Humble suggestion. The way to view class post 2020 is in terms of who was deemed ‘essential’ and ‘non-essential’ workers for the purposes of keeping a functioning system running under lockdown. Vast swathes of our human capitol were told to stay home and figure out how to ‘work’ remotely, this could well have been the ideal exercise to model which jobs could be most easily replaced by AI. Furlough was the sweet coating on a bitter pill, were coerced and cajoled injections the logical follow through? Has any serious analysis of the essential / non-essential class divide been done to date, where for instance are those lovable IDW Petersons and such ilk on this unprecedented insight to 21st century labour dynamics? Is the pervasive amnesia of house arrest driven by the reluctance of non-essentials to come to terms with exactly what their designation by authority portends? Thanks for a timely reminder of why so much that was taken for granted is obsolete.
With regards to who “they” is, I like to keep it simple: look upon THEY as an acronym … The Hierarchy Enslaving You. Eazy peazy.
You never disappoint my quote hound. Here are a few gems he retrieved...
“The intellectual Left was fooled into thinking class didn’t matter anymore; that the class war was over. It was in fact merely entering a new phase. At precisely the moment the intellectual Left should have doubled down, it sold out.”
“To the Pharma executive, a sick individual from birth is a lifelong revenue stream. To the ruling class, a sick person is an extinguished threat to its control matrix. This warped value system is the norm and not the exception, because The System serves the psychopaths who run it at the expense of everyone else.”
“...aspiring to be middle class is an identity crisis welcomed by the ruling class because you’re psychologically trying to punch down and brown-nose up.”
“Wearing a middle class badge does not change the fact that you are still a slave on the Plantation. But there are advantages to being a butler in the Big House as opposed to picking cotton in the field.”
“Cultural brainwashing is the foundation of the plutocracy.”
“Not asking questions is the oil that keeps the ruling class engine purring smoothly.”
“Smashing the class barriers by simply pretending they didn’t exist anymore was the thin gruel offered to compensate for offshoring real jobs to China and anyone else who wanted them.”
“There is clearly something about not doing real work that rusts the soul.”
“A university educated person who believes cows must be prevented from farting in order to save mankind from catastrophe is not a serious person, and therefore cannot be relied on to perform serious, real work.”
“Recognising that macroeconomic shifts beyond our control have forced many of us into work that is not real does not preclude a willingness and ability to ally with people doing real jobs against the parasites in the ruling class and the incorrigible section of the PMC.”
In Europe, there was no middle class under feudalism, where the churchand aristocracy ruled over the serfs, in a two tier society. That changed about 500 years ago, when the merchants of Genoa and Venice - who became bankers and joined with Jews banned from Spain - decided to start their global domination project (the first with the Americas included). Their lever was pooled mobile capital, which enabled them to finance the voyages of discovery and colonization, and the many wars and revolutions to bring the world under control (the aristocracy could not pool capital, as it was mostly real estate, so they could only grow in an organic way). Early on, their main proxies were the upcoming nations states in Europe, by now all nations states are captured (including Russia, China, Iran, North Korea).
They allowed the - temporary - development of a middle class, as convenient suppliers for their many projects. They also set up central banking systems in the countries they captured to be their proxies (Holland in 1608, England in 1694, now everywhere). All behind the facade of pseudo democracy (Bill of Rights, etc). Thanks to the lever of their capital, the industrial and later the technological revolution also became possible. The West - and its middle class - has now completed its tasks and is being discarded, as a disposable item. If they get their way, all small and medium businesses will be eradicated, and we will become fully dependent on what I call Glafia’s big corporations. This is proof that the middle class never was part of THEY, they were just - disposable - proxies. It now convenes them to bring us back to a two tiered society of Haves All and Haves Nots. The same applies of course to our "democracies", a centuries during confidence game that is now being finalized.
China (and its helper Russia) have been prepared for more than a century to be the new hegemons in this project (after Spain, Holland, England, the USA). All under the beautiful multipolar narrative of respect and sovereignty.
The enormous and convoluted decentralized proxy system they created over the centuries is now being overhauled, to be substituted by a centralized technological control system (Digital Prison or Gulag).
Thanks for this comment and the links. I agree with the trajectory from a 2-tier society, to 3-tier, and now the attempted reversion back to 2-tier. Which is why I'm trying to warn the middle class of what's coming. And yes, I am also pretty convinced that China and Russia are not on the side of freedom. I touch on that in part 2. I suppose the middle class was never part of 'they', but to the extent that it has been co-opted to perform much of the dirty work delegated to it, they have, shall we say, not covered themselves in glory! But I do get your point.
i wonder what the "agency" of the middle class was or is in the domination project. Let's take the Second World War. Hitler was set up as a bogeyman by American and British intelligence and politicians, who acted as proxies for the bankers who planned this (the upcoming book Two world wars and Hitler from Trineday gives the definitive proof). With the "real" threat of Nazism promoted by all media, all kinds of Western businesses and corporations then produced the hardware necessary for a "defensive" war. Can you really blame the latter?
