The
Marxist
Volume: 14, No. 04
Oct-Dec. 1998
Communist
Manifesto
and
the
Modern
Working
Class
:
What
Revolutionary
Potential?
Sukomal
Sen
A
notion
is
current
among
many
in
Marxist
circles
as
well
as
other
Left
radicals
that
with
the
setting
in
of
the
ongoing
scientific
and
technological
revolution
and
the
consequent
changes
in
the
labour
process,
the
proletariat
as
a
class
is
fast
declining
and
a
`new
middle
class'
is
developing
in
its
place.
The
contention
is
that
the
`new
middle
class'
is
devoid
of
any
revolutionary
perspective
or
potential
and
the
`fast
declining
proletariat'
does
not
naturally
possess
any
revolutionary
capability.
Thus
they
seek
to
disprove
the
validity
of
the
call
for
a
proletarian
revolution,
as
urged
for,
in
the
Communist
Manifesto.
The
following
discussion
takes
up
this
point
and
seeks
to
point
out
the
emerging
reality.
REVOLUTIONARY
CALL
A
hundred
and
fifty
years
ago
in
1848,
the
Communist
Manifesto
written
by
Marx
and
Engels
concluded
with
the
reverberating
call
`Working
Men
of
All
Countries,
Unite'.
The
Communist
Manifesto
envisaged
a
proletarian
revolution,
the
end
of
bourgeois
rule.
The
Manifesto
said,
"....
the
bourgeoisie
forged
the
weapons
that
bring
death
to
itself;
it
has
also
called
into
existence
the
men
who
are
to
wield
those
weapons
--
the
modern
working
class
--
the
proletarians."
1
The
Manifesto
further
said,
"of
all
the
classes
that
stand
face
to
face
with
the
bourgeoisie
today,
the
proletariat
alone
is
a
really
revolutionary
class.
The
other
classes
decay
and
finally
disappear
in
the
face
of
Modern
Industry;
the
proletariat
is
its
special
and
essential
product."
2
While
explaining
that
the
essential
condition
for
the
existence
and
flourishing
of
the
bourgeois
class
is
the
formation
and
expansion
of
Capital,
Marx
pointed
out,
"the
condition
for
capital
is
wage-labour."
3
This
wage-labour
is
the
worker
in
a
bourgeois
society
and
the
mass
of
wage-labours
is
the
working
class
--
the
proletariat.
Marx
further
pointed
out,
"...With
the
development
of
industry
the
proletariat
not
only
increases
in
number,
it
becomes
concentrated
in,
greater
masses,
its
strength
grows,
and
it
feels
that
strength
more."
4
What
Marx
hammered
out
in
the
Manifesto
is
that
class
struggle
is
the
motive
force
of
history.
In
fact,
a
fundamental
feature
of
Marxism
is
an
understanding
of
politics
in
the
light
of
the
class
struggle.
Marx
and
Engels
wrote
in
1879,
"For
almost
forty
years
we
have
stressed
the
class
struggle
as
the
immediate
driving
power
of
history,
and
in
particular
the
class
struggle
between
bourgeoisie
and
proletariat
as
the
great
lever
of
the
modern
social
revolution."5
MARX'S
THEORY
OF
CLASS
As
is
well
known,
the
concluding
chapter
of
Capital
(volume
three)
on
Class
is
uncompleted.
However,
the
general
drift
of
Marx's
theory
of
class
is
clear
enough.
In
that
unfinished
Chapter
L11
on
`Classes'
in
Capital
(volume
three),
Marx
defines:
"The
owners
merely
of
labour-power,
owners
of
capital
and
land-
owners,
whose
respective
sources
of
income
are
wages,
profit
and
ground-rent,
in
other
words,
wage-labourers,
capitalists
and
land-owners,
constitute
these
three
big
classes
of
modern
society
based
upon
the
capitalist
mode
of
production."
6
In
the
Communist
Manifesto
about
formation
of
the
antagonistic
classes,
Marx
wrote.
"Freeman
and
slave,
patrician
and
plebeian,
lord
and
servant,
guild
master
and
journeyman,
in
a
word,
oppressor
and
oppressed,
stood
in
constant
opposition
to
one
another,
carried
on
an
un-
interrupted,
now
hidden,
now
open
fight,
a
fight
that
each
time
ended,
either
in
a
revolutionary
reconstitution
of
society
at
large,
or
in
the
common
ruin
of
the
contending
classes....
"In
modern
bourgeois
society
that
has
sprouted
from
the
ruins
of
feudal
society
has
not
done
away
with
class
antagonism.
It
has
but
established
new
classes,
new
conditions
of
oppression,
new
forms
of
struggle
in
place
of
the
old
ones."
7
While
defining
class,
Marx
started
with
"The
specific
economic
form,
in
which
unpaid
surplus-labour
is
pumped
out
of
direct
producers",
and
"determines
the
relationship
of
rulers
and
ruled,
as
it
grows
directly
out
of
production
itself
and
in
turn,
reacts
upon
it
as
a
determining
element,
upon
this,
however,
is
founded
the
entire
formation
of
the
economic
community
which
grows
up
out
of
the
production
relations
themselves."
8
In
other
words,
classes
are
defined
in
terms
of
the
exploitative
relations
of
production
which
constitute
the
society
in
question.
These
relations
of
production
depend,
according
to
Marx,
on
the
distribution
of
the
means
of
production.
Thus,
underlying
the
relationship
between
capital
and
wage-labour,
as
explained
by
Marx
in
Capital
(volume
two),
"distribution,
not
distribution
in
the
ordinary
meaning
of
distribution
of
articles
of
consumptions,
but
distribution
of
the
elements
of
production
itself,
the
material
factor
of
which
are
concentrated
on
one
side,
and
labour-
power
isolated
on
the
other."
9
In
Capital
(volume
three),
Marx
further
classifies
the
significance
of
`distribution
relations'.
He
states
that
the
capitalist
mode
of
production,
"produces
not
merely
the
material
products,
but
reproduces
continually
the
production
relations
in
which
former
are
produced,
and
thereby
also
the
corresponding
distribution
relations...
The
aforementioned
distribution
relations
are
the
basis
of
special
social
functions
performed
within
production
relations
by
certain
of
their
agents,
as
opposed
to
the
direct
produces.
They
imbue
the
conditions
of
production
themselves
and
their
representatives
with
a
specific
social
quality!
They
determine
the
entire
character
and
the
entire
movement
of
production."
10
(emphasis
added.)
It
follows
from
the
aforesaid
analysis
that
the
class
position
of
an
individual
depends
on
his
or
her
relationship
to
the
means
of
production.
To
quote
Marx
again,
"In
view
of
what
has
already
been
said,
it
is
superfluous
to
demonstrate
anew
that
the
relation
between
Capital
and
Wage-labour
determines
the
entire
character
of
the
mode
of
production.
