Thomas_More
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I don’t know if they think at all beyond profits.
But yes, if only because they are such a small minority and are conscious of what they want, but not beyond that. One might as well ask if Scrooge McDuck knows about the materialist conception of history.
There have, of course, been politicians from the working class, serving, of course, their class enemies. Hitler, for instance, couldn’t have been more working class; in fact he was lumpenproletariat. He was obsequious when visiting his capitalist handlers. The Bolsheviks saw themselves as working class, which they were. So did Castro.
They don’t all live in a bubble. I have known capitalists, and I studied with some in Switzerland and at university in England. They didn’t exclude me from their circles.
I knew some in the theatre too, in my capacity as a stage-manager. You wouldn’t know one was a capitalist by looking at them. They didn’t live in palaces, just in flats in expensive areas.It is the premis behind conspiralunacy that very bright and clever individuals are in charge of society.
Conspiraloons are not materialists.Wez, you mean the entire capitalist class are class conscious? Even all the dolts among them?
I think the comedy Cheers sums them up. Woody the bartender is working 24 hrs a day so he can buy a birthday present for his rich and clueless fiancée. She is told he is worn out after a 48 hr continuous shift, and replies, “Is that not normal? I wouldn’t know, not being one of the work force.”
When Woody tells her he hasn’t got any money, she says, “That’s ok. I’ll ask (the chauffeur) to drop you by an ATM on the way.”
When he says he takes the subway, she asks what’s that, and then laughs, “Really! A train that goes underground! You are such a joker, Woody!”
It is a fond belief that the rich are rich because they are bright.
Thank you. You know a great deal about Latin America and Africa, and you speak Spanish, which I do not. You shine a light on the Spanish-speaking world’s contribution to socialist thought and you have travelled a lot and done a great deal that is interesting and of importance to communities.
I do not speak or read Old English, which is the name for Anglo-Saxon. But I have studied Old French and Occitan (Provençal).
Before the Victorian age soldiers were despised by other workers as those doing the dirty work of the masters. “No son of mine will don a red coat” was a common saying. Recruits for the army and navy were tricked into it or press-ganged. The press gang was a regular terror, raiding taverns at night and dragging men off while drunk, hunting them down through the streets and/or clubbing them unconscious.
Class hatred was personal, as in the case of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Upstart rural bourgeoisie were known by their tenant workers and both would exchange abuse and threats when the latter were prosecuted in court, their master presiding.
A popular song rang through London during the French Revolution: “God save the guillotine, which shaves the head so clean from King and Queen.” The British royals in their carriages were pelted with rotten fruit and stones whenever they ventured forth.
By the end of the 19th century and the death of Victoria the patriotic lie had destroyed the last vestiges of the old and personal class hatred of capitalism’s earlier centuries.
But the working class is not the same everywhere. I would say there is less class consciousness in places like Britain than there is in S. America and Africa, where the class struggle is more personal – as it was here in the days of the Chartists.
The poorest here in Britain are generally the most patriotic, reactionary, and punitive, and the most fawning and admiring of the bourgeoisie. Their communal sentiment is nationalism and pride in the military, macho, personality. The phenomenon of the autodidactic worker with his home library has mostly disappeared, and most people rely on the state for their education and on soundbite TV news programs and internet slop.The young and rebellious are drawn to crass conspiracism, and the young and conservative to the military or business.
If there is class consciousness, I think it more likely to be found in the so-called third world than here.
Hot phase to start by 2029/30.
Izvestia: https://iz.ru/en/node/2168250
Rehearsing the blockade of Kaliningrad and isolation of St. Petersburg.
https://tass.com/politics/2188671
Readying to attack Russia soon.
Families in Russia able to buy gas masks as thousands of bunkers are prepared.
Putin lifts 30-year gas mask ban, restores bunkers as Russia prepares for ‘worst case’
Tass – Very short war warning.
