De omnibus dubitandum

 Compilation of comments from the Guardian placed by Wee Matt

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."

 Marx and Engels are spot on there. Marx saw the struggle of the bourgeoisie to win power from the landed aristocracy as inevitable. It heralded, not just the birth of capitalism, but its assumption of power as an economic and political class, which would in turn help develop the forces of production changing them from the small handyman craft productive systems into the socialised production methods with a skilled educated workforce, however unconsciously this heralded the possibility, that they may be eventually captured by the subject wealth producer working class. Now, we workers, run capitalism from top-to-bottom. A free access society of common ownership and democratic control has been possible since the start of the 20th century. A change of ownership from elites, individuals, corporations, states, to common ownership, is a simple matter of changing political awareness and consciousness to this end, as in the ultimate self-interest, of all of humanity.

 As a preview of globalisation and a snapshot of methods applied to get there, Marx had this to say:

"...And whereas in the sixteenth century, and partly still in the seventeenth, the sudden expansion of trade and the creation of a new world market had an overwhelming influence on the defeat of the old mode of production and the rise of the capitalist mode, this happened in reverse on the basis of the capitalist mode of production, once it had been created. The world market itself forms the basis for this mode of production. On the other hand, the immanent need that this has to produce on an ever greater scale drives it to the constant expansion of the world market, so that now it not trade that revolutionizes industry, but rather industry that constantly revolutionizes trade. Moreover, commercial supremacy is now linked with greater or lesser prevalence of the conditioned for large-scale industry…. In India, moreover, the English applied their direct political and economic power, as masters and landlords, to destroying these small economic communities." (Capital Vol.3)

 On the franchise, in 1879 Marx commented:

"The point was not to pursue the franchise as though it were a Workers' Holy Grail, but to transform it from the institute of fraud . . . into an instrument of emancipation"

Adding:

"We cannot, therefore, co-operate with people who openly state that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves"

 Marx's analysis of capitalism is acknowledged, even by some conservatives, who do not agree with his conclusions as influential, formative, groundbreaking, pioneering, original, creative, innovative works. He was never meant to be read uncritically. His favourite aphorism was, "de dubitas dubitandum" (doubt everything).

 The notion that inequalities can be legislated away is a fanciful one. Inequality is a prerequisite for the exploitation of waged slaves. Exploitation takes place at the point of production in order to satisfy the needs of the parasite capitalist class to Accumulate! Accumulate! Supply and demand are artificially induced by inequality inbuilt into the system.  Workers 'never' receive the value of their commodity (labour power). So true demand never equates with actual human needs, only with purchasing power. Production is turned off, before needs can be met in the interests of the profit of the parasite class, who individually, corporately, collectively and through state control in state-capitalist command economies, own the means of production and distribution. All wealth flows from labour. Capital (stolen surplus-value in a rigged market) is an encumbrance upon the satisfaction of human needs, as the needs of Capital require the exploitation of the majority along with attendant war, policing and the curtailment of freedom to be available for exploitative waged slavery upon pain of penury.

 Socialism is a post-capitalist world which indeed may be one of a superabundance of the necessities of living a useful and productive life free from wage-slavery, poverty, the booms, busts, wars and other attendant social ills of capitalism. “We'll look after you cradle to the grave,” was the promise of the capitalist class to the wage-slaves. They can’t afford that and we can't afford them. Don't settle for crumbs. Inequality has nothing all to do with immigration.

 Workers from the UK work elsewhere in the world including the E.U. The capitalist class as a whole supports the free movement of labour, if and when profitable, except when this proves unpopular, but it can then be used by their political opportunists and lackeys to scapegoat my fellow workers, rather than the instigators of the poverty and terror they flee from. We all have more in common with fellow workers worldwide than any of our home-grown capitalist economic blood-sucking class.

 Inequality is an essential component of capitalism in order that we are subject to waged slavery to enrich the parasite capitalist class. It is the capitalist class of social leeches who are the enemy and not our fellow workers from overseas or at home. The poor are the essential part of creating the wealth for the rich. It is from labour that all wealth is derived. Capitalism cannot be reformed in any lasting way. To remove the blight of poverty disease and war from the planet we must hasten, the introduction of common ownership and democratic control of production and distribution.

 There is no middle class. The middle class were the rising mercantile class and industrialists who became the upper class as they merged with the aristocrats and landowners in 19th and very early 20th century. The common perception of higher paid, white collar workers, academics, doctors, scientists etc. as constituting a 'middle' class with interests separate from other workers is a false one in general economic and political interest terms. 'Intellectuals' are just as likely to be and identify themselves as, working class. That they 'have to' sell their 'mental and physical' energies for a wage or a salary is a determination of their actual class position, even if they are falsely categorised within a mystical middle class category. Marx learned his socialism from the workers already organised for it and drew his lessons from the actuality of the slaughter of those workers.

 Taxation more or less, government spending more or less, is essentially an argument between small-fry tiddler capitalists losers, too irrelevant for to be swallowed up by, bigger fish capitalists winners with the ear of government, who would hope to be swallowed up by conglomerate sharks, the latter two being the vested interests capitalist governments listen to and of course, the masters of war. If one 'has to' work for a wage or salary, even if one sends young Dimkins to a private school and owns a dwelling with or without a mortgage, we have more interests in common with workers worldwide than with the local regional or global capitalist class.

 'We' the public at large, do not sponsor the state, except in local community charges and VAT through taxation. It is the capitalist class as a whole from their profits who sponsor the state. It is precisely because of the dominant interests of the capitalist class as a whole, the state cannot be reformed to represent a common interests of 'We'. That this assent to be governed 'over' has to be won in a bourgeois democracy via an extended franchised plebiscite, (won through trade unions and political struggle) only makes it a necessity for the P.R. pretence that we share a common purpose vis-a-vis taxation and the like. It is a manipulated delusion, that taxation should be a concern of the vast majority, which disguises the real interests of those ruling groups, upon whose interests governments govern over us. Your employer pays all of it, as it is deducted before you receive it. Your wage/salary IS the bottom line. If by government magic the 'nominal' tax you pay was removed your wage/salary ration would be reduced, as this would mean an increase in the bottom line and the employer won't pay twice for the upkeep of their government and give you a rise. The adjustment is to ensure if you are single, unmarried etc. you don't get the same ration as someone with kids (future wage-slaves) to support etc.

 Who sponsors the state? The capitalist class. Many are obsessed with the incorrect idea that the state and its government is an independent entity. The state springs up from the interests of dominant ruling class groups, from the days of kings and princes, to the rise of the merchant adventurers and then the capitalist class, now global in their reach to ensure the best governments money can buy. The state Genie is out of the bottle and it is now a local, regional and global capitalist one. You cannot tame it, or put it back in the bottle and retain wage slavery, with production for sale on the market. The state and government 'over' the people will not cease to exist until those states are captured by the worlds workers to prevent bloodshed, the last great emancipation, that of the wage slaves and the world is owned in common as true social and economic equals, in a class free , access free, wage- slavery free society and thus the dominant capitalist class and economic interests groups cease to exist as a class, as all of our interests will then be in common, to produce for use according to our capacity and access according to our needs. The state and governments will be redundant in the moneyless classless society.