The Derby branch meeting of Thursday 9 August returned to its usual format after last week’s film night, with a talk and discussion. This week we were fortunate to be able to welcome Richard Buckwell, a comrade from the Nottingham branch.
Richard’s discussion set out to
address a number of the myths about the working class. It is a common
narrative these days that the working class has fundamentally
changed, or even no longer exists in Britain. We are told that the
middle class is growing, that there is a growth in non-working
families and ‘benefit scroungers’ and that the movement away from
highly skilled manufacturing workforces has changed the nature of
class.
Richard tackled these narratives by
highlighting some of the inadequacies in these attempts to redefine
the working class. Wikipedia’s introduction missed everything of
importance; and a recent study by the BBC alongside academics from
Manchester University suggested that we can now identify seven
classes within society. However, this study based its definitions of
class on cultural, educational and social factors rather than, as
Marxists do, the relationship to capital and the means of production.
Marx’s own definition of the working
class is that it is the class of people who have no other means of
living other than by selling their labour power. Marx also suggested
that because capitalist industry continually changes, the nature of
the work done by the working class constantly changes too. One
contributor highlighted this point by pointing out that sociologists
have failed to reclassify doctors and still consider them middle
class in spite of the development of the NHS and a shift in their
general relationship to their means of production since they were
generally self-employed. By returning to Marx’s definition we can
see that it can be applied to white collar professionals and that the
changing nature of work does not necessitate a break from the
traditional class relationships.
Richard pointed out that with more people living in
urban environments than not for the first time ever and therefore
joining the working class. He then challenged the branch: as different and more difficult working environments are
becoming more commonplace, with fewer large scale manufacturing
companies and a growth of zero hours contracts, smaller workplaces
and more white collar and service workers, how can revolutionaries engage with workers inside
these environments? In his closing comments Richard hinted at the
power of social media as a means of engaging with disenfranchised
workers within these workplaces.
There followed a lively discussion on
the nature of the working class today. We explored the relationship
between wealth and class and several comrades agreed that class
should best be understood by whether you own the means of your own
production.
One comrade raised the question of the
petty-bourgeoisie. Several comrades pitched in, pointing out that the
petty-bourgeoisie do own their own means of production, but as often
they do not maximise their capital by exploiting the labour power of
others they are often faced with a decision as to whether their
interests best lie with the working class or the capitalists. It was
felt that this situation could lead to a vulnerability within the
petty-bourgeois, who in times of difficulty could find that they are
pulled between the left on one hand and fascism on the other. A
challenge for the party could be in engaging small businessmen and
shop owners to avoid them being pulled towards fascism as they were
in the 1930s in Germany when it was un-unionised small businessmen
who were worst hit by the recession and moved first towards fascism.
As the discussion developed,
contributors gave several examples of continuing exploitation of
members of the working class: regardless of their personal wealth but
in relation to the imbalance between the value of their labour and
the proportion of the value which they gain continues to grow. An
example from a talk at Marxism was given: a worker in a technology
shop might make £25,000 per year. This is a good salary and the
worker is reasonably comfortable, however, they expected to generate
an income for the company of ten times this. Through this example we
can see that the capitalists are engaged in an incredible degree of
exploitation of that worker’s labour power as much as lower waged
workers. Another comrade added the example of a large workplace where
workers are paid a salary of over £40,000, however, the supervision
and pressure is constant.
With the large number of teachers and
former teachers in the room, it is unsurprising that education came
up as well (it is almost inevitable when you have so many teachers in
a room that they will resort to discussing teaching, regardless of
the fact that it is the middle of the summer!) It was proposed by one comrade
that the value of a shop assistant is not in the production of goods
but that they clearly do not own the means of their production. This is also the case for teachers and doctors and one lively and
impassioned contributor pointed out that if the ruling class did not
see value in education, health and other services which do not
produce an obvious capital value then they would not invest in these
things in the first place.
In the end, however much we expand the
definition of the working class, unless people have a consciousness
of their class and how to make change there is no value to this.
Ultimately, the question has to be: ‘what do different workers have
in common?’ The answer to this is sale of labour power and nothing
else; status and wealth cannot take precedent over class.
After the discussion, Richard
summarised the key points:
- Social mobility globally, and in Britain in particular, is incredibly low – so commonly heard idea that with aspiration anyone can move between classes is largely an illusion, a result of the focus on perceived status rather than how individuals relate to political and economic power.
- A priority in an era of low union density outside must be about how we can help workers on zero hours contracts to organise and reinforced the idea that the best way to act is through strikes which are the most powerful way to address the problems faced by the working class.
We were very grateful to our comrade
for coming and sparking such a lively discussion and sharing his
thoughts on the working class.
Books recommended by the speaker
included:
‘Labour and Monopoly Capital’
Henry Braverman
‘Why the Working Class?’ part of the SWP reading group series.
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