As used by the right-wing, “class warfare” seems to mean
there are more poor people than rich, by far
if they could organize, they could easily outvote us
and some of our wealth would be diverted to serve them
and we really don’t have much of a complaint–it’s not as if we actually need three Rolls-Royces apiece
so we’ll have to label any attempt, however mild or benign, to move in that direction as “class warfare” or better yet “CLASS WARFARE!!!” to create the impression that this would be a bad thing all around. No one likes warfare.
My question concerns the basic premise: I thought we were supposed to have a classless society, everyone being equal, and all that. So how can you have class warfare if you don’t have any classes of people?
I’ve never heard anyone say that we (can I extend that to be the western industrialized democracies?) should have a classless society.
(“No, I mean a society what gots no class.”)
Having a system, even a hierarchy, of classes, can be just fine, so long as there is upward mobility. This produces “betterment incentive,” and makes the whole schmear productive and happy.
When you have people locked in to classes – castes – then the system destroys hope and denies progress. It is antithetical to freedom.
But I know of only a very few wobblies who want to destroy all vestiges of class. I think it’s great that there are people richer than I am; it gives me something to aim for, personally.
Also…it gives us a resource to be tapped. We tax these guys, because they can afford it. That gives us the funds to do things like health care for the indigent. Do you really want poor people to die, as Eb. Scrooge recommended?
Just as only a handful of old-style communists want to eliminate all classes, so only a tiny handful of extremists want to eliminate all forms of social welfare. The rest of us don’t like the idea of putting grandma on an ice-floe to die.
We are all equal under the law. Real equality means that as a free citizen you have the same legal rights as a billionaire, even if you are poor.
The next step up from there is equality of opportunity - making sure that you don’t have to be royalty or part of a special caste in order to amass capital, work in a job you are qualified for, etc.
What class warfare does is seek equality of outcome. People who start from the same station in life as you, but climb higher for whatever reason, are now the ‘enemy’. They’re bad people by definition, because they’re rich, and the state should take part of what they earn and give it to you in the interest of ‘fairness’.
This kind of ‘equality’ turns real equality on its head. You and I aren’t equal if you don’t work and receive a check from the government every month while I am taxed more to provide that check to you. We’re not equal if you get special tax breaks that I don’t get because you’re in a different socioeconomic group. We’re not equal if you’re given hiring or admissions preferences because your skin color is different than mine.
“Class warfare” is a meaningless term… but one that sounds scary.
If someone proposes something that you oppose and you can’t, or won’t, debate it on its merits, you label it “class warfare”, and hope that you thus win the debate.
(Which is not to say that everything that has ever been labelled “class warfare” is a good idea, of course, but the label itself is pretty close to worthless.)
I am guessing that Eat the Rich is a good example of class warfare mentality.
When the gulf between the well off and the destitute becomes so profound that one despairs of ever breaching it, then there is a resentment that grows generationally.
I once argued to the point of leaving the room in anger with an Indian roommate of mine back in college about the horrible caste system of India and she ripped me a new one describing how our (USA) culture had many of the same elements within it.
She was right.
I cooked breakfast.
Well we do have classes in America just like everywhere else but I guess many if not all rightwingers using the term “class warfare” as a club would argue that America is a classless society but that agitators are claiming these difference exist in order to exploit them. Class envy is a real thing and you don’t have to be a proponent of greater social justice to exploit it. Remember when rightwingers attacked Kerry as an effete Eastern elite and then tried to capitalize on that victory by gutting Social Security? Unfortunately rhetoric doesn’t have to make sense in order to be effective.
Sam, have you looked at all at where the wealth is going in the US? There’s been class warfare, but not by the poor or the middle class. It’s all been done by the rich. From what I’ve seen, any defensive reaction to the gutting of the American middle class by the one percenters is considered class warfare by the right. It’s not so much “you’re attacking the wealthy” as “you get back on that barrel and bend over!”
There’s a basic assumption among libertarians, I think, that wealth is a natural feature of the cosmos, and that by default the folks who have it are the folks who ought to have it.
I disagree. Wealth, including private property, are artificial constructs developed to prevent the mass bloodshed of our natural state, in which we’re in constant conflict as to who gets to use what resources. We try to come up with a system for who gets to use resources that motivates people to be productive, but there’s nothing inherent in the universe regarding that system; it’s just what we’ve come up with. When that system doesn’t work–when it creates a massive class of folks in poverty–there’s no problem at all with tweaking it.
:dubious: Could you give some examples of how US culture is similar to the caste system in India?
As to the OP:
Basically all of this is simultaneously an attempt to poison the well and produce a nice big strawman at the same time. If you wanted to talk about class warfare you should have either gone with the standard definition (say, from here: class warfare - conflict between social or economic classes (especially between the capitalist and proletariat classes)), or solicited some definitions that could be used to start off the discussion.
Well, to paraphrase from Atlas Shrugged (:p), you should check your basic premise if you find an inconsistency between your assumptions and reality. Your premise is wrong…we aren’t a classless society, nor are we supposed to be one. We ARE all equal, under the law (well, theoretically), but that doesn’t mean that we are all equal as far as circumstance goes. Some folks are richer, some poorer, some luckier, some more handsome (such as myself), and some folks just get the short end of the stick.
So, since your basic premise is wrong, the second part of your question makes no sense. We DO have distinct classes, even if they aren’t as rigid as in, say, the UK (or India to give an example from an earlier poster). In the US, ‘class’ is based on economic wealth instead of birth or race/creed (though, again, this is not rigid either), and thus we have ‘class warfare’, or tension and struggle between socio-economic classes in the US.
Looking at where the wealth is going tell us nothing about how just what is going on is. If I leave a bank with 10,000 dollars because I just threatened to shoot a teller, it is different than if I leave a bank with 10,000 dollars because I just cashed a check from my lottery winnings.
If the rich got rich from being smarter, working harder, or being lucky it is different than taking that money by force.
On the other hand every dollar that is extracted by taxes comes with the threat of force behind it.
True, though your own cite from an Al Franken book is a bit funny as well. Yeah, the definition of ‘class warfare’ has shifted since the 12th century a tad (ironically, since IIRC the term was coined by Marx, so those 12th century peasants roasting a nobleman and raping his wife were really ahead of their time). So has the definition of ‘class’ and ‘warfare’, as well as a number of others. I know it’s not obvious, but things have changed a bit in the proceeding 7+ centuries that possibly Barbara, Al and yourself might have missed.
The workers do the lions share of the work in this country, thus they should get the lions share of the benefits, not the investor class who do nothing but sit around all day…
