Poor the enemy?

[krhagan19]

If one looks at History one will find that the extreme poor bring about change that is ineffective whereas an upper-class revolution brings about lasting and substantive change. One only need look at the sucess of the American revolution and the utter failure to bring about longterm effective policies of the French and Spanish revolution. The uneducated extreme poor do not have the context to look and major situations effectively.

[Josh]

there is something to the arugment, for sure.

however, there were also other differences between our revolution and the others.

one was that the French revolution saw French killing French en masse (never a good prescription for post-revolution brotherhood), whereas our revolution was largely spun as Patriot vs. foreign tyrant.

Also, we had more virtuous statesmen than the French in the 1800s; Washington, who refused both the siren-call of dictator. Lincoln, who refused to give place to revenge.

[krhagan19]

I disagree with your fundamental argument. Much as one French class attacked another. The Patriots vs British Crown was still one class of British citizen attacking another. Also it is worth noting that in our revolution the wealthy landowners prior to the war were largely the wealthy elite land owners post revolution.

[Josh]

. The Patriots vs British Crown was still one class of British citizen attacking another.

Only technically. Several decades and a dividing ocean between had severed the cultural ties significantly.

BTW, I like the title you chose for this thread. It can be understood so many different ways.

[Kirby]

I think you are overlooking the labor movement throughout history. The organized poor workers brought about deep societal change. We often take for granted a minimum wage, overtime pay, set work weeks etc. This war still wages on as the rich stand on the backs of the poor all over the world.

[Josh]

Which of us are you responding to?

[Kirby]

Both, I guess. or neither.

I was just pointing out the oversight.

[krhagan19]

Indeed you are correct kirbstomp but I think you fail to understand the level of education that the top organizers in the labor movement had. The top organizers largely got their arguments from the well off or semi well off intellectual class around the turn on the century.

[rbbailey]

I think you are both right. It's pretty obvious that the "masses" have influenced things in history. But it's also very true to say that very few of those "masses" were of the illiterate kind.

[Kirby]

They might have got their arguments or philosophy from the educated, but the educated rich did not have the motivation to carry it out: the working poor did. Pope Leo XII my have popularized the idea of worker's rights in Rerum Novarum in the intellectual realm, this only added to the flourishing of worker's movements.

The fact is, some of the rich (especially, I hope, the rich in the church) have and do care for human rights, and advocate for them.

I also want to say that the poor often play huge roles in wars (as soldiers and factory workers) although the benefits of victory may not be applicable to them.

[krhagan19]

Of course the educated did not have the will to execute it. It was against their interest. Just like providing a decent global or even national standard of living is against our interests. We need a class of people to do the crap work, or the luxuries that the average American enjoys would be out of their price range. We need a downtrodden worker class. In America we have largely exported it to Southeast and South Asia but the truth is there still is a super poor class whose suffering subsidizes our lifestyle.

[rbbailey]

That may be the way some people think, but it doesn't fit with the model of how capitalism works best.

I think it is too simplistic to say the suffering of the poor subsidizes our lifestyle. This suggests that one cannot exist without the other, that our lifestyle cannot exist without the suffering of the poor, or that the poor only exist because some live well. It would make just as much sense to say drivers are caused by crashing cars.

Yet, do rich people ever suffer? Do their loved ones die? Do they get cancer? Life is not fair, no matter who you are. Many of the socialistic movements of history focus too little on equality and too much on fairness. Fairness is a myth. Equality is a reality that can either be embraced or purposefully subdued -- as has happened throughout history.

You are correct to say that it has happened -- slavery was an institution based on the suffering of others to produce for a few. And there are specific examples around the world now where a particular set of working conditions are being forced for the specific purpose of building as much profit as possible. But this is not capitalism. Capitalism builds profit off of product, not off those those who would be forced to produce the product. The difference is very stark.

What you describe is a broken model of capitalism, one the proves a deep misunderstanding of what capitalism actually is, versus how it has often been carried out and how it is perceived.

What company do you know of flourishes on the suffering of it's patrons and workers? There are some, but they aren't good examples of capitalism -- they are examples of selfishness -- and they are examples of companies that will not last long. Capitalism actually does not work if only a few at the top are benefiting, the company/country that practices business in this way will not last.

In other words, it is in the interest of the educated to have equal treatment of all, from top to bottom. Why? Because it is a falsehood to believe that being at a different level (an arbitrary level) from another set of human beings is what makes you happy or rich or not. If this is a falsehood, then it is also a falsehood to believe that the working class poor should rise up to take from the "rich".

The only model that works is for capitalistic practices to benefit everyone.