For Working Class Power

The billionaire question

Photo by Miguel Bruna on Unsplash

With the recent news of Elon Musk now officially being a trillionaire, we have seen a number of different reactions. There are those who react with a bizarre sense of cuckoldry to Elon’s obscene wealth, acting as though him being this wealthy will somehow benefit them or that it’s a good thing that Elon is not (in their minds) some mad robber baron and is using his wealth and power for good.

Such points are indefensible for a variety of reasons. The only way in which someone can accumulate wealth is through exploitation. If labour were not being exploited, then there would be no way to generate such large profits or for capital to accumulate.

Elon has also used his platform for a wide variety of other despicable deeds also, such as the gutting of USAID, which has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

Setting all of this aside, there are those who are rightly concerned about the ramifications of one man having more wealth in assets than most entire countries. As a result, we are once again seeing calls to tax the rich increase. While I certainly recognise why people are making such points, and while I don’t think they’re wrong necessarily, I think the problem here is more than simple wealth or money, and is instead about power.

Musk being a trillionaire is obviously concerning insofar as a single person having that much wealth with no accountability should be concerning, but the real problem here is the question of power and the fact that workers have virtually no power in capitalist society. Calls to tax the rich, while ostensibly might be very noble, they don’t necessarily do anything to address the problem of power.

Since the dawn of the neoliberal era, we’ve seen massive attacks on the rights and power of the working class. In Britain, there was a string of anti-union laws in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher, which still remain in place to this day. Organised labour was completely decimated to such an extent that it has still not recovered the power it once had.

Resulting from this, union membership has also fallen dramatically as a percentage of the workforce. Before Thatcher came into power, unions represented around 60% of Britain’s workforce, now it represents only around 25%.

The problem at the heart of everything we’re seeing, from rising inequality to increased numbers of billionaires and now trillionaires in the case of Elon Musk, is the simple problem that the working class have no power. The capitalist class have complete power and control over the state and state policy; it is because of this that they are able to enact any and all legislation they want.

In terms of institutional opposition, there really is nothing. To quote James Connolly, “Governments in capitalist society are but committees of the rich to manage the affairs of the capitalist class”. Our governments exist to further the interests of the capitalist class at the expense of the working class.

Working class have no power, and the state actively works to undermine any and all attempts to give power to the working class. Giving working-class people real power would undermine the very purpose of the capitalist state. There is an obvious contradiction in the class interests between capital and labour; the interests of capital to maximise profits stand in contrast with the desire of labour to have a decent standard of living.

Capitalists are not workers, and workers are not capitalists. It is of no concern to the working-class man whether or not shareholders are increasing profits as much as they would like, and it’s not a concern to them if Elon Musk has become a trillionaire. It is not in their interests because they are not part of the capitalist class, where maximising profits is a direct reflection of their interests as a class. Working class people have interests to increase free time/shorten the workday, or increase wages. All of these, especially the latter, stand in stark contrast to the interests of the capitalist class to maximise profits.

From here, we can see how the state operates to protect the interests of the capitalist class and deny working class people and power or a voice in the affairs of the state. Given the stark contrast in interests between capital and labour, it makes sense why the capitalist state would deny working class people power. Allowing working class people to weild power would naturally undermine capitalism, something the capitalist state cannot allow.

While it may be tempting to say we need to tax the rich, and while that certainly isn’t something I’m opposed to, it’s mostly a tangential thing, and not something we should be focusing on as some kind of all-encompassing policy to fix all ills. The real problem with everything is the complete lack of working class power and the destruction of organised labour we’ve seen under neoliberalism.

We should always be pushing for greater power of the working class at the expense of the capitalist class. This is the cornerstone or the bare minimum what we should be demanding. The only reason why the capitalist class are able to enact their agenda is because they have the power to, and the working class has no power. Instead, we should be waging a different kind of class war.