An Anarchist FAQ (0417) by The Anarchist FAQ Editorial Collective & The Anarchist FAQ Editorial Collective

Author:The Anarchist FAQ Editorial Collective & The Anarchist FAQ Editorial Collective
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: affinity groups, An Anarchist FAQ, anarcho-communist, anti-capitalist, anti-civ, anti-voting, autonomy, Benjamin Tucker, bibliography, capitalism, children, Chile, class, crime, crisis, critique, democracy, direct action, ecology, economics, environment, ethics, feminist, France 1968, green, health, Herbert Spencer, history, Iain McKay, individualist, introductory, Leninism, marxism, Max Stirner, media, movement, Nestor Makhno, not-anarchist, organization, oxymoron, Paris Commune, platform, practice, prefigurative politics, primitivist, propaganda of the deed, property, proprietarians, reformism, religion, revolution, Russian Revolution, science, self-determination, sexuality, socialism, social revolution, society, Spain 1936, symbols, syndicalist, technology, terrorism, theory, the State, trade, trade unions, Trotskyism, vanguard, violence, work
Published: 2009-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

C.7.1 What role does class struggle play in the business cycle?

At its most basic, the class struggle (the resistance to hierarchy in all its forms) is the main cause of the business cycle. As we argued in sections B.1.2 and C.2, capitalists in order to exploit a worker must first oppress them. But where there is oppression, there is resistance; where there is authority, there is the will to freedom. Hence capitalism is marked by a continuous struggle between worker and boss at the point of production as well as struggle outside of the workplace against other forms of hierarchy.

This class struggle reflects a conflict between workers attempts at liberation and self-empowerment and capital’s attempts to turn the individual worker into a small cog in a big machine. It reflects the attempts of the oppressed to try to live a fully human life, when the “worker claims his share in the riches he produces; he claims his share in the management of production; and he claims not only some additional well-being, but also his full rights in the higher enjoyment of science and art.” [Peter Kropotkin, Anarchism, pp. 48–49] As Errico Malatesta argued:

“If [workers] succeed in getting what they demand, they will be better off: they will earn more, work fewer hours and will have more time and energy to reflect on things that matter to them, and will immediately make greater demands and have greater needs ... [T]here exists no natural law (law of wages) which determines what part of a worker’s labour should go to him [or her] ... Wages, hours and other conditions of employment are the result of the struggle between bosses and workers. The former try and give the workers as little as possible; the latter try, or should try to work as little, and earn as much, as possible. Where workers accept any conditions, or even being discontented, do not know how to put up effective resistance to the bosses demands, they are soon reduced to bestial conditions of life. Where, instead, they have ideas of how human beings should live and know how to join forces, and through refusal to work or the latent and open threat of rebellion, to win bosses respect, in such cases, they are treated in a relatively decent way ... Through struggle, by resistance against the bosses, therefore, workers can, up to a certain point, prevent a worsening of their conditions as well as obtaining real improvement.” [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, pp. 191–2]

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