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WHY THE BOURGEOISIE IS STILL A 'SOCIALLY NECESSARY CLASS'
Up until now the working class's understanding of their place in capitalism has been non-existent. The economic struggle is at present waged not because the workers seek to appropriate some of their own surplus value back; but in order to defend and extend the working class's place within capitalism. There is certainly no notion present in the working class of where the money for its increased wages comes from. The money for the increase is there because the boss is the boss and therefore 'has the money there'. This explains the working class's reaction on being made redundant: there ought not to be any redundancy because it is the function of the boss to provide work. If he does not provide work, he is not doing his job. The appearance that the boss consumes more than each individual worker would seem to bear this interpretation out as would the formal aspects of property ownership. The firm is the boss's therefore it is his job to make sure that it keeps running and that it should provide the working class with jobs and a good living. What do the 'left' tell the working class about this view: that it is quite right to expect these things, of course they must be struggled and fought for but they are the working class's right. They will never be won in full of course; but then it's only really under socialism that we can have our cake and eat it.
This view of capitalism does not explain (1) that the essential function of the bourgeoisie is to appropriate surplus value for reproduction and accumulation (2) that it is [the] labour power of the working class that constitutes the force keeping capitalism and society ticking over. It is hardly surprising that the working class is not socialist when their view of society is that it is the prerogative of the boss to provide or not provide them with a job and wages. Therefore when these are not forthcoming it is due to the boss's will. It is equally true to say that the most developed view of socialism today in the working class amounts to a belief that if the bourgeoisie are wiped out as a class, then socialism will ipso facto have arrived. It is the bourgeoisie who are responsible for capitalism, therefore if they are liquidated, there will no longer be any obstacle to socialism. It will be seen that this accords with the view that it is the bosses who provide jobs and wages.
Understanding that appropriation of its own product is necessary to capitalism's reproduction is the first step in understanding why and how the working class can establish socialism: that it is the working class through the production process who make reproduction and accumulation possible. That the bourgeoisie can indeed not provide jobs or wages without appropriation of surplus value from the working class; that the bourgeoisie's power stems not from any innate or given quality of bossness or the absolute nature of employerdom but because they are merely instruments or vehicles for the appropriation of the working class's surplus value.
Now, this certainly does not alter the relation between employer and employed, it does, however, make its ''kernel'' or "essence" apparent, it forces it to the surface. The plain fact of the matter is that the bourgeoisie have had to invite the working class to sit round the table with it and discuss how the level of appropriation of surplus value is to be maintained and extended so as to ensure continuing social survival and prosperity. The bourgeoisie have accepted that in order for the working class to sit around the table, it has a "right", (i.e. power in fact - see the Marx quote earlier) to put demands on how that surplus value is apportioned; whether to old-age pensioners, to subsidise rents, increase investment etc. At the present time, if the working class armed itself and went out tomorrow and liquidated every member of the bourgeoisie, the only thing that would happen is that the more conscious members of the working class would become the bourgeoisie of the day after tomorrow. Until the working class is capable of replacing the bourgeoisie as the vehicle of accumulation of its own surplus value with a system whereby the society as a whole does the accumulating and makes the decisions about reproduction and accumulation, the bourgeoisie will be a socially necessary class.
By explaining to the working class exactly why the talks are necessary for the continuation of capitalism, the left would enable the working class to learn from history. It is only when a class learns from the situation it finds itself in in history that it can exert conscious control over that situation. Socialism will be established not by the free will of the working class, but by the working class consciously using its position in the production process. As long as the working class sees the employing class as an essential part of that production process, capitalism will continue.