Talk:Class conflict/Archive 1

Archive 1

Merger

Content from Class warfare mergerd, please see Talk:Class warfare for previous discussion. Sam [Spade] 16:00, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Weasel Words

Arguably, there is little fundamental difference between the class warfare that existed between the Victorian era monarchy and the common public, and a modern corporation and its workers.

Salvor Hardin 14:30, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps. The corporation is a legal entity that even its defenders know is a legal entity and not a force of nature. While monarchies claimed their existance was sanctioned by the gods.

Simbad Bob 12:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Article Improvement

I've nominated this article for Wikipedia:Article Creation and Improvement Drive, feel like supporting it? Donnacha 16:02, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Superficial Approach

Without some reference to the important views of Vilfredo Pareto and Nietzsche on the subject, this article will continue to be just a superficial repetition of a couple of Marxian concepts.201.21.202.214 19:11, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

See the above topic. This article needs the input of some serious historians - class conflict didn't start with Marx. Donnacha 22:02, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Class Warfare in the US

Another area that needs proper development - the heyday of real class warfare in the US was the period between the Haymarket Riots and the Aliens Act and the expulsion of the Russian anarchists - particularly the battles between the IWW and the Pinkertons. It could also so with some stuff about how class warfare tended to be taken over by organised crime. Donnacha 19:19, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Dumb article

This has got to be one of the dumbest articles on Wikipedia. Complete crap from start to finish. Doctors without suspenders 04:41, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Way to go

Doctors, did you even read two of those tags you placed on this page (?):

"The neutrality of this article's title and/or subject matter is disputed. This is a dispute over the neutrality of viewpoints implied by the title, or the subject matter within its scope, rather than the actual facts stated. Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page."

"This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please help Wikipedia by adding references. See the talk page for details."

All you appear to have contributed to any solution are insults thrown at the article. And you didn't even spend much time on those insults.

Do you actually want to help make this better? Or are you merely out to show how good you at identifying articles that need work? ;P

--Antelope In Search Of Truth 21:53, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

He's right though, this article is seriously POV and needs very serious surgery. Alas, it didn't win the article improvement drive vote. Class conflict in the modern context emerged from the political conflict during the English Civil War (eg. the Diggers (True Levellers)), a while before Marx wrote anything. As I said above, the French Revolution is arguably history's most important example. This article needs proper historians' input, not Marxist dogma. Donnacha 23:28, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Mr DwS should have been more constructive, but I agree with his tags. This article needs a lot of rewriting (by a trained historian, as Donnacha says) and reference cites. - Frankie 18:37, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Definitely with you guys; you'll note I didn't criticize his selection of tags. Just the fact that he didn't even appear to read them or didn't care what they actually said in the fine print. Because they direct the people submitting them to be specific.

--Antelope In Search Of Truth 19:59, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Apologies

I'm sorry. I obviously offended people here, and for that I apologize. I shouldn't have been so brutish and unhelpful with my criticisms. Doctors without suspenders 17:15, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Heh, clearly not many people here hang out on the Anarchism article ;) Now, the question is, where does one find an historian willing to put what's needed together. While I know the historical hotspots, it's not my area of expertise. Donnacha 19:12, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, it's inaccurate

The class breakdown, to the best of my knowledge, is also wrong. Marxism, for example, has more than two classes that can be broken into Bourgeoise and Proles. The Proles are important because for Marx they are a revolutionary class. There is also the the aristocracy (the Bourgeoise have been in class conflict for the aristocracy since they've existed, basically, and in this fight the bourgeoise are the heroes according to Marx), and the peasants (who are poor and not a revolutionary class) and the intelligensia at least. I don't know much about Marxism, and actually came to this article hoping to find a nice list of all the classes various people have seen existing.

I think it is important to recognise a distinction between 'classes' of people in conflict with one another (bourgeoisie and aristocracy) and the idea of class conflict as a social phenomenon. What I mean is, the concept of class conflict has limited meaning and should not be applied casually to situations where perceived classes are in dispute.