It is true that we are all, working and middle class, being duped by the rulers. But one class (middle) is being used more than the other to advance the agendas and the propaganda underlying the agendas. It is the middle class that dominates the media, academia and cultural institutions. And yet it is those very institutions disseminating the lies and propaganda. How is it that the class with supposedly more material resources and greater access to education is uncritically accepting the deceptions by “American and British intelligence and politicians”. Why is it that the class with the least resources in terms of time and money – the working class – is better able to see who the enemy is?
The answer to me is not complicated – the middle class has accepted its role as mediator for the ruling class. They don’t use their critical faculties and education to discern the truth because they have (consciously or unconsciously, or both) accepted the role assigned to them by the ruling class. Which is what I mean when I say they know which side their bread is buttered on.
If you yourself know the truth, why doesn’t the average university professor also know it? Do you believe that all these university professors accept all the ridiculous narratives we are drowning in because they are not as clever as you and me? Do you think they have no agency, and that you and I have more agency because we are geniuses and they are not?
The truth is that not only have they failed to think critically, but, in many cases, as we know, it’s often worse than that. Many of the middle class, especially in the higher echelons of science and media KNOW they are lying, but they do it to ingratiate themselves with the ruling class. And they do it because they have been bought off with money and prestige.
The middle class has more agency than the working class, because they have more time and more money. The problem is they have LESS morality.
Ultimately this particular debate about agency is also a debate about how our ‘democracies’ are supposed to work. We are not supposed to sit back and expect leaders to deliver a good life to us. We are supposed to view everything they do and say with scepticism, and to challenge them. Those with supposedly more time and money should be at the forefront of this democratic process. Those, such as academics and ‘journalists’, whose sole job is to challenge political narratives, actually have more agency in this process. It’s their job! And they are members of the middle class. But they have failed miserably for a number of reasons, one of them being that they were simply bought off.
In the example you give, you say the media promoted the threat of Nazism and then everyone else just fell into line. My WW2 history is probably not as good as yours, but I wonder if the WW2 media class was similar to today’s media class that uncritically swallowed the 2003 WMD lies that took us into Iraq. It seems to me that the ruling class tells lies, the media in the middle class swallow the lies, and the working class go to war and get killed.
In fact that’s probably not quite right. You could say the ruling class formulates the agenda, and the middle class then formulates the lies in which the agenda is packaged and delivered.
So yes, the middle class has more agency. And for that reason, its failure to perform its role in actively challenging propaganda and lies is greater than that of the working class.
I don’t particularly like apportioning blame since ultimately we are all to blame collectively. We ALL have agency. Things are not simply done to us. In some way, we have collectively consented. But the reality is that the rulers use divide-and-rule to achieve nefarious objectives. The class structure, and specifically the middle class, has played a role in divide-and-rule tactics. I’m simply trying to debate the extent to which the middle class has been co-opted in this process.
I again agree with most of what you say, but a distinction should be made (as you do) between those who wittingly collaborate, and those who are fully duped. The millions of working class men who were sent to die in the many wars to defend God and the motherland were all duped. Many people in politics, academia and media entered unwittingly, but then found out that they were participating in a criminal project yet continued because of the mortgage, status, school fees, peer pressure, etc - to become "traitors within the gates". If you swim against the stream, you are sidelined or even eliminated, see the horrible fate of many whistle blowers. Once you have been lured into this system, high morality has a very high price: loosing your job, reputation, house, family and so on. That's of course how they manage to keep it all going with relatively few rebels.
Yes. It's quite difficult to get a handle on what proportion of middle class professionals know it's all bullshit but are keeping their heads below the parapet out of fear, versus true believers who reflexively lean towards power, and uncritically accept narratives because of their source - namely their own institutions and higher up. In other words, are levels of compliance caused more by fear or brainwashing?
Either way, there's a problem with the class that pulls the levers of control on behalf of The Man.
I would add that you are divesting them of agency in saying that they almost have no choice because the price of non-compliance is too high. I think that it is natural for people in any group setting to consult each other and see which way the wind is blowing. Generally, if there is enough consensus that a narrative is bullshit, there is solidarity. They stick together and fight back knowing there's strength in numbers. The fact that this does not appear to be happening suggests to me that the biggest factor is brainwashing/stupidity.
I just got an association of a massive train or ship, full of enthusiastic travelers, supposedly on its way to a beautiful destination, where democracy and freedom rule. Yet as the voyage progresses, some of the passengers are getting doubts. But as all other passengers are partying and telling nice stories about the destination, nobody wants to listen.
While the doubters get more and more information that the generally accepted story is false, their words fall more and more on the rocks, because the other travelers are getting increases of their salaries and conditions. “Don’t swim against the stream, join the game like we do, and you will be fine!” they say.
Only a few passengers decide to jump off, and lose everything.
In my conclusion, the middle class was a social engineering project, in parallel with “democracy”, both by THEY, and now both in their end phase – unless sufficient people wake up and do something.
