Classless society or Mono-Class society?

[ComradeMan]

Hello.

Here's a thought that I have wrestled with for an eternity, I would be interested to know what others think.

How can one create a classless society if one perpetuates the idea of class struggle thus perpetuating the idea of class? It's a bit like the addage about a racist being someone who sees race etc....

Surely the idea is to destroy the very concept of class?

The reason I say this is that very often, perhaps it's just an unfortunate effect of linguistics, I get the impression that the class war is not so much a war on the system of classes as a war of one class against another- which in today's day and age is obsolete at best and in the past doesn't seem to have got anyone anywhere.

Surely the aim of the revolution is to create a classless society not a mono-class society? (If you see what I mean).

Any thoughts?

[BurnTheOliveTree]

What you're calling a mono-class society is actually a classless one though. Class is a relative thing - we can only be working class if there are bosses to exploit us, and there can only be bosses if there are workers to exploited. So if our side wins the struggle and eliminates the bosses, then we have no more class system.

-Alex

[ComradeMan]

Yes, that would be how it ought to be, but usually it doesn't seem to work out that way.
1. All people are workers in one way or another- unless they are latifondisti or aristocrats.

When bosses are eliminated, new "bosses" take over. The problem I think lies in the whole dynamic of work and what work is and who it serves. The workers in the West may also be guilty of perpetuating a system they dislike by buying the products and utilising the "benefits" of the capitalist system.

I am playing Devil's advocate here, but I often get the impression that the workers do not hate the bosses, nor do they hate the capitalist system in itself, what they actually hate is being workers and not bosses and that is something else. I am not saying in all cases but it reminds me of what a Sicilian prince allegedly said to one of the bandits in the Salvatore Giuliano gang who had kidnapped him--- "You don't hate me, you hate not being me?".

Of course, the "system" knows this and knows it can exploit people, turn them against each other and buy them off so to speak.

I believe that the true revolution will not be so much a revolution but moreover a total rejection of the condition of the human being for the last 10,000 years!!!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I think this should be in Theory.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

But a classless society is the same as a mono-class society. If everyone's relation to the means of production is the same then they are all in the same class, hence destroying the notion of class differences altogether. Class differences are what we mean by a class society. With no difference, we are all equal; and classless.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

1. All people are workers in one way or another- unless they are latifondisti or aristocrats.

I have no idea what latifondisti is, but the world is not divided into workers and aristocrats. We also have the capitalists, the ones who own the means of production. And we also have the lumpen proles, who don't work but don't own anything either.


When bosses are eliminated, new "bosses" take over.

Well, we've had a few examples in history where this hasn't been the case. :) The Paris Commune for instance. If by bosses you simply mean people who will co-ordinate and plan production and how our communities run, then you may be correct - and the extent to which we'll need that and the forms it might take are obviously debatable. But certainly we can do away with the exploitative crap that we put up with nowadays. Certainly we can work for the common interest rather than for the gain of a few private individuals.


The problem I think lies in the whole dynamic of work and what work is and who it serves.

Spot on. I was at a dubstep rave last night and met some oxford students. When we went for a smoke the talk turned to politics, and this girl's criticism of socialism was that people should be rewarded for the work that they do. Which is exactly right, except that it's obviously capitalism and not socialism which distorts that; the owner of tesco doesn't contribute shit to society and is rolling in it, the workers in Tesco contribute masses and probably struggle to feed their kids sometimes. And that's capitalism that's been scaled back greatly by class struggle... thank fuck we're not working for 15 cents an hour and dying before 50. :lol: Sorry this is probably all a bit obvious to say on revleft but hey ho. :)


The workers in the West may also be guilty of perpetuating a system they dislike by buying the products and utilising the "benefits" of the capitalist system.

It's not our fault. We have to buy food and clothes, and there will always be capitalists ready to sell us those things while we're still living in this shitty system. So even if we boycotted every luxury to try to somehow opt-out, we still wouldn't achieve a great deal. I mean to take that logic to its extreme, we'd have to all go and live in the woods really, which defeats the object of our movement, we want to make our lives better not worse. haha.