An example would be working people showing mass resentment to the unemployed. You could characterise each group as a 'class' in itself and noting the hostility, declare it a case of 'class conflict' or 'class war'.

However this mis-applies the term. Class conflict is specifically the battle between the owners and controllers of wealth, and the rest of society. And I disagree with comments above, that it did not start with Marx. I believe he and Engels created the idea as a philosophical notion, and although 'conflict between classes' existed all along, 'class conflict' as a concept was brought into being by their work. 81.96.164.105 10:30, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

POV

"It can be open, as with a business lockout aimed at destroying a labour union, or it can be hidden, as with an informal slowdown in production that protests low wages for an excessively fast or dangerous work process."

This para has a bit of a left wing bias right? (use of words such as 'lockout', 'destroying', 'excessive' and 'dangerous'). I'm going to remove the "excessively fast or dangerous work process" bit from the end. I believe I'm right in saying ALL work slowdowns and wage protests are part of class war, not just the dangerous ones. The addition makes all wage protesters sound like heroes who work 22 hour days for 6c an hour. (I'm sure some of them are, but it's a bit of a wide generalisation to make, and Wikipedia's probably not the place to make it.) If anyone strongly disagrees, change it back. Shax (talk) 18:03, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Removal of vandalism

"Class warfare is also a form of extreme violence that takes place between students in British state schools. Weapons used in a “class war” include nuclear warhead tipped paper aeroplanes and hollow ball point pen rocket launchers. Class wars are often caught on video using mobile phones. The Daily Hate Mail is an honest and outspoken investigative publication that first brought class wars to the publics’ attention."

I have removed this ridiculous, and rather unfunny paragraph.

I missed it and find it to be funny. Jokes are vandalisim? Thank you for preserving it here. It didn't belong in the article. Raggz 06:34, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Douchebag. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.213.25.12 (talk) 17:13, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Criticisms of the concept

The article should maybe allow room for historical criticisms of this concept. For instance, the idea of class conflict was strongly criticized in paragraph 19 on of the social encyclical Rerum Novarum. [1] ADM (talk) 13:32, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Is this page really necessary?

If it were up to me, I'd change this into a redirect page to class struggle and call it good. Carrite (talk) 08:02, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

class war myths

Class war or class conflict is not a concept born out of Marxism nor first identified by Karl Marx. Conflicts between social classes goes way back and was identified by even Aristotle.

Also since it has been observed since way before gravity was labeled, it could be argued that it is as natural. Perhaps Aristotle experts can expand thusly on the 'class conflict' article for us.

The article presumes the validity of the theory of class struggle which also infects the class war article. Class struggle, an by extension, class war is by no means a proven concept. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.26.13.87 (talk) 04:01, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Simbad Bob 12:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

We should look for and present all major points of view about class conflict: natural (Aristotle), inevitable (Marx), tragic (Moon), etc. --Uncle Ed 14:04, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

And where's the French Revolution - probably the most important class conflict in history. Donnacha 15:44, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Missing the point completely

How can this article maintain the false mask of communism and completely avoid the idea of maintaining the status quo by warfare like tactics? Class warfare is about tension only to those who use the premise to implicate wrongdoing. They completely avoid the newest fad of innocent until investigated. Who are you to say what I can and can't do? Now a days your classified before you even have ur first birthday. I guess we all are born equal, some of us are just more equal then others. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redhandedway (talk • contribs) 03:58, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

• If you'd like to supply reliable sources supporting your position we could improve the article on this basis. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:06, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Class conflict is not only a communist or socialist idea