Thanks for a very good article highlighting an important issue that is confronting anybody who wishes to oppose the 4IR operation. I think one of the reasons that THEY (using the acronym) chose this period to expose their hand in a way we haven’t seen before is because they believe they have the technology to micromanage and/or eliminate the individual leaders who dare to raise their heads and voices in an effort to arouse the masses. Those of us with open eyes have seen the endless stream of open assassinations and convenient, unexplained deaths of such people. As has the middle class individuals who may otherwise have considered investigating the lies they were being offered. This coercive technology of oppression is an important factor in this struggle and I, for one, am not sure how it can or will be overcome.
On a second issue, I find your definition of working class vs middle class interesting, but I’m not sure it is an improvement on Marx’ definition of classes, which was entirely based on their relationship to the means of production. To my mind Marx’ is a more useful definition as it is one less reliant on subjective judgement. As for the middle class individuals that do not perform meaningful work, perhaps they should be considered a form of 21st century lumpen proletariat, albeit a group that benefits from an ultra-wealthy society capable of showering them with welfare benefits despite their owning little or nothing and yet not producing value?
I think in your comment here in some ways you are arguing against what you previously said. On the one hand you state that the academicians know what is going on, but are bought off and choose to parrot the lies. Then you turn around and ascribe their behavior to brainwashing/stupidity. So which is it? Personally, I view the “education” of the academics as a false picture of their intellect. To have a PhD in a narrow field may entitle one to be called an “expert”, but at most only in that field, and even then, it may be as an expert of a pack of lies (the economics profession, eg, is filled with such people). Much of the rest of their education, whether in politics, economics, human behavior, even in much of the sciences, is often superficial, or downright false knowledge. If they are poorly educated, why would one expect them to be some kind of leading force for positive change? One or another intellectual may re-educate themselves in order to adopt a truly revolutionary theory and outlook. Most won’t bother and the few that know what is going on but won’t oppose it will just cower beneath their covers, all the while spouting a few platitudes while doing nothing of importance. I’m afraid that pattern has been repeated over and over. It’s why Mao encouraged the intellectuals to do manual work so that they could better understand the working class and be willing to use their intellect on behalf of the working class, as opposed to our present ruling/banker class.
Now I would beg to differ a little bit as under feudalism I would peg the priests and curates and all the other low-pay church "employees" as middle class, and to use Rusere's terminology, they were an "owning class buffer zone". Preach against revolution and uprising, preach patience, forbearance and in heaven shall ye receive justice etc. etc.
The government employees also must have thought themselves a little bit above the scum that they administered. For me there was definitely a middle class back then, and Rusere is right, they are (and were) an essential buffer between workers and the people who "own" everything.
Exactly! No matter what era we look at, Bastards Inc are so few in number and so lazy, they couldn't possibly do it all on their own. Delegation plus divide and rule are their bywords.
Yes, they can't do it on their own !! They need their "middle class buffer zone".
But how do we see the revolutions of the 18th-20th centuries..I mean are they genuinely a working class thing that put the sh*ts up the "aristocracy" but were then hijacked, probably, by "middle class" people/operatives who led them into a failure mode to save said aristocracy ? I would be interested to know how you see that history.
I haven't delved into those revolutions from an 'awake' (as in REAL history) perspective, but even the mainstream versions acknowledge the success of counter revolutions. It's definitely a project for me so stay tuned!
What about how the classes have a social/cultural element? Your well-paid plumber and not-so-well-paid librarian both might have grandmothers who drink their tea from the saucer or fathers who keep whippets. Or they may have relatives who play the violin and read Russian novels. I'm not sure the money element is what puts you in a class - many of these billionaires are "rich but not posh"! Does it make you middle-class if you like opera or does it just depend on whether you can afford to go to the opera house? Are you working class if you prefer football to cricket (you probably need a larger income to afford tickets to the premier league!)?
You are very effectively highlighting the class identity or class loyalty issue, which I don't deny. Absolutely right to say that class is not solely economic and that's what I tried to convey when I said that "traditional class analysis up to the late 1970s... placed greater emphasis on politicised ideas of class based on identity, exploitation, and domination", but that from the 1970s onwards, class analysis transformed into a "technical issue of measurement." Class is more confusing now than it was in previous generations. Spiralling income inequality and economic structural changes have contributed to class fluidity, but class identity has not disappeared. Crucially, and irrespective of income or identity, there is a group of people (PMC) on whom the ruling class relies for policy implementation. That requires a degree of loyalty to the ruling class. Or a degree of willing blindness. Or some of both.
I basically said that I acknowledged this class mess but wasn't going to try to untangle it, because it's too hard! But rather, in the interests of uniting against the only enemy we should all agree on ('they'), I propose that we drop class identity derived from the social cultural elements . If you have to work for a living, the 4IR machine is coming for you. End of. So, whether you prefer cricket or football, don't let them divide us or distract us from rejecting all of Agenda 2030, lock, stock and two barrels.
For practical aims, we can distinguish as classes:
THEY (the criminal instigators, or the dynastic families),
and the REST (please come up with the full text!).
