely responsible for them. However trenchant his critique of employers may be, considered as a class they partake too strongly of the subaltern character of their subordinates, in his view, to be acknowledged as an authentic moving force and autonomous actor amid the economic chaos. This essay will have to dispense with any political effect in today's terms - i.e. any demagogic effect - not merely because of such an assessment of employers. Consciousness, not to say self-consciousness, of this sheds light on the author's distaste for all that has to do with reportage and die neue Sachlichkeit. This left-radical school may conduct itself as it likes, it can never eliminate the fact that even proletarianization of the intellectual almost never creates a proletarian. Why? Because from childhood on the bourgeois class has provided him with a means of production in the shape of education th at make. him identify with the bourgeoisie - and perhaps even more the hOIlJ"�eoisi(· with him - on the basis of educational privilege. In the limw·olllld this solidarity may become effaced or even dissolve; but it almost always remains strong enough to exclude intellectuals from til(" constant state of alert, the front-line existence, of the �elluille proletarian. Kracauer has taken these perceptions seriously. Which is why his essay, by contrast with the radical fashion-products of the latest school, is a landmark on the road to a politicization of the intelligentsia. There, a horror of theory and knowledge that recommends them to the sensation-seeking of snobs; here, a constructive theoretical training that is addressed neither to the snob nor to the worker - but that is instead capable of producing something real and demonstrable: namely, the politicization of its own class. This indirect effect is the only one that a revolutionary writer from the bourgeois class can resolve upon today. Direct effectiveness can emerge only from praxis. But he, unlike more successful colleagues, will be mindful of Lenin, whose writings best show how far removed is the literary value of
114 APPENDICES political praxis, its direct effect, from the junk of raw facts and reporting that passes for it today. So by right this author stands there at the end all alone. A malcontent, not a leader. Not a founder, but a spoilsport. And if we wish to visualize him just for himself, in the solitude of his craft and his endeavour, we see: a ragpicker at daybreak, lancing with his stick scraps of language and tatters of speech in order to throw them into his cart, grumblingly, stubbornly, somewhat the worse for drink, and not without now and again letting one or other of these faded calicoes - 'humanity', 'inner nature', 'enrichment' - flutter ironically in the dawn breeze. A ragpicker at daybreak - in the dawn of the day of revolution.
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The Salaried Masses
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First published by Verso 1998 This
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Introduction , Inka Mulder-Bach
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4 INTRODUCTION of culture and the q
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INTRODUCTION EIShioll 0(" the weeke
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8 INTRODUCTION to the cultural-cons
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10 INTRODUCTION support and the pru
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12 INTRODUCTION natural entities' T
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14 INTRO D UCTI ON for lack of theo
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16 INTRODUCTION the organization of
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18 INTRODUCTION ethnographical herm
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20 INTRODUCTION Classes. An Examina
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22 INTRODUCTION secularized messian
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Preface No question about it, indus
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Before a Labour Court, a dismissed
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UNKNOWN TERRITORY 29 Hundreds of th
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UNKNOWN TERRITORY 31 staff in senio
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Selection 'Why do you want to be a
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SEl.ECTION 35 11"1 k was truly sing
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SELECTION 37 notable successes. One
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SEl.ECTION 39 lIIorality would brin
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SHORT BREAK FOR VENTILATION 41 I'he
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SHORT BREAK FOR VENTILATION 43 10 s
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SHORT BREAK FOR VENTILA TION 45 roa
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Enterprise within the enterprise 'I
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ENTERPRISE WITHIN THE ENTERPRISE 49
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ENTERPRISE WITHIN THE ENTERPRISE 51
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Alas, so soon ! Opposite the Kaiser
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ALAS, SO SOON! 55 reader will assur
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ALAS, SO SOON! 57 has been in the f
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ALAS, SO SOON! 59 without the forme
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REPAIR SHOP 61 in the interest of t
Page 70 and 71: REPAIR SHOP 63 of company disciplin
Page 72 and 73: REPAIR SHOP 65 UnIons. But it is st
Page 74 and 75: REPAIR SHOP 67 movements on the lab
Page 76 and 77: A FEW CHOICE SPECIMENS 69 here: a d
Page 78 and 79: A FEW CHOICE SPECIMENS 'em for the
Page 80 and 81: A FEW CHOICE SPECIMENS 73 done in a
Page 82 and 83: REFINED INFORMALITY Staff exit by o
Page 84 and 85: REFINED INFORMALITY Thirty-one runn
Page 86 and 87: REFINED INFORMALITY limes, and the
Page 88 and 89: Among neighbours 'A uniform stratum
Page 90 and 91: AMONG NEIGHBOURS 83 The distinct ma
Page 92 and 93: AMONG NEIGHBOURS 85 usually think t
Page 94 and 95: AMONG NEIGHBOURS 87 rmm those who n
Page 96 and 97: SHELTER H) R TIll': 110M I': H9 enj
Page 98 and 99: SHELTER FOR TIU: HOMELl
Page 100 and 101: SHELTER FOR THE HOMELESS 93 away yo
Page 102 and 103: SHELTER FOR THE HOMELESS 95 people.
Page 104 and 105: SEEN FROM ABOVE 97 According to the
Page 106 and 107: SEEN FROM ABOVE 99 claimed on the b
Page 108 and 109: SEEN FROM ABOVE 101 vigorously and
Page 110 and 111: DEAR COLLEAGUES, LADIES AND GENTLEM
Page 112 and 113: DEAR COLLEAGUES, LA DIES AND GENTLE
Page 114: Appendices
Page 117 and 118: 110 APPENDICES expose. Marx said th
Page 119: 112 APPENDICES of one personnel man
Page 123 and 124: 116 1920-22 1922 1924 1925 1926 19
Page 125 and 126: 118 APPENDICES Empirical Social Res
Page 127 and 128: 120 APPENDICES Hitler. Ein Beitrag
Page 129: 122 TRANSLATOR ' S NOTE Allgemeine
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