I often get the impression that the workers do not hate the bosses, nor do they hate the capitalist system in itself, what they actually hate is being workers and not bosses

You've gotta provide evidence for that kind of assertion - my understanding of history is that this is not the case, because otherwise there would not be any history of labour really, it was just be everyone tolerating their condition and hoping that one day they get to be the master instead of the slave. I think the history of collective struggle must imply to some degree that people want to stop that whole relationship going on.


I believe that the true revolution will not be so much a revolution but moreover a total rejection of the condition of the human being for the last 10,000 years!!!

Well, yeah! :) I forget who the quote is from, but there was someone once said that the beginning of socialism will mark the end of human pre-history, and the beginning of history proper.

-Alex

[Schrödinger's Cat]

I don't think it's worth much to get our heads stuck on useless rhetoric...

[ZeroNowhere]

Yes, that would be how it ought to be, but usually it doesn't seem to work out that way.
1. All people are workers in one way or another- unless they are latifondisti or aristocrats.
I'm sorry, but that's not how the word 'worker' is being used here. It would be like responding to somebody arguing against cars by accusing them of trying to ban the use of the word 'because'.


When bosses are eliminated, new "bosses" take over. The problem I think lies in the whole dynamic of work and what work is and who it serves. The workers in the West may also be guilty of perpetuating a system they dislike by buying the products and utilising the "benefits" of the capitalist system.They're guilty of not ending capitalism? Well, one could say that, though it's not particularly profound.


I believe that the true revolution will not be so much a revolution but moreover a total rejection of the condition of the human being for the last 10,000 years!!!And what does that mean?


latifondistiLandlords, I believe.


I forget who the quote is from, but there was someone once said that the beginning of socialism will mark the end of human pre-history, and the beginning of history proper.It wasn't Groucho.


Surely the idea is to destroy the very concept of class?And how does one destroy the concept of class? Lock people up for noticing class distinctions?

[ComradeMan]

Aha... an interesting debate.

The problem here is, perhaps, we are not clear on what our ideas of classless society mean- they seem to differ.
My ideas:-

Classless society- a society in which all work is valid, there is no concept of class, no concept of one job being superior to another, no hierarchies other than those natural to any form of organisation (i.e. planner, organiser, doer etc) and in which the average person 50 years after the "revolution" would find it hard to conceive what was meant by class.

Mono-class society- the society which pays lip service to the ideas above but in which the general secretary of the party stills drives a big Zin and the workers pretend to work while the state-owners pretend to pay them (quote a Polish friend of mine describing the "old" Poland). The Mono-Class society is so obsessed with the idea of being a classless society that it attacks anything it perceives as non-working class, from art to music, to philosophy and so on.... sound familiar?

Whereas in the first example "Class Struggle" would be a meaningless term to be looked up in an historical dictionary in the second it would be the "mantra".

Some other points:-

Latifondisti- large "feudal" landowners- a term used in Italy a lot. The landowners, most agricultural but also industrial, who kept the peasants in a state of virtual serfdom up intil the Second World War.

I used the term rather loosely for a general idea.
____

My other point about the working classes and their attitudes, well inasmuch as it is correct to demand proof for such an assertion it is only fair for me to explain that I have no proof I can present but base it mostly on my own experiences of the Leftist Student movement(s) in Italy. Another interesting point is

Karl Marx- son of a lawyer, married to the daughter of a Prussian baron.
Friedrich Engels- alienated son of a large textile magnate
Kropotkin- son of a certain Prince Alexei Petrovich Kropotkin
Lenin- intelligentsia background, father was chief education inspector
Fidel Castro- son of a large plantation/sugar industry magnate- a poor man that made his fortune in the capitalist system.
Mikhail Bakunin- son of an aristocratic family.
Pol Pot- "bourgeois" middle-class background
El Che- middle-class intellegentsia background

Of people with a proletariat/working class background...
Proudhon
Stalin

.... and so on. Okay, I am not trying to state the obvious but it seems we don't have too much of a "proletariat" or "working class" culture here.