The REST (formerly considered as middle and working class) are
- traitors within the gates wittingly collaborating as proxies with these organized often genocidal criminals,
- the usuful idiots, collaborating unwittingly,
- the general public, ignorant of the global project, where maybe 25 % woke up after Covid.
Once the control system is overhauled (Digital Gulag), the number of proxies will be drastically reduced, as technology will substitute them. They will be left with maybe 500 million digitally controlled cattle as their slaves, if you believe the former Georgia Guide Stones. Unless .....
I know it is a serious subject but the jazz hands are a funny antidote to secret society signs and handshakey stuff.... and also I laughed at the mince pies bit :)
Excellent article. I particularly liked your paragraph about the upper middle class renegades, who demand "freedom for me, but not for thee". I got a real bad taste of that, in the New York City Medical Freedom Party.
Where I would disagree is your notion that we lower middle class, or dissident, anti-capitalist, anti-Covid middle class people, should try not to be middle class. Our proper role instead is as Kautsky and Lenin envisioned--to lead the working class to victory, while keeping a firm check upon our own temptation to preserve our privilege (sadly, Kautsky, who became effectively a reformist, succumbed to this) or create new ones with the "socialist workers state" (sadly, Lenin, and Trotsky, succumbed to THIS, "petite bourgeois" temptation, when they suppressed their partners, the Left SRs, rather than ceded to them the dominant role in their coalition. Which is what Marx and Engels would have firmly insisted upon)
I am reluctant to advocate for what you describe as the "proper role" of the middle class - namely to lead the working class to victory. With all due respect, the working class are not dumb. They don't need anyone's leadership, and in fact it was the acceptance of middle class leadership that has always resulted in a successful counter revolution and consequent failure. You have listed all the examples of this, but you don't explain why you think it would be any different this time.
All the biggest threats to the ruling class and the most successful movements have come from the heart of the working class. That's because they are at the sharp end of oppression and have thus far been more incentivised to resist than the middle class.
I am a voluntaryist. I neither want to lead nor be led. That's doesn't mean being passive. It means forming alliances with whoever best fits the bill, and in situations where I feel I can make a change. We then work out a plan of action through consensus agreement and implement it. The action, the composition and size of the group are dependent on the individuals' resources, skills and aptitude. This is not dependent on one class leading another. It will lead to myriad groups, actions, and alliances in a bottom-up sort of way. And I believe it does have to be bottom-up, which implies decentralisation and eschews authoritarian leadership.
I will now eagerly digest your critique. Thanks for sharing it!
I feel that as we face the intense crisis that we face today, posed by the Great Reset, et alia, we just can't afford to pursue these abstract, bourgeois individualist/liberal/"voluntary communal", "municipal libertarian" principles that you, Spritzler, Green Liberty Caucus, and Real Left promote. This is all what Wilson Carey McWilliams, in his THE IDEA OF FRATERNITY IN AMERICA, part of the "old liberal utopian dream" As Lenin argued, anarchism--and neo-anarchism--never really acknowledges the fact that we are engaged in fierce class struggle. It would be a different matter if we were in a social economic and political vacuum. We don't.
As for the working class, I guess I'm a Jagger-ist. "Salt of the Earth" song, is my favorite Stones song (among many). Describing his own middle class alienation from the working class, Jagger sings (and writes), "they need leaders but get gamblers instead."
I hope soon to have the time to write a review of an excellent, but disturbing recent book by Clyde Barrow (no relation to Bonnie), THE DANGEROUS CLASS: THE CONCEPT OF THE LUMPEN PROLETARIAT. You ought to read it. It would put into question your assertion that we can rely upon a spontaneous urge within the working class for revolution. Whatever feeble possibility there was of this in the mid to late nineteenth century, automation and now AI has transformed vast sectors of the industrial working class into lumpenproletarians. This doesn't preclude such people from becoming revolutionary--WITH THE GUIDANCE OF A VANGUARD PARTY OF INTELLECTUALS AND INDUSTRIAL WORKERS. But there is also a growing tendency, because of this lumpenization, to become authoritarian and brutal. A big example is all these right wing demagogues getting elected, all over the world.
in the covid years there WAS a secret handshake: the handshake.
I was still (at least trying to) shake everyone's hand while all those morons were greeting each other with their ellbows (the same ellbows they probably sneezed into before).
I think we should all start practising: https://youtu.be/Ijqtrsl0NUQ?si=GXRTUVycuTYOubxT
Thanks for this important contribution. I have updated the piece to include a link.
Lol!
Brilliant work. Please do keep it up...
Thank you.
Humble suggestion. The way to view class post 2020 is in terms of who was deemed ‘essential’ and ‘non-essential’ workers for the purposes of keeping a functioning system running under lockdown. Vast swathes of our human capitol were told to stay home and figure out how to ‘work’ remotely, this could well have been the ideal exercise to model which jobs could be most easily replaced by AI. Furlough was the sweet coating on a bitter pill, were coerced and cajoled injections the logical follow through? Has any serious analysis of the essential / non-essential class divide been done to date, where for instance are those lovable IDW Petersons and such ilk on this unprecedented insight to 21st century labour dynamics? Is the pervasive amnesia of house arrest driven by the reluctance of non-essentials to come to terms with exactly what their designation by authority portends? Thanks for a timely reminder of why so much that was taken for granted is obsolete.