The
principal
agents
of
this
mode
of
production
itself,
the
capitalist
and
the
wage-labourers,
are
as
such
merely
embodiment,
personifications
of
capital
and
wage-labour;
definite
social
characteristics
stamped
upon
individuals
by
the
process
of
social
production;
the
product
of
these
definite
social
production
relations."
11
The
capitalist
owns
the
means
of
production,
the
worker
does
not;
these
facts
determine
their
respective
class
position.
Class
thus
conceived
is
objective;
it
is
formed
within
the
relations
of
production,
and
does
not
arise
from
individual's
consciousness.
Moreover,
for
Marx,
class
is
a
social
relationship.
It
is
much
less
concerned
with
what
individuals
do
--
what
sociologists
call
`occupation'
--
than
with
how
what
they
do
fits
into
the
antagonistic
relationship
through
which
one
group
exploits
another
within
the
process
of
production.
According
to
Marxian
analysis
class
is
thus
a
reflection
of
the
exploitation
in
a
social
structure
--
who
exploits
whom.
THE
CLASS
OF
WAGE-LABOUR
Engels
in
his
classic
study
on
`The
Condition
of
the
Working
Class
in
England'
which
was
written
in
1844
and
first
published
in
German
in
1845
observed
in
the
introduction
that
`The
history
of
the
proletariat
in
England
begins
with
the
second
half
of
the
last
century,
with
the
invention
of
the
steam-engine
and
of
machinery
for
working
cotton.
These
inventions
gave
rise,
as
is
well
known,
to
an
industrial
revolution,
a
revolution
which
altered
the
whole
civil
society
...
`and'
only
in
England
can
the
proletariat
be
studied
in
all
its
relations
and
from
all
sides'...
as
"England
is
...
the
classic
land
of
its
chief
product
also,
the
proletariat."12
Like
Marx,
Engels
also
in
all
his
works
interchangeably
used
the
terms
`working
class'
and
`proletariat'
in
the
capitalist
relation
of
production.
Thus
though
in
the
title
of
his
book,
Engels
has
used
the
term
`Working
Class'
during
his
actual
investigation
in
the
book,
he
mostly
used
the
term
`proletariat'.
Engels
mentions,
`The
first
proletarians
were
connected
with
manufacture
whom
Marx
analysed
in
his
Capital
as
`Wage-labour'.13
But
Engels
also
mentions,
"while
the
industrial
proletariat
was
thus
developing
with
the
first
still
very
imperfect
machine,
the
same
machine
gave
rise
to
the
agricultural
proletariat."14
Thus
Marxian
lexicon
mentions
two
types
of
proletariat
--
the
industrial
and
the
agricultural.
Engels,
however,
in
his
book
devoted
himself
to
the
investigation
into
the
condition
of
the
industrial
proletariat
in
England
as
it
was
in
the
third
and
fourth
decades
of
the
nineteenth
century.
THE
INSTRUMENTS
OF
But
development
of
industry
and
that
of
the
working
class
did
not
stop
in
the
mid-nineteenth
century.
In
the
Communist
Manifesto
Marx
wrote,
"The
bourgeoisie
cannot
exist
without
constantly
revolutionalising
the
instruments
of
production,
and
thereby
the
relation
of
production
and
with
them
the
whole
relations
of
society."
15
Marx
elaborated
this
very
important
subject
in
his
Capital,
on
what
is
the
instrument
of
production
or
in
other
words
labour.
(Part
III,
volume
one)
While
stating
that
"Labour
is,
in
the
first
place,
a
process
in
which
both
man
and
nature
participate,
and
in
which
man
of
his
own
accord
starts,
regulates
and
controls
the
material
reactions
between
himself
and
nature",
Marx
points
out
that
"The
elementary
factors
of
the
labour
process
are
1,
the
personal
activity
of
man,
i.e.,
work
itself,
2,
the
subject
of
that
work,
and
3,
its
instruments."
16
Marx
in
his
analysis
showed
that
soil
(including
water)
in
its
virgin
state
exists
independently
of
man
and
is
the
universal
subject
of
human
labour.
Marx
also
pointed
out
that
though
all
raw
materials
are
the
subject
of
labour,
every
subject
of
labour
is
not
raw
material,
it
becomes
so
after
it
has
undergone
some
alteration
by
means
of
labour.
Marx
thus
comes
to
the
conclusion
that,
"An
instrument
of
labour
is
a
thing,
or
a
complex
of
things,
which
the
labourer
imposes
between
himself
and
the
subject
of
his
labour,
and
which
serves
as
the
conductor
of
his
activity.
He
makes
use
of
the
mechanical,
physical
and
chemical
properties
of
some
substance
in
order
to
make
other
substances
subservient
to
his
aims."
17
These
instruments
of
labour
occupy
a
very
important
place
in
Marxian
economy
and
sociology
in
understanding
different
forms
of
economic
activity.
Marx
refers
to
Franklin
who
defined
man
as
a
tool
making
animal
as
distinct
from
other
animals.
Marx
showed
that
as
fossil
bones
are
important
for
determination
of
extinct
species
of
animals,
"It
is
not
the
articles
made,
but
how
they
are
made
and
by
what
instruments
that
enable
us
to
distinguish
different
economic
epochs."
(emphasis
added.)
18
UNPRECEDENTED
ACCUMULATION
OF
Marx
wrote
the
Communist
Manifesto
in
1848
and
his
classic
work
Capital
came
out
in
the
sixties
of
the
nineteenth
century.
What
distinguishes
the
present
economic
epoch,
when
the
world
is
celebrating
the
completion
of
150
years
of
the
publication
of
Communist
Manifesto
from
the
economic
epoch
of
Marx's
time?
Marx
himself
provided
the
clue
to
understanding
the
special
characteristics
of
the
present
economic
epoch
when
he
wrote
in
the
Manifesto,
"The
need
of
a
constantly
expanding
market
for
its
products
chases
the
bourgeoisie
over
the
whole
surface
of
the
globe"
and
then
Marx
notes
the
rapid
improvement
of
all
`instruments
of
production'
and
`the
immensely
facilitated
means
of
communication'
by
the
bourgeoisie.
19
And
after
150
years,
now
it
is
the
economic
epoch
of
vast
accumulation
of
Capital
--
the
era
of
capitalist
globalisation
and
the
scientific
and
technological
revolution.
The
vast
accumulation
of
capital
and
its
expansion
has
also
resulted
in
vast
expansion
of
the
mass
of
labour-power.
Marx
in
his
Capital
(volume
one)
defines
this
expansion
of
the
mass
of
labour
power
as
"reproduction
of
a
mass
of
labour-power,
which
must
necessarily
re-incorporate
itself
with
capital
for
that
capital's
self-expansion...."
and
"this
reproduction
of
labour-power
forms,
in
fact
an
essential
of
the
reproduction
of
capital
itself"
and
then
Marx
concludes
"Accumulation
of
capital
is
therefore,
increase
of
the
proletariat."
