"Every successful capitalist knows what a Marxist knows; they just apply the knowledge differently"

[Better Believe It]

A Primer on Class Struggle
by Michael Schwalbe
Michael Schwalbe is a professor of sociology at North Carolina State University. He is the author of: Rigging the Game: How Inequality Is Reproduced in Everyday Life
March 31, 2011


Capitalists want laws that weaken and cheapen labor. This means laws that make it harder for workers to organize unions; laws that make it easier to export production to other countries; laws that make it easier to import workers from other countries; laws and fiscal policies that keep unemployment high, so that workers will feel lucky just to have jobs, even with low pay and poor benefits.

Capitalists want tax codes that allow them to pay as little tax as possible; laws that allow them to externalize the costs of production (e.g., the health damage caused by pollution); laws that allow them to swallow competitors and grow huge and more powerful; and laws that allow them to use their wealth to dominate the political process. Workers, when guided by their economic interests, generally want the opposite.

I should note that by “workers,” I mean everyone who earns a wage or a salary and does not derive wealth from controlling the labor of others. By this definition, most of us are workers, though some are more privileged than others. This definition also implies that whenever we resist the creation and enforcement of laws that give capitalists more power to exploit people and the environment, we are engaged in class struggle, whether we call it that or not.

If class struggle is hard to see, it’s not only because of mystifying ideology. It’s because the struggle has been a rout for the last thirty years. But a more visible class struggle could be at hand. The side that’s been losing has begun to fight back more aggressively, as we’ve seen most notably in Wisconsin. To see what’s at stake in this fight and what a real victory might look like, it will help to call the fight by its proper name.

Please read the full article at:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/31-4

[Starry Messenger]

1. k&r

[The Magistrate]

2. An Excellent Point, Sir

[white_wolf]

3. k&r

[TheKentuckian]

4. K&R

[leftstreet]

5. K&R

[Tansy_Gold]

6. This sociologist concurs. K&R

[socialist_n_TN]

7. Kick. Good article.......

nm

[krispos42]

8. Bingo. K&R n/t

[sfwriter]

9. I just said this...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4790535&mesg_id=4793438

[devils chaplain]

10. A good read. N/T

[Wilms]

11. This phrase out at me:

"...when the oppressed are appeased by promises of justice in an afterlife..."

I've thought about employers who promise pay raises that don't or barely materialize, and of clients that ask that you do the first job for little money...ie., "I'll take care of you on the next one".

Faith-based employment.

[roxiejules]

33. Had a boss who said he couldn't give me my paycheck but he got his

He was an attorney who lived very well and said I would need to wait another 2 weeks until there were more funds in the account....then told me, the struggling, divorced mother of two...."God will take care of you".

[Starry Messenger]

34. I had a boss give me a "virtual raise" once.

On paper my pay was raised a dollar, but there wasn't any money to fund it to pay it (he claimed) so it was a "virtual raise". He seemed amused by his invention of the phrase. He told me I should feel proud of myself for achieving this "virtual raise". I decided to do "virtual work" and quit a month later.

[sfwriter]

12. Another point... Marx assumes capitalists are right....

His theories are based on everything the most fevered free marketeer says is true.

He then goes on to show how that means workers get screwed.

GREAT AUDIO ON CAPITAL HERE...


http://davidharvey.org/

If you just have a couple hours, do this chapter:

http://davidharvey.org/2008/08/capital-class-11/

[blindpig]

24. A kick for David Harvey

recommended.

[drm604]

13. K&R

:think:

[Fool Count]

14. A successful capitalist and a Marxist can be the same

person. Friedrich Engels certainly was. One can disagree with the rules of one's society and want to change them yet he can play and
win according to those rules. There is no contradiction here at all. Only in the sick minds of some right-wing ideologists who use the
imagined contradiction to beat every non-poverty-stricken socialist over the head. So there is no need to "apply the knowledge
differently". Just because I think that the game of basketball would be much better if a ball carrier was allowed three steps instead
of two, doesn't mean that to be consistent I must commit a traveling violation and be penalized for it every time I touch the ball.
However, I can convince everyone to agree to the new rules and to enjoy them together.

[sfwriter]

15. That is a great metaphor there....

Love it.

[Selatius]

23. There's an even shorter saying encapsulating what he's saying.

Often, when one goes out to drink and dance, one may run across sorry bastards who treat women shabbily or treat them as objects, but because they know how to manipulate them and are charismatic, they can distract a fair number of women from noticing. When called out on it, many will simply say, "Hey, don't hate the player! Hate the game!"

[moondust]

16. Highly recommended.

:kick:

[snot]

17. K&R'd

[crickets]

18. Enthusiastic K&R! -nt

[handmade34]

19. rec

[louslobbs]

20. Excellent information

Thanks K&R

[quaker bill]

21. The truth, and quite well described

like the "Matrix", class struggle is everywhere. It has become so common it seems normal and sensible. You see people mouth the words and know they do not understand the meaning. "we have to tighten our belts".... actually means we (all of us workers) have to become used to being paid less. (A fascinating figure of speech as the origin of the notion of "belt tightening" was a means to avoid hunger pangs when food was scarce.)

