Can the Working Class Change the World?

by Michael D. Yates

One of the horrors of the capitalist system is that slave labor, which was central to the formation and growth of capitalism itself, is still fully able to coexist alongside wage labor. But, as Karl Marx points out, it is the fact of being paid for one's work that validates capitalism as a viable socio-economic structure. Beneath this veil of "free commerce" - where workers are paid only for a portion of their workday, and buyers and sellers in the marketplace face each other as "equals" - lies a foundation of immense inequality. Yet workers have always rebelled. They've organized unions, struck, picketed, boycotted, formed political organizations and parties - sometimes they have actually won and improved their lives. But, Marx argued, because capitalism is the apotheosis of class society, it must be the last class society: it must, therefore, be destroyed. And only the working class, said Marx, is capable of creating that change.

In his timely and innovative book, Michael D. Yates asks if the working class can, indeed, change the world. Deftly factoring in such contemporary elements as sharp changes in the rise of identity politics and the nature of work, itself, Yates asks if there can, in fact, be a thing called the working class? If so, how might it overcome inherent divisions of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, location - to become a cohesive and radical force for change? Forcefully and without illusions, Yates supports his arguments with relevant, clearly explained data, historical examples, and his own personal experiences. This book is a sophisticated and prescient understanding of the working class, and what all of us might do to change the world.

Genres: Politics, Economics

224 pages, Hardcover

Published October 2, 2018

Reviews

[Maritza Soto · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️

[Eve Ottenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

If the working class doesn’t save our vastly unequal and dying world, it’s difficult to see who will. Certainly not the billionaire class, which has the money to put the brakes on climate change by investing in renewables but has not yet seemed inclined to do so. They don’t seem particularly interested in eliminating inequality either. As for the better-off middle classes, they “are more likely to support fascism than profound social change,” according to Michael Yates in his new book, "Can the Working Class Change the World?" So that leaves the working class. Yates explains how workers can do this, but it’s not, he says, really a matter of can they, but rather that workers MUST change the world and quickly, before it’s too late – before climate change renders the earth inhospitable to humanity.

Read more of my review at: http://www.eveottenberg.com/blog.htm

[Martin Empson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marx wrote that only the working class has the power to change society and create a new sustainable world of equality and social justice. In this well written text Michael Yates argues why that remains the case, and why in the face of global climate crisis is of enormous urgency.

[KT · Rating 3 out of 5]

Evoking the socialist leader Eugene V. Debs: "If they are not free, how can any of us be?", author takes a broad and sweeping look at how the working class can mobilise and unite as a force for change in the present day, under the belief that rather than waste time voting for traditional political parties, believing that they can be pressured to the left, workers must confront the state directly

Although it doesn't cover any new ground, it does summarise and bring together many relevant themes of class, gender and race among others

Interesting discussion on how matters changed dramatically with capitalism - before the advent of factories, production was still a family enterprise, carried on in the home of the artisan. Once factory production began, employers hired women and children, which not only wore down the bodies of the new factory hands, but also disrupted families, making it nearly impossible to maintain social life
Capitalism took the patriarchy that already existed and shaped it to suit the needs of capital

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

A monstrous perspective, the individuals too stupid to create anything should change the world and enslave the ones who can create.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Introductory level text that affirmatively answers its titular question.