How real is class war?

[Kyriakos]

I guess that virtually all posters here are at least middle class, for many reasons (not least of which that it shows they have a lot of free time, so as to bother posting at a net forum) so i am not sure how good a question it is for this crowd.

Myself i am middle class too, but yesterday i had a rather long discussion with a person who used to be working class, for most of his life. He appears to be filled with rage against the perceived enemies of the working people. We talked a bit about the current economic crisis, and he confessed that if a sort of revolution happens, he will use his "poison" (from the rage against the old opressor) to hunt down those who control the wealth to the detriment of the working classes.

I have to say i was rather alarmed by all this. Personally i never had to work for a living, and obviously this made me more relaxed when it comes to the issue of money. But i never expected there to exist such rage, and wondered if it was characteristic in the blue collar professions.

He spoke of the horror of being a worker in such jobs, working for 8, or 10 hours a day, and feeling like an animal. I felt like i was the object he was hating, although it appears he has no negative emotions against me.

So, in your experience, is class war as real as this person appeared to sense it was? Or was it just a special case? He now has a white collar job, but still is filled, as he said, with his old poison from being treated like an animal from his employers of old.

I seldom think of money and classes. I am too introverted for all that. But i did not feel nice learning of such hatred...

 

[Core Imposter]

I went to work at age 10 for a buck a day, at 16 was working for the minimum wage of $1.60 at a 48 hour weekly shift in a textile mill which I did while still managing as a student in high school. I retired from the mill senior year to drive a bus and be better prepared for university.

But missed out on a scholarship and had to go to work in the construction trades where I languished before getting an opportunity with a consulting firm where I rose to manage a division of university trained folks, leading project teams of lawyers and engineers and working with corrupt municipal and state clients. Made a million when it was still a million and lost it in a bitter lawsuit as just another victim of coorporate violence and the bloodsucking law profession.

Then injured and disabled and pennieless but on the ranks of the disabled not by choice but by collusion of doctors and families and left for dead in a rest home at 52. But escaped by the helf of self same sort of legal vermin and I now travel as much as I can in search of some opportunity to free myself of dependence for the cruelest master of all, daddy government.

I know the hopelessness of the working class and downtrodden, with no reasonable expectation of escape. I know the importance of the lottery ticket to the working trudge. Its hope.

But I also know that the vast majority of the working class are not enraged over the lack of money or the excess of it that some have. Its the unfairness, the corruption, and the lack of feeling for those who have not by those that do. The poor has a lower profile with the sucessful than pet dogs. Thats the source of the rage. That and the crookedness.

All the poor want is a pathway, a ladder to be climbed, a way out. And if we simply can't do it then we can deal with it. But no more of these signs pointing this way or that and dead ends everywhere because of of all the corruption.

Its the morality or lack thereof. A day of reckoning is forming in the minds of the people and it will come suddenly. There will be blood.

 

[holy king]

class struggle is very much real, but in most western nations it's something mainly fought from the top down.

 

[Cato the Elder]

I'm from a middle class background, but I still understand where he's coming from. Having worked a few summer jobs in low-paid jobs, I've experienced directly how people get treated in places like that. I worked at a supermarket last summer, and I got treated like a child again, where I had to follow the rules strictly, not question anything my superiors asked me to, and simply work quietly at what I was doing. The slightest mishap was made a mountain from a molehill by my managers (I got called in for a discussion on my consistent "showing up late to work"; I had been 2 minutes late 2 days in a row because my bus got stuck at a red light) and there was this general expectation that one should be able to do anything one is asked to without even truly being explained the task in question.

I found out in my time working there that the entire stressy atmosphere was because the supermarket chain in question hires too few people on purpose, so that the employees already there would be forced into working harder. Any reduced profits, irregardless of this previous factor, would result in people getting laid off, or tremendous wage cuts amongst the workers and managers. Hearing of these practices made me swerve drastically to the left; it quelled most feelings I still had of capitalism being a functional system. This was made even worse after I had heard from fellow employees that their current workplace was a drastic improvement upon their previous one. This was a big surprise to me.. I had personally thought that there had been sincere progression in the past 60 years, but apparently there's a lot less that has changed than meets the eye. I can get why people want revolution, because after having worked in the bottom of capitalist society I hate it all the more.

