Can the working class unite?

[Hannah Bell]

ONE OF the most common objections to socialism is the idea that the working class is too alienated, too tied to its narrow material interests and too internally divided to play the revolutionary role that Karl Marx envisioned for it.

In many ways, this objection rests on an elitist notion that workers are too weighed down by material concerns to have the ability to fight for broader social change. It also accepts not just that workers can hold racist, sexist, homophobic or other backward ideas, but also that they are somehow more susceptible to these ideas...

To be clear, Marxists do not argue that workers never hold backward political ideas. They are at least as capable of reactionary ideas and general ignorance as the rest of the population. However, they are not uniquely so--and, more importantly, they are the one class in society with a material interest in challenging all forms of oppression.

The bigotry, selfishness and ignorance of those who run our society flow from their class position. In order to maintain their power, they must foster the idea that ordinary people are somehow less capable, and they must perpetuate all the backwards ideas that help keep working-class people divided from one another. For the working class, however, manifestations of these ideas are at odds with their class interests, and are therefore a challenge to be overcome....

To be clear, when Marx discussed the liberatory capacity of the working class, he was describing a potential, not things as they currently stand. His theory does not rest on an idealization of the working class as more noble or self-sacrificing. Marx fully recognized the existence of prejudice within the working class and its frequent blindness to its own class interests.

However, as the socialist Hal Draper wrote: "It is not a question of how the proletariat can be deceived, betrayed, seduced, bought, brainwashed, or manipulated by the ruling powers of society, like every other class. The basic point is that it is the proletariat that it is crucial to deceive, seduce and so on...."

http://socialistworker.org/2010/11/04/can-the-working-class-unite

[Little Star]

1. I think we might be able to. But it will probably be too late.

sigh...

[demosincebirth]

2. Make mandatory the teaching of U.S. Labor History in all high schools.

It will never happen. Right-wingers will say you're teaching socialism and communism.

[SoCalDem]

3. No

why?

because we all have our own agendas, and when it comes to deciding on which ones unite us, the ones that divide us usually trump cohesion.

There are certain issues we "used to" just agree to not broach, but these days, "nothing is off the table" anymore so all the bloody shirt issues get in the way of any real unification..

There is a finite budget of time & money, and as long as everyone wants more than the next, for his/her own issue, nothing gets very far.

Dems, by nature, tend to not be spiteful, so when our issues are unresolved, we usually just accept it and try harder to change things. Most Republicans are spiteful, selfish people and can (and do) support legislation that ultimately hurts them too..but as long as they can punish "someone else" they are okay with it.

[readmoreoften]

21. That's why solidarity is so important.

It's funny how gay people and conservative catholics can come together on a picket line--and how they often learn to stay together.

[FiveGoodMen]

4. Not without shutting off the TV and radio

[AndyTiedye]

5. They'd Still Have the Churches

[FiveGoodMen]

6. I'd like to shut them off, too

[AndyTiedye]

14. At Least Shut Off Their Tax Exemptions

[FiveGoodMen]

22. Agreed.

[TBF]

7. We can and must - it's our only chance. nt

[Starry Messenger]

8. This seems like an odd article.

We will unite when we have to or die. Let's hope it is sooner rather than too late.

[stray cat]

9. You mean with conservatives and moderates and blue dogs? Would progressives want them?

[RoccoR5955]

10. We have in the past, therefore will in the future.

Things have to get REALLY REALLY REALLY bad, and I don't believe that they are so bad that the people will demand things, like they did during the Great Depression, at the turn of the 20th century, in the 1960s, and other times.

Politicians NEVER bring about change. It is ALWAYS done by small groups of people uniting. It's how our country was founded.

Read "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn, to find out more.

[Exilednight]

11. Yes, but like any addiction we have to hit rock bottom first. n/t

[bobbolink]

12. More and more I am seeing that non-working people are the ones who need to unite.

We have no voice at all, and are uniformly ignored.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. Yes. But, it has to be under the rubric of "Workers of the WORLD, unite."

Not under the nationalism that separates them into narrow factions of self-interest.

[AndyTiedye]

18. Stop Employers from Playing Workers of Different Nations Off Against Each Other

Unions must truly become the international organizations that they claim to be.

Free trade and trade agreements must be made to work for us, not against us.
Labor must be at the table when these agreements are being hammered out.

Imagine a trade agreement that guaranteed the right of workers in all the signing nations to unionize
(overturning all those pesky "right-to-work" laws in the process), and brought workers rights and
protection to the highest standard, rather than the least common denominator.

[Radical Activist]

15. This article is typical of the condescending, disdain in which middle-class university Marxists

hold actual working class people. They think that working class people are stupid because they aren't "smart" enough to accept their form of Marxism. It doesn't occur to them that the working class people who reject Communist ideology might be the smart ones.

Publications like the socialist worker engage in spin and half-truths because they think working class people are stupid enough to fall for it and be manipulated.

[leftstreet]

16. lol

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[socialist_n_TN]

23. That is sometimes a problem...........

However, I think that the biggest problem with Marxism and the AMERICAN working class is the materialist nature of Marxism. I AM working class from birth. My Daddy was a milkman and my Mama was a secretary who worked because she HAD to, not because she wanted to. I've never been wealthy and have worked in steel construction, as a free lance artist and various phone jobs all my life. I can take the class struggle part of Marxism to heart without getting bogged down in the materialistic argument, BUT A LOT OF PEOPLE CANNOT. MOST working class people have little or no problems with the class struggle ideas of Marxism as unlabeled ideas. But propaganda is hard to overcome. As soon as you say the word "Marxism" or "Marxist", the atheistic thing pops up for a lot of ACTUAL workers.

[Radical Activist]

25. Another part of the problem

is that too many Marxists can't accept the fundamentally anti-authoritarian nature of the American political psyche. Americans will never swap the abuse of centralized capitalist power in exchange for a central government powerful enough to reshape society. I agree with that viewpoint completely. This is why Marxists who participate in social/issue movements have always had a more significant impact in the U.S. than those who focused on political party movements. Social movements are generally anti-authoritarian in nature, while the political side of Marxism often gravitates toward advocacy of authoritarian state-socialism.
Revolutionary change in America will never happen as a result of authoritarian Marxism. It will be along an anarchist, or more likely, a direct-democracy, community organizing model.

[blindpig]

26. While your comments are apropos for your typical Trot

they do not describe working class commies.

Here's the thing, who is gonna get the job done? What have the Trots actually done? Show me the successful anarchist revolution. The democratic-socialists gambit in Europe is totally undone in a spasm of financial reaction. Who is gonna get the job done, who has gotten the job done? Commies, Marxist-Leninist, they have toppled capitalism. And if those revolutions did not reach their promise they brought great advancements to their people and have instructed us by their experience and shortcomings. Capitalism must be eliminated root and stock, it is a matter of justice, humanity, survival. Who is gonna do it?

Commies.

[Greyhound]

17. Not yet. K&R

[nc4bo]

24. Not until every one is in the same pain as the least of us.

I've noticed that's how certain types of human beings work, probably the majority.

Right now, not everyone's in the same desperate financial situation. The more the have's have-not, the more united the working class will become.

Until then, nope.