20
The
vast
increase
in
the
mass
of
working
class
is
accompanied
in
the
present
economic
epoch
with
the
phenomenon
of
the
ongoing
revolution
in
science
and
technology
in
consequence
of
which
instruments
of
labour
has
undergone
a
revolutionary
change.
This
is
creating
a
contradictory
situation
also
restricting
the
expansion
of
the
mass
of
working-class
by
the
instruments
labour-
displacing
capacity.
STR
AND
STRUCTURAL
The
on-going
scientific
and
technological
revolution
has
opened
up
new
vistas
of
productive
forces
and
changes
in
the
traditional
structure
of
the
working
class.
With
the
rise
of
modern
industry
as
a
sequel
to
the
industrial
revolution,
Karl
Marx
himself
noted,
"The
varied,
apparently
unconnected
and
patrified
forms
of
the
industrial
process
now
resolved
themselves
into
so
many
conscious
and
systematic
applications
of
natural
science
to
the
attainment
of
given
useful
effects"
21.
These
words
were
said
by
Marx
in
1867
just
at
the
time
when
the
industrial
revolution
was
showing
signs
of
the
potential
role
of
science
in
production.
But
these
were
really
prophetic.
The
on-going
scientific
and
technological
revolution
confirms
how
`conscious
and
systematic
application
of
natural
science'
can
revolutionize
the
productive
forces
and
create
altogether
new
problems
and
possibilities.
The
industrial
revolution
was
marked
by
specific
innovation
by
individual
scientists.
Thus
the
steam
engine
was
the
prime
mover
of
the
industrial
revolution.
In
contrast,
no
single
innovation
in
contemporary
times
occupies
the
same
position.
It
has
been
aptly
stated
that
the
advances
made
in
large
number
of
fields
are
`tightly
inter-related
in
a
veritable
seamless
web
of
technological
change'
so
as
to
constitute
`mere
branches
of
one
master
technology'
based
upon
an
`elaborate
apparatus
of
scientific
research
and
testing',
"Science
is
the
steam
engine
we
have
been
seeking
and
the
collective
scientist
is
the
master
technologist"
22.
On
the
basis
of
this
objective
analysis
Harry
Braverman,
himself
an
industrial
worker
and
an
eminent
Marxist
scholar,
who
made
an
indepth
study
of
Marx's
labour-process
concludes,
"The
scientific
technical
revolution,
for
this
reason,
cannot
be
understood
in
terms
of
specific
innovations
....
but
must
be
understood
rather
in
its
totality
as
a
mode
of
production
into
which
science
and
exhaustive
engineering
investigation
have
been
integrated
as
part
of
ordinary
functioning.
The
key
innovation
is
not
to
be
found
in
Chemistry,
Electronics,
automatic
machinery,
aeronautics,
atomic
physics,
or
any
of
the
products
of
these
science-technology,
but
rather
in
the
transformation
of
science
itself
into
capital"
23.
This
scientific
and
technological
revolution
(STR)
while
revolutionising
the
productive
forces,
have
immensely
changed
the
labour
process
also.
Already
the
rise
of
monopoly
capital
and
the
vast
expansion
of
administrative
work
created
a
huge
stratum
of
clerical
workers.
Now
among
other
ramifications,
STR
has
led
to
the
development
of
an
immensely
big
service
sector
engaging
highly
skilled
labour,
technician,
computer
operators
and
other
workers
with
specialised
knowledge.
Ernest
Mandel
explained,
"The
expansion
of
capitalist
services
sector
which
typifies
late
capitalism
thus
in
its
own
way
sums
up
all
the
principal
contradictions
of
the
capitalist
mode
of
production.
It
reflects
the
enormous
expansion
of
social-technical
and
scientific
forces
of
production
and
the
corresponding
growth
in
the
cultural
and
civilising
needs
of
the
producers,
just
as
it
reflects
the
antagonistic
form
in
which
this
expansion
is
realised
under
capitalism;
for
it
is
accompanied
by
increasing
over-capitalisation
(difficulties
of
valorization
of
capital),
growing
difficulties
of
realisation,
increasing
wastage
of
material
values
and
growing
alienation
and
deformation
of
workers
in
their
productive
activity
and
their
sphere
of
consumption"
24.
Every
country
is
now
witnessing
the
phenomenal
growth
of
the
service
sector
along
with
the
rapidly
growing
number
of
the
service
sector
workers.
This
holds
good
for
India
too.
The
service
sector
employees
or
workers,
trade
unionised
under
the
big
national
federations,
have
occupied
a
very
important
position
in
the
trade
union
movement
of
the
country.
But
very
often
the
question
is
raised
whether
this
service
sector
is
productive
or
not.
If
not
productive
then
what
role
the
employees
and
workers
of
this
sector
can
play
in
the
continuing
and
sharpening
class
struggle
of
the
capitalist
society.
Before
proceeding
with
the
discussion
on
this
topic
we
may
again
revert
to
Marx
to
see
whether
Marx
in
his
life
time
could
throw
any
light
on
it.
COMMERCIAL
WAGE
--
WORKER
Chapter
XVIII
of
Marx's
Capital
(volume
three),
on
commercial
profit
is
quite
significant
for
properly
understanding
the
issue.
While
analysing
the
function
of
merchant's
capital,
Marx
used
the
term
`Commercial
Wage-Worker'.
Who
are
they
and
what
is
their
role
in
creating
surplus
value.
As
we
have
noted
earlier
Marx
defined
them
as
`wage-labour'
who
`pumped
out'
surplus-
labour
in
the
shape
of
surplus
value
for
the
capitalists.
Marx
pointed
out,
"The
clearly
defined
division
of
labour
in
a
commercial
office,
in
which
one
keeps
the
books,
another
looks
after
money
matters,
a
third
travels
etc."
25
Thus,
Marx
himself
poses
the
question.
"What
about
the
commercial
wage-workers
employed
by
the
commercial
capitalist,
here
the
merchant"?
26
At
the
same
time
Marx
provides
the
answer,
"In
one
respect,
such
a
commercial
employee
is
a
wage-worker
like
any
other.
In
the
first
place,
his
labour
power
is
bought
with
the
variable
capital
of
the
merchant,
not
with
money
expended
as
revenue,
and
consequently
it
is
not
bought
for
private
service,
but
for
the
purpose
of
expanding
the
value
of
the
capital
advanced
for
it.
In
the
second
place,
the
value
of
his
labour
power,
and
thus
his
wages,
are
determined
as
those
of
other
wage-workers,
i.e.,
by
the
cost
of
production
and
reproduction
of
his
specific
labour-power,
not
by
the
product
of
his
labour"
(emphasis
added).
Here
Marx
makes
two
specific
points
very
distinctly.
"The
commercial
employee
is
a
wage-worker
like
any
other"
and
'his
wages
are
determined
as
those
of
other
wage-workers".