 

[Core Imposter]

On the issue of taxes, nobody cares. Nobody wants higher taxes for anybody except for the union pigs and some misguided urban black poor.

What everyone wants is responsible government and balanced budgets. When trouble comes the politicians that will be hung will be those who spend money stolen from unborn generations. These people are indistiguishable from those who eat other human beings and are subject to any form of retribution without sanction from almighty God.

 

[emzie]

Class warfare is far more insidious than poor working conditions. It manifests itself in the mortgaging of the future to benefit the rich today. Though when I say rich, I don't mean the 1% or the 10% but the majority in the country who using debt to pay for their services, in addition to cutting social services for people below them.

On the issue of taxes, nobody cares. Nobody wants higher taxes for anybody except for the union pigs and some misguided urban black poor.

That's rasis... actually no, that's straight up racist.

And to live up to my name, on the contrary, I'm all in favour of higher taxes assuming I have a responsible government.

 

[Core Imposter]

I'm from a middle class background, but I still understand where he's coming from. Having worked a few summer jobs in low-paid jobs, I've experienced directly how people get treated in places like that. I worked at a supermarket last summer, and I got treated like a child again, where I had to follow the rules strictly, not question anything my superiors asked me to, and simply work quietly at what I was doing. The slightest mishap was made a mountain from a molehill by my managers (I got called in for a discussion on my consistent "showing up late to work"; I had been 2 minutes late 2 days in a row because my bus got stuck at a red light) and there was this general expectation that one should be able to do anything one is asked to without even truly being explained the task in question.

I found out in my time working there that the entire stressy atmosphere was because the supermarket chain in question hires too few people on purpose, so that the employees already there would be forced into working harder. Any reduced profits, irregardless of this previous factor, would result in people getting laid off, or tremendous wage cuts amongst the workers and managers. Hearing of these practices made me swerve drastically to the left; it quelled most feelings I still had of capitalism being a functional system. This was made even worse after I had heard from fellow employees that their current workplace was a drastic improvement upon their previous one. This was a big surprise to me.. I had personally thought that there had been sincere progression in the past 60 years, but apparently there's a lot less that has changed than meets the eye. I can get why people want revolution, because after having worked in the bottom of capitalist society I hate it all the more.

Well, you are just a lazy slug. If you have a complaint about not having a pathway to upwards mobility then you have a righteous issue. Otherwise you have nothing to say. It is supposed to be miserable working on the bottom. It takes real work to general real productivity. If you had a creampuff job there at the bottom their would be no productivity and the company would be broke unless subsidized by the state. So shutup about capitalism. There has never been anything wrong with capitalism. It is just a system that operates. The problems come from corrupt people and they exist in any system.

You need to swerve to common sense of which you seem to have had precious little experience.

The problem is a loss of societal morality which has penetrated all aspects of our society. Wake up.

 

[Core Imposter]

That's rasis... actually no, that's straight up racist.

And to live up to my name, on the contrary, I'm all in favour of higher taxes assuming I have a responsible government.

Thats a straight up example of your using the charge of racism to silence my honest opinion. Shame on you.

Followed up by a airheaded theoretical. Responsible democratic government cannot exist, do you see why?

 

[Cutlass]

All class warfare is from the top down. The rich try to hurt the rest because they think they are entitled to do so.

 

[emzie]

Thats a straight up example of your using the charge of racism to silence my honest opinion. Shame on you.

If your honest opinion is only "poor misguided urban blacks" would support higher taxes, then I'm calling a spade a spade and the shame does not sit on my shoulders.

Followed up by a airheaded theoretical. Responsible democratic government cannot exist, do you see why?

