Note before starting – again, this post is just a copy-pasted Discord rant I wrote back in February. This Discord rambling was closer to a full-length blog post than a normal series of messages in an internet chatroom, so I decided I should just post it here. Again, no editing, so this uses my peculiar blend of internet-speak and formal language that makes me unable to communicate with anybody. The idea here seemed interesting to me, so I went ahead and posted this.
had a thought
‘Class struggle’ rhetoric is a bad idea in democracies because Marx’s idea of utilizing such language to mobilize the masses was built specifically for scenarios where Marxists were ready to massacre capitalists and then create a dictatorship.
The whole point of the massacres and dictatorship in Marxist theory was to prevent the bourgeoisie from rebelling against their property being expropriated; if you center your entire ideology around treating one social class as your enemy, of course they’ll fight back. However, if you try this ‘class struggle’ rhetoric in a democracy, you will meet the same opposition from the bourgeoisie but without the state violence needed to suppress it. The result is that, even if elected on a wave of support from the working class, you’re unable to do anything with your power; the bourgeoisie control much of the economy and the political system, and their opposition to your agenda will cripple you.
Examples? Salvador Allende in Chile – this is usually presented as a tale of “evil capitalists destroy the socialist dream,” but an equally important factor was that Allende literally campaigned by promising to destroy the bourgeoisie’s dominance and then had no tools to counter the inevitable opposition he met from the industrialists. Allende promised socialist policies that would weaken the upper class, but unlike Stalin or Mao, he lacked the state violence needed to force these policies on this now-infuriated upper class. When met with strikes sponsored by the industrialists and constant harassment from an upper class-dominated Parliament, he couldn’t just massacre the strikers and close the Parliament as Marx envisioned, instead he was forced to watch the economy grind to a halt and half his ministers get impeached. Eventually Allende was forced to moderate his stance and start negotiating with the Christian Democrats, but by then, the upper class had already gotten on the path of a military coup. While the evil of the coup can not be excused, it’s also necessary to understand how Allende’s “rich vs poor” rhetoric directly led to attempts at destabilizing his regime, and how Allende was woefully unprepared to deal with these problems that were the obvious consequence of promising to weaken the industrialists’ power.
Modern example that makes this idea relevant? Zohran Mamdani – as NYC mayor, he individually doesn’t have even half the power needed to pursue the huge reforms he wants. To achieve his economic goals, he will need the cooperation of the governor, the state legislature, the MTA, business owners, city council, and countless other groups to effectively enact such huge changes. Many of these people have already just said “no” (notably the CEO of the MTA), making it unlikely Mamdani that will make substantial progress on economic policy if he continues to yell into the void about the capitalists being the real enemies. Whether or not you like it, the upper class controls the apparatus needed to bring reforms; if you can’t find a way to work with them, you won’t get much done. If Mamdani had become president of the newly-formed USSR rather than democratic NYC, he’d be able to just execute the CEO of the MTA and do whatever he wanted with the unchecked powers given to him by the moral supremacy of the proletariat. But here, his demonization of the upper class has just ended up making his government impotent.
Whether class struggle is the correct theory is irrelevant, if we’re speaking in terms of real consequences. What matters is whether screaming ‘class struggle’ helps or hurts – in my opinion, it’s only hurting our ability to create change.
Politicians need to find a way of mobilizing common people while at the same time not alienating the upper class, whose support is needed to actually govern.
hmm
some edited version of this is going on my blog I think
this is actually an interesting idea
similar thing happened with Mandal Commission
“lower castes = friend, upper castes = oppressor” rhetoric reached its climax with the Mandal Commission, which was finally too much for Brahmins etc to bear – result was college kids self-immolating (very effective symbol that riled people up), mass support for the BJP and literally anyone else who would oppose Mandal, and finally the collapse of the United Front.
V.P. Singh needed to find a way of helping the OBCs without so completely alienating Brahmins that they started committing suicide to protest his government
Moral superiority will only take you so far