But
during
the
on-going
discussion
on
the
character
and
role
of
the
commercial
wage-workers
or
service
workers,
this
clear
Marxist
analysis
is
very
often
missed.
Marx
did
not
stop
here.
Marx
further
clarifies,
"we
must
make
the
same
distinction
between
him
(commercial
wage-workers)
and
the
wage-workers
directly
employed
by
industrial
capital
which
exists
between
industrial
capital
and
merchants'
capital...".
"Since
the
merchant,
as
a
mere
agent
of
circulation,
produces
neither
value
nor
surplus
value
....
it
follows
that
the
mercantile
workers
employed
by
him
in
these
same
functions
cannot
directly
create
surplus-value
for
him.
Here
as
in
the
case
of
the
productive
labourers,
we
assume
that
wages
are
determined
by
the
value
of
the
labour-power
..
he
does
not
enrich
himself
through
cheating
his
clerks
etc."
27
(emphasis
added).
While
putting
the
commercial
wage-workers
at
par
with
the
industrial
wage-workers
so
far
as
the
same
principle
operating
for
determining
their
wages,
Marx
also
felt
some
difficulty
in
this
respect.
But
Marx's
line
of
argument
is
cogent.
He
explains,
"The
difficulty
as
concerns
mercantile
wage-workers
is
by
no
means
to
explain
how
they
produce
direct
profits
for
their
employer
without
creating
any
direct
surplus-value
(of
which
profit
is
but
a
transmitted
form).
This
question
has
indeed,
already
been
solved
in
the
general
analysis
of
commercial
profits
and
"The
relation
of
merchant's
capital
to
surplus
value
is
different
from
that
of
industrial
capital.
The
latter
produces
surplus
value
by
directly
appropriating
the
unpaid
labour
of
others.
The
former
appropriates
a
portion
of
this
surplus-value
by
having
this
portion
transformed
from
industrial
capital
to
itself"
28.
In
other
words,
commercial
wage-labour
also
creates
surplus
value
in
a
different
way.
That
this
surplus
value,
the
merchant
appropriates
to
himself,
through
unpaid
labour
of
this
clerk
is
made
more
clear
by
Marx
when
he
explains,"The
mass
of
the
individual
merchant's
profits
depend
on
the
mass
of
capital
that
he
can
apply
in
this
process,
and
he
can
apply
so
much
more
of
it
in
buying
and
selling,
the
more
the
unpaid
labour
to
his
clerks.
...The
unpaid
labour
of
these
clerks,
while
it
does
not
create
surplus
value,
enables
him
to
appropriate
surplus-value,
which,
in
effect,
amounts
to
the
same
thing
with
respect
to
his
capital.
It
is,
therefore,
a
source
of
profit
for
him"
29.
Further,
"Just
as
the
labourers'
unpaid
labour
directly
creates
surplus
value
for
productive
capital,
so
the
unpaid
labour
of
the
commercial
wage-worker
secures
a
share
of
this
surplus
value
for
merchant's
capital"
30.
Marx
very
clearly
analysed
the
functions
of
the
commercial
clerks
as
commercial
wage-workers
producing
surplus
value
for
merchant's
capital
in
a
way
different
from
that
of
the
industrial
wage-
worker.
Marx
never
used
the
phrase
`White
Collar
worker'
for
this
category
of
wage-workers,
though
it
has
become
the
usual
practice
to
use
this
phrase
not
only
by
non-Marxist
sociologists
but
even
by
Marxists.
Though
Marx
did
not
use
the
phrase
`Commercial
Proletariat'
as
he
used
for
the
industrial
wage-worker,
he,
nevertheless,
has
amply
clarified
their
role
as
wage-worker,
as
an
oppressed
and
exploited
category
in
the
capitalist
relations
of
production.
Is
commercial
labour
like
industrial
labour
productive?
The
usual
notion
is
that
it
is
not,
i.e.
commercial
labour
is
unproductive.
Contrary
to
this
prevalant
idea
Marx
makes
an
interesting
point.
"The
commercial
worker
produces
no
surplus
value
directly",
stated
Marx
but
he
then
argues,
"But
the
price
of
his
labour
is
determined
by
the
value
of
his
labour-power,
hence
by
its
cost
of
production,
while
the
application
of
this
labour-
power,
its
exertion,
expenditure
of
energy,
and
wear
and
tear,
is
as
in
the
case
of
every
other
wage-labourer
by
no
means
limited
by
its
value.
His
wage,
therefore,
is
not
necessarily
proportionate
to
the
mass
of
profit
which
he
helps
the
capitalist
to
realise.
What
he
costs
the
capitalist
and
what
he
brings
in
for
him,
are
two
different
things.
He
creates
no
direct
surplus-
value,
but
adds
to
the
capitalists'
income
by
helping
him
to
reduce
the
cost
of
realising
surplus-value,
inasmuch
as
he
performs
partly
unpaid
labour"
31.
As
fort
the
other
commonly
held
notion
that
the
commercial
workers
are
a
better
paid
class
and
so
they
are
not
prone
to
struggle,
Marx
again
argues
"The
commercial
worker,
in
the
strict
sense
of
the
term
belongs
to
the
better-paid
class
of
wage
workers
--
to
those
whose
labour
is
classed
skilled
and
stands
above
average
labour.
Yet
the
wage
tends
to
fall,
even
in
relation
to
average
labour,
with
the
advance
of
the
capitalist
mode
of
production."
32
(emphasis
added.)
But
from
which
stratum
of
the
society
are
these
commercial
wage
labourers
recruited?
Marx
answers,
"The
universality
of
public
education
enables
capitalists
to
recruit
such
labourers
from
classes
that
formerly
had
no
access
to
such
trades
and
were
accustomed
to
a
lower
standard
of
living.
Moreover,
this
increases
supply,
and
hence
competition.
With
few
exceptions,
the
labour-power
of
these
is
therefore,
devalued
with
the
progress
of
capitalist
production."
33
The
meaning
is
clear,
with
the
advance
of
capitalism,
these
sections
of
workers
are
subjected
to
intensified
exploitation.
Finally,
Marx
directly
arrives
at
the
crux
of
the
problem,
whether
commercial
labour
is
productive
or
not.
Marx
explains,
"To
industrial
capital
the
costs
of
circulation
appear
as
unproductive
expenses,
and
so
they
are.
To
the
merchant
they
appear
as
a
source
of
his
profit,
proportional,
given
the
general
rate
of
profit,
to
their
size.
The
outlay
to
be
made
for
these
circulation
costs
is,
therefore,
a
productive
investment
for
mercantile
capital",
and
then
Marx
concludes
"And
for
this
reason,
the
commercial
labour
which
it
buys
is
likewise
immediately
productive
for
it"!