At times I think this, and that I just want to run away to Montana and live the hell away from other people. And the rest of the time I compare and contrast my experiences in the US to here and realize, it ain't perfect but it's better. My quality of life is higher despite a higher tax burden.

 

[Core Imposter]

Class warfare is far more insidious than poor working conditions. It manifests itself in the mortgaging of the future to benefit the rich today. Though when I say rich, I don't mean the 1% or the 10% but the majority in the country who using debt to pay for their services, in addition to cutting social services for people below them.

Okay, you are pretty intelligent. I just want you to know that the majority of that majority are innocent of your charge. We want to our politicans to tell us we can have that which we can't deny ourselves. Its just not working out.

In the end future generations will deal with us by death panels and we will have earned it.

 

[useless]

On the issue of taxes, nobody cares. Nobody wants higher taxes for anybody except for the union pigs and some misguided urban black poor.

Agreeing with Contre (as I usually do), this is actually pretty racist.

Also, how exactly are the black poor "misguided"? Are they not the ones who (increasingly) see less and less of their tax money spent on (mainly) white areas, schools etc, whilst their lot in life continues to go down the drain?

And what of the "pigs" as you call them? Is there anything wrong with trying to get fair labor laws?

 

[Mr. Dictator]

I went to work at age 10 for a buck a day, at 16 was working for the minimum wage of $1.60 at a 48 hour weekly shift in a textile mill which I did while still managing as a student in high school. I retired from the mill senior year to drive a bus and be better prepared for university.

But missed out on a scholarship and had to go to work in the construction trades where I languished before getting an opportunity with a consulting firm where I rose to manage a division of university trained folks, leading project teams of lawyers and engineers and working with corrupt municipal and state clients. Made a million when it was still a million and lost it in a bitter lawsuit as just another victim of coorporate violence and the bloodsucking law profession.

Then injured and disabled and pennieless but on the ranks of the disabled not by choice but by collusion of doctors and families and left for dead in a rest home at 52. But escaped by the helf of self same sort of legal vermin and I now travel as much as I can in search of some opportunity to free myself of dependence for the cruelest master of all, daddy government.

I know the hopelessness of the working class and downtrodden, with no reasonable expectation of escape. I know the importance of the lottery ticket to the working trudge. Its hope.

But I also know that the vast majority of the working class are not enraged over the lack of money or the excess of it that some have. Its the unfairness, the corruption, and the lack of feeling for those who have not by those that do. The poor has a lower profile with the sucessful than pet dogs. Thats the source of the rage. That and the crookedness.

All the poor want is a pathway, a ladder to be climbed, a way out. And if we simply can't do it then we can deal with it. But no more of these signs pointing this way or that and dead ends everywhere because of of all the corruption.

Its the morality or lack thereof. A day of reckoning is forming in the minds of the people and it will come suddenly. There will be blood.

From someone who rarely agrees with you, I have to say this is much better than I could have put it.

There's a sense of desperation in the poor here. Its a constant building in every person who experiences it, and it has to go somewhere. To many, its material goods. Who's got the loudest system, who's got the nicest shoes. To others, its power. Controlling what little they fool themselves into thinking they can.

I try and channel mine into understanding as much as I can. If I have to be poor, I have to understand why I'm poor. Why its so easy that I'm poor. I'll be the first to admit I've made bad decisions in the past, but often with incomplete knowledge of the situation I faced. I channel my desperation into understanding that now too.

What little desperation I have after that, I channel into living in the moment. I refuse to let my wage dictate how much I can enjoy making and spending it.

Luckily, I've got a better head on my shoulders now, and see a clear way up from my current situation. After that, well, then there's another step but I can't help but feel that I've picked the wrong staircase. Its sorta like that Escher painting

Reminds me of a song that, by crimes against humanity, is not on youtube. Here are the lyrics though:

http://mysongbook.de/msb/songs/h/honestwo.html

 

[Core Imposter]

In the subset of the population of which I am speaking, there is little to no interest or support of higher taxes for the rich. That is just a fact, come down here and live with me. Nobody here thinks that is anything but another political scam and just a way to use (in the worse use of the word) the political base in the most crass way. That base is the union thugs and urban blacks. Welcome to the real world sir.

