Third of 13 notes on Chris Harman's already concise
How Marxism Works. I'm writing these so that people interested in the ideas of Marxism, who might not know where to begin, can get a basic understanding. I recommend this to anyone working, anyone fed up with the current economic crisis, with the general way society seems to be heading in, anyone who's ever questioned why bosses drive better cars than those they employ, etc.
Chapter 1:
Why we need Marxist theoryChapter 2:
The importance of history
3: The Class StruggleAs noted at the end of Chapter 2, capitalism has not always been in place. The problem is that people are under the assumption that current society is to be taken for granted, that it has always existed like this.
The society we live in is divided into classes. These classes are determined by economic relations. Under capitalism, a few people have vast amounts of private property; most other people have very little to none.
For the majority of human history, there were no classes. Classes were not only impossible, but unnecessary, because there was not enough food supplies to be left over beyond those needed for actual survival. We saw in Chapter 2 how the hunter-gatherers operated. Their means of production were so basic that they were unable to produce more food than necessary. Because of this, a class system could not develop: what is the point in keeping a slave, or employing somebody, if all they are producing is the food needed to keep themselves alive?
When the means of production developed, however, class divisions became not only possible but necessary. With an advancement in production, enough food could be produced to leave a
surplus, after the basic needs of those producing the food had been satisfied. Alongside the development of production was the development of society in general: this surplus food could be stored and transported from settlement to settlement, town to town, etc.
There was a strong urge to simply eat the surplus food; but this would have meant people were vulnerable to possible famine, or floods, or attacks from hungry, off-territory tribes. Because of this, it was necessary for a small, elite group of people to take control of society's extra wealth, so that it could store to trade with craftsmen for useful objects for building defences against other towns and against the hardships of the natural world.
This small minority was an essential part of society, if society was to grow and develop. The more society developed, the more its production developed – because, as said in Chapter 2, every extra person to feed is an extra person to work. With an increase in production there was an increase in society's wealth. There was as a result a greater surplus – and so greater wealth coming into the hands of the controlling minority.
This is where the minority began to become detached from the rest of society; it devised rules to justify its existence, to justify its control of society's wealth. These rules became laws; laws defend those in rule. This is the crux of the class system: the ruling class maintains its power through the laws it makes.
Do we need a ruling class?The ruling class was a necessary part of social development. With a minority of people now able to live life without having to work all day everyday, there was now time for them to develop systems of reading and writing, explore the stars, discover mathematics, to design ships and other things useful to trade. However, this was only possible if the minority (the ruling class) kept the surplus wealth created by the majority (the working class) for themselves, as private property. If everything was shared equally, the ruling class would have to work, and society could not develop intellectually, scientifically, etc.The development of human society is the development of economics –
how we produce what we
need to produce in order to
survive. At a certain point in history, a ruling class became necessary for the economic development of society. It did not come into existence due to some mysterious 'human nature'. Because of this, we need to look at the class division in current society in terms of its economic necessity. In short: do we still need a ruling class? The answer is no.
The 19th and 20th Century saw an enormous development in production – an increase in wealth, in life's essential resources – that was neither experienced nor even thought of in all previous human history. It was not experienced because the forces of production were not able to produce such wealth; it was not thought of because human ideas are determined by the historical and social context in which they exist – how could an early craftsman imagine the wealth of our society without the sort of developed forces of production that create that wealth?
Because of the enormous increase in production, the natural scarcity of life essentials experienced by previous ages has been overcome. We now, as a race, have enough supplies for everybody. The problem is that despite having enough, we still live under outdated laws that defend private property, that defend the ruling elite's existence.
Class divisions through historyWe can trace class divisions through different stages of human history. Because human society is founded upon the economic needs of human beings, the history of human beings is the history of economic changes.
We can understand history by looking at how humans have dealt with their economic needs – in other words, by looking at the structure of society, we can analyse and understand how society has developed due to changes in its economic needs.This is the class struggle: the struggle between those who produce the wealth and those who control it. The struggle is between
the oppressors and
the oppressed.
In Ancient Rome, society was based around a
slave system; slaves were the personal property of the ruling class. Whatever the slave produced went direct to the slave owner, just as a farmer owns the milk of a cow.
1,000 years ago, Britain operated on a
feudal system; the ruling class consisted of feudal barons that oppressed the serfs. When the forces of production began to grow and trade developed, towns were established and cities too. In these new cities there was formed a new class of wealthy merchants; society was no longer about the control of land, but the control of trade. In turn, when the forces of production developed further in the cities, new relations of production were formed, and the ruling class of merchants came into conflict with the owners of industrial enterprises.
Under
capitalism, the ruling elite consists of the capitalists; those in charge own the place of work – the factories, for example – where the worker is employed in order to make a living.
A person needs to make a living in order to live; because of this, the boss gets away with paying the worker much less than the value of the goods the worker produces.
All of the other wealth the working class creates goes to the ruling class, as profit, interest or rent.Violence: the class struggle and the stateIt is now easier to see what Marx and Engels meant when they began
The Communist Manifesto with the words, 'The history of all hitherto existing societies has been the history of class struggles.'
