I dont think ive ever met a middle class person who wants real revolutionary change with Working Class people in control. They all just seem to want to govern the plebs better. Ive been lectured by middle class anarchists that my views on crime could lead to mob rule. And by so called revo socialists who want more money for higher education for the rich. Sad and almost laughable.
Why do the middle class support revolution?
- Thread starter scawenb
- Start date
untethered
For industry & decency
I'll vote for your revolution as long as you promise us all tax cuts.
undesirable
New Member
i'd say because the 'middle classes' do tend to be workers who are screwed over to a lesser degree than the lesser compensated working classes, it depends on what you mean by 'middle class' i'm presuming you mean the likes of teachers, public sector workers, writers etc, now most of these people are exploited for profit in one way or another, they have to sell their labour, work to deadlines, tow a line, commute to work etc etc, they are still proletariat, therefor they have a vested interest in the overthrow of capitalism, its not just your factory workers and bin men who should seek emanciptaion, the proletariat is huge, more people than ever have less control over their own lives, i'd call my parents middle class but there still proles in reality.
undesirable said:
Depends if you are a Marxist.
The poorest need the most help and would benefit the most from some form of social change on a large scale, and the less manipulation and fogging tactics from their "proletarian" and dubious "allies" in the middle class the better. This is in regard to those most excluded from the institutions which middle class people are more freely able to benefit from. There are unbridgable divisions between the working class and middle class.
The middle class have a tendency to dominate and to naively patronise, instead of encouraging working class people to support a group or level of action on their own terms. Naivley because no matter how hard middle class people may try, with daft attempts at looking working class, sounding working class, or even funnier acting "working class" (why is it that middle class people seem to think working class people swear all the time?) they can never know what it is to be poor and invisible at the bottom of the economic ladder. It is mostly a charade of silly language games witht he aim of covering up who really runs the show in organisations that are pro-working class.
This isn't just my prejudices coming out, my FE tutor ages ago went to Cambridge and talked of the middle class students, who were more numerous than people like her (from more humbler backgrounds), "playing at being poor". They always "confused" poverty with having a good time, instead of viewing the positive things poor people do with coping in their circumstances. They reveled in the hypocritical situations of pretend austerity in bad housing and scruffy clothes, although the pressures of knowing that such circumstances are your lot and getting out is hard with all the obstacles in your way was none existent. They could walk when they wanted. They could escape, or make a call for more money, so they could continue being "poor". So much ignorance in such a high seat of learning and enlightenment.
Treat a binman like he is a child, unable to think or act without some professional guidance then expect sarcasm and resentment, perhaps the priviliige of receiving a shot in the neck by his son when the big day comes. Not that I think a social or political revolution is going to happen any time soon, or even one of my liking. It would be dreamy or deluded to suggest otherwise. Partly because binmen and factory workers are too stupid to know what is best for them you see. They blindly go about their lives, without one single thought of how they could improve it all.
Surely there is a blurring of ruling classes with the middle classes. I mean what is the ruling class if not mostly the middle class. They are the politicians, civil servants, the managers etc, and with the way business are owned nowadays, more through shares than through one or several capitalists owning the company, doesn't that mean that the middle classes have more of an intrerest in keeping the status quo as they either directly or inidirectly, through bank accounts or pensions they are investing in the shares.
Echo Beach
So Metro
One of the few useful areas of political science looks at the question of middle class radicalism.
The main guy in the field is Ronald Inglehart. His argument is that with rising affluence and economic security in Western societies, the politics of 'materialism' (economic demands, security) lose their force and are replaced with 'post-materialist' issues such as the concern for democratic issues, personal freedoms, environmental degradation etc. etc. Ingehart suggests therefore that the better off someone is, the more likely it is their politics will be predisposed to post-materialist issues and would tend to vote for Green and/or socialist parties.
The argument has been refined further over the years. A guy called Ignazi has (IMO convincingly) argued a relationship between the rise of post-materialism and 'new' rightwing populist parties (UKIP and to a lesser extent the BNP, Scandinavian 'Progress' parties etc). Their concern with democratic issues is translated into their rightwing EU phobia, personal issues into 'traditional values', and so on. Other have looked at the structural locations of different stratas of the middle class, and have straight forwardly argued that those predisposed to radical politics are concentrated in social care/management positions in the public sector, while those on the right tend to occupy managerial positions in private industry.
