Class War

The term class war is used by people on both the right and left of the political spectrum. In general, the term relates to the political and economic conflicts between different socioeconomic classes over things such as the distribution of wealth and whether or not government policy should be implemented to reduce inequalities of wealth. Typically, the term is used to describe conflicts between the “haves” and the “have-nots” that work themselves out in some regulated judicial manner such as in elections to government of various political parties. Sometimes, however, actual violent conflict between different socioeconomic classes may break out. Such is the case when revolutionary situations bring about significant transformations in a society's socioeconomic structure, particularly with regard to the distribution of its wealth. Adopting the language of military conflict, political scientist James Scott, in his 1985 book Weapons of the Weak, distinguished between what he called “the small arms fire” and the “big guns” of class conflict. For Scott, examples of small arms fire include workers deliberately being late for work, stealing from their employers, and intentionally ruining the products of their labor (e.g., sewing the wrong-color buttons on shirts in the case of garment workers). Rather than simply being examples of antisocial behavior, Scott saw these activities as ways for workers to come to terms with their alienation in the workplace and to wrest some[Page 44] control of the labor process away from their employers or landlords (in the case of peasant farmers, the subject of Scott's book). The big guns of class conflict, Scott suggested, are activities such as striking and fostering political revolution.

Rhetorically, political parties on the left often have used the term class war to describe how the powerful in society exploit the less powerful and how, in turn, the less powerful should organize themselves to improve their position. In such a discourse, it is argued, the less powerful are victims of a class war waged against them by those in positions of economic and political power; therefore, their actions are defensive, designed to limit their own exploitation. Frequently, however, those on the political right argue that any efforts to bring about wealth redistribution are simply examples of “class envy” and are attempts by the poor or leftist politicians to wage “class war” against the wealthy. For such commentators, unequal distributions of wealth are seen either as natural or as the reward for individual sacrifice and hard work; that is, for many on the political right, the causes of poverty are seen as the result of the personal failings of the poor rather than the operation of structural forces such as institutionalized racism or the ways in which unregulated markets operate in a capitalist society. Many leftists counter that, in decrying the class war rhetoric of the left, those on the political right are themselves, in fact, engaging precisely in class war by seeking to defend the social status quo.