The development of any society depends on the exploitation of one class by another. But since society does develop, the relations between classes are always changing; likewise, if they were not always changing, society could not develop. Hence why the relationship between the exploiters and the exploited is a struggle.As has already been said in this chapter, the ruling class devises laws that justify its own existence. But with the establishing of laws, the ruling class also needs a way of defending them: violence.
Violence is an integral, unavoidable part of class society. Here's why...
In previous societies, there was no need for an army, or for the police, or for defenders of the state; this is because the state did not exist. The state
couldn't exist, for reasons already shown. 'The state' develops out of the ruling class, a small minority of people whose functions were once economically (and therefore socially) necessary. Over time, however, this ruling elite became cut off from the rest of society.
Before the formation of the state, the tasks of society would be organised and carried out by the population as a whole, often decided upon at meetings of representatives elected by society itself. But once there was enough wealth to make class divisions necessary, these informal ways of organising society and maintaining beneficial 'law and order' could not work, because of the class division: representatives would disagree and separate from one another in relation to their class.
The formation of a ruling elite, then, must be
concurrent with the formation of the very things that maintain its existence: the laws that defend the ruling elite's interests, and also the means by which these laws are implemented.
You can trace the growth of the state alongside the growth of judges, policemen and spies, army generals, bureaucrats; this is a vital part of understanding the class struggle. With the separation of classes, you have the growth of the very thing that extends and maintains that separation: the state.All who serve the state do so for a share of the ruling elite's wealth – the 'surplus' wealth created by the working class. These 'servants' – the police, the army, etc. – are trained to obey orders from above without question. The state is designed and trained to serve the ruling class's self-interests. Because of this, the state apparatus – the police, the army, etc. – is
inherently antagonistic to the working class.
No positions of power in the state are determined by the majority of the population; a policeman is
promoted from above, not elected from below; a policeman is
promoted on the grounds of his effectiveness to implement the ruling class's laws; the policeman is
forever cut off from normal social relations. The same can be said of judges, army generals, even priests, etc.
Because the ruling classes maintain their power by ensuring that the wealth produced by the working classes are handed over to them, they fear anything that might threaten these social relations. As seen in Chapter 2, what threatens social relations is the development of new forces of production.
Even if such developments are progressive, if they are more efficient, the ruling class will not simply adopt it, in case it gives rise to a more powerful class than their own – because changes in production affect changes in social relations. Because of this, at certain points in history, the ruling class has hindered production, and with it, society as a whole.Look at the Chinese empire, as an example. The ruling class maintained its power through its ownership of land and control of irrigation systems that avoided flooding. This period of civilisation lasted 2,000 years, and saw the flourishing of Chinese art, the discovery of printing and gunpowder.
After these 2,000 years, however, production was no more advanced than at the beginning This is not because new forms of production had not developed, it was because that when they
did develop, it was in the towns, due to the progressive actions of merchants and craftsmen. Fearing this rising power within the towns, the ruling class would periodically, whenever necessary, crush the towns and their growing economies.
New ways of producing wealth, of producing life's essentials, give rise to new social relations; this is the essence of the class struggle.
The class struggle of one period in history determines the whole structure of society of the next; because of this, the outcome of today's class struggle determines the nature of tomorrow's class struggle, because it determines the social relations. We return to the Marx and Engels quote...
When the ruling class is organised enough to crush the rising class, forces of production falter and society remains stagnant. This was the case with China.
If, however, no new class arises to revolt against the old system, as a result of there being no new forces of production, then there will be a point at which there is no longer enough wealth to maintain society, and so society collapses and people revert back to older, cruder forms of production.
This was the case with the Roman empire. It will also be the case with our own society, unless we can empower the working class – those oppressed by the current class division – and organise ourselves enough to weaken and overthrow those in rule, together with its laws, its armies, its ruling ideologies, etc. Only this can ensure society goes forward.Whether society goes forwards or backwards depends on who wins the class struggle – the class war. As with any war, the outcome is never pre-determined; victory depends on the organisation, cohesion and leadership of the rival classes.
Key points so far (Chapters 1-3)Socialism is possible only through the
complete abolishment of capitalism. Due to the nature of the ruling class – justifying and defending itself through an armed state – the abolishment of capitalism
cannot happen via reformism. Physical force, based on the organisation, cohesion and leadership of the workers, is the key to victory in the class struggle.
We must understand and analyse history in order to understand and analyse our own current society. We attempt to understand and analyse society
in order to change it. We cannot understand or analyse society – and therefore, we cannot change society – based on idealist methods. Only dialectical materialism offers a rational explanation of society as it has been and society as it is.
Our own class struggle is determined by previous class struggles. Because of this, every previous class struggle offers a lesson to be learned. Based on an understanding of our present society in relation to those preceding it, alongside a physical, organised collective force, the working class can take history into its own hands and force production and society forward once more.
Up next: "Capitalism: how it began"
