Some thoughts on the class struggle
by Rick Nagin
From PeoplesWorld.org
The class struggle is the most basic, fundamental and important fact of life. The conflict between working people and corporate power permeates all aspects of society - the economy, politics, ideology and culture.
Why is this, and why can't the two sides just call a truce and live in peace? Because the nature of the capitalist system divides people into opposing camps with irreconcilable interests and forces the fight. The workers who comprise over 80 percent of the population create the wealth, but the corporate owners and financiers take the lion's share.
According the U.S. Department of Labor, for every $4 in new wealth created in manufacturing, workers get $1 (in wages and benefits). The corporate forces get $3. Put another way, during a 40-hour week workers create the value they are paid in 10 hours, and for 30 hours they work without pay, creating wealth for the bosses.
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Life,or the conditions of life, determines all,even the class struggle. These conditions of life make all we know,including our consciousness of our class and the conditions of struggle while struggling to change the very conditions of life.
It is the class struggle between worker and capital that Marx and Engels brilliantly generalize from in that magnificent Communist Manifesto that our brother Rick Nagin acknowledges.
This class struggle is not between Democrat and Republican,but between worker and capital. The battle between Democrat and Republic does reflect the epic conflict between worker and capital-it certain does-but it is just this- it reflects the basic,colossal motive force battle of history,the class struggle-that between worker and capital-but is is only that- a mere reflection.
People of the world,the workers,the socialists,the communists,the Communists,Africans,Latinos,females,Asians,Americans and Europeans are a life condition,facts of life. How our people stand in relationship to organizations,methods,technologies,production processes,side by side these actions,organizations,institutions,are what make conditions of life,dictating the conditions and even the stakes of class struggle.
The most outstanding and interesting thing about this class struggle is change. How organizations,be they political,economic,social,pyschological,historical,academic,or whatever kind,contribute to and cause change is the point.
Life is the caldron of class struggle and recently in the U.S. ,the Democratic Party underwent a significant change that many would now like to connect themselves with,many workers,unionists,Communists,communists,socialists,Africans,African Americans,Asians,Europeans,females,Americans-and this is a very positive needed development that life itself has afforded with the growing power of the working class,but the Democrats,the Republicans,the Communists,the Libertarians-none of them predicted that an obscure African American community activist from Chicago would lead an administration of President of the U. S. in 2009.
But now,in the last months of 2010,by some mean enfatile fantasy,many of us see ourselves as practically part of the Obama administration. With this,we almost have to be allied with and associated with Democrats-it's as if the major conflict of the class struggle is between Democrats and capital,not worker and capital.
The deep well which produced the democratic miracle of the Obama administration is still full and overflowing-it is the well of class struggle between worker and capital.We have not even started to build the unity between worker and worker,youth and aged,men and women,Black and white,to stop nuclear armaments,wars,global climatic incineration,multiplied ecological disasters,mass depopulations,capitalist and imperialist plunder,mass incarcerations,deportations,genocides,infanticides,massive rapes,massive starvations(all these happen both nationally and internationally).To do this,we must change the quality and the quantity of the class struggle between international worker and international capital-yes,the very stakes and conditions of the class struggle,and the CPUSA will help return this kind of democracy,that of the International Workingmen's Organization,to the globe with peace.
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