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Starry Messenger

(32,342 posts)
Mon Apr 1, 2013, 06:59 PM Apr 2013

Marx’s Revenge: How Class Struggle Is Shaping the World

http://business.time.com/2013/03/25/marxs-revenge-how-class-struggle-is-shaping-the-world/ Time Magazine, forsooth!



Karl Marx was supposed to be dead and buried. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and China’s Great Leap Forward into capitalism, communism faded into the quaint backdrop of James Bond movies or the deviant mantra of Kim Jong Un. The class conflict that Marx believed determined the course of history seemed to melt away in a prosperous era of free trade and free enterprise. The far-reaching power of globalization, linking the most remote corners of the planet in lucrative bonds of finance, outsourcing and “borderless” manufacturing, offered everybody from Silicon Valley tech gurus to Chinese farm girls ample opportunities to get rich. Asia in the latter decades of the 20th century witnessed perhaps the most remarkable record of poverty alleviation in human history — all thanks to the very capitalist tools of trade, entrepreneurship and foreign investment. Capitalism appeared to be fulfilling its promise — to uplift everyone to new heights of wealth and welfare.

Or so we thought. With the global economy in a protracted crisis, and workers around the world burdened by joblessness, debt and stagnant incomes, Marx’s biting critique of capitalism — that the system is inherently unjust and self-destructive — cannot be so easily dismissed. Marx theorized that the capitalist system would inevitably impoverish the masses as the world’s wealth became concentrated in the hands of a greedy few, causing economic crises and heightened conflict between the rich and working classes. “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole,” Marx wrote.

A growing dossier of evidence suggests that he may have been right. It is sadly all too easy to find statistics that show the rich are getting richer while the middle class and poor are not. A September study from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington noted that the median annual earnings of a full-time, male worker in the U.S. in 2011, at $48,202, were smaller than in 1973. Between 1983 and 2010, 74% of the gains in wealth in the U.S. went to the richest 5%, while the bottom 60% suffered a decline, the EPI calculated. No wonder some have given the 19th century German philosopher a second look. In China, the Marxist country that turned its back on Marx, Yu Rongjun was inspired by world events to pen a musical based on Marx’s classic Das Kapital. “You can find reality matches what is described in the book,” says the playwright.


<snip>

Tensions between economic classes in the U.S. are clearly on the rise. Society has been perceived as split between the “99%” (the regular folk, struggling to get by) and the “1%” (the connected and privileged superrich getting richer every day). In a Pew Research Center poll released last year, two-thirds of the respondents believed the U.S. suffered from “strong” or “very strong” conflict between rich and poor, a significant 19-percentage-point increase from 2009, ranking it as the No. 1 division in society.





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Marx’s Revenge: How Class Struggle Is Shaping the World (Original Post) Starry Messenger Apr 2013 OP
I believe Mr. Marx's prediction has come true. nt ladjf Apr 2013 #1
Same here. Starry Messenger Apr 2013 #2
Marx's prediction has come true. I don't know that he also offered solutions to keep the ladjf Apr 2013 #3
We are dealing with different historical and social balances. Starry Messenger Apr 2013 #4
You make very good points. It's obvious that you have given these issues a great deal of ladjf Apr 2013 #5
Things are very reactionary now. Starry Messenger Apr 2013 #6
Thank you for sharing your very cogent thoughts with us. Keep on writing. ladjf Apr 2013 #7
Thank you for reading! Starry Messenger Apr 2013 #8

Starry Messenger

(32,342 posts)
2. Same here.
Tue Apr 2, 2013, 12:49 AM
Apr 2013

I was surprised, Time did a pretty even-handed article though there are a couple of quibbles I have. The hate mail they are getting from the right-wing must be eye-watering.

ladjf

(17,320 posts)
3. Marx's prediction has come true. I don't know that he also offered solutions to keep the
Tue Apr 2, 2013, 11:00 AM
Apr 2013

problem from happening. Communism, as it was done in Russia certainly wasn't a success.

Starry Messenger

(32,342 posts)
4. We are dealing with different historical and social balances.
Tue Apr 2, 2013, 11:19 AM
Apr 2013

There is a process, but it isn't like a prescription with a predictable outcome. Mostly it deals with identifying progressive forces, forming coalitions with them to help gain strength for working people, and trying to clear away the worst obstacles to building social resources. These can differ depending where you are.

That probably seems like common sense, but it needed to be laid out theoretically to make the case when Marx was alive. One of his biggest bodies of writing on the US had to do with working people finding a path to help abolish slavery. That was the worst blight on social progress.

Nowadays it is our job to identify the next stages and what we can do.

ladjf

(17,320 posts)
5. You make very good points. It's obvious that you have given these issues a great deal of
Tue Apr 2, 2013, 12:14 PM
Apr 2013

thought.

I believe that the humanistic social trends on the U.S. after WWII were the closest we've
come to finding a good balance of national policies. It was a democracy that seemed to be dedicated to the interests of almost all citizens.

Today, the "greedy ones" have managed gain almost total control over the flow of National thinking by a variety of means. I have no idea how this very bad trend could be reversed.
I would be interested to read your thoughts on this.

Starry Messenger

(32,342 posts)
6. Things are very reactionary now.
Tue Apr 2, 2013, 12:43 PM
Apr 2013

I think it is due to the desperation of the 1%. Although on paper they look like a success with all the profits and wealth, there isn't infinite growth unless they find a way off the planet and start over. Expansion is finite, and capital is getting more weird and parasitical in its quest for more...we all saw the mortgage credit swap nonsense and how that nearly brought down the country in '08.

I think right now we are in a phase where the danger could be the rise of even more right-wing seizure on democracy, a la the 1930s. Even though it can seem mundane, voting out the right-wing is doing something, when that is successful. So keeping up on the political process is definitely part of it. No one wants to be the reason for outright fascism for taking our eye off that ball.

Labor is in the process of shifting from just working with their membership to expanding out into the non-union realm. That's one thing the Time article didn't touch on--even though union membership is declining, there is work going on in building partnerships with organizations like Jobs With Justice, ROC, OurWalmart and other organizing bodies.

Immigration reform is a big area of progress too. The reason the right-wing is terrified of this is not just the xenophobia (although that is a biggie) but also because the left-wing is coming north. All of the social reform and economic justice in the south has created a very class conscious work force. Labor here has been uniting with unions across the border, although that doesn't get much play in the press.

(CA just had a lot of success in our last state elections with registration and voter drives of Latinos. These folks are also the reason why we're one of the only states that is having a spike in union membership.)

I think both of those areas have great potential to reversing the trend. Any area we can thwart the worst grasp of monopoly is an area to fight in. We have to keep these huge trusts from getting even more political power.

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