We are our own enemy!

[benhur]

Oftentimes, it's happened. If you don't wear some trendy clothes, you're made fun of-NOT by the rich, but by the people who belong to your social class. Once I was searching for change in my wallet, and the minimum wage worker giggled with other girls, mocking my poverty.:( Again, I was insulted NOT by the rich, but by someone who might actually be below me, as far as financial status went. Ironically, I was never treated badly by the rich folks.

I could give countless instances, where poor, working class people and middle-class (petit bourgeois, those who're richer than workers, but still sell their labor to make a nice living) have often attacked each other, made fun of each, sucked up to the rich, etc. etc.

All this indicates that class consciousness in the majority of these people is zero. We are our own enemy, because we fight each other, insult each other.

For the revolution to succeed, these people must come over to our side, which is impossible considering their ignorance and pettiness. But we can't fight them, because they're our people, the working class. What's the solution? Is a vanguard party the only way to go?
:crying:

[Lynx]

Class consciousness may require a certain maturity level. I have not experienced the rudeness you describe. Ribbing from co-workers is of the 'we're in the same boat' variety. It's black humour :(

[Sweetpotos]

Yes, a vanguard party is the only way to go.

Even when the revolution is imminent and being carried out, it will only be the work of a conscious minority within the working class.

Tony Cliff hit it spot on the head when he identified the basic problem of the socialist revolution as the contradiction between the the two facts that: 1) The emancipation of the working class is the task of the working class itself. And 2) the ruling ideas in every epoch are the ideas of the ruling class.

There is a great video on youtube where Tony Cliff explains this and why it necessitates Lenin's notion of the vanguard party. I would link to it, but youtube is down right now unfortunately.

[ernie]

All this indicates that class consciousness in the majority of these people is zero. We are our own enemy, because we fight each other, insult each other.
I think you're being a little over-dramatic here. I've never had a proletarian mock me for not having money. In fact, just yesterday I had an opposite experience. I was buying a cup of coffee and, having only two bucks on me, I had to ask the guy behind the counter if the prices included tax. Well, some guy (I could tell by his clothes that this person was not rich or even middle class) behind me overheard my question and offered to spot me the amount it went over the two bucks. No mocking, just an honest offer.

I think that's a show of solidarity...if a very small one. It's certainly not true that all workers are greedy fuckers who'd let their fellow workers die before helping them out, which is what the ruling class would have us believe.

As for consciousness, you have to understand that you're living in a reactionary period when the working class isn't very revolutionary, or even progressive.

And I don't believe the consciousness to be zero. I think that a lot of workers have what I like to think of as a very primitive form of Marxism. By this I mean that they agree that rich people make the rules, that politicians are corrupt bastards, that their bosses are assholes and ass-kissers, etc. They may not understand how all this stuff happens in any detail, but it's something we can work with.


For the revolution to succeed, these people must come over to our side, which is impossible considering their ignorance and pettiness. But we can't fight them, because they're our people, the working class. What's the solution? Is a vanguard party the only way to go?
:crying:
No, it's not. In modern capitalist countries, most Leninist parties have turned into reformist parties. I think history's lesson is very clear on the issue of "vanguard" parties in "first world" capitalist countries is very clear. People are tired of parties and leaders; they're what got them in this shit to begin with. At this point, there are very few things we can do that offer real resistance to capitalism. Playing electoral politics with the ruling class isn't one of them.