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As you may or may not know I blog about various frameworks of liberation as well as current affairs in the world of politics. This particular blog is oriented toward those ideologies that recognize the importance of class in understanding society and toward that increasing worldwide probability that working classes will assume more and more of social, economic and political power.
I think that the working class has already had a tremendous influence on world social development. The Bolshevik and Chinese Revolutions are of particular note but of course both of these examples have now become their opposite and there is less influence by the working classes
in those countries than many other places.
Meanwhile we still have some socialistic programs in the United States like social security and Medicare so in this sense I think the United States is more socialistic or communistic that China, where they do not have such programs.
Of course, there is little open admission of socialist policies in the United States and some of the conservatives have been more accurate in calling certain things that are socialistic, socialist and the liberals try to avoid the term. Of course the social security and Medicare programs and even the current Chinese regime must ultimately trace their success to workers movements that led to Medicare and Social Security or in Asia to the Peoples Republic of China.
We haven't even mentioned the Russian Revolution and all the changes that came from that but the point here is that there was a very tiny proletariat at that time in Russia but the consequences of a powerful Proletarian movement changed the face of the world for seventy five years.
Today there are more workers than ever and they represent a larger proportion of society than ever. Who can REALLY THINK ABOUT THESE DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS and doubt that this huge body of workers will not ultimately seize real proletarian power and exercise it in a revolutionary way, for the working class, by the working class!
The greatest obstacle to change are the conservative and yes very bourgeois ideas and ideologies that have filled our heads and the heads of our immediate predecessors. The United States has a been remarkably silent as the working class bargaining power has been weakened and placed in competition with other workers across the world. In many nations the independent action of workers is made illegal.
The idea that class struggle is central to any substantial let alone revolutionary social change is not a new one. Of course some politicians seem to understand this. Senator Edwards has persistently focused on the class differences in the United States and takes the side of the workers. At least this is his stated intent, and it is a remarkably isolated performance in a nation where there seems to be one point of view, the point of view of the sometimes visible, sometimes hidden ruling elites.
Objectively speaking I think he should have done better in the Democratic horse race. He didn't do better because working class consciousness in the United States is dominated by capitalist notions and ideas. Mental slavery is the condition of the oppressed group who thinks and acts only in the interests of the oppressor group. It is largely the condition of the American proletariat today.
Proletarian ideas conceive of a world and society where workers benefit and flourish without exploitation. A mature class for-itself will naturally conceive of replacing the rule of any oppressor class with its own rule.
Of course many may see working class consciousness as including an acceptance of bourgeois rule and exploitation. That view will not be promoted here.
Proletarian or working class consciousness is relatively low in the United States today. It is an ironic situation, those most oppressed by capitalism, especially isolated workers, are often unable to conceive of any alternative. Working class notions of a better society are few and far between. Working class ideas have not been televised, taught in school or church. Still, a proletarian world view can be conceived of and built by those who build everything anyway.
People learn all the time. In this case people have learned that subservience to capitalism is the best and perhaps only option in their lives. Few institutions or advocates for working class rule exist in the
United States today.
Steve Biko and other South African liberation fighters founded the Black Consciousness Movement during the reign of de jure apartheid. There was a need to develop and popularize ideas that represented the interests of the black African caste in apartheid South Africa.
At that time, the capitalist rulers of South Africa also imposed a system which condemned people of color to very limited options at the bottom of the economic and social system. Black South Africans were created as a special sector of the working class available for superexploitation both in and outside the formal marketplace. So the black consciousness movement helped educate thousands and millions of black South Africans. Equal economic and politcal rights with the whites was a fundamental liberating demand and desire that became personally embraced by millions who may have previously had neither hope nor notions of a liberated condition or a liberation struggle to
achieve those political goals suitable to black South Africans being viciously exploited and enslaved by the whites, that is what apartheid was all about.
The proletariat or working class is a diverse amalgamation of billions of human beings upon the face of the Earth. What politics and policies serve the interests of the workers of the world?
Of course capitalist ideas rule today. Capitalists rule and it is only natural that their ideas rule as well. This is why the Proletariat or working class needs to think things through for itself. Capitalists do not have the best interests of working people as a core principle in their economic system. It is their system you know. They want profits and that is what they go for. Workers may or may not benefit from this profit system. Ultimately the interests of the workers and the capitalists are not the same except that the capitalists should see their days are numbered as a class. Capitalism is not working out for the survival of humanity. We need a proletarian system based upon workers working together to produce what we need for our use, not production just to pile up profits.
Capitalism is hopefully going to evolve or otherwise be replaced by a system that respects our ecosystem and all humanity. Capitalism needs to be challenged by a proletarian way of thinking about production and politics.
