They stop being working class when they become a cop. Their relationship to labor is completely altered
personally i for one agree with the take that they are working class, but class traitors
relationship to labor
they do not own the means of production, they perform labor for a wage, that wage is their sustenance
they are as much a wage slave as the next, the only difference is that their task is enforcing wage slavery and private property relations on the rest of us, which they do with glee
there is, in no part of this, an absolution of the moral harm cops do compared to other workers. you know, because they’re traitors to their class, having sold out themselves, their families and their children for the owners’ money
p.s. like what would you even want to call them instead? they’re not petty bourgeois because they don’t own any capital. They’re just goons
p.s. like what would you even want to call them instead? they’re not petty bourgeois because they don’t own any capital. They’re just goons
Calling them the goon class actually sounds like a great idea.
i’m a member of the goon class
as far as I am aware at least in Marx’s literature he only talks about 4 classes and the only one that comes close to describing the position police have is proletariat. It seems reasonable to call them class traitors as well because they are certainly not working in the interest of their class.
I don’t know what the context of the removed comment is but it also seems reasonable to ask people to look at things objectively. If your argument is that the police aren’t proletariat because it feels icky that’s not a very good argument.
thank you for reading marx so losers like me don’t have to, but yeah, like that’s p. much what I think, idk what else occurred in the argument from OP tho
also imo like, otherwise what is the point of the term “class traitor”?? like, cops are the ultimate class traitors. The children of working poor who sell themselves to the service of the bourgeois state which keeps not just themselves, but their friends, their families, almost everyone they’ve ever met in servitude, only to perpetuate that gross exploitation themselves, daily?
cop is like the definition of class traitor, in p. much all cases (I assume idk I don’t know the statistics on how poor people are going into the police but I assume like the military it’s used as a way out of poverty and, yknow, people are willing to do that, at least to a point)
i think people like to think of class traitors as people like Engels who are bourgeois or petit bourgeois but work in the furtherance of the revolution in spite of their class interests. In other words it’s a positive trait. But it works both ways and the traitors to the working class are way, way more numerous.
As I see it (could be wrong):
They’re the state-equivalent to private security, so they’re being hired by the ownership class in a non-market, non-commodified way. They’re not offering their labour up on a labour market, their “output” is barely being invested in, they’re not having their wages driven down either. The way their jobs work is completely separate from the rest of the economy and the rest of the working class. I’d assume that mapping their wages to the rest of the economy bares little relation.
They are direct extensions of capital rather than being semi-independant bodies in the market.
They’re the state-equivalent to private security, so they’re being hired by the ownership class in a non-market, non-commodified way.
they’re human beings with survival needs who, in the absence of common means to provide for them, must debase themselves in some way to extract the necessities of life from some capital owner, somewhere
this doesn’t mean their decision to do so isn’t fucking evil, but like, it is what it is. Unless they’re some rich failson (who would be bourgeois, or, idk, bourgeois-in-waiting?) who wants to be a cop for fun, idk, people have rent and bills and shit to pay.
The way their jobs work is completely separate from the rest of the economy and the rest of the working class
you can say this about a lot of jobs, but that doesn’t mean that the people who have those jobs have the ability to produce an income without selling their employment to their employer in exchange for a wage
it’s not like they can go out and be a “private” cop not working for the state, then they would just be a robber/murderer
you can say this about a lot of jobs,
I literally can’t, that’s why they’re different.
I literally can’t, that’s why they’re different.
I would call the whole like idk work from home office “job” people who can “work” while playing videogames all day some type of weird labor aristocracy or whatever but that doesn’t change their fundamental relationship to how their labor is performed, which is ultimately at the behest of and facilitated by employment by the capitalist class
the real big difference is their ultimate, extreme treachery, but like, idk I think of the Jack London poem about scabs:
Ode To A Scab
After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a waterlogged brain, and a combination backbone made of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.