Astute observation about the essential / non-essential lockdown division.
With regards to who “they” is, I like to keep it simple: look upon THEY as an acronym … The Hierarchy Enslaving You. Eazy peazy.
You never disappoint my quote hound. Here are a few gems he retrieved...
“The intellectual Left was fooled into thinking class didn’t matter anymore; that the class war was over. It was in fact merely entering a new phase. At precisely the moment the intellectual Left should have doubled down, it sold out.”
“To the Pharma executive, a sick individual from birth is a lifelong revenue stream. To the ruling class, a sick person is an extinguished threat to its control matrix. This warped value system is the norm and not the exception, because The System serves the psychopaths who run it at the expense of everyone else.”
“...aspiring to be middle class is an identity crisis welcomed by the ruling class because you’re psychologically trying to punch down and brown-nose up.”
“Wearing a middle class badge does not change the fact that you are still a slave on the Plantation. But there are advantages to being a butler in the Big House as opposed to picking cotton in the field.”
“Cultural brainwashing is the foundation of the plutocracy.”
“Not asking questions is the oil that keeps the ruling class engine purring smoothly.”
“Smashing the class barriers by simply pretending they didn’t exist anymore was the thin gruel offered to compensate for offshoring real jobs to China and anyone else who wanted them.”
“There is clearly something about not doing real work that rusts the soul.”
“A university educated person who believes cows must be prevented from farting in order to save mankind from catastrophe is not a serious person, and therefore cannot be relied on to perform serious, real work.”
“Recognising that macroeconomic shifts beyond our control have forced many of us into work that is not real does not preclude a willingness and ability to ally with people doing real jobs against the parasites in the ruling class and the incorrigible section of the PMC.”
Thank you! The THEY acronym deserves inclusion in the article.
It's an oldie but a goodie which, for some reason, isn't anywhere near as well known as it should be.
I was finalizing my comment when it suddenly disappeared ... here another try.
My big picture has some differences with yours, for more details see my site https://thepredatorsversusthepeople.substack.com/ and my "predator theory of history" https://thepredatorsversusthepeople.substack.com/p/chapter-a81-the-predator-theory-of
In Europe, there was no middle class under feudalism, where the churchand aristocracy ruled over the serfs, in a two tier society. That changed about 500 years ago, when the merchants of Genoa and Venice - who became bankers and joined with Jews banned from Spain - decided to start their global domination project (the first with the Americas included). Their lever was pooled mobile capital, which enabled them to finance the voyages of discovery and colonization, and the many wars and revolutions to bring the world under control (the aristocracy could not pool capital, as it was mostly real estate, so they could only grow in an organic way). Early on, their main proxies were the upcoming nations states in Europe, by now all nations states are captured (including Russia, China, Iran, North Korea).
They allowed the - temporary - development of a middle class, as convenient suppliers for their many projects. They also set up central banking systems in the countries they captured to be their proxies (Holland in 1608, England in 1694, now everywhere). All behind the facade of pseudo democracy (Bill of Rights, etc). Thanks to the lever of their capital, the industrial and later the technological revolution also became possible. The West - and its middle class - has now completed its tasks and is being discarded, as a disposable item. If they get their way, all small and medium businesses will be eradicated, and we will become fully dependent on what I call Glafia’s big corporations. This is proof that the middle class never was part of THEY, they were just - disposable - proxies. It now convenes them to bring us back to a two tiered society of Haves All and Haves Nots. The same applies of course to our "democracies", a centuries during confidence game that is now being finalized.
China (and its helper Russia) have been prepared for more than a century to be the new hegemons in this project (after Spain, Holland, England, the USA). All under the beautiful multipolar narrative of respect and sovereignty.
The enormous and convoluted decentralized proxy system they created over the centuries is now being overhauled, to be substituted by a centralized technological control system (Digital Prison or Gulag).
Thanks for this comment and the links. I agree with the trajectory from a 2-tier society, to 3-tier, and now the attempted reversion back to 2-tier. Which is why I'm trying to warn the middle class of what's coming. And yes, I am also pretty convinced that China and Russia are not on the side of freedom. I touch on that in part 2. I suppose the middle class was never part of 'they', but to the extent that it has been co-opted to perform much of the dirty work delegated to it, they have, shall we say, not covered themselves in glory! But I do get your point.
i wonder what the "agency" of the middle class was or is in the domination project. Let's take the Second World War. Hitler was set up as a bogeyman by American and British intelligence and politicians, who acted as proxies for the bankers who planned this (the upcoming book Two world wars and Hitler from Trineday gives the definitive proof). With the "real" threat of Nazism promoted by all media, all kinds of Western businesses and corporations then produced the hardware necessary for a "defensive" war. Can you really blame the latter?
