OK, I admit it. I’ve deliberately misquoted Karl Marx’s immortal phrase, turned it on its head for its shock value and because it gets your attention. But it is not a mere rhetorical trick. I am trying to make a point, to propose a way of looking at the politics of the 19th and 20th centuries and see how it has manifested itself in the 21st. Marx was attempting to mobilize the political power of the Proletariat, the exploding population of factory workers created by the Industrial Revolution, by recognizing and organizing their potential as a Class, that is, a major subset of the population with common interests that could unite them into a political force to counter the interests of other classes. It wasn’t the rural peasantry, or the new urban class of small businessmen, skilled workers, administrators and professionals (the Bourgeosie) he was trying to rally, and it certainly wasn’t the major property-owning elites. It was the men (and women, and children) forced off the great landed estates who poured into 19th century cities desperate for work in the giant mills made possible by steam technology. Not only was he trying to understand the role of class in modern society, he also understood how it was essential for a class to see itself that way in order to unite to promote its interests: Class Consciousness. Marx did not perceive class as ordained by God, or determined by blood, or the result of individual character or personality. It depended primarily on what class you were born into, how your class related to the society economically and socially.

The ability to transcend class, to move from one class to another, class mobility, was not inevitable. It had to be fought for, politically, and at times violently, on the picket line, at the ballot box, in the street and even on the battlefield. We take it for granted now, we see it as our constitutional right. It wasn’t always that way, and it still isn’t. It is a result of constant struggle as one class attempts to assert its interests over another’s.

The 19th century was the battlefield where these struggles played out, and that struggle continues well into the next century, until mass production and technology made possible the economic surpluses which allowed the rapid growth of a new class, the Middle Class. The surpluses may have been made possible by technology, but it was political reform that made them accessible to a substantial fraction of the population. There was also a development that Marx never anticipated:
once the people had access to capital, they could join the capitalist class, and capitalism itself became a progressive force. The new technology meant you didn’t have to own a huge farm, or a great factory, or a fleet of ships to create great wealth. You could own a piece of an enterprise, or create your own, or work for someone who had. These were alternatives which simply had not existed before.

But alas, the process is not a smooth, inevitable one as Marx had predicted, and as his followers hoped. There was resistance, and class struggle continued. Political demagogues seized control of governments to promote their own class interests, and historical and technological forces changed economic and social conditions, altering the relations between classes. The new middle class that coalesced between the working and capitalist classes became, through its combination of power and numbers, a major political force. It had clout, and it had to be reckoned with. It had to be pandered to and bought off. And when times changed and this class felt threatened, it was just as capable of being ruthless and selfish as any top-hatted, frock-coated tycoon or captain of industry.

There are a variety of ways in which this can manifest itself. One of the most obvious is welfare benefits for the middle class–ways in which their interests can be serviced at the expense of others in the society. For example, the middle classes have their savings insured by the government to protect them from bank failures. Sure, you can benefit from this service even if you’re poor, but the poor don’t have much in the way of savings to protect, do they? The middle classes also benefit greatly by government subsidies for education, such as tax-supported public schools, low-tuition state colleges, government grants and scholarships. Sure, this helps the poor, too, but only if they can afford the subsidized tuition in the first place. Other benefits for the well-off (but not necessarily rich) include things like subsidized flood insurance, business-friendly infrastructure, tax deductions for a variety of activities and obligations which are more likely to be indulged in by the well-to-do. You can write off on your taxes your health expenses, your commuting costs (because you live in a remote suburb), your legal fees, a portion of your capital gains, and now, even your private school tuition costs (vouchers). And in wartime, you can protect your kids from the military draft by sending them to college. I could go on. No, I don’t mean to imply that there is a massive conspiracy to cheat the poor. These policies often have the best intentions, and they can sometimes be taken advantage by everyone. But they tend to be more available and more useful to those who can afford the price of admission in the first place. And when any of this middle class dole gets shut off (like the sudden hike in college tuition costs), because the society as a whole can no longer afford it, the hand-wringing begins. The middle class now realizes its kids may no longer automatically inherit middle class membership. And lets face it, we can’t all be entrepreneurs, can we? Some of us have to go to work.

Ask anyone what their economic status is and they’ll reply “I’m middle class”. It doesn’t matter if they’re actually no-pot-to-piss-in poor or on the verge of being Daddy Warbucks rich, we’re ALL middle class. The ones on the bottom of the heap are ashamed to admit it, the ones on the top like to think of themselves as “just plain folks”. It is only natural that everyone sees themselves as having achieved what they have through brains and hard work. Thosr beneath them must therefore be dumb or lazy, and those above them must be ruthless aristocrats born into old money.

But the middle class knows what its like to be poor; the horror stories are there in their parent’s and grandparent’s memory. Or they may remember themselves what it was like… They don’t want to be poor(er) again, and they know very well how easy it would be to slide back. They want to put even more space between themselves and that horror. This has nothing to do with politics, its just human nature. We fear poverty so we fear the poor. We desire the security and empowerment of wealth, so we envy those who have achieved (or inherited) it. So the middle class is constantly afraid that the poor want to steal their wealth, and that the rich want to protect their advantage by betraying (taxing) the middle class and giving it all to the poor, buying them off. And there is just enough truth in these myths for them to persist. All the classes have someone to fear and hate, but the middle class is at war with those above and below.

Can you imagine a more fertile soil to sow the seeds of demagoguery? When times get tough, even if all suffer proportionately the same, it is the middle class that feels it the most. You’ve heard them say how “The rich don’t need help and the poor get paid not to riot, and we have to pay for it.” They are so abused.

In hard times, the extremes of rich and poor are relatively unaffected; they either have more than they need, or they never had anything to begin with. Ah, but the middle, they have a lot to lose, don’t they? When things start going down the toilet they can’t blame the rich because they want to be rich, so they blame the poor, or those rich “elites” who betray them to the poor. At various times in history these traitors have been the capitalists, the Jews, the Yankees, the Liberals, the Communists, the media, the academics, the intellectuals. Its got to be THEIR fault, because WE are good, hard-working, patriotic, decent volk. It’s the constant and endless search for scapegoats that gives them away.

It’s happened before. It happened in Italy, Germany, Spain, in fact, all over Europe in the 1920s and ’30s. Its happened all over South America, in fact, its still happening there. And I’m afraid its starting to happen here. These are not revolts of the masses, the poor rising against their oppressors in an orgasm of desperation. Its all about the middle class seizing control of democratic institutions because they feel their prosperity threatened.

Fascism is the dictatorship of the middle class