When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out. No man has a right to scab as long as there is a pool of water deep enough to drown his body in, or a rope long enough to hang his carcass with. Judas Iscariot was a gentleman compared with a scab. For betraying his Master, he had character enough to hang himself. A scab hasn’t.
Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. Judas Iscariot sold his savior for thirty pieces of silver. Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of a commission in the British Army. The modern strikebreaker sells his birthright, his country, his wife, his children, and his fellow men for an unfulfilled promise from his employer, trust, or corporation
like, that’s the same as a cop, but that doesn’t mean they don’t work for their wage ultimately to survive
Also, I’m talking about labour power and labour markets in regards to cops and their employment, not just “doing stuff for people for money”. They’re not proletarians, specifically.
You’ll notice cops aren’t getting hired based on labour output. They’re not getting squeezed for labour or getting their hours extended or bringing machinery to increase their output (they buy their own machinery through the department to protect themselves or enhance how much pain they can inflict and how much privacy they can spy upon, but it’s not actually a capitalist money circuit where their variable capital shrinks as all this constant capital builds up).
This kind of has echoes of the barista debate last year.
they do not own the means of production, they perform labor for a wage, that wage is their sustenance
It’s not just labor, but socially necessary labor. And you’re vastly underestimating how much pigs earn. Most pigs are taking home 6-digit salaries and are guaranteed that 6-digit salary forever in the form of a pension.
They may have to work to earn a wage but their wage will always be secure and enough to keep them satisfied
so is like some oil rig worker guy, who you could also argue to be as much of a servant of capital
idk, seems like an arbitrary exclusion and more simple and personally satisfying to me at least to call them working class, but traitors to their class (but this also is individually variable bc again some rich dude deciding “hey I wanna be a cop” isn’t the same as someone who otherwise needs to earn a wage to survive but then becomes a cop)
the predication of survival on the ability to earn a wage, which is only available through labor in the employ of those who own the means of production, is what determines whether a person is “working class” or not, to me
and again like idk what’s wrong with calling all cops class traitors lmao
somehow cops are always unionized, get what they ask for, and that just goes without saying. any other unions are a Huge Deal and must be fought tooth & nail over mere pittances
Last month while the federal aus govt was openly destroying one of the most militant unions, and calling a strike in solidarity illegal industrial action
the australian federal police association took illegal industrial action and it barely made the news
police where i live are 80% unionised
VicPol are now taking the same action as the ambos and are tagging protest messages on their cars - but are whining about how disrespected they are.
I saw this as one drove on the tram tracks on Flinders Street and beeped at a guy crossing to the tram stop. That direction of Flinders Street is closed for tunnel construction so there’s no oncoming traffic, this is the biggest intersection in the city, and driving on the tram tracks through a raised and divided stop is generally illegal. I saw red and had to stop myself from throwing my metal water bottle through their windscreen, I got it out of my bag and everything
also I’m unaware of a time that police unions ever had solidary strikes along with other unions
I’m going to put there here in advance because of the vibe I’m already getting.
that’s really funny, it took me a second to get that it was that nuclear fallout tomb inscription
The armed enforcers of the bourgeoisie are not working class. They are the standing army of capital, its Praetorian Guard.
They gave up their class when they took up arms against them.
They gave up their class when they took up arms against them
so… a working class… class traitor
What you are saying is absolutely liberalism. If you don’t understand why cops are not working class, then you don’t understand class conflict and if you don’t understand class conflict, then you are not a leftist.
Class is a person’s relationship to labor and the means of production. The defining characteristic of being working class is doing productive labor while not owning the means of production. A working class person uses their labor to create commodities or services which they do not own.
Cops do not do productive labor. Cops do not produce anything. Cops are not exploited by the bourgeoisie. Cops are guard labor and guard labor is worthless.
Here is an excerpt from chapter 13 of Marx’s Capital.
