[PEN-L:4716] Human Factor/Social Consciousness II

[SHAWGI TELL <v600a8e6@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

     As this epoch of the bourgeoisie draws to its end, the class
which has become obsolete and the archetype of everything that is
old and archaic, and is no longer capable of producing anything of
vitality, has declared "the end of history!" Its system is
presented as the highest achievement of civilization. It wants the
working class and people to become stuck on the very same question
which has been answered by history when the bourgeoisie swept
everything that was in its way aside. It wants to keep the people
tied to the false dream of a prettified bourgeois life, holding it
up as the dream and hope of all humanity. The bourgeoisie, at its
time of ascendancy, saw that it had no place in the old feudal
society and that its affirmation could take place only in the
creation of a new society. It was not in the darkness and
limitations of the feudal system, within a world based on the
sanctity of divine right that the bourgeoisie could find its
expression. It gave rise to its own political institutions, its own
culture, its own arts and sciences. Today it wants the people to
remain captive to that economy, political system, culture, values,
in short, everything that it created in its own image and which is
rooted in the sanctity and glorification of private property.
     But the working class sees in its day-to-day life that the
capitalist society fails to provide for the most basic needs of the
people. It sees a society which is rife with every form of social
and cultural degradation and depravation extending to all spheres.
The human factor/social consciousness is the weapon in the hands of
the working class and people to move the situation towards the
creation of a new society, a radical rupture with the past, in
which there is the affirmation of the rights of all people by dint
of being human. It is the creation of a new and modern life.
     Obstructing this development stand all those forces who
declare that the only problem with the capitalist society is that
the capitalists will not share their pleasures with the people.
Those on the "right" declare without qualification that the
capitalist system has made the U.S. the "best society in the world."
They curse the complainers and tell them they do not appreciate
that things are worse elsewhere. Those on the supposedly opposite
end of the spectrum declare that the U.S. is not quite the best, but
it certainly would be if only certain adjustments were made in the
distribution of wealth. What they share in common is that they
stand in reaction to progress, in staunch defence of the old
against the new.
     The bourgeoisie wants the working class to be ensnared in the
illusion that the capitalist society has the capacity to overcome
its crisis. From the "left" the grandest illusion is promoted that
if only the social-welfare state were revived, nobody would suffer
from want. More than this, with strong unions, the workers will
raise themselves to new levels, wrestling with the capitalists to
win contracts that guarantee them jobs for life, perks galore and
big pensions when they retire. From the "right" the workers are
told that as individuals they can certainly rise above their status
as wage-slaves and become entrepreneurs themselves, or at least
receive a wage that will allow them to live on a par with those who
are.
     What is demanded by the people is new, a system through which
they can exercise control over their lives. They can achieve this
only by doing things in a new way. They cannot achieve anything by
doing things in the old fashion, rallying behind this or that
force. They have to rally behind themselves, for to rally behind
anything else is merely to prop up the bourgeoisie and the
capitalist status quo.
      The question is not to be or not to be at the present time. The
working class is placing itself in the position of leading the people to
create that new society which will affirm the human rights of all people. The
immediate issue confronting the people is "to be" in the forefront
of the creation of a system through which they can exercise control
over their lives.
     It does not view the new system which needs to be created,
that is the socialist society, as a system that will guarantee all
those things which capitalism promises but fails to deliver. The
very promises of those who say that the capitalist system can work
for everyone, that is, the promises of a life in which every
individual can live as a "king unto his own castle" is precisely
the negator of the human factor/social consciousness. It negates
the very notion of the harmonization of the interests of the
individual with those of the collective, and those of the
individual and their collective with the general interests of the
society. Nor does the working class accept the social democratic
dogmatic rendering of the capitalist system as one which was
liveable and more humane, and on its way to becoming even more
humane, before the social-welfare state came crumbling down.
     The working class, in the objective sense is the material
weapon of theory, while contemporary Marxist-Leninist thought is
its spiritual weapon. The two together make up the human
factor/social consciousness which comes into being when the
advanced ideas of the working class are gripped by the broad masses
of the people and the revolution takes place. The existence of the
human factor/social consciousness as a material/spiritual force is
a historic development. It is an indication that neither the
material can exist in isolation from the spiritual nor can the
spiritual exist in isolation from the material. It is also a signal
to all those who want deep-going revolutionary transformation that
they must appreciate its colossal transforming power.


Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
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