Must the Workers Control Parliament?
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Following is a discussion on the page titled: Must the Workers Control Parliament?.
Below is the discussion so far. Feel free to add your own comments!This may be the wrong article to comment on, but I have a question about politicians. What class do they belong to? Do they belong to any class whatosever?
Some are obviously capitalists (more in America than in Britain), eg ex-PM Cameron and ex-MP Zac Goldsmith, rich men with nothing else to do. Most will be workers on the make as one way to get out of the working class (in the broad sense of all those excluded from ownership of means of production and so forced by economic necessity to sell their mental and physical energies for a wage or a salary) and become capitalists themselves. Some will be sincere reformists.When in government, their role is to manage the affairs of the capitalist class as a whole, inevitably in the interest of the capitalist class by giving priority to profits and conditions for profit-making. Politicians in office have been described as the middle managers of international capitalism. The capitalist class like elections as it ensures that the same group of politicians are not permanently in office and so develop sticky fingers at their expense. This will be one reason why they are concerned about the fate of the Labour Party — they need a viable alternative team to take over the reins of office from time to time.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/04/bakunin-notes.htm
Quote:Bakunin wrote:Certainly, with your permission, of former workers, who however, as soon as they have become representatives or governors of the people, cease to be workers…Marx wrote:As little as a factory owner today ceases to be a capitalist if he becomes a municipal councillor…ALB wrote:"Some are obviously capitalists (more in America than in Britain), eg ex-PM Cameron and ex-MP Zac Goldsmith, rich men with nothing else to do."Did Cameron live off his father, the stockbroker, before becoming a politician?"When in government, their role is to manage the affairs of the capitalist class as a whole, inevitably in the interest of the capitalist class by giving priority to profits and conditions for profit-making."Are politicians, like Theresa May for example, economically exploited? They don't create value, right?
Young Master Smeet wrote:"As little as a factory owner today ceases to be a capitalist if he becomes a municipal councillor…"Interesting quote. Do you think Marx means that the factory owner is still a capitalist because he has money left from exploiting the working class? Also, isn't the worker who has become a politician no longer dependent on getting exploited? My question to you kind of intertwines with my reply to ALB.
Politicians who receive a salary are salaried workers like any other: it's just they have a slightly complex interview process. If, after they cease to be an MP, they don't have property to fall back on, they will have to get another job.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Politicians who receive a salary are salaried workers like any otherIs Theresa May exploited by capitalists?
Unless she has enough personal capital to live on and not work~: yes. The main point is that tehe is a clear pension now, as Private Eye has demonstrated in its coverage of erevolving doors: top flight politicians are guaranteed consultancies, directorships and the speaking circuit, ultimately, those are forms of channelling surplus value to loyal servants.
Young Master Smeet wrote:"Unless she has enough personal capital to live on and not work~: yes."If so, is it in her class interest to abolish capitalism and establish socialism? Sorry if I am being annoying with these questions
Sympo wrote:Young Master Smeet wrote:"Unless she has enough personal capital to live on and not work~: yes."If so, is it in her class interest to abolish capitalism and establish socialism? Sorry if I am being annoying with these questions
It is in the interest of her class, that does not necessarily mean it is in the interest of her.
Tim Kilgallon wrote:It is in the interest of her class, that does not necessarily mean it is in the interest of her.Sorry, but how can you belong to a class and at the same time not have the same interests as that class? Doesn't she have a false consiousness?
"Class interests" only make sense on the level of the class as a whole, not on the level of individuals.
Actually, when they get to Cabinet level it could be said that they are members of the capitalist class in that they do share in the surplus value extracted from the working class just as the top echelons of the nomenklatura did in the old USSR without having an individual legal right to a property and a property income. Personally I think it absurd to describe May as a member of the working class just as much as it was to say Khrushchev was, even if that's where they will both have come from at some point.
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