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I
found Newton
Emerson’s article Thurs Sept 25th (Irish
News) quite intriguing. It gave his usual witty
account of a particular event, along with his attention
being directed towards his perception on a particular
issue. On this occasion the issue was that of ‘class’.
Yet reading through this article with a smirk at times
at his wit, one did find, though, that maybe he did
not have a clear understanding of the nature of some
aspects of class. In which case, I presume the satire
on this occasion may have been used to attempt to
conceal that lack of understanding. Newton makes a
number of points of interest within the article. He
writes of Eamonn McCann’s ‘theory of class
conflict’, in which after Newton’s usual
satirical points on such matters, he finished with
a point of understanding in relation to the North.
He states ‘the idea that Northern Ireland’s
contemporary business leaders might harbour some selfish,
strategic or economic interest in prolonging civil
unrest here is lunacy.’ This seems quite a valid
understanding and in that context many could nod in
agreement, but to fully understand the nature of class
one needs to go deeper on this matter. While the leading
business class may not have any selfish and economic
interest in prolonging civil unrest that does not
mean that the leading business class do not have selfish
economic interests. To put an understanding of ‘class’-
economic and otherwise into a purely political context
in an attempt to give a commentary on the ‘theory
of class conflict’, gives firstly a false perception
of the reality and secondly fails to draw out the
understanding of both political and economic emancipation
in relation to class.
With
that in mind I would like to touch on the question
of the working class and to what that terminology
means. One at times reads of those that state that
the working class is shrinking and that the middle
classes are growing. Newton even makes a brief reference
to the ‘three bedroom semis’ that are creeping
up the Andytown Road and how he finds it ‘laughable'
that large numbers of people in the North describe
themselves as working class. Yet to have an understanding
of class one actually needs to base it on the practical
and real world of today within the continual development
of Capitalism. What therefore is the definition of
class? Class is not based on the perception of what
class one is or one isn’t and it is not even
judged on the type of work a person may do; class
is about a person's objective position within the
process of capitalist production and if they have
any control over, or own any of the means of production.
So in the present context of Capitalism and continual
Globalisation, we therefore see changes and reconstruction
of class within the developing and shifting patterns
of Capitalism to meet Capitalism’s needs. Therefore
Capitalism through those shifting patterns has in
fact brought about those changes in the working class
to feed its hunger for its continual accumulation
of Capital.
What
that has meant in real terms is that the industrial
and manufacturing firms are now being replaced with
new forms of low pay assembly lines seen in the vast
call centres or the traditionally ‘middle class’,
jobs of the Civil Service, banks, service sectors
etc. So the continual shifting of Capitalism to meet
its needs has changed the make up of the working class
and their jobs in real terms to fit the need for the
accumulation of that capital. So in absolute terms
the working class has expanded not shrunk. Eamonn
McCann’s understanding on class is the same understanding
that I would hold. As a person born into a working
class estate in the early seventies in Ballymurphy
I have been though in many areas ‘across the
divide’. Canvassing in Annadale flats, speaking
on platforms in similar areas of East Belfast etc,
all has helped me come to a firm understanding and
conclusion in relation to class.
I
ask what has a single mother of three kids in Annadale
flats who tries to scrape money together to buy nappies
for her kids or who constantly worries where the next
meal is coming from have in common with the Queen
or with the Unionist leaders living in leafy suburbia?
What has a similar woman in a flat in Twinbrook have
in common with the likes of Bertie Ahern? The answer,
materially, nothing. Yet, it is the sense of being
British or of being Irish that attempts to bring one
closer together on those terms. Continually waving
the Union Jack within the confines of this state or
waving a Tricolour in a United Ireland means or would
mean little difference to the lives of such persons
without also economic change. Class politics looks
to seek both political and economic change within
society, it seeks not to fly a flag of sectarianism
and division, but of unity and strength, a flag not
of solely political change, but of and for real economic
change. While those divisions political (sectarian)
and economic (class) remain then real equality will
always elude us. Therefore if cometh a day when political
freedom comes to this small island in the form of
a United Island, if the flag of political freedom
is not also the flag of economic freedom that flutters
in the wind, then the battle for real freedom will
have only just begun.
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