Need Help !

[x_ihag]

last days i was talking with friends about communism and i was trying to explain and answer some of the question they had but here are some i kinda wasnt sure of my answer's can any1 help me:
-How can we define the class struggle today? where can we find it?
-Did Karl Marx talked about the middle salary family, cause it always been between proletarians and bourgeois?!?!

oh and something really deffrent, last day i read a quotte for Che and i didnt got it can any1 explain it for me : "In fact, if Christ himself stood in my way, I, like Nietzsche, would not hesitate to squish him like a worm"

[Marion]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25 2006, 09:04 AM
-How can we define the class struggle today? where can we find it?

The class struggle is all around us in various forms. It's an illusion to think of the class struggle solely in terms of mass strikes, protests or actions. Most people are involved in the class struggle even if only at a "subjective" level - they phone in sick, they spend time on the Internet when they should be working, chat to friends on the shop floor, try and take extended breaks etc. Anything that acts against capitalism and the imposition of work and helps the self-activity of the working class is class struggle.

[Whitten]

-How can we define the class struggle today? where can we find it?
-Did Karl Marx talked about the middle salary family, cause it always been between proletarians and bourgeois?!?!

If someone is selling their labour to an employer, in wage slavery, then they are proletarian (In theory you could be a rich proletarian). If someone is earning capital through someone elses labour, then they are bourgeois. These classes still stand today and although there may be a middle class in terms of wealth, there isnt in terms of their actual role in society.


oh and something really deffrent, last day i read a quotte for Che and i didnt got it can any1 explain it for me : "In fact, if Christ himself stood in my way, I, like Nietzsche, would not hesitate to squish him like a worm"

He's pretty much saying that he would continue fighting for the revolution even if Jesus were to be real and directly oppose him. To put it simoly "Who cares about doing what God says if he's working for the enemy?"

[Marion]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25 2006, 09:48 AM

-How can we define the class struggle today? where can we find it?
-Did Karl Marx talked about the middle salary family, cause it always been between proletarians and bourgeois?!?!

If someone is selling their labour to an employer, in wage slavery, then they are proletarian (In theory you could be a rich proletarian). If someone is earning capital through someone elses labour, then they are bourgeois.
Not sure how hard and fast you can be using this definition. I earn capital through going to work and yet, both directly and indirectly this is done at least partly through someone else's labour. For example, my earning capital is strictly dependent on being able to get to work - to do this I am paying the wages of the bus or train staff through paying for my ticket, I pay for the roads to be repaired through my taxes etc etc. Moreover, the size of my wage packet is affected by the number of people in work - the more people in work, the less demand for work so the more employers have to increase wages. Again, I'm earning capital through someone else's labour. Yeah, we're all cheated out of an awful lot more capital by others, but that doesn't mean we aren't involved in it to a small extent as well.

I don't think I'm necessarily arguing against what you're attempting to define. I'd agree that some sociological or perhaps economic categories can be made that show a difference between the self-employed or the shop owner from the traditional "wage slave" and this can be useful for thinking about certain things. I just think that its worth bearing in mind that we can't always be neatly fitted within these categories. As mentioned earlier, we're all within capital (albeit struggling to get out) and we all occasionally act, or have roles that are, middle-class or bourgeois.

[Hit The North]

I earn capital through going to work and yet, both directly and indirectly this is done at least partly through someone else's labour.

You earn wages through going to work, which you invest in your own reproduction, rather than reinvesting it into the production process.

Of course, capitalism creates webs of inter-dependency which we are all forced to engage in and therefore our existence is dependent upon the labour of others as well as our own.

Nevertheless a clear distinction needs to be made between capital and wages as derived from an individual's position within the relations of production and it needs to be appreciated that as a worker my dependency upon other workers is different to the dependency a capitalist has on labour.

Another important factor, besides relationship to means of production is the function performed by certain occupations within the production process and the degree of control they have over either the process itself or the workers.

Erik Olin Wright's work on 'contradictory class locations' is a good analysis of the above. This is a pretty fair outline of his ideas: http://uregina.ca/~gingrich/250a203.htm

The majority of the working class in the West are now employed within white-collar, salaried jobs. Nevertheless, for most white collar workers, wages are relatively low, work is routine and repetative and they occupy a marginal position within the command hierarchy.

[Marion]

Cheers for the post - agree with bits of what you say (e.g. I'd agree wholeheartedly that there is a very different perspective between the capitalist and the worker - the old C-M-C and M-C-M point).

However, am not sure how much the issue of wages helps when looking at class and trying to describe the working-class as this tends to exclude the unemployed, housewives etc. I'm presuming you're not including them as working class as if you do then I don't think you'd be able to say at all that "the majority of the working class in the West are now employed within white-collar, salaried jobs"? Any clarification would be handy.

Will have a look at the link you've provided as it might answer some of the questions I've got about control, function etc. Thanks very much for posting it as I think it sounds very interesting...

[rebelworker]

I think its important to remember that the class war is being waged at all times, the main proble now in north america is that at this point in time it is extreemyl one sided.

Due alto to both the gains made by the workers movement in the past and the current sad state of the unions, the working class in north america is not very combative right now.

On the other hand the ruling class is. And union legislation, sending the poor off to die for oil profits, the expanding prison industry and the continue blocking of universal healthcare in the US, these are all expamles of us loosing the class war.

Large companies like walmart and mcDonalds now employ large numbers of the working class, and they run visious anti union campaigns in order to keep wokers divided, powerless and underpaid.

There are examples of unions like SEIU, who are now very activly organising some of the most opressed segements of the american working class (women, immigrants) where the class struggle is being fought tooth and nail.

The recent hunger strike by janitors and their supporters in Florida shows this quite well.

[Hit The North]

M:


However, am not sure how much the issue of wages helps when looking at class and trying to describe the working-class as this tends to exclude the unemployed, housewives etc. I'm presuming you're not including them as working class as if you do then I don't think you'd be able to say at all that "the majority of the working class in the West are now employed within white-collar, salaried jobs"? Any clarification would be handy.

You're quite right. I should have written, 'the majority of the working class employed in the West...' So yes I would include the unemployed and the housewives of workers (an increasingly shrinking proportion of the class) as members of the working class.

You're right wages aren't the only defining factor. Some people derive wages performing organizational, ideological or coercive functions for the capitalist and are often rewarded handsomely for their services. These people coud be said to occupy a contradictory class position in that they have the same relationship to the means of production as ordinary workers but, on the other hand, their power, prestige and material livelyhood are linked to the survival of capitalism.

[x_ihag]

thx guys for the explanation