The Enemy is Middle Class
Footnote are used to discuss small squabbles about theory between small groups of anarchists.[1] They are also used to reference academic works, whose ideas are discussed, but where works are not cited in the main text.[2]
The enemy is middle class
Why do we talk about class
There are two classes worth talking about in Australia today: a boss class and a worker class. The boss class owns all the useful productive stuff, and tells everyone else what to do. The worker class does stuff. This is the only real division worth talking about in Australian society. If you have the power to order someone how to live their life, then you are a boss. If you have the power to hire and fire, then you are a boss. If you own a company, then you are a boss.[3]
If you exercise broad direction over how people work (team leader, foreman, supervisor) then you're fucking suspicious. Any team leader who is known as a "cunt" is a boss.[4] Infact, the closer you are to the day to day ordering of how people work, the worse a boss you are. Nobody knows who Alan Greenspan is, but he determines if we starve or prosper. Nobody gives half a fuck about Kerry Packer, and Kezza determines how a large proportion of the Australian economy is run. People, on average, know who John Howard is, and that he's a dirty slimey shit face, but nobody cares enough to do anything about it. Kevin from Human Relations is an utter arsehole. Team Leader Jenny is the devil incarnate, and is lucky to live from week to week to avoid being hung by a series of monitor cables knotted together and slung as a noose over the structural supports in the hanging office ceiling.
And it isn't just the employers. For the unemployed, disabled, single parent, elderly and students, Centrelink are usually bosses. For University Students, Academics can be bosses, Central Administration Staff are usually bosses. For trade unionists, Secretaries, Industrial Officers, Organisers and Branch Presidents are usually bosses. Just because Greg Combet (you don't know him, he runs the parliament of Unions[5]) wants to make us work harder with carrots, instead of sticks, it doesn't make him less than a boss. If you are induced by fear, or solicited with luxuries, you are bossed.
There are only two classes worth talking about, because the only structure worth talking about is who determines how we live our lives. There are those who determine how we live for 8 hours (+/-2 hours) a day 5 days(+/-2 days) a week. The money we are forced to earn determines how we live our lives outside of work. And don't tell me the unemployed don't work for their pay, don't tell me students don't. They're required to meet productivity criteria higher than most, for wages lesser than all. And this is all in Marx. Marx talked about other classes, because he wanted to talk about how the capitalist economy works. But we want to talk about how oppression at work works, and how liberation will work (liberation at work, liberation through work). We want to talk about the right to enjoy our work, to control our work, to decide how we work, and what we make. This means talking about the relationships at work (as Marx does in Volume I of Capital), and those relationships are ones of bossing and being bossed.[6]
So why "middle class"
Nobody wants to be called "ruling class" in Australia. We have no "ruling class". In part this is because a large proportion of our ruling class lives in America or Europe. In part its because Kerry is an ugly bastard who steals kidneys from helicopter pilots, and if he called himself "ruling class" to boot, someone might kill his scientologist son. So instead, everyone wants to be "affluent" "middle class". They want to be "professional" and be seen to be cultured, or at least live in a large home with rendered concrete, stainless european appliances, and all wood floors.
The enemy is whoever bosses you.
This means the enemy is different in different countries. In Australia, school teachers don't boss students. School teachers are forced, mainly by curriculum, to teach the way they teach. School teachers have a high degree of work control, and don't play the bastard. But in the United Kingdom (England and its closest colonies) teachers do boss students, which is why Andy Anderson calls teachers part of the enemy, part of the middle class. You see, in Australia, teachers come from the same culture as students, and don't treat them different. But in England, teachers generally come from a different culture (or get changed to a different culture by going to University), so they treat students like shit.[7]
So what about liberation?
Real liberation means controlling our lives. Real liberation doesn't mean freedom from work, it means freedom in work. Work isn't always enjoyable, and we know it won't be, but it will be a challenge. We will be admired for doing challenging and socially useful work. Sewerage workers will be celebrated for their contribution to the community. Garbage workers will be admired (as they are even now) for their buff muscular appearance brought on by running in the dawn light and lifting great weights. Clerical workers and shop assistants will be smiled at more, and people will talk to them as human beings, not as automatic bureaucracy or automatic clothing vending machines. Our coworkers will support us with love when our work challenges us. We will never have unchallenging work. Bureaucracy will be greatly lessened by the instant reduction of the need to boss. We will each be our own "boss", individually and together, because we will each determine the manner and nature of our work.
And those who choose to neglect their own needs at work, and to give over to the needs of others, will be celebrated for their great parental instinct: to give to others without thought of recompense, to give their whole.
We will work at socially useful tasks with our children along side us, because work will be safe, and work will be play. Children might also have special work (less challenging)
And this is the true measure of revolution: Are you bossed at work? Is their a boss at work? Are you bossed at home? Is their a boss at home? While a bosses live, revolution dies. And don't forget one of the sanest warning to revolutionaries, "Here comes the new boss! Just like the old boss!"
* * *
[1] Ie: esoteric sectarianism.
[2] Because if you want to look up other people's work to read, then you can bother to look to the foot of this article.
[3] Marx will be discussed later. Shut your objectionable gob. Nor am I advocating the Socialisme ou Barbarie / Solidarity (UK) position of "order-givers and order-takers" there is a solid economic basis for this, which comes from, duh, Marx.
[4] Feminism, and the lovelyness of real cunts, "cunt" seems to be the technical term applied to these people, almost universally, among the other workers I know. "Bitch" doesn't even come close to expressing the correct degree of hatred towards the team leader who is the boss.
[5] ACTU
[6] Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I, skip the stuff on commodity and money, and get into the meat when he talks about work.
