"Crush the Proletariat"

[JPSartre12]

Comrades, I would like your input.

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine the other day and our conversation has got me thinking. He said that, if we want the proletariat to obtain class consciousness and revolt and overthrow capitalism, then we should actively support capitalist and statist candidates. His logic was that if we do that it would immiserate the proletariat faster and quickly erode what little social safety net the welfare-capitalist states have, and the proletariat would get fed up with the system faster, realize that they're being exploited and abused, and then stage a revolution.

He said something like "If you support the conservative and reactionary political groups around the world and just sit by or maybe even help them crush the proletariat, then the proletariat will retaliate and finally stage their revolution". I'm paraphrasing.

What is your take on this idea?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

This has been theorized before and the general consensus is that the damage done would be too great and serve to undermine workers efforts to organize.

Like the political version of throwing your kid in the lake to teach him to swim.

[Book O'Dead]

More suffering does not necessarily lead to greater working class consciousness. If it were so we would already have socialism.

In my experience, working class consciousness of the revolutionary kind is the product of a combination of actual engagement in the class struggle and a sound education in Marxian economics and sociology:

"WHENCE DO WAGES COME, AND WHENCE PROFITS? What you now stand in need of, aye, more than of bread, is the knowledge of a few elemental principles of political economy and of sociology."


Daniel De Leon
http://www.marxists.org/archive/deleon/works/1898/980211.htm

[Rafiq]

Firstly, the Bourgeois class isn't composed of morons, they know very well the result of being so quick in destroying the rights of proletarians.

Secondly, class consciousness doesn't necessarily rise when the Bourgeois class is actively seeking to suppress the proletarian class. In the last thirty years, the rights of proletarians were systematically crushed and at the same time, class consciousnesses was and is at an all time low.

As a matter of fact, class conciousness usually arises when proletarians have a comfortable enough of a life to realize the limitations of reform, to have the luxury to sit and think.

[The Jay]

Why would we want to harm people just to quicken their "awakening"? How are they supposed to trust anti-capitalism that supports capitalism? Yes supporting capitalist and statist candidates would further the degradation of the people's lives, and it may bring them closer to realizing what the system is as a whole. That said, we shouldn't try to intentionally harm anyone.

[Book O'Dead]

Why would we want to harm people just to quicken their "awakening"? How are they supposed to trust anti-capitalism that supports capitalism? Yes supporting capitalist and statist candidates would further the degradation of the people's lives, and it may bring them closer to realizing what the system is as a whole. That said, we shouldn't try to intentionally harm anyone.

My problem with the OP is that is assumes that capitalism isn't already doing everything in its power to make our lives more painful.

[JPSartre12]

This has been theorized before and the general consensus is that the damage done would be too great and serve to undermine workers efforts to organize.

Like the political version of throwing your kid in the lake to teach him to swim.

I'm not trying to imply in any way that I agree with my friend :huh: buttt I can only see bourgeois oppression being a sudden eye-opener if it's pushed on the proletariat hard, fast, and unrelenting.

If it's slow and gradual, I don't see them making much of a fuss about it.


Secondly, class consciousness doesn't necessarily rise when the Bourgeois class is actively seeking to suppress the proletarian class. In the last thirty years, the rights of proletarians were systematically crushed and at the same time, class consciousnesses was and is at an all time low.


I guess that's what I mean ^ :rolleyes:

[Geiseric]

Well why wasn't there a revolution in fascist germany or italy? Because the proletariat was crushed by the most reactionary forces ever conceived. We need to support unions and working class organizations, not Scott Walker.

[JPSartre12]

Well why wasn't there a revolution in fascist germany or italy? Because the proletariat was crushed by the most reactionary forces ever conceived. We need to support unions and working class organizations, not Scott Walker.

I completely agree comrade :lol: I'm just bouncing ideas around here.

Following that train of thought, do you think that (theoretically speaking) a country that is in the grip of fascism would have its proletariat, after a period of time, rise up and overthrow that State? Or do you think that fascism would be so entwined with their culture that it and the dissent-suppressing thought-police would be permanent?

[Robocommie]

Anyone who actually subscribed to a philosophy like this is guilty of seeing the proletariat as animals or resources, as a means to an end, rather than human beings who suffer and feel pain and anguish.

[Lynx]

Machiavellian philosophy?

[Hit The North]

Apart from the objections raised throughout this thread, I doubt there is anything "we" could do to intensify the misery capitalism already heaps on the working class, so the proposition is unsustainable in itself.

[JPSartre12]

Anyone who actually subscribed to a philosophy like this is guilty of seeing the proletariat as animals or resources, as a means to an end, rather than human beings who suffer and feel pain and anguish.

This is probably the best thing that I've heard in days :laugh:
Great way of saying it!

[Ocean Seal]

Comrades, I would like your input.

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine the other day and our conversation has got me thinking. He said that, if we want the proletariat to obtain class consciousness and revolt and overthrow capitalism, then we should actively support capitalist and statist candidates. His logic was that if we do that it would immiserate the proletariat faster and quickly erode what little social safety net the welfare-capitalist states have, and the proletariat would get fed up with the system faster, realize that they're being exploited and abused, and then stage a revolution.

He said something like "If you support the conservative and reactionary political groups around the world and just sit by or maybe even help them crush the proletariat, then the proletariat will retaliate and finally stage their revolution". I'm paraphrasing.

What is your take on this idea?
History contradicts it.
When the state "crushes the proletariat" people stay home, poor and afraid.

[Sea]

And then what, after a few years of hellish working conditions the government in its infinite wisdom and benevolence gives gives the people the gift of light reformism and we're back where we started?

[Desperado]

It also damns the proletariat to inaction and is itself reformist. The point is that we have revolutionary potential only as workers, not as citizens who support reactionary governments to provoke the workers to be revolutionary. I call on the proletariat to act, and will myself as a prole act. I don't call on the bourgeoisie anything - besides, why would they listen? We will take, we will occupy...

[jookyle]

The idea that the beating down of the proletariat or some cataclysmic event will inspire the class itself to organize is a useless argument unless the class, a majority of the class, is not only made aware of the destructive and exploitative nature of capitalism but what they can do about it. And if they know that, you won't need to oppress the class any further. We need mass awareness, not more oppression.

[Clifford C Clavin]

Anyone who actually subscribed to a philosophy like this is guilty of seeing the proletariat as animals or resources, as a means to an end, rather than human beings who suffer and feel pain and anguish.

Sounds like Trotsky.

Ever read his "Their Morals and Ours"?

[RebelDog]

If you support the conservative and reactionary political groups

They seem to be doing alright anyway.