Anyone else feel the traditional Marxist focus on "class warfare" isn't productive in the first world?

Anyone else feel the traditional Marxist focus on "class warfare" isn't productive in the first world?

The core concept at the heart of the Marxist proletariat/bourgeois distinction is that although the idea of a "class system" where certain people had more rights than others had been discredited during the Enlightenment, it still existed within society; in certain contexts, some people had the right to perform violence against others (or call in agents of the state to do that violence) because of their right to property. This ability - to control access to the MoP and extort from the workers part of their product - would become the core of the world economy. Hence, the "class system" was not abolished and it was the duty of the lower class, those without property, to overthrow it.

However, the bourgeois/proletariat class distinction is a lot more nuanced than the traditional nobility/peasantry distinction. The bourgeoisie's right to his property extends not from his identity but from that property; this means he can transfer the property, of course, but it has other repercussions. For instance, property can be owned by corporations, rather than individuals. Corporations are of course their selves owned, so the result is that someone can be an "owner" of 1/10000th of a glue factory, for instance. That someone will gain a 10000th of the value the administrators of the factory will be able to extract from its workers (and its consumers through advertising and leveraging monopoly, and the collective through pollution) after wages for the administrators/cost of insurance/taxes/research and development are subtracted. Thus, that person certainly does exploit wage labor, but it is such a minimal amount of income! They will still have to engage in wage labor to support themselves (or else rest on previous income, if they're retired, for instance), where they will be exploited themselves.

In the first world, this person's situation is that of a great deal of people. People are made to save money and to invest that money into financial assets, which means they're indirectly taking part in exploitation of the proletariat. Of course, the first world is not the entire world, and one can just call every denizen of the first world a "bourgeoisie" if they look at how material wealth is systematically torn from the third world and moved to the first, but this is a simplistic solution. What it would propose as a resolution to capitalism is a World War; this would cause immense destruction of the MoP and thus a decline in what communism would be able to provide to people, is unlikely to succeed given the massive military advantages of the first world, and might not even destroy capitalism even if the imperialized powers were victorious; they might just take their opportunity to become the new imperialists. Moreover, as English-speaking imageboard users ourselves who predominately come from the first world, this might not even be in our own interests. Finally, even if the first-third world distinction was eliminated and everyone everywhere owned a 10000th of a whatever factory, it wouldn't somehow make capitalism not flawed, even though it would make everyone "bourgeois".

It's important that we continue to point out the class character of capitalism, but it's also important that we don't misinterpret it. The truth is that people can act as both bourgeoisie and proletariat. For instance, take stock brokers. Stock brokers basically indulge in pure parasitism and bourgeois behavior while they're in the course of doing business, but then they turn around and act as proletariat as they're forced to give some of the wealth they have leeched to the owner of their firm. A great many 1st worlders are in a business of this variety.

So, rather than focus on achieving "justice" for the proletariat, why don't we focus more on pointing out the flaws our system, stemming from class conflict, inherently has? An enormous amount of wealth is wasted by capitalism by allowing people to be socially unemployed (unemployed or "employed" in a position of pure parasitism like our stock broker), by forcing engineers to work in secret and not cooperate, by encouraging the creation of goods of no utility but showing that their owners are wealthy, and by firms continually stealing from the commonwealth to enrich their selves through pollution, advertisement, and other influences. Isn't this approach better than making things into a battle of a "good" side and a "bad" side that are pretty nebulously defined?

Small-time ownership in stocks is vastly different from actually controlling production though, and the vast majority of the population is locked out of those opportunities. The technical, "on-paper" notion of ownership is a red herring in this context. What matters re: class is the ability to exert control over production and the degree to which one benefits from ownership relative to the work they have to do. If you get surplus value from stocks but that amount is less than what is taken from you via the wage system, the net effect is that you are exploited. The dividends small-time stockholders receive amount to peanuts ultimately and the main reason poormies are allowed to buy stocks is that the stock market (not the dividends, but specifically the exchange) is a zero-sum game and in order for some people to win big, others have to lose big and people without access to expensive financial tools can't compete.

No

lol

The system is still exploitative though. What matter is the system is ended, not who is the most guilty of doing it.

It does reduce revolutionary potential though.

Marxist theory is outdated in the current post industrial service based 1st world
But ml will never admit it

This, really.
It will never be about "justice" for the proletariat, it cannot be, and perhaps "shouldn't" be for its own sake.

It doesn't really matter who is or is not a porky because porkies only succeed at the system by being on top of the scrabbling heap of people desperate to stay above the water line, by having enough material to shove everyone else (including other porkies weaker than them) back down.

I agree that the modern managerial capitalism doesn't fit so neatly into the working class-leisure class dichotomy of Marx's age, and there should be revision to update the theory to the age of CEOs and social democracy.
If nothing else should be learned from accelerationism, the idea of capital itself being the revolutionary subject of the modern day perhaps lights the contemporary setting better: the antagonism isn't between the bourgeois and the proletariat, but between capital and humanity. The bourgeois enslaving themselves to capital are suffering from the same false consciousness as proletarians cluching onto their chains. But perhaps this is utopian socialism - much like the factory owners inspired by socialists in the 19th century were.

