Choosing change: roasted or fried.
The state is an instrument in the hands of the ruling class, and can occasionally be the tool of tyranny, or of absolute monarchy. These brief periods of total power are revolutionary. They destroy the old dominant class by taking away their power to rule. And, as tyrants govern through henchmen and administrators, these will eventually succeed him as a new ruling class. The novus homo replaced the patrician, and the bourgeois assumed the role of the aristocrat.
The state controls the civilian and military armed forces. It holds sway over the judiciary and has the power to levy taxes. A ruling class must master these functions to maintain its privileges of property and wealth. The use of force and its legislative justification are essential for maintaining a hierarchy of riches, both at home and abroad. Force also insures taxation, and taxation guarantees state borrowing. The ruling class has the nation’s wealth and the nation’s debt at its disposal.
The ruling propertied class is far from being monolithic. It is as varied as are the forms of property. But this multiplicity seems to follow the two major trends that constitute alternative governments. Property as such is nothing. It only has value if it brings a return. For this it needs an input of labour. To be productive, property needs labour. But different kinds of property need different kinds of labour, and give rise to different relationships. A part of the labour force works hard just for food and a roof, while another part works at a career. Some pick tomatoes, some assemble cars, some are in offices and some trade on the stock exchange. It would seem that the main divide is between agriculture and industry, with services (bankers and barbers, functionaries et cetera) belonging to both sides.
Property needs labour, and the property less must work for property or starve. The propertied class used to own the work force as slaves and serfs. This ownership was finally replaced by the more advantageous system of hire and fire. It was the consequence of a plethoric work force. Human rivers were flowing from the countryside to the cities and from Europe to America. Starving masses who would do a slave’s work for a slave’s pittance, without the investment of ownership. Property no longer had to buy, house, feed, cloth and guard the work force. It merely had to pay the working hours at a minimum wage, barely enough to keep labour alive. And if it died, newcomers would replace it at no extra cost.
The modern paradigm began when landowners and land grabbers evicted all unnecessary inhabitants. Agriculture was changing its methods and practices, and rural communities were a hindrance. Marx tells of a Scottish landlord who emptied a highland valley of its inhabitants, so as to dispose of a game reserve for hunting and shooting. At about the same time factories were being built in the cities. The skilled farm labour became unskilled industrial labour, with dire living conditions and low life expectancies. As mechanisation progressed most agricultural skills disappeared, and farm labour was reduced to picking and carrying. Meanwhile, in the cities, industrial labour acquired skills and bargaining power. It organised and confronted property in an epic struggle. The countryside, that had been the crucible of popular revolt for millennia, sank into the lethargy of ignorance, while the urban proletariat took up the flame. Landed property increased its power over labour, and industrial property learned to divide and rule. Hence conservatives and liberals, with financial property trying to occupy the centre ground, preying on and fuelling both parties.
The propertied class controls the apparatus of state. But property is divided by ideological, historic and material fractures into agriculture, finance and industry. The three major forms of property are united against labour, but they are divided by the different relationships they entertain with labour. And they constantly fight over the repartition of profits between rent, interest and dividends. The three forms of property are reduced to two governing parties, because financial property must deal with both land and industry and has to stay sitting on the fence. So land and industry compete for executive power and rally their respective troops with conservative and liberal programs, and labour just gets more of the same. And there is no alternative, unless labour decides to expropriate the means of production and do away with the propertied class. A perspective that, for the time being, is mere wishful thinking.
The state controls the civilian and military armed forces. It holds sway over the judiciary and has the power to levy taxes. A ruling class must master these functions to maintain its privileges of property and wealth. The use of force and its legislative justification are essential for maintaining a hierarchy of riches, both at home and abroad. Force also insures taxation, and taxation guarantees state borrowing. The ruling class has the nation’s wealth and the nation’s debt at its disposal.
The ruling propertied class is far from being monolithic. It is as varied as are the forms of property. But this multiplicity seems to follow the two major trends that constitute alternative governments. Property as such is nothing. It only has value if it brings a return. For this it needs an input of labour. To be productive, property needs labour. But different kinds of property need different kinds of labour, and give rise to different relationships. A part of the labour force works hard just for food and a roof, while another part works at a career. Some pick tomatoes, some assemble cars, some are in offices and some trade on the stock exchange. It would seem that the main divide is between agriculture and industry, with services (bankers and barbers, functionaries et cetera) belonging to both sides.
Property needs labour, and the property less must work for property or starve. The propertied class used to own the work force as slaves and serfs. This ownership was finally replaced by the more advantageous system of hire and fire. It was the consequence of a plethoric work force. Human rivers were flowing from the countryside to the cities and from Europe to America. Starving masses who would do a slave’s work for a slave’s pittance, without the investment of ownership. Property no longer had to buy, house, feed, cloth and guard the work force. It merely had to pay the working hours at a minimum wage, barely enough to keep labour alive. And if it died, newcomers would replace it at no extra cost.
The modern paradigm began when landowners and land grabbers evicted all unnecessary inhabitants. Agriculture was changing its methods and practices, and rural communities were a hindrance. Marx tells of a Scottish landlord who emptied a highland valley of its inhabitants, so as to dispose of a game reserve for hunting and shooting. At about the same time factories were being built in the cities. The skilled farm labour became unskilled industrial labour, with dire living conditions and low life expectancies. As mechanisation progressed most agricultural skills disappeared, and farm labour was reduced to picking and carrying. Meanwhile, in the cities, industrial labour acquired skills and bargaining power. It organised and confronted property in an epic struggle. The countryside, that had been the crucible of popular revolt for millennia, sank into the lethargy of ignorance, while the urban proletariat took up the flame. Landed property increased its power over labour, and industrial property learned to divide and rule. Hence conservatives and liberals, with financial property trying to occupy the centre ground, preying on and fuelling both parties.
The propertied class controls the apparatus of state. But property is divided by ideological, historic and material fractures into agriculture, finance and industry. The three major forms of property are united against labour, but they are divided by the different relationships they entertain with labour. And they constantly fight over the repartition of profits between rent, interest and dividends. The three forms of property are reduced to two governing parties, because financial property must deal with both land and industry and has to stay sitting on the fence. So land and industry compete for executive power and rally their respective troops with conservative and liberal programs, and labour just gets more of the same. And there is no alternative, unless labour decides to expropriate the means of production and do away with the propertied class. A perspective that, for the time being, is mere wishful thinking.
posted by le Lézard at 7:06 AM
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