When they say it, they actually think it is advice for someone else...

[malaise]

22. Excellent read

Rec

[blindpig]

25. k&r

[Better Believe It]

26. "We" have to cut back, sacrifice. The "we" of course meaning working people, not the capitalists.

[Joe Fields]

27. Isn't that rather obvious to those of us who pay attention?

But then again, maybe too many Americans haven't been paying attention.

I have no problem with capitalism and capitalists. I understand the philosophy, and it is n ot solely without merit. Without it, innovation in industry, scientific and medical advances would come to a virtual standstill. No incentive to advance technology.

My problem lays at the feet of our so called "public servants," our politicians, to use that term loosely, who do not stand as guardians to insure that there remain strict, fair regulations that keep capitalism in check, and allow our citizenry a chance for a life beyond poverty.

[TBF]

29. If you have "no problem" with capital or capitalists,

you are either an owner or most certainly not paying attention.

[socialist_n_TN]

30. Well, I just don't think that this meme is true.........

Only capitalism encourages innovation? I've heard it often over my lifetime and the older I get, the less I believe it. This ASSUMES that the only reason people innovate is because of money, leaving out a LOT of other factors of which money is only a PART.

Also, in the last 30 years, how many companies REALLY innovate? With the only criteria for business success being quarterly profits, there's actually no business incentive for long term reasearch and innovation because research COST businesses money in the short term. And short term is the only thing a capitalist thinks about.

So what they do is BUY (or steal) innovative businesses and ideas from small timers and either try and develope them or quash them. A socialist system could buy innovations from people just as well as a capitalist system could and the seller would get societal approval in ADDITION to material gain.

[bigmonkey]

31. I'm not too sure about the "No incentive to advance technology" part.

The open-source model for software (also spreading to other areas now) seems to indicate that you just get a different pace and structure of technological advancement.

[2banon]

38. I think "advancing technology" is over rated

that's not to say technological advancement for improvement in a number of societal spheres should be completly stunted, but frankly I don't hold that concept up as the shining beacon that so many seem to do. In fact, the more technological advanced we become, the closer to extinction we become. Maybe that'll be a good thing for the galaxy and the universe as a whole (good bye sweet planet earth) I certainly can't say, but I'm not into it so much.

[ProudDad]

39. "innovation in industry, scientific and medical advances would come to a virtual standstill.

no incentive"

So, I suppose the advances in human technology and thought previous to 1700 didn't happen since there was no capitalist system to spur them on?

You've bought into the capitalist's biggest lie, that the pursuit of money is the only human motivator...!

The truth is that humans are naturally curious and inquisitive and if it weren't for so many having to waste their creativity and energy making money for capitalist fucks, there would be MORE innovation and progress...

[white_wolf]

43. Without it, innovation in industry, scientific and medical advances would come to a virtual standsti

Hmm Newton lived centuries before capitalism and he paved the way for modern science. Or how about this, arguably the most important invention of all time, the printing press, was invented hundreds of years before capitalism.

[TBF]

28. Excellent article - and in fact this "rigging" has to happen for folks to

be "successful" under capitalism. It is the system itself that requires the greed and over-production. That is why the system itself is inherently unequal and must go. There is no way to "fix" or "regulate" it.

[ProudDad]

40. Exactly

capitalism is based on infinite growth on a finite Earth...

And it's already bumped up against Natural Limits...

And its days are numbered...

[HankyDubs]

32. oh my

Seems like there are an awful lot of people at DU who are in serious need of investigation for "unamerican activities." Perhaps we can start by obtaining their emails with "freedom of information" (bahahaha) requests.

[Mosaic]

35. All the products, the goodies

The services, consumerism, should be produced collectively, cooperatively, socially, democratically. That is the proper way to conduct human affairs, that is the way of the future. Capitalism will go into the dustbin of history, of that I am sure.

[2banon]

36. excellent article, commentators seemed oddly off point..

:shrug: This Primer s/b fb'd, imo..

too late to rec..:thumbsup:

[Catherina]

37. Too late to rec n/t

[ProudDad]

41. Kick

There's a class war on and we, the working classes had better start fighting back!

[upi402]

42. We have the numbers

If the numbers just had real information insteasd of media BS.

[ProudDad]

44. Kick on Today of all Days...

The 43rd Anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination...

For putting on his walking shoes and walking with Union Workers in Memphis...

They didn't kill him for trying to "get the vote" 'cause they knew regular folk can't do shit with the "vote" 'cause the fix is in...

But organizing workers and poor people, that earned him a bullet...

Which side are you on in the class war?

[inna]

45. wow, missed this one completely - very late kick (too late to R, unfortunately)