Most service based jobs either are pointless consumerist garbage, automatable, or parasitic. Some aren't (doctors, scientists, engineers, artists, logisticians, and teachers are immensely important and virtuous professions Communist societies should elevate), but overall the current shift in the developed world from industry to services is one rendering us less productive and more parasitic.

So you b saying that 50% of population of western countries are parasites?

More or less. I don't know how you can possibly deny how wasteful and unproductive imperialist countries are.

They are, but whats the solution? Dispose of 50% of population in western countries?

The solution is to build communism with rhetoric focused on waste reduction and improved productivity rather than how porkies are cheating people out of what they deserve.

But how to build communism if there are no oppressed proles to form a strong support base? There is no working class anymore

Those from rural areas, who are under material pressure due to the "service shift"
The doctors/scientists/engineers/artists/logisticians/teachers I mentioned who are getting screwed over in favor of bankers, managers, and advertisers and who also are unable to properly cooperate
Those from demographics in poor material conditions due to the history of their interactions with capital
People sick of the tribalism inherent to the current system
People sick of the waste inherent to the current system

That seems like a pretty good coalition to me, honestly.

I still dont really see this, communism have no future in the western world

Honestly living both in the rich area and later translading into the poorer areas of my first world country made me feel the class divide.
People do still see a clear divide between rich and poor, sure the poor do have more things but at the end of the day its always us who suffer

Most first worlders are funding consumption through debt which they won't ever repay due to real wage growth flattening to below 2% in most western countries, some are at 0% such as in the United States or Australia.
Thus although the proleteriat of the first world enjoys a slightly higher standard of consumption within their empires, they are ironically those that will crash the capitalist economic system. As the rate of profit continues to fall and workers wages fall/remain neutral but economic growth and profit requires further increases to consumption either consumption will decrease or consumption will be debt fueled. Both are an Achilles heel to the financial capitalist oligopoly, if enough people default the shocks and speculation alone will send the system crashing way harder then 1929, we almost experienced this in 2008 but porky succdems like Obama saved the collapse.
Tldr the first world proleteriat is important, perhaps they won't literally shoot the bourgeois in street battles but they'll be the ones to send the system crashing

Also fucking read bordiga you dumb gorilla poster
Forgot to Sage

You're too late to the game. Others figured that out long time ago.

TIP: Cultural Marxism

Wait, is Holla Forums finally figuring out their sychophantic attachment to 19th century political thought is actually detrimental to advancing the human condition? I never thought I'd see the day

You're supposing that once automation replaces low-level labor, the low-level laborers will rise up in defiance. Of what? Technology? It would be a revolution of horseshoe makers. If history is any indication of the future, the response from society will be unitary and firm: adapt or die. Some will adapt, others will parasitically live off the system in the form of welfare, the rest will become drug addicts and get thrown in prison.
lol no
Usually very uneducated and swayed by emotional arguments and organized subversion. They might follow you but they'll follow anyone who will promise them something better. Maybe good for cannon fodder but you can't rebuild society with this as your main faction.
Class war is a different form of tribalism so this doesn't actually make sense
who honestly cares? not as many people as you think tbh. and people are eager to be placated with biodegradable wrappers and reusable bags like it solves anything.

How much control do I exert when my coworkers vote to make arrangements in my workplace that I don't want? The boot of the people is only a different color from the boot of the tyrant. I shall not be free unless I am also free from the tyranny of the masses everywhere, including community and work.

post-left anarchy = best anarchy

unironically kill yourselves

>

Unironically read a book

it literally isn't though

Politics that acknowledges and seeks to counteract the existence of class isn't identity politics; class politics in the way I've seen most Holla Forums users speak of it (proles good, porkies evil) is identity politics, though.

What is leftism without class struggle? Isn't the entire point of everything in leftism to free the working class from living at the mercy of the bourgeoisie? What happens when we abandon that because you want to call it "identity politics"? Class is not an identity, and class politics cannot be identity politics no matter how you look at it.

When you talk about a "class war", you are putting peope on one side of the fence or the other. While the group you end up with isn't an inextricable part or your identity, like sex, your membership in that group becomes the identity by which you literally live an die. Class isn't an identity in the same way race is, but when it's used to categorize and self-identify, the difference is arbitrary.

If you would prefer Anarcho-Primitivism over the current state of things, you're a moron. "Absence of class rule" is an important thing to value, but it is not the only thing to value; "not having to do undesirable work", "satisfaction of material needs", "satisfaction of personal desires", and "not dying to treatable medical conditions" are other things that are important. Abolishing capitalism is important to do those latter things, and also to abolish class rule which is desirable in and of itself, but simply getting rid of capitalism without regard to any consequences could very easily result in a worse society.

Moreover, mounting an explicit struggle between a mutually exclusive proletariat and bourgeoisie could exceptionally easily just result in the former proletariat, or a sect among them, being crowned the new bourgeoisie (or nobility, or so on), which obviously wouldn't be any good.

No, it really isn't.