34
(emphasis
added)
In
unequivocal
terms,
Marx
defined
the
commercial
labourer
as
productive
and
this
proves
the
falsity
of
the
current
un-Marxist
notion
about
the
character
and
role
of
commercial
wage-workers
in
the
general
working-class
movement
against
capitalist
exploitation.
DEFINITION
OF
Since
the
days
of
Marx,
things
have
changed
enormously
and
as
has
been
pointed
out,
the
technological
revolution
has
also
led
to
a
revolutionary
change
in
the
labour
process.
For
the
present
generation
of
Marxists
this
change
has
to
be
properly
understood
and
things
are
to
be
judged
and
examined
in
the
light
of
the
basic
formulations
of
Marx
and
Engels.
The
working
class
has
always
had
to
undergo
a
particular
pattern
of
labour-process
depending
upon
the
structure
of
capitalist
accumulation
and
technological
developments
of
the
instruments
of
labour.
In
Marx's
day
a
huge
number
of
wage-labourers
belonged
to
the
domestic
industry.
Even
in
industry,
`machinofacture',
the
distinctively
capitalist
method
of
mass
production
based
on
the
large-scale
use
of
machinery
which
Marx
analysed
in
depth
in
Capital
(volume
one)
was
limited
for
much
of
the
nineteenth
century
to
a
few
advanced
sectors,
notably
the
Lancashire
Cotton
trade.
A
vast
amount
of
capitalist
enterprise
was
organised
on
the
basis
of
manual
rather
than
steam-power
technologies.
In
fact,
Machinofacture
was
generalised,
not
during
the
period
of
the
Industrial
Revolution
itself,
but
in
the
late
nineteenth
and
early
twentieth
centuries
with
the
development,
especially
in
the
United
States,
of
mass
assembly-line
production.
The
working
class
did
never
possess
any
fixed
structure
or
composition.
Rather,
this
structure
and
composition
had
changed
as
the
needs
of
capital
accumulation
have
altered.
Periods
of
crisis
can
be
seen
at
times
of
reorganisation
and
restructuring,
as
inefficient
sectors
are
run
down,
bankrupt
capitals
taken
over,
and
new
sectors
and
more
efficient
capitals
take
their
places.
The
working
class
itself
participates
in
this
process
as
some
are
destroyed
and
others
created.
In
the
present
era
of
scientific
and
technological
revolution
combined
with
capitalist
globalisation
of
economy,
the
capitalists
are
more
and
more
using
labour
saving
devices.
Electronics,
cybernetics
and
automation
have
provided
the
capitalists
with
these
drastic
labour
saving
devices.
As
Marx
has
said,
with
the
universalisation
of
education,
the
merchant
capitalists
get
a
ready-made
mass
of
job-seekers
who
can
be
employed
as
commercial
wage-workers
doing
the
work
of
accountancy,
buying
and
selling
etc.
Like
wise,
high
level
of
technical
education
in
computers
and
automation
have
also
provided
the
service
sector
industries
the
opportunity
for
recruiting
technically
skilled
workers
for
performing
the
desired
job.
It
means
the
industrialists
need
various
types
of
workers
doing
various
types
of
jobs
--
some
manual
workers,
some
mechanists,
some
clerical,
some
computer-operators,
some
supervisors
and
so
on.
In
fact,
Marx
also
visualised
this
proliferation
of
the
workers
in
various
types
of
work,
all
in
the
interest
of
the
capitalists.
In
Capital
(volume
three),
in
the
chapter
on
Classes,
Marx
perhaps
tried
to
explain
this
situation
but
the
manuscript
remained
unfinished.
Marx
posed
the
question
and
sought
to
answer,
"What
makes
wage-
labourers,
capitalists
and
landlords
constitute
the
three
great
social
classes?
"At
first
glance
--
the
identity
of
revenues
and
sources
of
revenues.
There
are
three
great
social
groups
whose
number,
the
individuals
forming
them,
live
on
wages,
profit
and
ground
rent
respectively,
on
the
realisation
of
their
labour-power,
their
capital,
and
their
landed
property.
"However,
from
this
standpoint,
physicians
and
officials,
e.g.
would
also
constitute
two
classes
for
they
belong
to
two
distinct
social
groups,
the
members
of
each
of
these
groups
receiving
their
revenue
from
one
and
the
same
source.
The
same
would
also
be
true
of
the
indefinite
fragmentation
of
interest
and
rank
into
which
the
division
of
social
labour
splits
labourers
as
well
as
capitalists
and
landlords
--
the
latter,
e.g.,
into
owners
of
Vineyards,
farm
owners,
owners
of
forests,
mine
owners
and
owners
of
fisheries."
35
(emphasis
added.)
Unfortunately,
the
manuscript
breaks
off
here
and
Marx
did
not
complete
his
observations
on
the
nature
of
fragmentation
and
splits
of
the
labourers.
But
Marx
mentioned
`interest
and
rank'
which
causes
`infinite
fragmentation
of
social
labour'
which
`splits
labourers'.
In
fact,
in
modern
manufacturing
industry
including
service
industry
the
splitting
of
labourers
depending
upon
skill
required
and
rank
is
obvious.
In
another
place
Marx
said,
So,
if
what
Marx
said
above
is
considered
in
the
light
of
what
Marx
said
in
regard
to
`splitting
of
labourers',
then
it
is
pertinent
to
conclude
that
all
those
who
form
part
of
what
Marx
called
`Collective
Labour',
the
complex
division
of
labour
involved
in
producing
commodities,
are
productive
workers,
even
if
they
do
not
work
with
their
hand.
Moreover,
in
the
light
of
Marx's
analysis
of
the
commercial
wage-worker,
there
is
no
evidence
to
suggest
that
Marx
regarded
only
productive
workers
in
manufacturing
industry
as
forming
the
proletariat.
In
fact,
the
distinction
between
productive
and
unproductive
labour
is
therefore,
between
labour
which
contributes
to
the
self-expansion
of
capital
and
labour
which
does
not.
Marx's
main
example
of
the
latter
is
that
of
domestic
servants,
the
largest
single
category
of
workers
in
Victorian
Britain,
employed
out
of
the
revenue
of
the
middle
and
upper
classes.
But
one
point
Marx
did
not
mention
that
these
poor
strata
of
the
people
who
engaged
themselves
as
domestic
servants
had
no
other
means
of
livelihood
and
so
they
were
forced
to
sell
their
labour-power.
While
Marx
said
of
splitting
of
labourers
whatever
complex
form
it
may
assume,
it
follows
from
Marx's
analysis
of
capitalism
that
socio-
economic
compulsion
to
sell
one's
labour-power
is
the
obvious
characteristic
of
the
proletariat.
Accordingly
all
wage-labourers
are
subject
to
the
fundamental
constraints
of
the
capitalist
relations
of
production
--
non-ownership
of
means
of
production,
lack
of
direct
access
to
the
means
of
livelihood,
non-accessibility
of
land
or
insufficient
money
to
purchase
the
means
of
livelihood
without
more
or
less
continuous
sale
of
labour-power.
