The struggle at the heart of our history

KARL MARX and Frederick Engels wrote in The Communist Manifesto that the "history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle."

They meant written history of course. They weren't referring to early human societies of small bands, where humans lived by sharing whatever they gathered or hunted. But once people began to produce a surplus--a period tied to the invention of agriculture and the domestication of animals--society split into classes.

Engels argued that class society arose at a certain point "because human labor was still so little productive that it provided but a small surplus over and above the necessary means of subsistence.

Therefore, he argued, "any increase of the productive forces...was possible only by means of a greater division of labor. And the necessary basis for this was the great division of labor between the masses discharging simple manual labor and the few privileged persons directing labor."

Engels argued that so long as the majority of the population was forced to spend the bulk of its time in backbreaking labor, it was necessary for a minority to organize and take care of the "common affairs of society."

Each ruling class used its position of control over the surplus to increase its own wealth and power over those it exploited. Classes are therefore defined by their relationship to the production and ownership of wealth in society.

In ancient Rome, the slaves were seen as an instrument of production that could be owned, used up and tossed aside. They were given enough to subsist and keep working, The rest of the wealth they produced was taken and used personally or sold by their masters.

Under feudalism, peasants were forced to hand over a portion of their crops to the lord--or they were obligated to work part of the time on the lord's land. Under capitalism, the class relationship is disguised by the fact that there is a "free" exchange of goods on the market.

Nevertheless, a handful of large corporations owns the means of production, and the vast majority of people are deprived of those means. Workers are therefore compelled (not by the whip, but by the economic whip of survival) to sell their ability to work--their labor power--to the bosses.

WORKERS AREN'T paid for all the work they perform any more than the peasants were able to keep all the grain they and their family produced. In fact, workers produce far more wealth than they receive in wages.

What's left over--the profit made on sales--is pocketed by those who own the means of production,

Throughout history, class struggle--from Spartacus' slave rebellion to the 1919 Seattle General Strike--has been essentially the struggle over the share and control of the surplus produced by the exploited classes.

Because society split into classes, it was also necessary that there be a body (sometimes separate from and sometimes synonymous with the ruling class) whose job was to make sure that the struggles between the classes did not tear society apart--the state.

The common view of the state is that it stand above the fray and makes sure everything runs smoothly. The state arose as a product, argued Engels, of "irreconcilable class antagonism." Its job has always been to prevent the class struggle from flaring up--in the interests of the dominant class.

In a society not divided by class, there is no need for a state--made up of soldiers, police, prisons, courts and a bureaucracy--that stand apart from society.

A society that shares its wealth on the basis of human need can organize and plan production and distribution through democratic debate and discussion--whatever mechanisms are established to achieve that end.

Both classes and the state have been made obsolete by the tremendous wealth produced in capitalist society. By abolishing class distinctions, socialism would abolish the bureaucratic state.

Socialism would transfer the surplus appropriated by a minority class into the social property of the whole of society--a reserve fund to be used for the benefit of the whole society.

First published in the January 21, 2000, issue of Socialist Worker.