Class and Class Power
The difference between classes boils down to just one thing: unequal material conditions. Class as social category is defined entirely by inequality, it can’t exist without it.
The end of class oppression would remove the differences in material conditions which are the heart of the divide between the rich and the poor. There are, of course, serious differences in culture between the rich, the poor, and the elusive ‘middle class’, differences in dress, customs, sensibilities, and worldview. But these differences all stem from the material reality that the rich have more than the poor. These differences are all created, at their root, by the exploitation of the working class by the owning class.
The economic value produced by those who do the productive work of society is taken and concentrated by the corporate ruling class. By taking from many, a few are able to live very well. That’s how wealth has created poverty throughout human history. For one person to be rich, many people have to be poor. To have lords in castles, you need serfs in mud huts. The master in the manor house can’t exist without people enslaved and tortured to exploit their labor. And today, billionaire CEOs must have workers working 60 or 80-hour weeks, with no benefits, high rents, and obscene costs for every essential thing from food to healthcare. Desperate people are, in capitalist terms, “cheap labor”.
If the poor did not produce so much more than they consume, nobody could accumulate that surplus value, and so nobody would be rich. By coercing workers to work longer and harder for less pay, and preventing them from taking much for themselves, the owning corporate class brings itself into existence. Through exploitation, the rich create the poor. Class exists because of class power.
And so, the end of class-based oppression would mean the end of class itself. It would mean a classless society. This is something for which many have struggled and will continue to struggle. In our era of titanic organized greed, which threatens to tear apart the earth itself, the end of class exploitation is now more necessary than ever. Today, a few hold more wealth than they could spend in a thousand lifetimes, while toil and struggle mark the lives of so many who actually create that wealth through work.
In a world without class, the transformative powers of technology and industry would be directed by need, not greed. The material abundance generated by the labor of all humanity would be shared equally, and we would take from the planet only as much as we need. Without the hoarding of wealth by the ruling class, we could all live comfortably, provided with the material resources to meet our needs and material comforts to thrive, as is the right of every human being on this earth.