These
categories
will
include
not
only
commercial
clerks
and
lower
government
employees
and
other
numerous
number
of
scattered
daily
labourers
(including
domestic
servants)
since
they
have
no
other
means
of
livelihood
except
selling
his
or
her
labour-power.
Here
it
may
be
pertinent
to
heed
what
Rosa
Luxemburg
said
in
her
The
Accumulation
of
Capital,
Chapter
XVI
on
The
Reproduction
of
Capital
and
its
Social
Setting
about
the
sources
from
which
the
rural
and
urban
proletariat
is
recruited.
She
pointed
at
the
source,
"the
continued
process
by
which
the
rural
and
urban
middle
strata
become
proletarian
with
the
decay
of
peasant
economy
and
of
small
artisan
enterprises,
the
very
process,
that
is
to
say,
of
incessant
transition
from
non-capitalist
to
capitalist
conditions
of
a
labour-power
that
is
cast
off
by
pre-
capitalist,
not
capitalist,
mode
of
production
in
their
progressive
breakdown
and
disintegration."37
This
analysis
is
valid
not
only
for
19th
century
Europe,
it
is
equally
valid
in
the
conditions
prevailing
in
India
today.
Another
point
has
to
be
considered
in
this
respect.
Marx
provided
a
general
definition
of
service
when
he
said,
"A
service
is
nothing
more
than
the
useful
effect
of
a
use-value
be
it
of
a
commodity,
or
be
it
of
labour."
He
then
made
an
interesting
comment
on
skilled
and
unskilled
labour:
"in
every
process
of
creating
value,
the
reduction
of
skilled
labour,
average
social
labour
e.g.
one
day
of
skilled
labour
to
six
days
of
unskilled
labour,
is
unavoidable."
38
A
worker
who
is
employed
for
producing
goods
renders
a
service
to
the
capitalists.
And
because
of
this
service
a
tangible
and
vendible
object
takes
shape
as
a
commodity.
But
when
the
useful
effects
of
labour
do
not
result
in
a
vendible
object
then
it
creates
a
different
situation.
Harry
Braverman's
explanation
of
these
circumstances
appear
quite
logical.
He
states,
"When
worker
does
not
offer
this
labour
directly
to
the
user
of
its
effects,
but
instead
sells
it
to
a
capitalist,
who
re-sells
it
on
the
commodity
market,
then
we
have
the
capitalist
form
of
production
in
the
field
of
services."
39
Arguing
in
detail
that
service
is
also
a
productive
labour
generating
surplus
value
in
the
capitalist
relation
of
production,
Braverman
makes
the
following
illuminating
observation:
"In
the
history
of
capitalism
while
use
of
one
or
another
form
may
play
a
greater
role
in
a
particular
area,
the
tendency
is
towards
eradication
of
distinction
among
its
various
forms,
particularly
in
the
era
of
monopoly
capitalism,
it
makes
little
sense
to
ground
any
theory
of
the
economy
upon
any
specially
favoured
variety
of
labour
process.
As
these
varied
form
came
under
the
auspices
of
capital
and
become
part
of
the
domain
of
profitable
investment,
they
enter
for
the
capitalist
into
the
realm
of
general
or
abstract
labour,
labour
which
enlarges
capital.
In
the
modern
`Corporation'
all
forms
of
labour
are
employed
without
any
distinction,
and
in
the
modern
conglomerate
Corporation
some
divisions
carry
on
manufacturing,
others
carry
on
trade,
others
banking,
others
mining
and
still
others
`service'
process.
They
live
peacefully
together,
and
in
the
final
result
as
recorded
in
the
balance
sheet
the
forms
labour
disappear
entirely
in
the
forms
of
value."
40
(emphasis
added)
The
question
sometimes
arises
that
since
the
workers'
wages
and
amenities
are
rising,
of
course
due
to
their
resistance
struggle,
whether
the
workers
who
are
better
paid
or
whose
standard
of
living
has
risen,
still
possess
a
revolutionary
potential.
Marx
dealt
with
this
question
before
he
wrote
Communist
Manifesto.
In
his
Wage
Labour
and
Capital,
Marx
observed,
"When productive capital grows, the demand for labour grows; Consequently, the price of labour, wages, goes up. ...
"A
noticeable
increase
in
wages
presupposes
a
rapid
growth
of
productive
capital.
The
rapid
growth
of
productive
capital
brings
about
an
equally
rapid
growth
of
wealth,
luxury,
social
wants,
social
enjoyments.
Thus,
although
the
enjoyments
of
the
worker
have
risen,
the
social
satisfaction
that
they
gave
has
fallen
in
comparison
with
the
increased
enjoyments
of
the
capitalist,
which
are
inaccessible
to
the
workers,
in
comparison
with
the
state
of
development
of
society
in
general.
Our
desire
and
pleasure
spring
from
society;
we
measure
them,
by
society
and
not
by
the
objects
which
serve
for
their
satisfaction.
Because
they
are
of
a
social
nature,
they
are
of
a
relative
nature.
"In
general,
wages
are
determined
not
only
by
the
amount
of
commodities
for
which
I
can
exchange
them.
They
embody
various
relations".
41
These
words
of
Marx
are
quite
significant
in
understanding
the
present
situation
when
due
to
workers'
struggles
and
various
other
factors,
the
wages
and
other
amenities
of
the
workers
have
gone
up
and
their
standard
of
living
is
not
also
at
the
same
level
as
it
was
in
the
mid-nineteenth
century.
Capitalism
leads
to
a
wider
disparity
in
economic
terms
between
the
owners
and
the
wage-workers.
The
workers
may
achieve
a
higher
wage
level
or
amenities,
but
in
comparison
to
that
the
wealth
and
prosperity
of
the
owning
or
propertied
class
are
rising
in
geometrical
progression.
Particularly,
in
this
era
of
capitalist
globalisation
and
the
triumph
of
finance
capital,
this
disparity
in
income
is
reaching
an
unprecedented
height.
Even
the
protagonist
of
globalisation,
the
World
Bank
in
their
successive
reports
has
expressed
concern
at
this
rapidly
widening
disparity
and
that
more
and
more
people
getting
impoverished
and
jobless
and
World
Bank
apprehend
an
increasing
dissatisfaction
among
the
toiling
and
poorer
sections
against
the
ruling
regimes.
So
it
is
not
a
question
of
how
much
rise
has
taken
place
in
the
wage
level;
the
question
actually
centres
round
whether
the
toiling
sections
are
getting
their
due
proportion
of
the
income
generated
in
a
country.
This
sense
of
deprivation
and
disparity
actually
gives
impetus
to
working
class
militancy.
Considering
all
these
facts
and
formulations,
today's
manufacturing
workers,
skilled
service
sector
workers,
commercial
workers
in
the
mercantile
firms
and
financial
institutions
like
banks,
insurances
and
the
clerical
and
subordinate
workers
in
the
service
to
the
capitalists
in
the
phenomenally
expanded
government
sectors,
the
scattered
and
individual
daily
workers
--
all
naturally
come
within
the
definition
of
the
wage-workers
while
the
industrial
wage-workers
form
the
core
of
the
proletarian
class.
Even
the
domestic
workers
who
have
no
other
way
of
sustenance
than
selling
their
labour-power,
though
they
do
not
produce
any
value
and
not
organised
against
capitalist
exploitation
but
a
highly
deprived
and
exploited
lot,
are
also
getting
proletarianised
within
the
broader
definition
of
the
term.
But
if
one
sticks
to
the
definition
of
proletariat
to
the
manual
industrial
workers
only
in
the
pattern
of
nineteenth
century,
then
the
proletariat
will
be
reduced
to
a
small
and
declining
nineteenth
century
stereotype
only
and
this
definition
will
not
be
compatible
with
the
reality
of
the
present
situation
when
manual
workers
in
traditional
industry
are
sharply
declining
giving
place
to
service
workers
and
commercial
workers
including
part-time
and
casual
workers.
All
these
factors
taken
together
prove
the
untenability
of
the
fashionable
notion
that
the
proletariat
is
a
fast
declining
class
or
even
disappearing
and
a
`new
middle
class'
is
appearing
on
the
scene
with
high
level
of
wages
and
amenities
who
do
not
possess
any
militancy
of
struggle
or
revolutionary
potential.
THE
PRESENT
PHASE
OF
CAPITALIST
Marxism
is
a
science
which
always
develops
through
practical
experiences.
It
is
not
a
fixed
dogma.
The
present
phase
of
capitalist
globalisation
vividly
shows
that
capital's
essential
dynamics
and
contradictions
cannot
be
altered
by
simply
new
prescriptions
of
capitalist
development.
The
present
globalisation
is
not
an
absolutely
new
and
unexpected
development.
Marx
in
his
Communist
Manifesto
envisaged
this
phenomena
and
later
Rosa
Luxemburg
made
it
further
clear
when
she
said,
"Capital
needs
the
means
of
production
and
the
labour
power
of
the
whole
globe
for
untrammeled
accumulation;
it
cannot
manage
without
the
natural
resources
and
the
labour
power
of
all
territories."
42
Exactly
this
is
happening
in
today's
capitalist
globalisation.
Severe
problems
of
over
accumulation
and
over
capacity
are
plaguing
globalising
capital
today.
It
also
shows
how
accelerated
capital
can
give
rise
to
a
new
generation
of
working
class
capable
of
fighting
back
against
intensified
capitalist
exploitation.
The
sharpening
contradiction
of
capitalism
is
best
exemplified
by
the
breakdown
of
the
economy
of
the
much
touted
`Asian
Tigers'
and
the
sharply
rising
militant
working
class
struggles
in
those
countries.
The
recent
militant
wave
of
working
class
resistance
in
South
Korea
and
even
Indonesia
against
the
manifestations
of
the
crisis
and
even
formation
of
new
illegal
trade
unions
with
tremendous
mass
support,
confirm
the
new
awakening
among
the
working
class,
which
so
long
remained
dormant
under
the
brutal
oppressive
regime
which
banned
all
working
class
activities.
The
latest
ILO
Report
points
out
to
the
newly
developing
trade
unions
and
their
struggles
even
in
countries
like
Cambodia
and
Taiwan.
The
great
strike
struggles
of
France
in
the
winter
of
1995
and
in
South
Korea
in
the
next
winter,
mass
militancy
generated
in
those
struggles,
the
widespread
strike
struggles
in
Britain
in
western
European
countries
and
Latin
American
countries,
in
South
Africa,
in
Japan,
in
former
socialist
countries,
and
now
even
in
the
United
States
defying
the
reformist
dictates
of
AFL-CIO
and
the
latest
widespread
Railway
strike
in
November,
1998
in
some
Central
and
West
European
countries
again
point
out
to
the
phenomenon
of
a
newly
rising
working-class
militancy
after
a
comparative
lull
caused
by
the
compromising
attitude
of
the
reformist
trade
unions.
Moreover,
severely
hit
by
the
furious
offensive
of
neo-liberal
policies
like
privatisation,
retrenchment,
wage-freeze,
cut-back
of
social
security
benefits
etc,
newer
sections
of
the
working
class
not
only
under
the
reformist
trade
union
leadership,
but
also
because
of
some
extra
privileges
who
earlier
preferred
to
keep
aloof
of
the
trade
union
struggle
are
now
joining
the
militant
wave
of
the
currently
developing
struggle.
Thus,
though
due
to
privatisation,
closures,
retrenchment,
the
total
number
of
workers
is
declining
and
the
number
of
jobless
is
formidably
swelling,
yet
because
of
the
participation
of
newer
sections
in
this
struggle,
the
size
of
the
working
class
participation
in
militant
trade
union
movement
has
not
palpably
decreased.
This
gives
lie
to
the
motivated
propaganda
that
the
working-class
movement
has
no
future.
In
India,
too,
the
four
nation-wide
general
strike
struggles
during
1991-1994,
sectoral
strikes
in
between
and
after,
and
the
great
nation-wide
general
strike
of
11
December,
1998
all
against
the
globalisation
offensive
prove
beyond
doubt
that
neither
the
working
class
nor
its
militancy
is
disappearing;
rather
it
is
rising
up
with
newer
and
more
cohesive
combination
and
militancy.
And
it
would
be
pertinent
to
note
here
that
all
these
global
struggles
have
drawn
in
all
sections
of
the
workers
--
the
industrial
workers,
service
sector
workers,
commercial
workers,
government
employees,
technicians,
engineers
and
in
some
cases
lower
level
managerial
staff
also.
These
developments
pointedly
indicate
that
the
current
proletarian
upsurges
are
taking
shape
with
the
active
and
conscious
participation
of
all
sections
of
the
workers
--
not
simply
of
the
industrial
workers.
But
it
has
to
be
admitted
that
all
these
struggles
are
bursting
forth
mostly
against
the
manifestations
and
effects
of
capitalist
globalisation
and
neo-liberal
economy,
i.e.,
on
economic
issues
and
not
straightaway
against
the
capitalist
economic
order
itself
or
for
a
socialist
alternative.
Here
comes
the
question
of
working-class
consciousness.
THE
QUESTION
OF
We
may
again
revert
to
Marx.
The
dialectical
nature
of
Marxist
view
of
class
consciousness
was
rooted
firmly
in
an
awareness
of
the
inter-relation
between
material
realities
and
uneven
materially-based
development
of
such
consciousness.
In
his
The
Poverty
of
Philosophy,
which
Marx
wrote
a
few
years
before
the
Manifesto,
Marx
developed
the
most
important
distinction
between
class-in-itself
and
class-for-itself,
on
which
is
based
the
development
of
consciousness.