The directing motive, the end and aim of capitalist production, is to extract the greatest possible amount of surplus-value, [14] and consequently to exploit labour-power to the greatest possible extent. As the number of the co-operating labourers increases, so too does their resistance to the domination of capital, and with it, the necessity for capital to overcome this resistance by counterpressure. The control exercised by the capitalist is not only a special function, due to the nature of the social labour-process, and peculiar to that process, but it is, at the same time, a function of the exploitation of a social labour-process, and is consequently rooted in the unavoidable antagonism between the exploiter and the living and labouring raw material he exploits.
Again, in proportion to the increasing mass of the means of production, now no longer the property of the labourer, but of the capitalist, the necessity increases for some effective control over the proper application of those means. [15] Moreover, the co-operation of wage labourers is entirely brought about by the capital that employs them. Their union into one single productive body and the establishment of a connexion between their individual functions, are matters foreign and external to them, are not their own act, but the act of the capital that brings and keeps them together. Hence the connexion existing between their various labours appears to them, ideally, in the shape of a preconceived plan of the capitalist, and practically in the shape of the authority of the same capitalist, in the shape of the powerful will of another, who subjects their activity to his aims. If, then, the control of the capitalist is in substance two-fold by reason of the two-fold nature of the process of production itself, which, on the one hand, is a social process for producing use-values, on the other, a process for creating surplus-value in form that control is despotic. As co-operation extends its scale, this despotism takes forms peculiar to itself. Just as at first the capitalist is relieved from actual labour so soon as his capital has reached that minimum amount with which capitalist production, as such, begins, so now, he hands over the work of direct and constant supervision of the individual workmen, and groups of workmen, to a special kind of wage-labourer. An industrial army of workmen, under the command of a capitalist, requires, like a real army, officers (managers), and sergeants (foremen, overlookers), who, while the work is being done, command in the name of the capitalist. The work of supervision becomes their established and exclusive function. When comparing the mode of production of isolated peasants and artisans with production by slave-labour, the political economist counts this labour of superintendence among the faux frais of production. [16] But, when considering the capitalist mode of production, he, on the contrary, treats the work of control made necessary by the co-operative character of the labour-process as identical with the different work of control, necessitated by the capitalist character of that process and the antagonism of interests between capitalist and labourer.
This excerpt tells us that the exploitation of productive labor on a large scale requires a “real army” to prevent workers from taking control due to the opposing interests between the capitalist and laborer. The excerpt tells us that this is a “special kind” of wage-labourer ie not a productive labourer, not working class. The excerpt tells use that this kind of laborer is “faux frais of production”, meaning that this person does not add value to production. The excerpt tells us that the role is the person is to control the antagonism of interests between the capitalist and working class.
The class interest of police is aligned with the capitalist class interests. The class interest of the police is prevent the working class from gaining power. The police of the capitalist state exist to prevent socialism from happening.
There is importance in understanding that cops are not working class because when you organize working class people, you have to be aware that the police will be working against you 100% of the time. It’s not a “moral reasoning”. It is materialist analysis.
Part of gaining class consciousness is recognizing that your own productive capacity is being exploited. The capitalist takes value from what you create and gives you less than the value you generated. Cops do have productive capacity and are not exploited. Cops are part of the exploitation process.
This excerpt tells us that the exploitation of productive labor on a large scale requires a “real army” to prevent workers from taking control due to the opposing interests between the capitalist and laborer. The excerpt tells us that this is a “special kind” of wage-labourer ie not a productive labourer, not working class. The excerpt tells use that this kind of laborer is “faux frais of production”, meaning that this person does not add value to production. The excerpt tells us that the role is the person is to control the antagonism of interests between the capitalist and working class.
The “real army” in this excerpt is metaphorical and Marx is clearly talking about managers and supervisors. As I mentioned in a different part of the thread this has echoes of that barista debate from last year because of people using the distinction of productive vs non productive work as their estimation of whether or not someone is in the working class.
