The Value of Class Consciousness

Grand Marxism (and its subsidiaries), in the form of a general societal system of organisation, has largely been discredited since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet empire. It is nevertheless important to distinguish between Marxism as an organising ideology and Marxism as an intellectual endeavour.

The contemporary crisis of confidence affecting capitalism, heralded by the ongoing global financial crisis and the deepening of inequalities, behoves us to continue the search for nuggets of Marxist intellectual insight in the ideological trash heap left behind by the despots of yesteryear.

One such nugget is highly relevant to the South African context. Resulting from the sweeping changes that have transformed our society during the past two decades has been the rise of a new middle class - or petty bourgeoisie in Marxist terms. Recent studies indicate that there are now 4.2 million black middle class people in South Africa - a dramatic increase from just 1.7 million in 2004.

 This group joins the established white middle class, which numbers 3 million. For the first time in the country's history, there are more black middle class people in South Africa than whites. It means that, out of a population of 51.8 million, 14 percent of South Africans are now classified as middle class - up from about 8.8 percent in 1994.

This indicates that the total amount of wealth in the country has increased, while pre-existing wealth was largely preserved. Instead of pursuing pure wealth redistribution (merely slicing the existing economic ‘pie' differently), it shows that the total amount of wealth has increased (the ‘pie' was made bigger) - with the benefits largely accruing to those newly middle class individuals.

These developments are part of a much broader global trend. Despite a paradoxical concurrent increase in inequality, it is an unassailable fact that the global middle class has grown significantly during recent decades. Accompanying this increase in the wealth of formerly impoverished people has been an increase in their expectations.

As I have argued elsewhere, it is precisely these elevated middle class expectations - and indeed demands - which account for the wave of protests that has recently swept over countries like Brazil and Turkey. It is no coincidence that the most vociferous protests are taking place precisely in those countries that have been most successful in lifting people out of poverty and growing a modern middle class.

Yet the voice of middle class protest is strikingly absent in South Africa. While the country has certainly not been as successful as Brazil in reducing poverty and expanding the middle class, logic would suggest that the growth that has taken place would foster a similar increase in such characteristically middle class expectations as reducing corruption and crime and improving education and health care. But despite the general perception that the state is failing to meet these expectation, middle class South Africa has not erupted in protest.

How can we account for what, from a global perspective, amounts to a conspicuous anomaly? The answer is to be found in the Marxist intellectual nugget of class consciousness. The term refers to an economic class of people that are aware of their shared experience, interests and position in relation to other classes. It is fundamental to the very concept of a class-based society and, when applied to the exploited proletariat, is the building block of Marxist revolutionary theory.

Marx (obviously) largely applies the concept in terms of a proletarian revolution. For him, the key is that the proletariat would become actively aware of its position and develop from a class ‘in itself' - with no common collective awareness - into a class ‘for itself' - built on an awareness of commonality. In theoretical terms, the same can be said of any class in society, which means that class consciousness extends to the petty bourgeoisie as well.

The absence of class consciousness in South Africa provides a convincing explanation of the continued absence of middle class protest and, by implication, perhaps lower expectations of the South African middle class. South African social relations continue to lack a materialist perspective and remain almost completely dominated by racialised interpretations.

An imagined example illustrates just how absurdly dominant racial thinking still is. Let us picture an average middle class South African suburb with a white family living next to a black family; both families consisting of a father, mother and two young children. Despite sharing broadly similar material interests (working members want to remain employed, both families want to protect and expand their wealth, be safe from crime, send their children to good schools and have access to quality and affordable health care and public services), the odds are that racialised thinking would convince both families that they actually have very little in common.

A black family might assume that the whites have more in common with rich white industrialists living on an exclusive estate, while the white family might assume that the blacks have more in common with impoverished black people living in a township on the outskirts of town.

This interpretation, from the vantage point of material interests, is blatantly false. The truth is that these families have very similar material interests and do not necessarily have any interests in common with other classes. But simply because of the colours of their skin, the tremendous power of active class consciousness remains locked away in the chasms of mutual ignorance and fear.

History has proven that the middle class plays an extremely important role in every society. Based purely on their shared material interests, middle class people have the potential to be the bridge between disparate groups and the engine of economic growth. They are also generally regarded as the most pro-democratic social stratum in society. By continuing to prioritise a racial interpretation over materialist analyses, many South Africans are denying the country the tremendous benefits that would flow from an active middle class citizenry demanding that the state meet their elevated expectations.

If you are lucky enough to find yourself in the South African middle class today, the time has come to take off those racialised lenses and start looking at your world in more materialist terms. The time has come for the middle class to become a class ‘for itself'. Instead of a mysterious family belonging to some other imagined community, you will find class allies on the other side of the fence who, just like you, want a better South Africa.

Leon Schreiber is a South African PhD student in Political Science at the Freie Universität Berlin in Germany. The views expressed are his own. This article first appeared on his blog at http://theschreiberei.wordpress.com/. He can be followed on Twitter here.

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