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People getting racially abused because of the referendum result

phildwyer said:
Agreed. And what is people's relation to capital and labor today?

First of all, virtually everybody works for a wage--even the very rich--and thus meets Marx's definition of a proletarian.

Next, virtually everybody receives some income in the form of interest on investments--pension plan, saving account, mortgage etc--and thus meets Marx's definition of a bourgeois.
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You have to work to get a pension that you can actually live on, and the vast majority of people can't live off their savings accounts.

So virtually everybody today simultaneously occupies the position of proletarian and bourgeois.
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So therefore this is unmitigated bollocks.
 
phildwyer said:
Agreed. And what is people's relation to capital and labor today?

First of all, virtually everybody works for a wage--even the very rich--and thus meets Marx's definition of a proletarian.

Next, virtually everybody receives some income in the form of interest on investments--pension plan, saving account, mortgage etc--and thus meets Marx's definition of a bourgeois.

So virtually everybody today simultaneously occupies the position of proletarian and bourgeois. The real, logical contradiction is not between social classes, but between labor and its alienated form, which is capital. That contradiction has become internalized today, along with the ideologies to which its respective poles correspond.

Quite apart from their invariably disastrous practical consequences, that is the real reason why revolutionary politics have no purchase in today's Western world.
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Mortgages are almost always money paid out to banks not money paid to an individual.
 
NoXion said:
You have to work to get a pension that you can actually live on, and the vast majority of people can't live off their savings accounts.
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I didn't say you could.

Marx is absolutely clear on this: a proletarian works for a wage; a bourgeois lives off capital investments. Therefore, almost everyone today fits both categories.

The situation was very different when Marx wrote--at that time, capital and labor really were incarnated in two obviously, visibly different social classes. But even then, Marx never speaks of a "contradiction" between classes, for that would have been nonsensical. The contradiction is between labor and its alienated form. Anyone who sincerely seeks the downfall of capitalism needs to accept that.
 
phildwyer said:
I didn't say you could.

Marx is absolutely clear on this: a proletarian works for a wage; a bourgeois lives off capital investments. Therefore, almost everyone today fits both categories.
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No, a proletarian lives off a wage. Most people who work for a living need to do so in order to live. Therefore they are proletarian, no matter what investments, savings accounts or other financial frippery that they might have, which they can't actually live off.
 
TruXta said:
Make money off a savings account? You're having a laugh.
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Once again, it doesn't matter how much. What matters is the position one occupies in relation to the means of production. Even the tiniest capital income puts one on the side of capital; even the largest wage keeps one on the side of labor. So today, virtually everyone occupies both positions simultaneously.
 
NoXion said:
No, a proletarian lives off a wage. Most people who work for a living need to do so in order to live. Therefore they are proletarian, no matter what investments, savings accounts or other financial frippery that they might have, which they can't actually live off.
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No, a proletarian receives a wage. It doesn't matter how much. Anyone who receives a wage is a proletarian in Marxist terms. That means that, for example, David Cameron is technically a proletarian. He is also a bourgeois, needless to say.
 
seventh bullet said:
You're just doing your boredom induced piss-taking anyway, but NoXion and DotCommunist are still right. Pacifism is for those who haven't been slapped yet. And with such things as massive privilege and power at stake, you're getting wiped out if you pose a threat to those at the top of society.
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Or just maybe, pacifism is for those who have been slapped. More than once, and despise the violence.
 
This happened to a friend:
IMG_20160627_152057.jpg
And another friend, who is a mixed race Londoner, got asked in a pub if she was English at the weekend.
Minor incidents compared to other stuff I've read about, but it feels like only a matter of time before a friend or family member gets racially abused in the street. I am scared for them.
 
A "mate" on FB, posted the other day that it was a "brilliant result" and it "Hasn't done Norway and Switzerland any harm.
This island is sinking ... No more !"

But he's been singing Nigel's praises for the last few years, so it's not a huge surprise.
 
ska invita said:
feel identically, as your wife and as you. Not sure really what can be done at the moment. Theres some kind of demo in Trafalgar Square tomorrow with a bent that migrants are not the problem, and it will be well attended, but as with most demos im glad people do it just wont go myself as it doesnt really make much of a difference.

A fair few incidents in the borough of lewisham in this thread alone...ive lived there fore 20 years and i know there are a lot of people who wont take this sitting down. at the moment its hit and runs, but if anyone tried anything more front-facing its going to kick off. Battle of Lewisham pt2? Back in time we go......

I wonder whats going on in schools today?
I expect there'll be a stream of stories come home time
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It's not much but from friends who have experienced racial abuse one of the things they tell me is that nobody ever says anything - maybe when the person walks away people ask them if they are okay but it's not challenged there and then. If confronted with it I say something anyway but I will say it louder. I don't want that shit in my community, I refuse to be the silent bystander.
 
Same pub I mentioned y/day, when walking by today after getting off the bus they were asking an elderly Muslim man when he was leaving, not so politely mind. I stopped and pulled them up on it, and with my (diluted but as thick as I could muster) Irish accent asked them why not show the same aggression to me, they didn't, said they were only having a laugh, then I displayed a bit of aggressive blue language back towards them and they displayed the cowardly bollox these type of individual do when confronted by someone not intimidated by them.

I was shitting myself tho'. Wankers.
 
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