I am willing to accept that managers, supervisors, cops, and people who are generally on the side of the bourgeoisie as part of their occupation are not proletarian - but it makes me wonder what they are? Simply “a special kind” of wage laborer? That’s kind of an unsatisfactory description.
I think Engels provides a useful framing for this debate and for how we can think about working classes in current year. I also don’t think this actually disagrees with what you’re saying.
What is the proletariat?
The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose sole existence depends on the demand for labor – hence, on the changing state of business, on the vagaries of unbridled competition. The proletariat, or the class of proletarians, is, in a word, the working class of the 19th century
Proletarians, then, have not always existed?
No. There have always been poor and working classes; and the working class have mostly been poor. But there have not always been workers and poor people living under conditions as they are today; in other words, there have not always been proletarians, any more than there has always been free unbridled competitions.
So then under this framework we can consider proletarians a particular kind of worker with a relatively specific definition and actually do not make up the majority of the workers of western economies. However from this exerpt we can conclude that one does not actually need to be proletarian to be working class. So I think a lot of us (including me) are conflating the two and causing unnecessary confusion and we should regard the proletariat as a subset of the broader working class.
Did you seriously compare cops to baristas? Baristas make coffee. Police make nothing. Baristas serve coffee. Police use violence to enforce the will of the capitalist class. Some baristas work for a capitalist and some baristas are artisans who own their own coffee show, they could either be a worker or a small business owner. Police serve the interests of the bourgeois state. Stop going on twitter. Stop doing twitter discourse. Stop posting twitter discourse on hexbear.
The Marx quote is not a direct comparison because police as we know them today did not exist during the time of Marx’s life. However the passage matches the characteristics of police as we know them today.
Managers and supervisors are often considered to be petite bourgeoisie depending on the amount of authority that they have in a company. Cops are part of the state and the state acts in the interests of the capitalist class.
The Engels quote you posted is saying that the working class of pre-capitalist economies were not proletarian, because the proletariat is specifically the working class of the capitalist economy. The working class that the Engels quote is referring to is slaves and peasants of past economies, ie slave society and feudalism. Slaves and peasants still had productive capacity but did not receive a wage for their productive capacity. The defining characteristic of the working class is still productive capacity. The additional characteristic of the proletariat is receiving a wage for the production. Cops do not produce. Cops receive a wage but not produce. Cops are not working class.
Did you seriously compare cops to baristas?
I compared the debate around this. Last year there was a whole struggle session about Baristas because some people considered them non-productive labor and therefore not “working class”.
The Marx quote is not a direct comparison because police as we know them today did not exist during the time of Marx’s life. However the passage matches the characteristics of police as we know them today.
Why are you allowed to extrapolate from what Marx and Engels say but I can’t?
The Engels quote you posted is saying that the working class of pre-capitalist economies were not proletarian, because the proletariat is specifically the working class of the capitalist economy.
Of course! This was written in 1847, he could only look at the past and compare it to the present. We can also look at the past and compare it to the present. If we think that the service economy workers aren’t proletarian that is fine but they are obviously working class, just a different kind of working class. But it doesn’t sound like you think that. There are other people who do think that and will also use Marx and Lenin to back up their argumentation which seems based on the productive vs non-productive labor line.
Service workers who are payed a wage by a capitalist are proletarian. Service work is productive labor. The capitalist is extracting value from their labor.
Whether a barista is proletarian is entirely situational. Some baristas are proletarian. If a barista works for starbucks for example, then they are proletarian. If a barista works for themself and owns the coffee shop, then they are artisan, small business owner, petite bourgeoisie, middle class, etc. Baristas do not inherently fall into a specific economic class. If you ask, “Is a barista working class?”, if they work for a capitalist, then yes, if they work for themselves, then no. The discussion is pointless because it could be either. Some baristas are working class, some baristas are not working class.
Cops are not service workers. Being a cop is not a service. Cops do not produce any service or commodity. Cops are never working class.
