Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Repressing the Class Struggle

Werner Rene Schwab | 19.02.2005 15:42 | Repression | World

As the employers' president said, capital and labor have long been reconciled among us. He said this while employers forced down wages with the help of politicians, cut pension claims, reduced social benefits and extorted dependent persons by threats of dismissal.

REPRESSING THE CLASS STRUGGLE

By Werner Rene Schwab

[This article originally published in: Ossietzsky 24/2004 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web,  http://sopos.org/aufsaetze/4163d5e4cbf02/1.phtml.]


“From their innate optimism and because class struggle is a detestable and dangerous affair, the great American people argue unanimously there is no class struggle. By `American people’, I mean the acknowledged and authoritative voices of the American people, the press, pulpit and university. Journalists, preachers and professors declare more or less unanimously that something like a class struggle has not occurred and will never occur in the future.” If the word German replaces the word American, this newspaper article describes the situation in Germany. This article was not written today but 100 years ago. The name of the author is Jack London.

Jack London is known to us from his adventure stories. Why should his fate be different than Ferdinand Freiligrath and his revolutionary and democratic poems from 1848/1849 (e.g. “Despite Everything”) or Gottfried Semper, the founder of the Dresden opera, who erected barricades to save democracy in 1849? This doesn’t even get a mention any more.

Today’s opinion-makers call every one who describes the class struggle this way as a “stone age socialist”. As the employers’ president Dieter Hundt said, “capital and labor have long been reconciled” among us. He said this while employers forced down wages ever more openly with the help of governing politicians, cut pension claims, reduced social benefits and extorted despondent persons by threats of dismissal. After the collapse of command socialism, the former leftist Schickimicki immediately joined the winners and in the train of the American historian Francis Fukuyama announced that history was “fulfilled” with the “worldwide victory” of the “free market economy” since the triumph of the capitalist social order was irrevocable.

To come back to Jack London, his great socialist novel “The Iron Heel” was hushed up or dismissed as the silly mistake of a dreamer. This 1907 work is still contemporary today because it predicted the events that occurred 85 years later and continue. This novel describes the first attempt to build socialism and its failure – failure because of the strength of capitalists and oligarchs and above all through the failure of its leading representatives, from its own culpability. He describes how the ruling class ruthlessly exercises and enjoys its regained power. I also read these sentences in the novel: “Lost this time but not for ever! We have learned many things. Tomorrow our cause will rise again stronger in knowledge and discipline.”

Quoting this approvingly given the present hierarchy of power seemingly reflects baseless naïve optimism. The “2004 Data Report” was published in August 2004 by the Federal Statistical Office on the basis of socioeconomic studies. In contrast to published opinion, 76 percent of East Germans regard socialism as a good idea that was only carried out miserably. 51% agree in West Germany.

Werner Rene Schwab
- e-mail: mbatko@lycos.com
- Homepage: http://www.mbtranslations.com

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech