What of the “labor aristocracy” and the “professional/managerial class”? What of the blue collar petty bourgeoisie?
What role would the “labor aristocracy”, including the professional/managerial subset of proletarians, play in the Socialist Revolution or in Capital’s struggle against the Socialist Revolution? What about the “blue collar” petty bourgeoisie? Will those belonging to these groups embrace the notion of a classless society and an end to the market economy and join the forces of democratic socialism? Will they simply stand back and observe? Are nearly all belonging to them doomed to be among the forces of reaction?
There are those who would for at least a while yet be materially advantaged by the survival of capitalism and there are those who would not. Among the former group, there is very large number of individuals who do not own enough capital to live on after wage/salary earning life and will be threatened by automation in the next couple of decades. Among the former group, there are also many who would find the gain of hundreds of hours of free time per year resulting from their no longer needing to support an economy of production for exchange and support of opulent lifestyle of the few, rather than production for use, accompanied by a decline in their standard of living a more than satisfactory tradeoff. There are also those who can be brought to recognize that socialism is the only thing that can see to the survival of much of what they hold dear- from those distraught by destruction of the wetlands they love, to those being driven out of their native neighborhoods and communities by gentrification, to those in areas most immediately threatened by market-driven natural resource depletion and climate change. And then there are those who can be brought to see that socialism will reduce the severity of social antagonisms and bigotries and do away with much “social disease”.
It’s that simple.
Those who stand to significantly benefit from capitalism’s demise may be spoken of as the greater working or greater revolutionary class. While the main body of the Revolution would across the world be the immiserated wage earner, the classic proletarians, as well the remaining poor peasants and tenant farmers of the Underdeveloped World, they would not be the only force of the revolution.
If we organize and disseminate information in the way we must, a good many of those “labor aristocrats” can be brought to recognize that the forward march of automation makes their position a highly precarious one. They could be brought to see that their labor will rendered useless to Capital not merely within their lifetimes, but within a decade or two. The same can be said for small business owners, who face threats of “proletarianization” and immiseration from both automation and consolidation of capital, and in some cases are already hardly better off than immiserated proletarians they may employ. The same can be said of those environmental conservationists who can be brought to understand that socialist conservationism is the only viable humanist conservationism. The same can be said of millions of those disgusted by genuine capitalist bloodshed, degeneracy and social disease who can be brought to see that capitalism is the root of the problems in question.
All that stand to gain from capitalism’s demise, including “labor aristocrats” who would see their standard of living lowered to a level far lower than it is today, but face the prospect of starvation within decades as much as the most presently immiserated proletarian does, can be considered members of a greater working class. It is entirely true that individuals outside the presently immiserated sections of the proletariat will be harder to win over to the ranks of socialism than those within it, and it is true that they will be more likely to belong to the ranks of Reaction when things hit the fan, but none of this is to say that they do not have revolutionary potential.
How? They simply must be brought to understand that they are on the chopping block of automation and environmental disaster (and in the case of petty proprietors, capitalist consolidation and proletarianization- whether the shopkeeper bound to be wiped off the map by Amazon or Guitar Center or the owner-operator trucker facing self-driving vehicle technology or the plumber or electrician facing the threat of capitalist consolidation and automation or a collapse in demand following a massive spread of poverty and homelessness) and shown the possibility of a society where the vast majority of labor, the labor that serves only to support the lifestyles of the opulent, is no longer carried out, and leisure time as a portion of the day doubles or more, a society where natural spaces and communities are not subject to wrecking balls of of market pressures, a society free of so much foulness and angst created by capitalism.
We must strive to win over all who today stand to gain from capitalism’s demise and all that face starvation and homelessness in the coming decades. I am not suggesting we prioritize campaigns to win over petty proprietors or those wage/salary earners that can be characterized as “labor aristocrats” and/or professional/managerial. I am, however, saying that while the most immiserated proletarians of the world and the remaining tenant farmers and poor peasants of the Underdeveloped World will form the core of the ranks of the revolution, some relatively advantaged proletarians and both poor and privileged petty non-agricultural proprietors will also join the forces of socialism, will also join the movement for the expropriation of Capital and the establishment of economic democracy towards the abolition of classes and the market economy. We must recognize this. We must seek to win over everyone who does not belong to Capital proper. The Socialist Revolution could only be carried out by a supermajoritarian consensus across the whole world.
-Strom McCallum
