To explain society and economic exploitation in the modern era,Marx used a word from Latin, proletariat.
But what does this word mean?
It is,in truth,a historical-scientific term.
Let me,if I might be so bold,explain the meaning of a word, which is certainly not as dated as it might seem
"Prole" means 'work',"tarii" means 'to sell'.i
Acknowledging the historical immiseration of the worker and the precarious situation of the majority goes to the basis of the industrial age and modern times,the situation of of the employer -employee relation. For an insight into more of the extremities of the capital -labour contradiction and their contraposed unity, let the casual observer take note of the dilapidated accomodation of the early industrial age,the chronic poverty, profligate begging, crime, prostitution,undernutrition and misery.
Capitalism?
A genie out of a bottle,Marx's Deus ex machina (a bolt of lightning) ( 1860's).
These days,the labour movement has advanced the interests and living standards of the poor to a much higher level than Marx and Engels could ever have hoped. Therefore,we should not forget those dark days and the resistance to progress offered by Tories,coat-trailers and loyallists and,in France,beacon of Marx, opposition of rich property-owners.
Why not forget?
Regressive tendencies , political reaction, takes on different shapes and forms everywhere. This phenomenon we see all around us in the influence of tribalists such as sportsmen and 'sectional interests' (James Connolly,Gordon Brown) in our era
Therefore,we say,society is once again for many at a dismal stage in Ireland. Note the declining influence of the trades unions, true communists and political radicals. Intellectual and spiritual life is given a boost by the softer-focus Christian universalism of the Catholic Church.
.....
The agrarian socialism of the Land League of the 1880's and its abiding influence in Ireland
The influence of the rough, ignorant, uneducated big farmer class through its mouthpieces in politics was,in the South of Ireland, supplemented by social security entitlements for the poor farmer in the 1960's. Tenant farmer cooperation gave way to smallholder conservatism . Agricultural consolidation continued apace despite state supports to the small farmer.
1800-2000 big farmers hold agricultural production in bondage and the small farmer is led like a bull on a rope to market.
What then was the Irish town dwellers' response in the 1970's to effective tax exemption for Fine Gael's large farmer clientele?
The tax marches.
....
In the Irish towns?
The worker is bound by the wrists to his employer in order to sustain himself and his wife and family.
The solution of the person who used the term 'proletariat' most frequently, Lenin,could be considered again in our rights-obsessed times:A democratic overturn and a social revolution.
Let us not forget the social background to modern developments in industry,the economy and society which gave rise to the Welfare State, now remodelled by Blair to the German Sozialstaat. We must aspire to social progress and aim for something more apt,revolutionary-democracy in our Irish context.
The big picture? Back to the 1880's again?
Marx,Lenin and others made an enormous contribution to humanity. Some of their democratic proposals should still be considered.
Neither revolutionary or democratic socialism were at the helm of revolutionary democracy in our national liberation phase of Ireland's recent history. The green Tories are at the helm.
In the 1930's a great deal of good to confound either trend was done by revolutionary democrats.
What Ireland had in the 1930's was a government which steered a path between imperialism and isolationism and it was and is Fianna Fail,no matter how pale a reflection of its former self it may be,which steers an unwavering course between rich bankers in New York and London and over-zealous advocates of social engineering and miracle cures today.
....
27.8.2022
Which brings me to....
The contemporary utility of the term 'proletariat'
It would be tempting to think that we could redeploy the word in the style and frequency of a nineteenth century philosopher high on morphine or a guerning Russian Marxist with an infertile wife. That can never happen in our era of 'liberal' governance and 'free' markets because modern Anglophone society by-and-large rejects classical Marxism and the proletarian.
What socialists can take from old Marx's Capital and Lenin's discourses that is worthwhile and of contemporary benefit is inspiration for renewed vigour in the fight for social justice. Not armed insurrection by the poor and unemployed on the French or Russian model but rather a public,legal (and even journalistic) struggle for economic equality and the rolling back of political conservatism.
The reactionary mentality,the backwoods frame of mind,has been with us a lot longer than capitalism. Backward -looking types talk out of both sides of their mouths, informed by brutal and barbaric instincts. We have them in abundance in our benighted isle.
12.10.2022
Wasn't there another buzz word of early socialists, bourgeoisie?
Bourgeois and bourgeoisie are two terms of interest to democratic socialists and revolutionary mockers alike but only the French understand them properly. The French bourgeoisie were not those "addicted to comfort and respectability "of the Oxford English Dictionary definition but rather large property-owners in the North-East of France. The term originated from large owners of more than one coalmine around Vevres and Creusot in Northeast France.
...