It is true that we are all, working and middle class, being duped by the rulers. But one class (middle) is being used more than the other to advance the agendas and the propaganda underlying the agendas. It is the middle class that dominates the media, academia and cultural institutions. And yet it is those very institutions disseminating the lies and propaganda. How is it that the class with supposedly more material resources and greater access to education is uncritically accepting the deceptions by “American and British intelligence and politicians”. Why is it that the class with the least resources in terms of time and money – the working class – is better able to see who the enemy is?
The answer to me is not complicated – the middle class has accepted its role as mediator for the ruling class. They don’t use their critical faculties and education to discern the truth because they have (consciously or unconsciously, or both) accepted the role assigned to them by the ruling class. Which is what I mean when I say they know which side their bread is buttered on.
If you yourself know the truth, why doesn’t the average university professor also know it? Do you believe that all these university professors accept all the ridiculous narratives we are drowning in because they are not as clever as you and me? Do you think they have no agency, and that you and I have more agency because we are geniuses and they are not?
The truth is that not only have they failed to think critically, but, in many cases, as we know, it’s often worse than that. Many of the middle class, especially in the higher echelons of science and media KNOW they are lying, but they do it to ingratiate themselves with the ruling class. And they do it because they have been bought off with money and prestige.
The middle class has more agency than the working class, because they have more time and more money. The problem is they have LESS morality.
Ultimately this particular debate about agency is also a debate about how our ‘democracies’ are supposed to work. We are not supposed to sit back and expect leaders to deliver a good life to us. We are supposed to view everything they do and say with scepticism, and to challenge them. Those with supposedly more time and money should be at the forefront of this democratic process. Those, such as academics and ‘journalists’, whose sole job is to challenge political narratives, actually have more agency in this process. It’s their job! And they are members of the middle class. But they have failed miserably for a number of reasons, one of them being that they were simply bought off.
In the example you give, you say the media promoted the threat of Nazism and then everyone else just fell into line. My WW2 history is probably not as good as yours, but I wonder if the WW2 media class was similar to today’s media class that uncritically swallowed the 2003 WMD lies that took us into Iraq. It seems to me that the ruling class tells lies, the media in the middle class swallow the lies, and the working class go to war and get killed.
In fact that’s probably not quite right. You could say the ruling class formulates the agenda, and the middle class then formulates the lies in which the agenda is packaged and delivered.
So yes, the middle class has more agency. And for that reason, its failure to perform its role in actively challenging propaganda and lies is greater than that of the working class.
I don’t particularly like apportioning blame since ultimately we are all to blame collectively. We ALL have agency. Things are not simply done to us. In some way, we have collectively consented. But the reality is that the rulers use divide-and-rule to achieve nefarious objectives. The class structure, and specifically the middle class, has played a role in divide-and-rule tactics. I’m simply trying to debate the extent to which the middle class has been co-opted in this process.
I again agree with most of what you say, but a distinction should be made (as you do) between those who wittingly collaborate, and those who are fully duped. The millions of working class men who were sent to die in the many wars to defend God and the motherland were all duped. Many people in politics, academia and media entered unwittingly, but then found out that they were participating in a criminal project yet continued because of the mortgage, status, school fees, peer pressure, etc - to become "traitors within the gates". If you swim against the stream, you are sidelined or even eliminated, see the horrible fate of many whistle blowers. Once you have been lured into this system, high morality has a very high price: loosing your job, reputation, house, family and so on. That's of course how they manage to keep it all going with relatively few rebels.
Yes. It's quite difficult to get a handle on what proportion of middle class professionals know it's all bullshit but are keeping their heads below the parapet out of fear, versus true believers who reflexively lean towards power, and uncritically accept narratives because of their source - namely their own institutions and higher up. In other words, are levels of compliance caused more by fear or brainwashing?
Either way, there's a problem with the class that pulls the levers of control on behalf of The Man.
I would add that you are divesting them of agency in saying that they almost have no choice because the price of non-compliance is too high. I think that it is natural for people in any group setting to consult each other and see which way the wind is blowing. Generally, if there is enough consensus that a narrative is bullshit, there is solidarity. They stick together and fight back knowing there's strength in numbers. The fact that this does not appear to be happening suggests to me that the biggest factor is brainwashing/stupidity.
I just got an association of a massive train or ship, full of enthusiastic travelers, supposedly on its way to a beautiful destination, where democracy and freedom rule. Yet as the voyage progresses, some of the passengers are getting doubts. But as all other passengers are partying and telling nice stories about the destination, nobody wants to listen.
While the doubters get more and more information that the generally accepted story is false, their words fall more and more on the rocks, because the other travelers are getting increases of their salaries and conditions. “Don’t swim against the stream, join the game like we do, and you will be fine!” they say.
Only a few passengers decide to jump off, and lose everything.
In my conclusion, the middle class was a social engineering project, in parallel with “democracy”, both by THEY, and now both in their end phase – unless sufficient people wake up and do something.
Thanks for a very good article highlighting an important issue that is confronting anybody who wishes to oppose the 4IR operation. I think one of the reasons that THEY (using the acronym) chose this period to expose their hand in a way we haven’t seen before is because they believe they have the technology to micromanage and/or eliminate the individual leaders who dare to raise their heads and voices in an effort to arouse the masses. Those of us with open eyes have seen the endless stream of open assassinations and convenient, unexplained deaths of such people. As has the middle class individuals who may otherwise have considered investigating the lies they were being offered. This coercive technology of oppression is an important factor in this struggle and I, for one, am not sure how it can or will be overcome.
On a second issue, I find your definition of working class vs middle class interesting, but I’m not sure it is an improvement on Marx’ definition of classes, which was entirely based on their relationship to the means of production. To my mind Marx’ is a more useful definition as it is one less reliant on subjective judgement. As for the middle class individuals that do not perform meaningful work, perhaps they should be considered a form of 21st century lumpen proletariat, albeit a group that benefits from an ultra-wealthy society capable of showering them with welfare benefits despite their owning little or nothing and yet not producing value?
I think in your comment here in some ways you are arguing against what you previously said. On the one hand you state that the academicians know what is going on, but are bought off and choose to parrot the lies. Then you turn around and ascribe their behavior to brainwashing/stupidity. So which is it? Personally, I view the “education” of the academics as a false picture of their intellect. To have a PhD in a narrow field may entitle one to be called an “expert”, but at most only in that field, and even then, it may be as an expert of a pack of lies (the economics profession, eg, is filled with such people). Much of the rest of their education, whether in politics, economics, human behavior, even in much of the sciences, is often superficial, or downright false knowledge. If they are poorly educated, why would one expect them to be some kind of leading force for positive change? One or another intellectual may re-educate themselves in order to adopt a truly revolutionary theory and outlook. Most won’t bother and the few that know what is going on but won’t oppose it will just cower beneath their covers, all the while spouting a few platitudes while doing nothing of importance. I’m afraid that pattern has been repeated over and over. It’s why Mao encouraged the intellectuals to do manual work so that they could better understand the working class and be willing to use their intellect on behalf of the working class, as opposed to our present ruling/banker class.
Now I would beg to differ a little bit as under feudalism I would peg the priests and curates and all the other low-pay church "employees" as middle class, and to use Rusere's terminology, they were an "owning class buffer zone". Preach against revolution and uprising, preach patience, forbearance and in heaven shall ye receive justice etc. etc.
The government employees also must have thought themselves a little bit above the scum that they administered. For me there was definitely a middle class back then, and Rusere is right, they are (and were) an essential buffer between workers and the people who "own" everything.
Exactly! No matter what era we look at, Bastards Inc are so few in number and so lazy, they couldn't possibly do it all on their own. Delegation plus divide and rule are their bywords.
Yes, they can't do it on their own !! They need their "middle class buffer zone".
But how do we see the revolutions of the 18th-20th centuries..I mean are they genuinely a working class thing that put the sh*ts up the "aristocracy" but were then hijacked, probably, by "middle class" people/operatives who led them into a failure mode to save said aristocracy ? I would be interested to know how you see that history.
I haven't delved into those revolutions from an 'awake' (as in REAL history) perspective, but even the mainstream versions acknowledge the success of counter revolutions. It's definitely a project for me so stay tuned!
I will.
As ever, what you write is fundamentally honest, and that's the most powerful thing. Thanks.
Edit: Deleted that last paragraph, went way off topic,
Many thanks!
What about how the classes have a social/cultural element? Your well-paid plumber and not-so-well-paid librarian both might have grandmothers who drink their tea from the saucer or fathers who keep whippets. Or they may have relatives who play the violin and read Russian novels. I'm not sure the money element is what puts you in a class - many of these billionaires are "rich but not posh"! Does it make you middle-class if you like opera or does it just depend on whether you can afford to go to the opera house? Are you working class if you prefer football to cricket (you probably need a larger income to afford tickets to the premier league!)?
You are very effectively highlighting the class identity or class loyalty issue, which I don't deny. Absolutely right to say that class is not solely economic and that's what I tried to convey when I said that "traditional class analysis up to the late 1970s... placed greater emphasis on politicised ideas of class based on identity, exploitation, and domination", but that from the 1970s onwards, class analysis transformed into a "technical issue of measurement." Class is more confusing now than it was in previous generations. Spiralling income inequality and economic structural changes have contributed to class fluidity, but class identity has not disappeared. Crucially, and irrespective of income or identity, there is a group of people (PMC) on whom the ruling class relies for policy implementation. That requires a degree of loyalty to the ruling class. Or a degree of willing blindness. Or some of both.
I basically said that I acknowledged this class mess but wasn't going to try to untangle it, because it's too hard! But rather, in the interests of uniting against the only enemy we should all agree on ('they'), I propose that we drop class identity derived from the social cultural elements . If you have to work for a living, the 4IR machine is coming for you. End of. So, whether you prefer cricket or football, don't let them divide us or distract us from rejecting all of Agenda 2030, lock, stock and two barrels.