Of course that sort of politcal propaganda is reasonating with the kids matriculating in the liberal cap and gown factory who in the past have assumed they would be rich and therefore were uninterested in taxes for the rich, that now have doubts and are looking for another way for their collective parents to pony up. (student loans, boo hoo what shall we do).

 

[Mr. Dictator]

Of course that sort of politcal propaganda is reasonating with the kids matriculating in the liberal cap and gown factory who in the past have assumed they would be rich and therefore were uninterested in taxes for the rich, that now have doubts and are looking for another way for their collective parents to pony up. (student loans, boo hoo what shall we do).

Where I work, 3 people have college degrees, a few have technical certificates, and many have experience in trades.

We make minimum wage, because there isn't much here to do right now. I have loans, as well, but thankfully not a full degree's worth.

You acknowledge that many have, or see, no way out. Remember that college was seen as a way out, not too long ago. That bridge isn't sitting too steady now.

 

[Cato the Elder]

Well, you are just a lazy slug. If you have a complaint about not having a pathway to upwards mobility then you have a righteous issue. Otherwise you have nothing to say. It is supposed to be miserable working on the bottom. It takes real work to general real productivity. If you had a creampuff job there at the bottom their would be no productivity and the company would be broke unless subsidized by the state. So shutup about capitalism. There has never been anything wrong with capitalism. It is just a system that operates. The problems come from corrupt people and they exist in any system.

You need to swerve to common sense of which you seem to have had precious little experience.

The problem is a loss of societal morality which has penetrated all aspects of our society. Wake up.

Well aren't we going straight to the ad hominems. I would avoid these in the future; you have no idea what I am and what I do outside of this, and immediately assuming I'm a "lazy slug" simply because I didn't enjoy my supermarket job is a bit harsh, don't you think? I'm in the process of getting my university degree; I work hard for school and do my best to get as much out of my education as possible. From thereon I will have the priviledge of most likely going straight into a middle class job void of a good portion of the troubles I had at the supermarket. For some reason or another that possibility didn't quite compute in your morally righteous speech.

I would like to see the econmical data that proves that hiring too few people than what would be advisable, or how having small losses be extrapolated into huge wage cuts is really that beneficial to a company. The supermarket chain I was working for is not struggling, its CEO is one of the richest men, if not the richest man of Belgium, and its board of directors live very plush lifestyles. The sharp contrast between the proportion of work - wage of the top and the bottom is abhorrent. While I could understand that the CEO were to earn 10 to even 15 times as much as the regular people working at the supermarket, the difference is far higher than this, and this is what I don't understand. Why do the people at the top deserve so much more than the people at the bottom? Do they really work that much harder? This is an incessant problem of capitalism, and you know it, and I don't see how there is any "capitalist" solution of how this should be addressed.

Also, lol @ the concept of "common sense". Any argument that uses that as a basic tenant is a non-argument. Common sense is different to every person, every person's perception of life and the world is different, and I get the feeling it's mostly used as a way of discrediting someone else as being illogical even though their argument is just as valid as yours.

 

[JohnRM]

All of world history has been but a struggle to decide how wealth of the world will be distributed. National politics, riots, civil wars, wars between nations...all of it is about distribution of wealth. Now and for most of history, a small privileged few have horded the vast majority of wealth while the masses have labored to provide it. We are corralled into doing so by manipulation, ignorance, and often through the threat or actual use of force. If you don't submit, you will starve. Everyone knows that if you don't get in line, you don't get fed. Anyone who tries to live any different gets wiped off the map. When is the last time you saw a real true native American walking around the US? I mean one that lives like a real native American? You ain't seen one. You know why? They're dead. We killed every last one of them so that we could sell fur to rich bankers in London, mine gold in the Dakotas, and build a railroad to the Pacific, all to accumulate more wealth for the one percent. And when the average worker becomes unprofitable, they'll be laid off, their house foreclosed, and their assets sold off at auction, to compensate the wealthy for the fact that they can't make a profit off of their labor anymore. Everything you have you rent from the one percent with your labor. See what happens when you can't work anymore, nevermind what the reason is.

