Polisviken.
FK: Can I have an interview with you? a political one?
SM: Ok.
Why do you wish to interview me? and to what end?
FK: I find that you have a certain balance in your radical views which is rare, and maybe you can sort out some questions I have that lead me to question far-left politics.
SM: Why thank you, but what are these dire questions which you so desperately need sorting?
FK: First question: Is not capitalism made just due to the ability for the average worker to travel between classes, as doing this is widely considered easiest in the United States?
SM: Emphatically no. First of all, social mobility is a pretty big myth even in the United States. The lines of demarcation in social classes, even in the petty bourgeoisie, are hard and fast. Yes, many small businesses will be founded in booming periods; but when it comes bust time, the ones that remain have statistically and traditionally been the older, wellfounded ones. This has especially been reconfirmed with the current world crisis; which has seen the greatest "infant mortality rate" of small businesses ever seen before.[* footnote for citation needed here]
And even if social mobility were considerable; the division of labor and income would still be just as arbitrary, and private property would still allow a usurpation of labor which is unjust. And it is made more evident by the fact that it is still just as undemocratic; and even if one could elect their bourgeois, with such powers left intact, it wouldn't be anymore justifiable than if slaves could elect their masters.
And there is yet another thing revealed by this; a slave who can choose their master isn't anymore free. The fact that a worker can quit his job doesn't remove him from the whip of poverty. If he quits, he still has to find another job; in which case he will remain in the proletariat, and since exploitation occurs on, and can only be explained by, a class basis, he remains exploited no matter where in the proletariat he resides. And worse yet, if he can't find another job, he cannot quit without worsening his condition.
The choice which is literally, gravely and unabashedly placed at his feet by the capitalist class is a dire ultimatum: work or starve.
FK: Excellent answer!
SM: Thank you!
You remember the two documents I gave you to read? Value, Price and Profit by Karl Marx, and Socialist Reconstruction of Society by Daniel De Leon? The latter is the document which you must read for further information thereupon. But I highly recommend reading the former first; it is highly invaluable to a proper understanding of the latter.
FK: Well I'll be sure to do that. On to my next question: Would not a free market be a benefit for the common man as opposed to making it harder for him? Considering it's the small-time businesses who have trouble with regulation, where large corporations easily surpass these?
SM: Of course not. This is the biggest lie perpetuated by the libertarians; who of course have never let a lie stop them before. Moreover, most of the lies they perpetuate they think to be truths.
But I digress; government regulation and activity actually saves the petty bourgeoisie from being all but totally annihilated by the grand bourgeoisie and restores it. It prevents monopolies, cartels and trustification, and actively stigmatizes and discourages it with heavy taxation and fines. Moreover, it also gives a significant portion of grants and subsidies to small business to encourage growth and competition. Without this type of state activity, the grand bourgeoisie would've denied it this sort of breathing room for growth and development and destroyed the petty bourgeoisie a long time ago, and this is made very clear by the fact that it cannot completely stop the grand bourgeoisie from doing so. Moreover, the fact that the petty bourgeoisie actively and overwhelmingly campaigns and lobbies for these policies and presents itself as a great consituent obstacle to the coporatists is a huge testament to this fact.
FK: Would you not say that the class-struggle idea is an obsolete idea, since a minimum-wage worker today works for more than merely bread and water?
SM: This relates to your question about the minimum-wage worker, too:
Small businesses usually must charge more for their products for two reasons; one is that they're small, and thus cannot afford to invest as much in the product or service they produce, which is on a considerably smaller scale, and they must realize a profit quickly to stay in business, and the second is that they're overwhelmingly unproductive retailers/middle-men, so they have to charge more than they paid for the product that they're selling in order to make a profit. Since bigger businesses make more money and can constantly invest in newer technologies and machinery on a much greater scale than small businesses; they can produce a greater amount of the product produced, and thus secure a larger market share over a greater distribution, and sell it for much cheaper than their smaller competitors. Moreover, because of their established size and market share and activity, they can even forego a profit for a considerable time, certainly for longer than the petty bourgeois can, which is enough time to obliterate him.
The minimum-wage worker still barely makes enough to survive in today's world, and they still can only realistically pay for their own maintenance and thus spend very little on personal comfort and luxury which would otherwise theoretically distract them from the class struggle. Since they make so little, they have to buy their material goods at the cheapest prices available or they won't be able to afford them at all; and thus they can't help but contribute to the cycle of competition and concentration of capital into fewer hands. Their very consumptive patterns are conditioned to force them to worsen their own position as proletarians by systemically designated necessity. In spite of all the government regulation, the trustification and concentration of capital into fewer hands charges forward seemingly unimpeded and unabated; which would accelerate headlong into a much bigger crisis in less than a year or two if government were to pull out of the market altogether. If the libertarians succeeded in doing just that right now; I have no doubt that they would all be lynched before long.
But as for the class struggle being considered an obsolete idea in and of itself; it is quite well-evidenced that the class struggle is a very real thing, even in the most successful and prosperous capitalist nations with the best social security nets. At no time has it ever ceased completely, achieving what some might call "class peace."
FK: Like in Sweden.
SM: Indeed. Even in Sweden the unions and class conscious workers move forward with great momentum; in fact, the prosperity of the nation and its renowned social services are the very product of the victory of the workers in the class struggle, although this "struggle" is characterized by craft unionism and job trusts based upon "brotherhood between capital and labor," and other expressions of class peace. Which means the true victors are the petty bourgeoisie. However, whenever the workers get aroused; the petty bourgeois union officials, managers and politicians are easily cowed by them and their rank'n'file might.
FK: Studies from 2003 show that 90% of Sweden's population owns merely 2.5% of stocks. The richest 10% owns 97.5%.
SM: I'm not surprised that there's a great disparity, but that's surprisingly great, especially for a country like Sweden, and as compared with statistics in the United States. I think that the U.S. may actually have a more equitable distribution of stock ownership, but in no way could it be significantly better than Sweden, and in no way am I certain. But what I am certain of is that these statistics completely sunder the notion that stock has diversified ownership and brought the working class onto a more equal footing with their capitalist masters (i.e., more nonsense about equal opportunity), and brought with it general improvement upon the condition of the working class.
The other shocking thing is that undoubtedly the overwhelming majority of that stock ownership by 90% of Swedens is through union trust funds; from which purportedly the overwhelming majority of their celebrated "gains" and "benefits" come from: which doesn't say much about the "success" of craft unionism and its associated tactics and strategies. Like Daniel De Leon said, the last thing that we need right now is a union that acts as a rearguard to an immiserated army of the dispossessed which has been sent senselessly divided into small, easily defeated defensive lines, one after the other, before a well-entrenched and -embattled enemy to be crushed like ants before finally coming to its defense. What we need is One Grand Union of all workers in all industries, united into an advance guard capable of mobilizing and ameloriating that army of the dispossessed to stand on a footing advantageous to defeating that enemy.
FK: Excellent!
SM: I thank you for your time, and I'm very glad to hear you asking these questions; it means that your eyes are wide open and you're asking the right questions that go along with class consciousness.
FK: Before we conclude, I would like to thank Seth Moore for participating in today's interview.
