To use the term “class war” in what will soon be 2010 is populist anachronistic jargon which does little to help us understand the antagonistic forces currently globally in play. It’s a neat label used by those with a shallow analysis (or none at all). Yes, of course there are rich and poor but ‘class’ realities (and popular consciousness) a bit more nuanced.

I really can’t understand why it is supposed to be bad politics to comment on the number of millionaires in the Conservative shadow cabinet and remark that such a cabinet in government is likely to have very different public spending priorities from a Labour cabinet in government:

“There has been mounting speculation in recent months about the personal wealth of the leading figures in the Conservative Party. Interest has heightened after the Tories announced that they would implement an austerity budget, slashing public services, if elected to Government. Research carried out last year by the News of the World recorded 19 millionaires in the Shadow Cabinet, giving some indication of the level of wealth at the top of the Conservative Party. Here Times Money has updated the list.”
http://timesbusiness.typepad.com/money_weblog/2009/11/10-wealthiest-tories.html

OTOH I can readily understand why Conservatives might prefer this information to be declared beyond the bounds of political decency.

The term ‘class war’ should be restricted to battles between classes whose interests are mutually antagonistic. The Coal Dispute was class war. What New Labour is proposing is conflict between the middle class and the upper middle class. It’s fuck all to do with creating jobs in manufacturing, just the middle classes offering up a few crumbs from the most wealthy without challenging their own ‘rivilage.

Sunny’s interpretation is the even more risible ‘deserving rich’ and the ‘undeserving rich’. Very inclusive since nobody sees themselves as ‘undeserving’.

Equally risible is the notion ‘working class’ means ‘working men’. Women in the service industries are among the most exploited in society. It is exploitation that defines class.

There is room for genuine ‘class war’ – and that is the struggle for economic and democratic control over our own working conditions.

You won’t get support for that from New Labour.

2. There are quite a few millionaires among serving and former Labour ministers, as well.

@4: “There are quite a few millionaires among serving and former Labour ministers, as well”

Quite so. Lord Walston, supposedly once one of the richest men in England and a Labour MP, was the husband of Catherine Walston, the inspiration for Graham Greene’s novel: The End of the Affair:
http://www.leninimports.com/graham_greene.html

All very entertaining.

By recent reports, the mystery of Tony Blair’s finances has now been unravelled:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/dec/17/mystery-tony-blairs-money-solved

And that’s not entertaining considering what transpired during Blair’s premiership.

this country doesn’t have a politicised working class, which will be rather necessary if there’s going to be a class war…

at the moment, the phrase “class war” makes me imagine young men in top hats and dinner jackets fighting kids in hoddies in a town centre. it would be a start.

tychy – heh.

I really can’t understand why it is supposed to be bad politics to comment on the number of millionaires in the Conservative shadow cabinet and remark that such a cabinet in government is likely to have very different public spending priorities from a Labour cabinet in government:

Not at all. I think this should be central to any strategy.

Let me be crass for a moment.
The new kings and queens are celebrities.
Celebrities are mostly working class.
Result?
Class war would be regicide which would be suicide.
Hence the rise of the middle class protester.

http://bit.ly/6Q5bVc

6. The problem is that much of the working class has always aspired to be middle class.

9
The problem is that all of the working-class think they are middle-class, marxism has not been very popular for quite a time, but this is what Marx would describe as ‘false consciousness’

“The problem is that all of the working-class think they are middle-class”

But exactly why is this a problem?

11 As we are discussing class-war and several other commentators have asked who is the war being waged against, I have suggested that Marx’s notion of ‘false consiousness’ within the working-class might be an appropriate explaination for the seemingly lack of participation in a class war.
Personally, I am also saddened (yes, it’s a problem to me) that plastic money, a few bricks and mortar, and poorly paid jobs propped-up by state benefits equal ‘middle-class’ I consider myself to be working-class by virtue of the fact that I sell my labour, most people within a capitalist system do so (the system would collapse without this), indeed industrial capitalism could not have emerged without the surplus labour created by the argicultural revolution.
Until all of the people who have to sell their labour become conscious that they are an exploited class within the system,there will be no class-war. It isn’t actually about who went to Eton or Oxbridge or who owns over a million pounds

I ‘sell my labour’ but I am not exploited. The way i feel about this class war is how as a Midlander I would fell about a civil war between Northerners and Southerners (non-plussed).

Hatred based upon skin colour unaccetable,hatred base upon background acceptable.

Some good class warfare goes hand-in-hand with some good class warfare solutions ala Robespierre, no? Maybe that would have helped the PM solve the financial crisis?

13 ‘I sell my labour but I am not exploited’ – this is pure false consiousness as Marx describes. I suppose you would describe yourself as ‘middle-class’
As a Midlander, you could choose between the rich areas in the North (apparently richer than any in the South) or, you could vote with your conscience and choose a poor area in the South,

It’s come to this. Class war, rich and poor.
The banksters are firmly in charge. We see THEM taking from us to give to the rich, to buy NEW cars.
We see THEM taking from us and giving the rich $8000 downpayments on new houses.
And now we see THEM taking anywhere from $7000 up ($15,000 might be typical) MORE from us each year.

They take from the poor,
and give to the rich.
Stupid ____

This discussion shows that “class war” means different things to different people.

Surely the point is this: the ONLY reason that Brown wants to invoke a class war is because it is the last decaying twig that has left to try and beat his opponemnts with.

It is final confirmation that Brown puts political expediency and personal survival above everything including country and Party.

We need a set of MPs that are representative of the electorate, as there is a limit to a human being’s capacity for empathy outside of their sphere of experience. You won’t get that from any party. It so happens that the Tory candidates are particularly homogenous and unrepresentative.

Class warfare has been used as a political rallying cry from Karl Marx to the the 20th Century Democratic Party, meaning that government force will be used against the wealthy for the benefit of the poor.
The reality of the Obama nation is that government force is used to benefit the wealthiest-the banksters-at the cost of the taxpayers. This is accompanied by special programs to grant substantial benefits to special groups of well-off citizens.
Far from being Robin Hood, Obama is the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Calling Obama a socialist should be an insult to socialists. Plutocrat is more like it.