Though we normally like to think that we are understanding the world more clearly as we are growing up but it seems (at least for me) that we are hardly catching up with reshaping of world and the events they unfold...
In 1991, before even I could understood class struggle as a teenager, Soviet Union collapsed but still it didn't push me to abandon my curiosity of why people revolted against Tsarists... This revolt or Revolution was not something fun as I realized by reading Boris Pasternak novel's "Doctor Zhivago" which is based on events of 1917 revolution. The revolution of 1917 lead to civil war in 1918 in which millions of people were killed without distinction of class or political affiliations. Famine, sickness, loss of jobs, homes and social bondage were just natural outcome of such big social upheaval... The biggest question for me was, what made people to go for a class struggle (classless society)? After almost a century, the pictures become vague and the only time-machine that is available for us to revisit that time are books and of course most of the books are more of personal opinions or documentation than real depictions of such a historical event....
I was not really sure that I was really understood class struggle as Philosophers and religious scholars were divided equally on them... On side, there were great French existentialist Philosopher "Jean Paul Sartre" and great British Philosopher "Bertrand Russel" and of course the great popular revolutionary Che Guevara who were supporting class struggle and yet I was not fully understanding why Soviet Union should go into WWII. It was not making sense to me because it was WWI which opened up the way for collapse of Tsarists Russia.... What made Soviet Union to go for same mistake because WWII turned Soviet Union into an imperialist state what she was born to stand against?
Well, the Collapse of Soviet Union and the great shifts into communist China were knocking on our skulls to accept the reality that class struggle was unnatural and was just an ideological myth that had a powerful message to let millions of people sacrifice themselves for it just to make the world more worst...
I was barely able to understand the fate of class struggle that economic melt down of 2008 alerted me as well as a lot of other people who were growing confused like me to leaf again into class struggle and see if there is something in it... Since 2008 to current economic crises of Europe and gaining momentum of Occupy Wall Street movement, one thing is becoming clear that Class Struggle is real... Class is actually a "structural perspective" of society... Communists were arguing that the way capitalism have structured societies are wrong and they provided an alternative structure... People revolted against capitalism in many countries (as you know), destroyed its structure and let communists build their alternative structures but we have seen that the communist structure is also didn't work....
Now, before moving ahead let me share some main parts of the current dominant politico-economic structure so you could understand where are the sources of problems,
It is fair to think that everyone should get what he/she deserves. It is natural that one who is working harder should get more or one who is more skilled should get paid for his/her skills as well... there is nothing wrong in it... As all do not work or acquire skills at same rate so the inequality is a natural outcome which results Class-structured society. This shouldn't be the source of problem but the problems come when,
1. Individuals compete with corporations;
This is not a fair race or competition...Take for example the most recent case that is unfolding right now.... As Walmart is marching into North India, the small businesses are fearing to go out of their businesses...simply because they can't survive to this unequal competition... This is what happened in US and Europe. Small family and individual businesses were just ruined by corporations in an unequal competition...
It is not just economical competition but also political competition where individuals lose the battle,
In democracy it is the collective votes of individuals that decide the future of society but the votes of individuals do not match with votes of corporations which decide the fate of economy... It is the trading centers which run the economy not the Assemblies and Senates.... They have the capacity to buy anything and set up organizations that do not come through voting but impact on the competitions...
In short there is a race between individualism and corporatism...
I am not an expert on economy but just wandering where lies our future and just scared to see that generations are coming who barely familiar with the world that are shaping to embrace them....
I liked the following You Tube demonstrations of socio-political structures and recommend to watch,
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