 

[Ice_Tyrant]

The only people I ever hear complain about class warfare are rich people. I hear about it usually when some Rich folks are asked to pay a bit more taxes. Usually that's when I hear someone like Sean Hannity start whining about how victimized the rich are. It's pretty ridiculous.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

@op: So now having to work for a living makes you "working class" ?

 

[Core Imposter]

Well aren't we going straight to the ad hominems. I would avoid these in the future; you have no idea what I am and what I do outside of this, and immediately assuming I'm a "lazy slug" simply because I didn't enjoy my supermarket job is a bit harsh, don't you think? I'm in the process of getting my university degree; I work hard for school and do my best to get as much out of my education as possible. From thereon I will have the priviledge of most likely going straight into a middle class job void of a good portion of the troubles I had at the supermarket. For some reason or another that possibility didn't quite compute in your morally righteous speech.

I would like to see the econmical data that proves that hiring too few people than what would be advisable, or how having small losses be extrapolated into huge wage cuts is really that beneficial to a company. The supermarket chain I was working for is not struggling, its CEO is one of the richest men, if not the richest man of Belgium, and its board of directors live very plush lifestyles. The sharp contrast between the proportion of work - wage of the top and the bottom is abhorrent. While I could understand that the CEO were to earn 10 to even 15 times as much as the regular people working at the supermarket, the difference is far higher than this, and this is what I don't understand. Why do the people at the top deserve so much more than the people at the bottom? Do they really work that much harder? This is an incessant problem of capitalism, and you know it, and I don't see how there is any "capitalist" solution of how this should be addressed.

Also, lol @ the concept of "common sense". Any argument that uses that as a basic tenant is a non-argument. Common sense is different to every person, every person's perception of life and the world is different, and I get the feeling it's mostly used as a way of discrediting someone else as being illogical even though their argument is just as valid as yours.

Aw, I was just being a little provocative. I mean no harm or offense.

The thing is that it is a struggle to explain that capitalism isn't a problem here but serves the role of whipping boy.

I don't know how to rise to the task of explaining it to people who have no knowledge of markets and running a business.

If a man is swiming underwater and needs air he must surface or drown. If a man is running a business and going into the red, he must cut costs or go out of business. Its very simple. The credit crisis destroyed a lot of wealth, the housing bust put an end to having a strong consumer demand based on equity in rising asset prices. The economy is just smaller and no amount of borrowed government spending can fix it for a long long time.

So to be angry at capitalism is a product of a lack of knowledge. Capitalism didn't cause this. Markets simply operate. Garbage in, garbage out. Business operates in the system set up by the government. The system is the fault. Blame the Congress. Immoral, corrupt politicans are the author of all of this carnage. Period.

You can say business lobbys and corrupts Congress but all of us have special interests and their are lobbys for all of them. It is all just a great moral failure and one that is not being addressed.

Now I understand that its human nature when suffering to point fingers and assign blame.

Really, its one of the worst aspects of our nature. Better to exercise some critical thinking processes.

The economic pie is not fixed in size.

The economic pie cannot be decreased by concentrating wealth in a few percent of successful people who attain it by merit. This segment of the population is best able to invest it wisely and least likely to let it set around fallow.

Ergo, its good when people get rich.

Also, economic downturns never occur because wealth concentrates in the hands of the few, rather, economic downturns increase concentration of wealth at the top because the system that distributes it has broken down.

And that is never the intent of the rich, who do not want to be more rich relative to the poor, they want to be more rich than their peers.

But, on the other hand, the rich are a good target for the politicans, having screwed everything up with poor policies adopted as a side product of institutional corruption. And some of us are good dogs more than ready to be unleashed upon the villain of the moment.

I happen to endorse common sense. I think it just a matter of common sense for a man to act like a man rather than a dog.