I find the communism sidebar to this article misleading. Class conflict is not isolated to communism or socialism. Class conflict is an acknowledged historical fact dating back to the feudal era when the bourgeoisie allied with monarchies against aristocrats to usurp the feudal system and establish the new monarchy era and the beginnings of capitalism.--R-41 (talk) 18:14, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! I completely agree. There is also capitalistic class warefare/conflict from the upper class upon the proletariat or else the USA wouldn't be in the situation it is in today. The appearance of the "Communism Sidebar" in my educated opinion was added by capitalist interests to taboo or stigmatize the current popular, loosely associated Occupy Wall Street movement into the McCarthy-istic witch-hunt that exited during that administration. I'VE ADDED THE CAPITALISM DOMAIN SIDEBAR, and made it a part of the group on Capitalism. Those who might object to the appearance of the Capitalism sidebar will also argue for the removal of the Communism Sidebar.--XB70Valyrie (talk) 21:08, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Okay. Upon further investigation, the "Communism" sidebar was added by a "sock-puppet" account, as I suspected, which is now suspended by wikipedia. I'm REMOVING BOTH group domain sidebars. Here's the copy/paste of the edit by the sock-puppet.

(cur | prev) 14:31, 13 September 2009‎ Zonglowe (talk | contribs)‎ . . (9,240 bytes) (+36)‎ . . (Info box) (undo)

Any questions please leave them here. --XB70Valyrie (talk) 21:54, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Combining the Class Conflict and Class Struggle Article

I've been working on doing this. There's no need to have two articles about the same thing. I've been moving well cited passages from there (Class Struggle) to here (Class Conflict) I don't think Marx's "subclasses" should be included. It's really kinda pointless. When this migration is complete, I'm deleting the Class struggle article. What's more I'll be adding the words "Class Struggle" as a redirect to this article. --XB70Valyrie (talk) 06:06, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

untitled/clueless

how would i relate any of this to my fine art — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ekinadese (talk • contribs) 12:22, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Source for how "Buffet and Soros stand to make very large financial gains as a result of anticipated government action"?

The claim that "However, both Buffet and Soros stand to make very large financial gains as a result of anticipated government action." with regards to the "Buffett Rule" or similar tax initiatives is not sourced. How exactly are they supposed to gain and where does this conclusion stem from?

Mojowiha (talk) 09:14, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Worst article I've ever read

Wikipedia is not a discussion forum Fifelfoo (talk) 07:00, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Do the spout-offs of a couple of liberal 21st century billionaires have an iota of relevance to class warfare? From start to finish, this is 99 parts Occupy Wall Street agitprop to 1 part relevant information (most of it, admittedly uncritical, discussion of Marx). This article needs a severe clean-up, if not a total purge from lede to finish. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 18.189.51.123 (talk) 17:44, 15 April 2013 (UTC) I suppose it's trolls like you that are why the article is locked. Do you have even the slightest shread of self-awareness or are you locked into the Faux News Universe, which btw only tolerates the bizarre right up to a point as happened with Karl Rove. In your reality the statements by billionaires, central actors in the subject, about class warfare are irrelevant. Go think about your life and stop trolling wikipedia. 76.180.168.166 (talk) 02:49, 6 June 2013 (UTC) Ah, the ad-hominem. Such an elevated form of discourse. And calling all disagreement with your ideological orthodoxy "trolling". You fit in with a long tradition, my friend. You're precisely the sort of person who would have sent Solzhenitsyn to the GULAG for "counter-revolutionary mental deviancy" instead of bothering to listen to what he was saying. Have you considered that, perhaps, we don't need "re-education?" Perhaps you need an education? That's the whole problem with "critical" epistemology, where there is no truth but the class struggle, where every word is judged according to the stark rule that if it furthers the class struggle, it is good, if it furthers "false consciousness," it is evil. Nothing of life, only vain striving after utopia. To paraphrase Oliver Cromwell as he dealt with yet another species of zealot, do you think it's possible you're mistaken? If you're mistaken, why, all your Wiki-sh*tting will have done is obscure useful knowledge for those of us who want a somewhat mainstream intellectual look into the historical concept of "class struggle." I'm no Fox watcher (in fact, I prefer the National Review). And I've voted for the occasional Democrat in my day (most recently John Kerry). But your approach makes true, reasoned discourse impossible. Not everything has to be political. Sometimes we can just be sincere strivers after truth. You might well be wrong, as might I. But there is no shame in sincere, reasoned striving. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.133.38.49 (talk) 17:51, 9 June 2013 (UTC) As for your point about the words of billionaires, first of all, Wikipedia is intended to be a tertiary source (neutral synthesis of secondary and primary sources), not somewhere for you to (rather poorly) integrate disparate sources to prove your pet thesis. Second of all, you missed a very important part of my critique: 21st century. In all the long history of mankind, and all the almost-as-long history of class division, you think that our silly little corner of history is somehow so central that it deserves to take up a good half of the article? I can't think of a single historian who'd back you up on that (Buffett, needless to say, is no historian, for all his apparently self-hating skill at creating economic value). Even the Marxists focus on the post-1750s period (bourgeoisie-aristocracy struggle, then proletariat-bourgeoisie struggle). My whole point wasn't that it was Marxist agitprop, which, at least, would have a long and luminous intellectual tradition behind it. It's Occupy agitprop - it's agitprop for some ignorant college student's painfully provincial theories of political economy. It reads like a bad college essay. Again, the article needs to be purged from lede to finish.173.133.38.49 (talk) 18:23, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

