On Class Traitors

Marxism is a materialist framework, not a moralist one.

The purpose of class analysis in this framework is not to categorize good guys and bad guys, it’s to answer the difficult question of how do you change the world. We are all complicit in great evil, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Our job is not to count sins and flagellate ourselves and others based on the sins we count. The goal is to completely and utterly destroy this system as we know it.

The only viable strategy for upsetting this status quo is form a united plan of mass action organized along the lines of our common interests. Our only strength comes from solidarity. The purpose of class analysis is to develop a consciousness about what our shared interests are. It is theory which sharpens our tactics and organizing work.

What we learn from class analysis is that the capitalist, the bourgeois, the petit bourgeois, ect, have interests that are directly opposed to the interests of the vast toiling masses that all of society depends on. This informs our tactics and strategy, such that when you are forming plans of agitation and organization, it would be a waste of effort to devote resources to recruiting from these classes, and that we can not rely on support for our cause from these classes. Any support is likely to be wavering, because any forward progression in the realization of the proletariat’s class interest is going to work against their interests.

All of that being said, there is nothing preventing a member of these classes from being a class traitor. We need all of the help we can get in this tremendous undertaking. We don’t hate the capitalist because they are evil. We hate the capitalist because we have a world to win, and they are in the way. If some of them want to step out of the way and aid our cause, more power to them.