Abramson's and Inglehart's 'Value Change in Global Perspective' is a good entree into these issues IMO.
The main guy in the field is Ronald Inglehart. His argument is that with rising affluence and economic security in Western societies, the politics of 'materialism' (economic demands, security) lose their force and are replaced with 'post-materialist' issues such as the concern for democratic issues, personal freedoms, environmental degradation etc. etc. Ingehart suggests therefore that the better off someone is, the more likely it is their politics will be predisposed to post-materialist issues and would tend to vote for Green and/or socialist parties.
The argument has been refined further over the years. A guy called Ignazi has (IMO convincingly) argued a relationship between the rise of post-materialism and 'new' rightwing populist parties (UKIP and to a lesser extent the BNP, Scandinavian 'Progress' parties etc). Their concern with democratic issues is translated into their rightwing EU phobia, personal issues into 'traditional values', and so on. Other have looked at the structural locations of different stratas of the middle class, and have straight forwardly argued that those predisposed to radical politics are concentrated in social care/management positions in the public sector, while those on the right tend to occupy managerial positions in private industry.
Abramson's and Inglehart's 'Value Change in Global Perspective' is a good entree into these issues IMO.
Trotboy
Well-Known Member
Class in Britain
I don't think the poster of the thread (Or most of the respondants) has/have a very clear idea of Class, or of the Class composition of Britain.
What, or who, are the 'middle class' in Britain today? The muddying of Class lines has been the great achievement of Thatcher and the Neo-Liberals. Indeed it was one of their aims from the outset. Thatcher herself came from a Middle Class background, her Father owned a Grocer's shop, they owned their own house, at that time, it was a clear distinction who was 'middle class' the middle classes owned property and often employed a few workers. They had modest reserves of Capital to draw own, and could survive without employment for a period of time, they passed on inherited wealth to their children, and often afforded a Private education for them.
Thatcher latched on to the aspirations of millions of Workers to achieve this lifestyle, and so oversaw the implementation of extension of consumer debt, 'cheap' and easily available Mortgages, and the sale of Council Housing stock. This meant that millions of families became 'homeowners' (Although in reality a Bank or Building Society leases them their homes) and many more people now percieve themselves as, and are percieved as, 'middle class' in reality of course, with record levels of household and personal debt, the vast majority of these people cannot afford to stop working for more than a couple of weeks without their entire lifestyle collapsing about them like a pack of cards.
These contradictions create pressures within society, many people are fooled by their own balancing act, but when they slip up the reality of their situation is revealed to them. In fact, more people than ever in Britain today are Working Class, in that they are entirely dependant upon selling their labour to continue their existence. The true 'middle class' in the classical sense hardly exists, because it became expensive and unneccesary, instead you have a variety of large sections of workers who are actively hostile towards one another, Public Sector workers, Private sector workers, 'Management' and Office workers against Manual workers, with those entrapped by ever longer hours and poorer pay and conditions resentful of those who are trapped within the benefit system and black economy often raising families but not strictly working, Taxpayers against Tax avoiders, whilst all the time the Ruling Class gets ever richer off the back of all of them.
Whilst it's true that there are 'middle class' 'revolutionaries' (Mostly the CC of the SWP and a few more here and there) they are a minority, even in the revolutionary movement, because the middle class is a minority in society.
Steve Bush,
Socialist Party, Devon.
I don't think the poster of the thread (Or most of the respondants) has/have a very clear idea of Class, or of the Class composition of Britain.
What, or who, are the 'middle class' in Britain today? The muddying of Class lines has been the great achievement of Thatcher and the Neo-Liberals. Indeed it was one of their aims from the outset. Thatcher herself came from a Middle Class background, her Father owned a Grocer's shop, they owned their own house, at that time, it was a clear distinction who was 'middle class' the middle classes owned property and often employed a few workers. They had modest reserves of Capital to draw own, and could survive without employment for a period of time, they passed on inherited wealth to their children, and often afforded a Private education for them.
