(OPE-L) the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power

From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Mon Sep 15 2003 - 10:13:58 EDT


A lot of reasons have been advanced for the continued 
persistence and dominance of capitalist relations of
production.

Writing in 1870 (April 9 letter to Meyer and Vogt), 
Marx disclosed what he believed to be "the secret by
which the capitalist class maintains its power":

"Owing to the constantly increasing concentration of
farming, Ireland supplies its own surplus to the English 
labour market and thus forces down wages and lowers
the moral and material position of the English working 
class"

Sounds like a "capital-logical" explanation, doesn't it?
Yet, Marx continues:

"And most important of all (my emphasis, JL): 
every industrial and commercial center in England now 
possesses a working-class population *divided* into
*hostile* camps, English proletarians and Irish proletarians.
The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a 
competitor who lowers his standard of life.  In relation to
the Irish worker he feels himself a member of the *ruling* 
nation  and so turns himself into a tool of the aristocrats 
and capitalists *against Ireland*, thus strengthening their
domination *over himself*.  He cherishes religious, social
and national prejudices against the Irish worker.  His attitude
towards him is much the same as that of "poor whites"
to the "niggers" in the former slave states of the U.S.A. The
Irishman pays him back with interest in his own coin. He
regards the English worker as both sharing in the guilt for
the English domination in Ireland and at the same time 
serving as its stupid tool."

Marx continues:

"This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by
the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short by all the
means at the disposal of the ruling classes. It is the secret
of the impotence of the English working class, despite their
organization.  It is the secret by which the capitalist class 
maintains its power.  And of this that class is well aware."
(Marx-Engels, _Selected Correspondence_, pp. 289-90).

This raises some interesting questions for discussion:

1) If Marx believed that working-class division was  "the
secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power",
why didn't he make the same point in _Capital_?  I think
I know the answer Mike L would give to that question. What
other answers are there?

2) If Marx believed that working-class division is the "secret
by which the capitalist class maintains its power",  where
does that leave 'breakdown' theories of crisis?  That is, doesn't 
the above suggest  that Marx believed that capitalism will only 
"breakdown" once workers are aware of and overcome "the 
secret"?

3) Do most Marxists today really understand "the secret"?
If not, why not?

4) Is it accurate to say today (i.e. re contemporary
capitalism) that working-class division is the "secret by which 
the capitalist class maintains its power"?

In solidarity, Jerry

PS: I was reminded of the Marx letter today by a post
that Harry Cleaver wrote on the aut-op-sy list.  The bulk of the
Marx quotation above is also reproduced by Harry on p. 111 of
_Reading Capital Politically_  (Austin, University of Texas
Press, 1979).


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Sep 17 2003 - 00:00:01 EDT