And
this
was
not
in
theoretical
abstraction
but
in
the
concrete
requirement
of
capitalism
and
the
organisational
forms
thus
generated.
Marx
said,
"Economic
conditions
had
first
transformed
the
mass
of
the
people
of
the
country
into
workers.
The
combination
of
capital
had
created
for
the
mass
a
common
situation,
common
interests.
This
mass
is
thus
already
a
class
as
against
capital,
but
not
yet
for
itself.
In
the
struggle,
of
which
we
have
noted
only
a
few
phases
,
this
mass
becomes
united,
and
constitutes
itself
as
a
class
for
itself.
The
interests
it
defends
become
class
interests."
43
(emphasis
added).
Marx
analyses
the
British
situation
as
he
did
in
the
Manifesto
also.
Marx
explained,
"In
England,
they
have
not
stopped
at
partial
combination
which
have
no
other
objective
than
a
passing
strike,
and
which
disappear
with
it.
Permanent
combinations
have
been
formed,
trade
unions,
which
serve
as
ramparts
for
the
workers
in
their
struggle
with
the
employers."
44
The
crucial
point
in
this
argument
is
that
Marx
never
dismissed
`economic
struggles'
on
the
plea
that
it
is
not
connected
with
political
consciousness
and
socialism.
In
fact,
the
socialists
of
Marx's
time
did
the
same
thing.
To
Marx,
these
economic
struggles
constitute
the
essential
or
core
element
in
the
development
of
more
distinct
class
consciousness
which
bears
the
potential
of
wider
politicisation.
But
as
Lenin
put
it
later,
that
political
consciousness,
so
to
say
the
socialist
consciousness
does
not
come
to
the
working
class
automatically,
it
comes
from
without.
This
means
that
it
is
through
the
intervention
of
the
revolutionary
party
that
the
socialist
consciousness
can
be
brought
into
the
proletariat.
Facts
prove
that
the
proletariat,
now
comprising
various
components
of
wage-labour,
is
the
most
revolutionary
class
in
modern
capitalist
society,
but
class
political
consciousness
of
the
proletariat
is
not
an
automatic
phenomenon
as
Lenin
explicitly
pointed
out,
nor,
is
its
response
to
capitalist
crisis
uniform
everywhere
and
on
all
occasions.
Here
George
Lukacs,
the
Hungarian
Marxist
scholar
and
revolutionary
practitioner
makes
a
relevant
point:
"Our
aim
here
is
to
point
out
that
class
consciousness
of
the
proletariat
does
not
develop
uniformly
throughout
the
whole
proletariat
parallel
with
the
objective
economic
crisis.
Large
sections
of
the
proletarian
remain
intellectually
under
the
tutelage
of
the
bourgeois,
even
the
severest
economic
crisis
fails
to
shake
them
in
their
attitude
with
the
result
that
the
stand-point
of
the
proletariat
and
the
reaction
to
the
crisis
is
much
less
violent
and
intense
than
the
crisis
itself."
45.
The
new
generation
of
working
class
is
on
the
move,
if
not
globally,
but
in
many
parts
of
the
globe
against
the
latest
phase
of
unprecedented
capitalist
offensive.
Now
it
is
the
duty
of
the
proletarian
political
parties
to
intervene
and
to
raise
the
consciousness
of
the
working
class
and
guide
them
for
a
revolutionary
struggle
with
a
socialist
alternative.
This
is
what
the
Communist
Manifesto
urged
for.
References
1.
K.
Marx,
The
Communist
Manifesto,
Marx-Engels
Selected
Works
(in
one
volume).
p.41
2.
Ibid,
p.44
3.
Ibid,
p.45
4.
Ibid,
p.43
5.
Marx-Engels
Selected
Correspondence,
Moscow
1965,
p.
395
6.
K.
Marx
- Capital
Vol.
3,
p.885
7.
K.
Marx
- The
Communist
Manifesto,
Marx-Engels
Selected
Works
(in
one
volume)
p.35-36.
8.
Marx,
Capital
Vol.
3,
p.791
9.
Marx,
Capital
Vol.
2,
p.33
10.
Marx,
Capital
Vol-3,
p.879
11.
Ibid,
p.
879-880
12.
F.
Engels
--
The
Condition
of
the
Working
Class
in
England,
p.
41
13.
Ibid,
p.
59
14.
Ibid,
p.
45
15.
Marx,
The
Communist
Manifesto,
Marx-Engels,
Selected
Works
(in
one
volume)
p.
38
16.
Marx
- Capital,
Vol
-
1,
pp
173-174
17.
Ibid,
pp.
174-175.
18.
Ibid,
p.175
19.
Marx,
The
Communist
Manifesto,
Selected
Works
(one
volume)
20.
Marx,
Capital,
Vol.
1,
pp
375-76
21.
Ibid,
pp
456-57
22.
The
Scientific
and
Industrial
Revolution
--
a
pamphlet
published
in
1957
by
New
York
Stock
Exchange
firm
of
Modell,
Roland
and
Steve,
quoted
by
Harry
Braverman
in
Labour
and
Monopoly
Capital
(Trivandrum,
India)
p.
167.
23.
Harry
Braverman,
Labour
and
Monopoly
Capital,
pp
166-67.
24.
Ernest
Mandel,
Late
Capitalism
(London
-
New
York),
pp
402-
03.
25.
Marx,
Capital
Vol
-
3,
p.293
26.
Ibid,
p.
292
27.
Ibid,
p.
293
28.
Ibid
29.
Ibid,
pp
293-94
30.
Ibid
p.
294
31.
Ibid,
p.
300
32.
Ibid,
p.
300
33.
Ibid,
p.
300
34.
Ibid,
p.
301
35.
Ibid,
p.
886
36.
K.
Marx,
`Results
of
the
Immediate
Process
of
Production'
appendix
to
Capital
Vol
-
1
(Harmondsworth
1976)
pp.
1039-40
quoted
by
Alex
Callinicos,
The
New
Middle
Class
and
Socialist
Politics
in
the
changing
working
class.
p.
19
37.
Rosa
Luxemburg,
The
Accumulation
of
Capital,
(Modern
Reader
Paper
Books,
New
York,
London)
p.
362.
38.
Marx,
Capital,
Vol-3
pp.187
&
192.
39.
Harry
Braverman,
Labour
&
Monopoly
Capital,
p.
358
40.
Ibid,
p.
363
41.
Marx,
Wage
Labour
and
Capital,
Selected
Works
(one
Vol.)
p.
83.
42.
Rosa
Luxemburg.
The
Accumulation
of
Capital,
p.
365.
43.
Marx,
The
Poverty
of
Philosophy,
Selected
Works,
Vol
-
3,
p.
150
44.
Ibid,
p.
149.
45.
George
Lukacs,
History
and
Class
Consciousness,
Merlin
Press,
p.
304.