Class Conflict
... rise in the non-manual, 'petty bourgeoisie' jobs. Whilst there may be some truth in this 'embourgeoisement' theory, there is also no doubting the fact that it is an exaggerated view. To say that 'we are all middle class' (Blair 1998) is an absurdity. Class conflict may have been subdued but not only because of growing affluence. The capitalists have managed to silence what was once a noisy class. They have succeeded in converting some workers into their own middle classes and at the same time have managed to push many out of the system all together. Those who do not have the luxury of being working class now have no voice. The unemployed and the homeless have been completely alienated from the system. If the capitalist system had not advanced to the complex system it is now - whereby employers enjoy the luxury of a surplus of labour - then class conflict would still be prevalent. The dilution of traditional class conflict can in part be explained by growing affluence. The Thatcher reforms of the 1980s have enabled some individual members of the working class to better themselves. The selling of council houses gave people a stake in society for the first time. The privatisation of many industries, such as British Telecom gave employees shares for the first time. Once people gained this stake they would be less inclined to 'bay for revolutionary blood.' (This idea can also be found today under New Labours plans for a stake holder society and is directly mentioned in the new clause IV). Thatchers belief in 'self help' and Classical Liberalism meant that individuals had to take greater responsibility for themselves. They had less state welfare and there was greater emphasis on self provision. As a result some became more affluent. This individual affluence then meant that the traditional working class spirit of community and sticking together was eroded and with it the threat of unified discontent. The working classes were now pitted against each other not for each other. To credit the demise of class conflict to growing affluence alone is to miss other significant reasons, however. The 1980s saw an incredible ideological clash which saw the New Right come out on top. Thatcher despised socialism and the Trade Union 'dinosaurs' and waged a war against all that they stood for. The defeat of the Miners in 1984 and the anti-Trade Union legislation which followed (e.g. the banning of secondary picketing) meant that even if people wanted to campaign for better conditions they could not. Affluence had nothing to do with this ideological clash. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR at the end of the 1980s served to dilute class conflict. Socialism, it appeared, had been defeated by the Western powers and this prompted the likes of Francis Fukoyama to declare the 'End of History'. Fukoyama argued that history in terms of class struggle was over and that a new liberal, social-democratic consensus had emerged. The New Labour party support this claim arguing that the only way forward is the 'Third Way', consisting of improving social conditions in the now global context. The emergence of New Labour, conceived with the new clause IV and born in 1997, may be, some have argued, the final nail in the coffin of class conflict. Those who had campaigned for a Labour government for the 18 years of Conservative rule now feel that they should be grateful with what was achieved in 1997. Many now feel as if they should not ask for more as they owe 'so much' to Blair. Blairs union of all the classes in the 1997 election,with many traditional Conservatives voting Labour, may be his reason for describing everyone as middle class. The apparent watering down of class conflict does have some validity but it must not be seen as the complete picture. Class conflict is far from extinction. The traditional elites still dominate our system, with just under 800f High Court judges coming out of public school and Oxbridge. Very similar figures apply equally to the Civil Service and to the high ranking army officers. The idea of a huge, contented middle class is not much more than the latest concept designed to uphold the capitalist system. Capitalism as a system, it is argued, has a unique way of maintaining itself. To suggest that class conflict has been diluted is to say that everyone within the system has got what they want. What this does not include, however, is the existence of a new under class. A class even lower than the working class. A class which finds itself almost entirely excluded from the capitalist system. The rise of...