30.10.2022
Petite bourgeois socialism
Petite bourgeois socialism,let us set aside the historical significance of this term in the writings of Lenin,tries to tie two competing, elemental forces together.
Here, in Ireland, we are beset by the petite-bourgeois socialism of nationalists and Sinn Fein 'grandstanding' (with apologies to Noel Carroll, Newry).
An honest party like Fianna Fail stood resolutely behind those who it sent into the frontline while Sinn Fein bargained with their lives for the filthy lucre of media publicity. Fianna Fail realised that Ireland had very little room to manoeuvre between imperialism and the social and economic demands of national development.
.....
Political caution when choosing leaders and voting soberly?
Fianna Fail are experienced leaders. They see that Ireland must chart a course between renewed Anglo-American imperialism and warmongering and the needs of a growing country.
Irish men and women, before you vote, THINK.
Ask yourselves,which party is best not for me,but for MY CHILDREN?
Voting preferences will come easy after that and you will vote not for a party with QUESTIONS but one with ANSWERS.
....
31.10.2022
Another perspective....
On this day of Halloween when the lyric poet, Patrick Kavanagh,says 'old ghosts meet' let us consider petite bourgeois socialism,a phrase of Marx and Lenin.
Petite bourgeois socialism entails trying to reconcile two opposing classes which are based on broadly (but not entirely) separate economic interests. Classes emerged either recently in some developing countries or in industrial countries,centuries ago.
Nationalism's arcane politics stands for bluffing and insinuations and it is aimed at the private and public imagination of the countryman and townie. Nationalists and their hangers-on who claim to be republican but don't vote,nationalist logic and the ringleaders hateful conduct are based not on rational idealisation but on arcane knowledge and primitive behaviour learned originally from the Sicilians.
.....
A Christian perspective?
Christian sovialists tell tree-hugging megalomaniacs such as Gerry Adams to worship God not a false god with feet of clay.
Who are the organ-grinders of Anglo-American gutter rhetoric issuing from the mouths of Belfast gutter proletarians?
The US President and his local representative, the head of the Irish Business Consortium.
....
22.4.2023
Ireland in a period of national intemperance and political incontinence
The key to this springtime of the lumpen proletarian lies in that phrase "semi-criminal elements" (Engels, The Prussian Military Question,1858-1865, Volume 20,Marx Engels Collected Works).That phrase describes the lifestyle of those who once stole to survive and the insane and the displaced in those environments where poor people developed their traits.Their social location is as summed up by Marx and Engels in 1847-8 (The Communist Manifesto) as that of "that passively rotting mass whose role in society best suits them to the role of reactionary intrigue".
Change?
Change is desirable, profound change if you like communalism or communism as it is called and as the Church calls it communitarianism.
What must be added to which is said by those who consider themselves advocates of the poor and marginalised is that people change their social class and level of cultural-scientific attainment during their lifetimes. Did not Marx write,"The only constant is change" ( These on Feuerbach, 1844).
The main reasoned objection to naive communitarians and moral idealists is that scientific socialism comes with a proven track record of overcoming economic downturns and dealing with rural unrest. People who by virtue of their conditions of life want to use and abuse others simply have to be firmly dealt with by the government of a sensible government.
In a democratic society,we cannot have expropriation of either middle-size farmer or big farmer under prevailing conditions. Incremental change that hampers market laissez-faire practices and reins in the wild horses of economic maladies and hand-over-fist financial exploitation and expropriation is an anti-market solution of sorts.
....
The perpetual dilemma
The country idiot and the town clown have to be overcome in Ireland. They and the small farmer,the huckster and the political imposter are permanent fixtures in public life and,in private,close bedfellows.
Social engineering to raise the poor up to a higher level?
Perhaps,but there must always be the option of PRISON for the PERSISTENT CRIMINAL and the MURDERER if for no other reason than to save them from a pack of wolves baying for revenge.
....
14.2.2024
Petite bourgeoise
No dictionary definition flips this alternative to bourgeois or proletarian.
Petite bourgeois -if you are not a reader of socialist theory,you will not have encountered the term- is actually a reference to middle ranking civil servants. In Ireland because of the seminal influence of Padraig Pearse the balance has always been tipped towards progressive views in almost every government official. Why,so? After difficult beginnings, England's imperial crimes in other lands became widely publicised and the barriers put up by nineteenth century idealists were broken down by social progress of the 1970's. The Irish Revolution may have appeared to be the work of Pearse in the 1920's but it is the imprint of bourgeois revolution which is most visible today. Ireland did not have a bourgeois revolution immediately but it did have an economic transformation soon after liberation.
No comments:
Post a Comment