They are not part of the proletariat. They serve as protectors of private property as part of the capitalist state. That’s their whole goal. Just as managers are considered petty-bourgeois since they act on behalf of the bourgeoisie, regardless of whether they own MoP.
Just as managers are considered petty-bourgeois
The petit bourgeoisie are capital owners who still have to work that capital themselves because their holdings aren’t enough to fully passively live off of. Managers are either PMC or workers with extra paperwork, depending on the case.
Just as managers are considered petty-bourgeois
hot take. how the fuck could a manager at a monopoly be petit-bourgeois?
When you become so class reductionist, that you actually remove class
Lenin on class: “large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in law) to the means of production, by their role in the social organization of labor, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it.”
I’m curious the conclusion we should to draw from this quote. This is pretty imprecise and I can imagine you could get very narrow with classes if this one quote is all you have to work with.
okay maybe it’s my increasing insobriety but honestly now I’m at the point where like, I think it’s honestly a huge propaganda PR coup if we could explicitly associate cops with the term “class traitor”
so yes sorry those on the other side of opinions, we’d have to acknowledge at least a portion of cops as being working class (again idk if some aristocrat shit wants to roleplay cop, yeah, they ain’t working class, but if it’s a person whose choice is between some other form of employed labor or being a goon of capital, yeah that’d be working class), but like come on you could just respond to every cop ever with “ok class traitor”
You do not, under any circumstances, have to hand it to cops.
Oh damn I didn’t know calling someone a class traitor is ‘handing it to them’
Not what I meant, seems like people in the thread are going back and forth on whether cops are working class
Why do comments like these get remove? This is a bit ridiculous. I get why someone would get tired of seeing the same comments over time, but to censor it? c’mon.
Categories are useful inasmuch as they help us understand and interact with the world. We can construct a box that describes both cops and working people. We can construct a box that describes working people but not cops. We can construct a box that describes industrial working people but not service workers. Et cetera, et cetera. There’s an infinite number of ways to draw lines and group things.
If we learn anything from the Russian and Chinese revolutions, it’s that categories developed in 19th century Europe don’t cleanly map onto other times and places. The ability of the revolutionaries to identify particularities of their peasant classes allowed the peasants’ revolutionary potential to be harnessed alongside that of an underdeveloped proletariat.
So what are cops, then? To group them into either proletariat or bourgeoisie is a mistake, I think, akin to grouping all working people into one proletarian class (there’s a reason so many non-bourgeois statesians support the police and military, and it’s not because of some universal false consciousness). In the US their role in the imperial, colonial, capitalist structure is clear. I think they generally align more closely with the PMC, petty bourgeoisie, and labor aristocracy than international capital, though.
In that sense they experience a higher degree of precarity than the bourgeoisie proper. But their relationship to the means of production and their own means of subsistence is distinct from non-PMC workers (service industry and global proletariat). As such I don’t think class traitor is an accurate label, not in the US. It better suits cops in colonized countries, when they aid their colonizers. US cops are well-aligned with the interests of the “middle” imperial class they belong to.
But even though class analysis and discussion is important, we need to be careful to avoid semantic debates (except maybe when defining categories for a party line to use externally). The labels we slap on these categories are less important than the categories themselves (and the real entities they try to describe)
insightful post. The real class struggle though is shitposters who cant remove comments with an insulting last word vs mods who can.
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Cops earn too much money to be proles. They are petty bourgeois who use their $120000+ annual salary on paper and the guarantees of a lifelong pension to invest. In a way, I don’t even think calling them “foot soldiers of capital” conveys this well. They’re more like armed members of the petty bourgeoisie sanctioned by the state looking after their own petty bourgeois self-interest alongside the class interest of their bourgeois masters. The armed members of the petty bourgeoisie not sanctioned by the state are fascist paramilitaries, and surprise surprise, there tends to be cross-pollination between the two because the class background of the two are identical. When a pig evicts and beats the shit out of a tenant, they do so so that their tenants would know their place.
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