Do the ruling class have Class Consciousness?

[El Rojo]

As in: to what extent do/did the bourgoise deliberately bring about our current conditions?

Or was/is it an unconscious perpetuation of the conditions of capitalism.


Im obviously not suggesting that there is some kind of new world order, swing-from-the-ceiling-insane group of cappies plotting away somewhere, i am just wondering to what extent the ruling class are aware of what they are doing.

[Belisarius]

i don't really think they are aware, since everything they need and want to do is to think about their own profits and gains, the base of capitalist philosophy. a police officer really believes he is keeping order and peace and that he is defending the good cause (which most of the time, we have to agree, he is actually doing). capitalist themselves are subjected to their own system

[Muzk]

If you have seen a capitalist in a movie or wherever, (Moore has some), they lie more than any other person, everything they say stands in complete contradiction to reality, furthermore if you know your obvious history than you will see that capitalism, and therefore its rulers, the bourgeoise, start wars, and in the course of which they always killed millions of innocent people in the name of "patriotism" "freedom" "democracy" etc.... We all know that all they wanted was and is broadening their own nations boarders.

Therefore, they, of course, know that they are the privileged elite (why wouldn't they?) and that the poor ones must be kept down at all cost for the preservation of these privileges.

There is no reason why they shouldn't know that what they are doing is against everything human.


i don't really think they are aware, since everything they need and want to do is to think about their own profits and gains, the base of capitalist philosophy. a police officer really believes he is keeping order and peace and that he is defending the good cause (which most of the time, we have to agree, he is actually doing). capitalist themselves are subjected to their own system

Let me tell you once: If we ever were to have the chance to either tortue the capitalists to death or keep them alive, every revolutionary MUST choose to kill them. Showing mercy to this scum means betraying all, and I mean every single one of the men and women who have died throughout the whole history of mankind for the priviliges of those few parasites!

Comparing police officers to capitalists is nonsense too; they belong to different sections of a class.


As in: to what extent do/did the bourgoise deliberately bring about our current conditions? Scientificially speaking, noone ever had any choice but to let all these horrible things happen. I'm not satisfied with this deterministic truth though...

The current conditions arose from "small" capitalism; on the market, one beats the other one and becomes bigger, until they are together in giant corporations, this way the form the bourgeoise state, "state capitalism". To make even more profits inside of a country, these state capitalist systems have to broaden their borders, either through puppet governments, corporating with other state capitalist regimes, or through war. Both of the world wars were such wars. So all the current conditions are caused by the ruling class. I might even say that history is written by whoever is in power.

[red cat]

i don't really think they are aware, since everything they need and want to do is to think about their own profits and gains, the base of capitalist philosophy. a police officer really believes he is keeping order and peace and that he is defending the good cause (which most of the time, we have to agree, he is actually doing). capitalist themselves are subjected to their own system

I disagree. Many government officials including cops are experts on MLM.

[Zanthorus]

Interesting question.

On the one hand we can see loads of occasions where the ruling classes will give a helping hand out to the workers. Like recently that story about the guy who gave his workers the company. And let's not forget that one of the founders of socialism, Robert Owen, was himself a wealthy industrialist horrified by the working conditions of the 19th century.

However it's also important to remember that Owen's trustees at New Lanark were still demanding 5% return on capital investment and £300,000 clear profit and the rest of the members of Owen's class at the time were actively working to prevent any kind of welfare reforms or regulations to business practices as well as making sure no one got any clever ideas about collective bargaining. When the ruling classes finally did capitulate, it was because it was clear that laissez-faire capitlaism was unsustainable and only brought in huge profits in the short term. A new more worker friendly regime of indoctrination and control was needed to continue exploitation.

One thing I'd like to point out, members of the ruling class will often have been to private schools or else be mindless puppets for their corporate backers. I think the system is rigged to some extent with various devices to help the ruling class perpetuate itself.

[danyboy27]

i think that for the rulling class, hiring people is a fair game, they dont feel that they are doing something wrong beccause the people they are hiring are not forced to be there, some of them might even think they are doing to those people a favor.

[chegitz guevara]

The ruling class is very much aware of itself as a class. That doesn't mean they don't have human compassion, or occasionally work against their narrow economic interests. Individual capitalists may not have such consciousness, but over all, the class as a whole does.

[Luisrah]

The ruling class is very much aware of itself as a class. That doesn't mean they don't have human compassion, or occasionally work against their narrow economic interests. Individual capitalists may not have such consciousness, but over all, the class as a whole does.

^This

Of course the smaller bourgeoisie probably doesn't, but those guys up there, they sure know it. They don't think they are evil, but they make things so that they keep themselves up there. Corporatism or Corporativism (w/e) is a proof of this. They defend each other, they know they are the ruling class, they fool us to stay up there.
They fear the communists just like a beast would fear those whom it knew that found it's weakness. But they continue to keep us at bay, because they know we can take them their luxuries.

[AK]

The Bourgeoisie probably have class consciousness - they might need knowledge of Marxism to know that they are indeed the enemy. But they're much too greedy, well-off and selfish to do something about the class struggle and inequality.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think they do and they don't: as Marx said, the ruling ideas of any age are the ideas of the ruling class at that time. Capitalists don't have to develop ruling class consciousness, like workers do because most of their consciousness is the default consciousness of capitalist society; most "common sense" ideas about society are based in ruling class consciousness. I don't think they sit around and discuss the balance of class forces - it's much easier and more natural than that. When they talk in the board rooms about how to reduce labor costs - this is capitalist consciousness: they know that to increase profits, they need to reduce labor costs or boost production at the same labor cost. The idea of private property is to capitalists what working class solidarity is for us.

Workers, on the other hand have to learn to reject ruling class consciousness and all the reactionary ideas spread to keep us divided - basically a lot of what the learn in school and from the media and so on.

[Dimentio]

As in: to what extent do/did the bourgoise deliberately bring about our current conditions?

Or was/is it an unconscious perpetuation of the conditions of capitalism.


Im obviously not suggesting that there is some kind of new world order, swing-from-the-ceiling-insane group of cappies plotting away somewhere, i am just wondering to what extent the ruling class are aware of what they are doing.

They have very intense class conciousness. They could almost instinctively see what would threaten their position in society, and often view themselves as more worth than the ordinary people.