Sinister: bourgeoisie, working-class, botched capitalism and children of socialism

[Julien Boeldieu]

Hello everyone :)

"Bourgeoisie" is the word used by Marx and Engels to speak about the
dominant class in the capitalist mode of production. I guess "upper
class would be a more appropriate word, but I've read somewhere that
"middle-class" was a synonym to "bourgeoisie"... So I'm quite confused.
According to them, the bourgeois owns the whole means of production
under the laws of private property. They draw their income from the
capital they own and they put in the capitalist production. The
proletariat is the class of those who owns nothing but their
labour-power and who are compelled to sell it to the bourgeois to earn
money and to live.
According to Marx and Engels, this division leads to the exploitation
of the proletariat. The latest sells its labour-power to its
exchange-value (under the form of a wage), but it produces more than
this value. The difference between this use-value of labour-power and
its exchange-value is called surplus-value. This surplus-value,
although it was produced by workers, is extorted by the bourgeois
under the form of a profit.
The domination of the bourgeoisie is economic, but also political.
Even if the proletariat has won democratic rights by fighting, the
state and the laws, the army and the police, are oppressive
instruments used by the dominant class, and the parlementary democracy
is a big joke that hides the truth the economic exploitation. To Marx
and Engels, the historic role of the proletariat is to get rid of this
system and to build socialism, ie a society without any classes and
any kinds of discrimination and oppression, a society without any kind
of division of labour, a society without state and government that
would be ruled by a direct democracy -- a society such as the one John
Lennon sings about in "Imagine" : a brother/sistehood of men/women
that would share the world together in love, peace and harmony (which
are the common goal, whatever Morrissey can say).

The rise of a middle-class, the economic changes during the 20th
century and the fall of stalinism haven't changed many things,
finally. The sociologic composition of the working-class has changed a
lot, but I think that social classes and exploitation still remain and
will remain as long as the capitalist mode of production exist. This
system creates unemployment, poverty, huge unequalities, competition,
wars and needs to create and to increase all these things to survive.
But by doing this, odds are that it will destroy the whole mankind.
The present world crisis shows us that. The idea of socialism has been
betrayed by Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot and many more
who have turned it into uglies dictatorships, but I don't think it is
an utopy. Capitalism isn't a "natural" system. It's the result of an
history that can be changed. Everything is to be imagined !

Byebye,
Julien.

Christa, I miss you.

==
"Je ne remets jamais à demain ce que je peux
faire le surlendemain"
                                  ** Alphonse Allais **
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