Thatcher latched on to the aspirations of millions of Workers to achieve this lifestyle, and so oversaw the implementation of extension of consumer debt, 'cheap' and easily available Mortgages, and the sale of Council Housing stock. This meant that millions of families became 'homeowners' (Although in reality a Bank or Building Society leases them their homes) and many more people now percieve themselves as, and are percieved as, 'middle class' in reality of course, with record levels of household and personal debt, the vast majority of these people cannot afford to stop working for more than a couple of weeks without their entire lifestyle collapsing about them like a pack of cards.
These contradictions create pressures within society, many people are fooled by their own balancing act, but when they slip up the reality of their situation is revealed to them. In fact, more people than ever in Britain today are Working Class, in that they are entirely dependant upon selling their labour to continue their existence. The true 'middle class' in the classical sense hardly exists, because it became expensive and unneccesary, instead you have a variety of large sections of workers who are actively hostile towards one another, Public Sector workers, Private sector workers, 'Management' and Office workers against Manual workers, with those entrapped by ever longer hours and poorer pay and conditions resentful of those who are trapped within the benefit system and black economy often raising families but not strictly working, Taxpayers against Tax avoiders, whilst all the time the Ruling Class gets ever richer off the back of all of them.
Whilst it's true that there are 'middle class' 'revolutionaries' (Mostly the CC of the SWP and a few more here and there) they are a minority, even in the revolutionary movement, because the middle class is a minority in society.
Steve Bush,
Socialist Party, Devon.
poster342002
PROPER leftwing socialist
Yeah, but the problem is that (in many cases) part of their work involves mistreating the proletariat in lower grades than them. This is the bit you cannopt just get around by ignoring; on a day-to-day basis, capitlaism is enforced over the workers by petty, jumped-up functionaries and supervisors. These types seem (in my experience anyway) to positively relish this role and would be unlikely to relinquish it.undesirable said:
Perhaps it wasn't actually that serious a thread.Trotboy said:
The whole point about the middle classes is that are ill-defined. It is not so much about class definition as about political motivations.
Why would someone from priveledged background or with a comfortable lifestyle want to sacrifice it for a revolution which might leave them worse-off?
Pickman's model
sunset spires and twilight woods
do you think any of the royal family could survive being unemployed for a year or two - ie signing, new deal and so forth?Trotboy said:
i don't! but i don't quite think that makes them anything but a very distant relation of the working classes.
Pickman's model
sunset spires and twilight woods
i would vote on the poll were the question (and options) better thought through.
Pickman's model
sunset spires and twilight woods
they've survived fucking many years without working - what makes you think they'd ever change that cosy existence?kropotkin said:
poster342002
PROPER leftwing socialist
Trotboy said:
poster342002
PROPER leftwing socialist
Quite. In my experience, they seem to make up almost the entirety of them.Shanksy said:
I can't recall the last time I met a member of a trot-group who wasn't employed in a management capacity in their workplace.
Inequality breeds instability.
Instability is dangerous.
Nobody wants to live in a dangerous world.
The "middle classes", such as they are, are by definition not in a position to keep their priviledges in their current state - their status is determined by the ruling class, for whom they act as agents. A revolution against capitalism, if successful, would result in a more equal, and thus stable world - something that would benefit the middle classes as much as anybody else.
That being said...
All these arguments rely on a mechanistic, and IMO inaccurate analysis of the world as made up of class interests and nothing else. Certain issues - post particularly climate change - cross class barriers to an extent, so it makes sense for the "middle class" to take action against them, if only out of self-preservation, regardless of the class interests involved.
- Jonathan
Instability is dangerous.
Nobody wants to live in a dangerous world.
The "middle classes", such as they are, are by definition not in a position to keep their priviledges in their current state - their status is determined by the ruling class, for whom they act as agents. A revolution against capitalism, if successful, would result in a more equal, and thus stable world - something that would benefit the middle classes as much as anybody else.
That being said...
All these arguments rely on a mechanistic, and IMO inaccurate analysis of the world as made up of class interests and nothing else. Certain issues - post particularly climate change - cross class barriers to an extent, so it makes sense for the "middle class" to take action against them, if only out of self-preservation, regardless of the class interests involved.
- Jonathan
Pickman's model
sunset spires and twilight woods
you may as well say that another cross-class issue is the provision of water or electricity, something which affects the generality of the uk populace. but i haven't recently seen too many m/c liberal whingers getting up and saying anything about people having their utilities cut off because of an inability to meet the bills.JonnyT said:
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