[4 Leaf Clover]

classeles society - society with no classes , in which no man can own means of production

for developement of classless society , working class must triumph over bourgouisie to stop class exploitment

unlike revolutions that came before prolletarian , actors of this revolution , proletarians , dont have goal to replace one class with other , but to destroy the class society by developing a dictatorship of proletariat which will once the fire of revolution caught up whole planet , will give all means of production to all people

what is here not clear ? it is basics told in communist manifest

[Hit The North]

Karl Marx- son of a lawyer, married to the daughter of a Prussian baron.
Friedrich Engels- alienated son of a large textile magnate
Kropotkin- son of a certain Prince Alexei Petrovich Kropotkin
Lenin- intelligentsia background, father was chief education inspector
Fidel Castro- son of a large plantation/sugar industry magnate- a poor man that made his fortune in the capitalist system.
Mikhail Bakunin- son of an aristocratic family.
Pol Pot- "bourgeois" middle-class background
El Che- middle-class intellegentsia background

Of people with a proletariat/working class background...
Proudhon
Stalin

.... and so on. Okay, I am not trying to state the obvious but it seems we don't have too much of a "proletariat" or "working class" culture here.

It seems to me that you're mistaking the intellectual and political representatives of the communist movement for the proletariat here. As such, you present a classic great man version of history. But Marx, alongside many of the others you mention, depended upon the real movements which exist in society. Their intellectual and political leadership is, itself, a product of class society. However, the struggle against capitalism takes place at the point of production in a common place manner in the cycle of capitalist accumulation. Besides that are the heroic struggles of the proletariat which erupt more rarely but are markers in the history of the international proletariat.

When you examine this 'history from below', the "working class culture" is extremely apparent.

[sanpal]

Class dividing appear according the persons' attitude to means of production: if all members of society are owners of the means of production as the common property and are working not for wage so it means Classless society; if only a part of society are owners of the means of production and the others are working for wage so it means Class society.

Mono-Class society ... hm, it is possible and unpossible thing. Theoretically it's possible under the full (absolute) State capitalism where all members of society are owners of the means of production and they ALL work for wage (workers and administrative apparatus), so in this case the State does the role of the combined capitalist and the interests of this combined capitalist are turned to the needs of common people. But in the reality such kind of society is merely Class society where on the one side the employed people are and on the other side the State with its state apparatus is. It's not possible to imagine Mono-Class society as it's not possible to see a stick with one end only or a coin with one side only. In my opinion it sounds like oxumoron, something like a 'communist State' or so.

[ComradeMan]

Bob the builder- you make a good point viz the top-down, bottom-up analysis. It is still interesting to note that the idea-makers very often come from the class that they so wish to eradicate, amongst others. I notice the attack is usually on the bourgeoisie and not the aristocrat for example, anyway I suppose much of it's down to semantics.

Re the other points. Why does everything always have to boil down to economic theory and nothing else? I do not deny that economics are a huge part of any society but man does not live by bread alone and a society cannot be defined exclusively in terms of the social contract between government and people, work-giver and worker etc.

I often get the feeling, and perhaps others do, that the argument is far too limited to the problems of industrial and agricultural work. These problems are rather obsolete in Europe in that they have been replaced by new dynamics at work, or not at work as the case may be!!!

Just to give one frivolous example, but I recall somewhere or other that certain kinds of music were denounced in Cuba as being "bourgeois" etc. Now, what the hell has that got to do with class-struggle? I don't know if it's true or not, but creating a classless society is not just about re-organising the work dynamic.

I don't have the answers, that's why I am asking so don't bite me!!!:)

Is Marx definition of class still valid in this day and age? I wonder...