uoou on Nostr: From the point of view of a voter, I agree. Though you’ve very much got to look at ...
From the point of view of a voter, I agree. Though you’ve very much got to look at what people *do* rather than *say*.
But I do also appreciate that one of the innovations that Marx made was to kinda take the morality out of it. Socialism before Marx had a tendency to look to convincing the rich to stop abusing the poor because it was the right thing to do.
But a billionaire doesn’t do evil things because he’s a nasty, vindictive person. He just does what’s in his class interests. He protects his position within his class and, importantly, protects the position of his class relative to the others.
He might, during times of plenty, think “Hey, I could pay my workers more/give them a stake/etc.”. But doing so would weaken his position and the position of his class.
So, rather than asking/expecting elites (who are always going to end up class-aligned with capital) to intercede and convince the billionaires to act morally, the working class should *act* as a class and force change (through withholding their labour).
Obviously working class solidarity and sites of collective action have been massively eroded over the decades, but I do think we fall into a bit of a trap when we frame things in purely moral terms (spiralling lesser-of-two-evilism).
I apologise if this is unwelcome!
But I do also appreciate that one of the innovations that Marx made was to kinda take the morality out of it. Socialism before Marx had a tendency to look to convincing the rich to stop abusing the poor because it was the right thing to do.
But a billionaire doesn’t do evil things because he’s a nasty, vindictive person. He just does what’s in his class interests. He protects his position within his class and, importantly, protects the position of his class relative to the others.
He might, during times of plenty, think “Hey, I could pay my workers more/give them a stake/etc.”. But doing so would weaken his position and the position of his class.
So, rather than asking/expecting elites (who are always going to end up class-aligned with capital) to intercede and convince the billionaires to act morally, the working class should *act* as a class and force change (through withholding their labour).
Obviously working class solidarity and sites of collective action have been massively eroded over the decades, but I do think we fall into a bit of a trap when we frame things in purely moral terms (spiralling lesser-of-two-evilism).
I apologise if this is unwelcome!