Introduction Page 7
It would seem so, as most workers currently accept the nonsensical idea that capitalism provides us with freedom and opportunity.
But our life experience will always be at odds with the fantasy picture that their media paint.
Daily reality for many of us is the struggle just to get by.
In fact, most of us are about 2 or 3 months from destitution if our wage stops coming in.
And it has to be this way in their system.
We cannot be allowed to be out of the labour market for long, or else who would produce their wealth?
The dissatisfaction that our cramped lives (as commodities on a market) causes us is plain for all to see, otherwise how could you account for the countless efforts to reform the system?
Remember too – capitalism has only been around for about 300 years. Before that, it was ‘only natural’ for peasants to work to feed the feudal master and his hangers on.
No-one then could ever have foreseen that their “God-given” way of life would be destroyed by a revolutionary capitalist class.
So one task for socialists is to show our fellow workers that there is nothing ‘natural’ about our subordinate position and the other is to help to join up the dots between our common problems and the profit system.