FTR

I have only trivial edits on this article, white space rearrangement and correction of some isbns. troll (internet) gives the definition. The last of those edits were more than 2 years ago and I don't plan to contribute further. However the title of the thread above alone attests to what the linked article describes. Lycurgus (talk) 17:03, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Where is Poland?

The Polish workers' struggles to fight for their rights and being killed on the street by Communist police just for being a Polish working-class activist, this is a very important thing. Please put it in the article! 78.8.63.170 (talk) 16:01, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

A posible image to be added.

Please, consider the possibility of adding some of these seven animations, symbolic sketches about the concept of this article. They are the same in seven different visual formats. Thank you.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PiramideStatusPq.gif

--Francisco Ortega Mart. (talk) 15:57, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

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remove or rephrase

Gentlemen, I want to draw your attention to the following quote:

In a letter to Friedrich Engels in 1882 Karl Marx wrote: You know very well where we found our idea of class struggle; we found it in the work of the French historians who talked about the race struggle.

This letter, however, doesn't exist. Look for it in the MECW, and not in the works of other writers (e.g. Foucault). You won't find it. Here is a link to his correspondence with Engels https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1882/letters/index.htm

Also, even in academic works in which it is quoted, not a single author, including Foucault, has provided a citation to the original source (Marx-Engels Correspondence). If you enter the quote above into google books, you will see that all the references are to Foucault's work and not to Marx's correspondence. https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=You+know+very+well+where+we+found+our+idea+of+class+struggle%3B+we+found+it+in+the+work+of+the+French+historians+who+talked+about+the+race+struggle.

But the way the sentence is phrased, it implies Marx actually made such a point and that it could be substantiated by reference to his own work or someone else's work who also provides a reference to the original source. So the sentence needs to be rephrased so that it is made clear that "According to Foucault (or whoever) Marx wrote to Engels that..."

Lastly, Marx made clear in a letter in 1852 that "no credit is due to me for discovering the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois economists, the economic economy of the classes. What I did that was new was to prove: (1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production (historische Entwicklungsphasen der Production), (2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat,[1] (3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society."

See his letter: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/letters/52_03_05-ab.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.92.32.189 (talk) 18:04, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Soviet Union has been described using Soviet documents

There is no need to quote 1979 text based on speculations.Xx236 (talk) 09:27, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

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New section on classical antiquity

I am a new user who has added a new section on classical-era class conflict to this article. I am wondering if any other users can let me know if it is too detailed, not detailed enough, too opinionated, quoting too much from sources, using poor sources, using block quotes incorrectly, etc. I would very much like to learn how to improve my editing, especially on controversial articles, so any constructive criticism is much appreciated.

I would also like to add a new section entitled 'In literature', quoting specifically from Euripides, Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Swift, and Dostoevsky. Could any users let me know if such a section would be a worthwhile addition to this article?

Many thanks, and to all workers engaged in class struggle for workers' rights, good luck!

Scallamander (talk) 19:36, 25 July 2020 (UTC)