Conflict of the People

[drain.you]

Conflict of the People

' The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.'

Marx and Engels talked specifically about class conflict in society, between groups such as Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, and the current day conflict of capitalist societies: The bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
However, I put to you this: The cause for revolution is not the proletariat’s war alone.

The common aim for the revolution is that of communism.
Here is a definition of this system from Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia:

’Communism refers to a theoretical system of social organization and a political movement based on common ownership of the means of production. As a political movement, communism seeks to overthrow capitalism through a workers' revolution and establish a classless society.’

The last point of that definition is in my opinion, the most important. Communism aims to establish a classless society. The current organisation of society is not classless and it breeds inequality.
Societies have always consisted of the suppressors and the suppressed. Under capitalism, it is not the bourgeoisie that is the only suppressor in today’s society and it is not the proletariat that is the only suppressed. Every minority in society is suppressed to some extent. Whether it is race, gender, religion or political ideology, a minority exists in oppression.
In the example of race, in British society, the Anglo-Saxon suppresses the people of African origin (amongst many others).
In the example of gender, males dominate and suppress females across the majority of the world. The examples are endless and because of this, you must accept that the conflict of the people under the system of suppressor and suppressed sparks the desire for a classless society, a communist society, and proletariats are not alone in society as far as the need for revolution goes.
I no longer wish to call for the revolution from the proletariat alone, I wish to call for the revolution from the suppressed in general, that is how we will find our majority and overthrow the inequality of capitalism


Written by drain.you on this day.

[redstar2000]

Marx drew a distinction (which may or may not appeal to you) between exploitation and oppression.

In Marx's analysis, exploitation is the appropriation of labor power by the exploiting class from the exploited class.

Oppression, in Marx's view, has its material roots in exploitation...but is cultural in nature.

The oppression of women, for example, is based on the appropriation of female labor power -- in the home and in the workplace. But the forms of oppression that result from that can obviously vary widely depending on the cultural features (and history) of particular class societies.

Certainly one can be oppressed without being exploited. In modern capitalist society, a woman who is an independent capitalist herself can be (and often is!) oppressed by patriarchal laws, cultural attitudes, etc. even though her class position is with the exploiters and not the exploited.

This is probably due to the fact that various cultural attitudes have a marked tendency to "permeate" all of a given society. Moreover, those attitudes seem to be "sticky" -- that very rare working class individual who actually does become a "successful capitalist" is still apt to be "looked down on" (socially snubbed) by other capitalists because of his/her class origins.

In general, I think those who are most exploited will be the same, or very close to the same, as those who are also most oppressed. It's not a "perfect" correlation...but I think it's probably very close to that.

If Marx was right, it's what one would expect.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[drain.you]

I believe that one is economic and the other is cultural but I think that explotation can't exist without oppression. If the capitalist saw his workers as equal to him then they would be paid properly, therefore the capitalist is culturally discriminating against workers(workers appearence, lifesytle, habbitat,etc), which is oppression if you mix the fact that he is discriminating against their culture (believing they are lower than him) and exploiting them because of this.


Exploitation is caused by oppression on a cultural level but not all oppression causes exploitation.

[KC]

I believe that one is economic and the other is cultural but I think that explotation can't exist without oppression.

Your belief is incorrect. Why do you believe this?


If the capitalist saw his workers as equal to him then they would be paid properly, therefore the capitalist is culturally discriminating against workers(workers appearence, lifesytle, habbitat,etc), which is oppression if you mix the fact that he is discriminating against their culture (believing they are lower than him) and exploiting them because of this.

The capitalist doesn't have to discriminate against his/her workers culturally. He can see a distinction between him and his workers that is much more obvious than a difference in culture; a financial difference, and a difference between their relations to the means of production. Do you believe that every capitalist discriminates against their workers' cultures? Also, do you think that all capitalists have different cultures than all workers? That is an outrageous claim to make.



Exploitation is caused by oppression on a cultural level but not all oppression causes exploitation.

Exploitation is caused by the relationship to the means of production and nothing more. To say that capitalists exploit their workers because of cultural differences (sometimes the capitalist and their workers come from the same culture!) is just foolish.