There is a class war happening right now in this country, but no one is talking about it. Michael Zweig, Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for the Study of Working Class Life at SUNY-Stony Brook, argued this in his lecture Wednesday night. The also discussed the role of power in capitalist American society.
“We tend to think that this is a broad middle-class society, but income and wealth are not useful in understanding class,” Zweig said. “Let’s talk about class in terms of power.”
Although many people make sufficient wages in this country, according to Zweig, few actually hold power. Zweig said that 88 million people in blue and white collar jobs are powerless and argued that their power does not disappear, but is absorbed by the powerful capitalist class. This power, in turn, is what gives the capitalist class its wealth.
“[I don’t agree with] only focusing on power in the work place,” said Jacob Goldin ’07 in response to Zweig. “It’s also important to focus on income’s effects.”
Goldin added that he is skeptical of Zweig’s argument that power makes money and not the other way around.
“The capitalist class in America is about 2% [of the population],” Zweig said.
Zweig defined capitalists as those who make decisions for businesses with more than 20 people. He also dispelled the notion of the small business owner being a capitalist, saying that a capitalist, by his definition, is not involved in the everyday running of the business.
In the last 50 years, the power of the working class has been systematically reduced by the capitalist class, Zweig said, while the middle class, caught in the power struggle has also suffered.
According to Zweig, this constitutes class warfare. He cited privatization of social security, immigrant policy and anti-overtime pay legislation as examples.
“The capitalists are going to the bank while the working class is taking it in the neck, and those things are related,” Zweig said.
As an example he discussed the recent deal worked out between Delta Airlines and its pilots’ union, in which the pilots agreed to wage cuts amounting to $1 billion in savings for the company. The capitalists in this case have taken power back from the workers.
“The fact that there’s been an ongoing class war is spot on,” said Gil Skillman, Associate Professor of Economics. “It’s been happening since the Reagan administration at least. Capitalists control production because they have the wealth. A fundamental debate among Marxian economists today, [is] what is the source of power for the capitalist class?”
“There is the great triumvirate of race, class, and gender in society,” Zweig said. “There has been great progress made in race and gender, but class is only addressed according to [the other two].”
Zweig used the 1920s and 1930s as examples of times when Americans understood class and what it meant.
“After World War II class began to recede,” he said. “We saw ourselves as a nation of consumers not of producers. This historical trend has ended up hurting the working class. Since the 1970s, ‘real’ wages adjusted for inflation have fallen 15 percent.”
Zweig argued that the only reason families were slightly better off now is because there are more people per household working, and also working more jobs and longer hours. The big reason for the change in attitude from the 1930s has been a change in the terms of discussion.
“If you look at the New Deal, the political point was also a moral point that stressed economic justice,” Zweig said. “But now, in the language of economics, justice has disappeared. With the help of the religious right, morality is no longer economic. Morality is [now] an issue of who you sleep with.”
This tactic has allowed the capitalists to take back some of the gains workers made in the 1930s, and has allowed them to increase their power significantly in the last 30 years.
The lecture, given in the Exley Science Center, was entitled, “What’s Class Got To Do With It?: American Society in the 21st Century.”
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