For practical aims, we can distinguish as classes:
THEY (the criminal instigators, or the dynastic families),
and the REST (please come up with the full text!).
The REST (formerly considered as middle and working class) are
- traitors within the gates wittingly collaborating as proxies with these organized often genocidal criminals,
- the usuful idiots, collaborating unwittingly,
- the general public, ignorant of the global project, where maybe 25 % woke up after Covid.
Once the control system is overhauled (Digital Gulag), the number of proxies will be drastically reduced, as technology will substitute them. They will be left with maybe 500 million digitally controlled cattle as their slaves, if you believe the former Georgia Guide Stones. Unless .....
Yes, and if we can nudge the 25% who woke up closer to 50%, THEY can't win.
I know it is a serious subject but the jazz hands are a funny antidote to secret society signs and handshakey stuff.... and also I laughed at the mince pies bit :)
Excellent article. I particularly liked your paragraph about the upper middle class renegades, who demand "freedom for me, but not for thee". I got a real bad taste of that, in the New York City Medical Freedom Party.
Where I would disagree is your notion that we lower middle class, or dissident, anti-capitalist, anti-Covid middle class people, should try not to be middle class. Our proper role instead is as Kautsky and Lenin envisioned--to lead the working class to victory, while keeping a firm check upon our own temptation to preserve our privilege (sadly, Kautsky, who became effectively a reformist, succumbed to this) or create new ones with the "socialist workers state" (sadly, Lenin, and Trotsky, succumbed to THIS, "petite bourgeois" temptation, when they suppressed their partners, the Left SRs, rather than ceded to them the dominant role in their coalition. Which is what Marx and Engels would have firmly insisted upon)
And here's my critique of John Spritzler's broad brush, anti-Marxists against "THE" intellectuals of the Left (seemingly in general): https://bmccproftomsmith7.substack.com/p/spritzlers-punching-sideways-against.
But despite our disagreements, I did find your article very enjoyable and incisive.
Thanks very much for the feedback.
I am reluctant to advocate for what you describe as the "proper role" of the middle class - namely to lead the working class to victory. With all due respect, the working class are not dumb. They don't need anyone's leadership, and in fact it was the acceptance of middle class leadership that has always resulted in a successful counter revolution and consequent failure. You have listed all the examples of this, but you don't explain why you think it would be any different this time.
All the biggest threats to the ruling class and the most successful movements have come from the heart of the working class. That's because they are at the sharp end of oppression and have thus far been more incentivised to resist than the middle class.
I am a voluntaryist. I neither want to lead nor be led. That's doesn't mean being passive. It means forming alliances with whoever best fits the bill, and in situations where I feel I can make a change. We then work out a plan of action through consensus agreement and implement it. The action, the composition and size of the group are dependent on the individuals' resources, skills and aptitude. This is not dependent on one class leading another. It will lead to myriad groups, actions, and alliances in a bottom-up sort of way. And I believe it does have to be bottom-up, which implies decentralisation and eschews authoritarian leadership.
I will now eagerly digest your critique. Thanks for sharing it!
Just a brief comment for now, Rusere,
I feel that as we face the intense crisis that we face today, posed by the Great Reset, et alia, we just can't afford to pursue these abstract, bourgeois individualist/liberal/"voluntary communal", "municipal libertarian" principles that you, Spritzler, Green Liberty Caucus, and Real Left promote. This is all what Wilson Carey McWilliams, in his THE IDEA OF FRATERNITY IN AMERICA, part of the "old liberal utopian dream" As Lenin argued, anarchism--and neo-anarchism--never really acknowledges the fact that we are engaged in fierce class struggle. It would be a different matter if we were in a social economic and political vacuum. We don't.
As for the working class, I guess I'm a Jagger-ist. "Salt of the Earth" song, is my favorite Stones song (among many). Describing his own middle class alienation from the working class, Jagger sings (and writes), "they need leaders but get gamblers instead."
I hope soon to have the time to write a review of an excellent, but disturbing recent book by Clyde Barrow (no relation to Bonnie), THE DANGEROUS CLASS: THE CONCEPT OF THE LUMPEN PROLETARIAT. You ought to read it. It would put into question your assertion that we can rely upon a spontaneous urge within the working class for revolution. Whatever feeble possibility there was of this in the mid to late nineteenth century, automation and now AI has transformed vast sectors of the industrial working class into lumpenproletarians. This doesn't preclude such people from becoming revolutionary--WITH THE GUIDANCE OF A VANGUARD PARTY OF INTELLECTUALS AND INDUSTRIAL WORKERS. But there is also a growing tendency, because of this lumpenization, to become authoritarian and brutal. A big example is all these right wing demagogues getting elected, all over the world.
Thanks Thomas. I will pick up Barrow's book and look forward to your review of it.
in the covid years there WAS a secret handshake: the handshake.
I was still (at least trying to) shake everyone's hand while all those morons were greeting each other with their ellbows (the same ellbows they probably sneezed into before).
Haha! Exactly, the not-so-secret secret handshake! As for those effing elbows - drove me mad.