[7] I really like Andy Anderson's book /The enemy is middle class/. The name of his publisher is also excellent: OPENLY CLASSIST.
The enemy is middle class
Why do we talk about class
There are two classes worth talking about in Australia today: a boss class and a worker class. The boss class owns all the useful productive stuff, and tells everyone else what to do. The worker class does stuff. This is the only real division worth talking about in Australian society. If you have the power to order someone how to live their life, then you are a boss. If you have the power to hire and fire, then you are a boss. If you own a company, then you are a boss.[3]
If you exercise broad direction over how people work (team leader, foreman, supervisor) then you're fucking suspicious. Any team leader who is known as a "cunt" is a boss.[4] Infact, the closer you are to the day to day ordering of how people work, the worse a boss you are. Nobody knows who Alan Greenspan is, but he determines if we starve or prosper. Nobody gives half a fuck about Kerry Packer, and Kezza determines how a large proportion of the Australian economy is run. People, on average, know who John Howard is, and that he's a dirty slimey shit face, but nobody cares enough to do anything about it. Kevin from Human Relations is an utter arsehole. Team Leader Jenny is the devil incarnate, and is lucky to live from week to week to avoid being hung by a series of monitor cables knotted together and slung as a noose over the structural supports in the hanging office ceiling.
And it isn't just the employers. For the unemployed, disabled, single parent, elderly and students, Centrelink are usually bosses. For University Students, Academics can be bosses, Central Administration Staff are usually bosses. For trade unionists, Secretaries, Industrial Officers, Organisers and Branch Presidents are usually bosses. Just because Greg Combet (you don't know him, he runs the parliament of Unions[5]) wants to make us work harder with carrots, instead of sticks, it doesn't make him less than a boss. If you are induced by fear, or solicited with luxuries, you are bossed.
There are only two classes worth talking about, because the only structure worth talking about is who determines how we live our lives. There are those who determine how we live for 8 hours (+/-2 hours) a day 5 days(+/-2 days) a week. The money we are forced to earn determines how we live our lives outside of work. And don't tell me the unemployed don't work for their pay, don't tell me students don't. They're required to meet productivity criteria higher than most, for wages lesser than all. And this is all in Marx. Marx talked about other classes, because he wanted to talk about how the capitalist economy works. But we want to talk about how oppression at work works, and how liberation will work (liberation at work, liberation through work). We want to talk about the right to enjoy our work, to control our work, to decide how we work, and what we make. This means talking about the relationships at work (as Marx does in Volume I of Capital), and those relationships are ones of bossing and being bossed.[6]
So why "middle class"
Nobody wants to be called "ruling class" in Australia. We have no "ruling class". In part this is because a large proportion of our ruling class lives in America or Europe. In part its because Kerry is an ugly bastard who steals kidneys from helicopter pilots, and if he called himself "ruling class" to boot, someone might kill his scientologist son. So instead, everyone wants to be "affluent" "middle class". They want to be "professional" and be seen to be cultured, or at least live in a large home with rendered concrete, stainless european appliances, and all wood floors.
The enemy is whoever bosses you.
This means the enemy is different in different countries. In Australia, school teachers don't boss students. School teachers are forced, mainly by curriculum, to teach the way they teach. School teachers have a high degree of work control, and don't play the bastard. But in the United Kingdom (England and its closest colonies) teachers do boss students, which is why Andy Anderson calls teachers part of the enemy, part of the middle class. You see, in Australia, teachers come from the same culture as students, and don't treat them different. But in England, teachers generally come from a different culture (or get changed to a different culture by going to University), so they treat students like shit.[7]
So what about liberation?
Real liberation means controlling our lives. Real liberation doesn't mean freedom from work, it means freedom in work. Work isn't always enjoyable, and we know it won't be, but it will be a challenge. We will be admired for doing challenging and socially useful work. Sewerage workers will be celebrated for their contribution to the community. Garbage workers will be admired (as they are even now) for their buff muscular appearance brought on by running in the dawn light and lifting great weights. Clerical workers and shop assistants will be smiled at more, and people will talk to them as human beings, not as automatic bureaucracy or automatic clothing vending machines. Our coworkers will support us with love when our work challenges us. We will never have unchallenging work. Bureaucracy will be greatly lessened by the instant reduction of the need to boss. We will each be our own "boss", individually and together, because we will each determine the manner and nature of our work.
And those who choose to neglect their own needs at work, and to give over to the needs of others, will be celebrated for their great parental instinct: to give to others without thought of recompense, to give their whole.
We will work at socially useful tasks with our children along side us, because work will be safe, and work will be play. Children might also have special work (less challenging)
And this is the true measure of revolution: Are you bossed at work? Is their a boss at work? Are you bossed at home? Is their a boss at home? While a bosses live, revolution dies. And don't forget one of the sanest warning to revolutionaries, "Here comes the new boss! Just like the old boss!"
* * *
[1] Ie: esoteric sectarianism.
[2] Because if you want to look up other people's work to read, then you can bother to look to the foot of this article.
[3] Marx will be discussed later. Shut your objectionable gob. Nor am I advocating the Socialisme ou Barbarie / Solidarity (UK) position of "order-givers and order-takers" there is a solid economic basis for this, which comes from, duh, Marx.
[4] Feminism, and the lovelyness of real cunts, "cunt" seems to be the technical term applied to these people, almost universally, among the other workers I know. "Bitch" doesn't even come close to expressing the correct degree of hatred towards the team leader who is the boss.
[5] ACTU
[6] Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I, skip the stuff on commodity and money, and get into the meat when he talks about work.
[7] I really like Andy Anderson's book /The enemy is middle class/. The name of his publisher is also excellent: OPENLY CLASSIST.