Liquefactionism

When I wrote about the death of the proletariat, I was not at all referring - the way André Gorz, the most prominent theorist of the "New Left," i.e., the collapse of the left into a kind of bourgeois academic liberal reformism, did - to a supposed disappearance of the working class in the age of this supposedly post-industrial era.  Industry did not disappear, nor did the working class, even if many industrial jobs have been outsourced to China and to much of the "developing" world, where workers are brutally overworked, in terrible conditions, and underpaid.  It is among these countries throughout the world where the front lines of the battle over the most extreme form exploitation are fought, although it is also true that there remains quite a lot of industry, and industrial jobs, even in a country like the United States, even if "New Left" thinkers like Gorz choose to ignore them.  No, no, no.  My point is not at all like Gorz's point.  I am not saying that the working class has disappeared - far from it.  The death I am speaking of is precisely the death of the proletariat, not the end of the working class.

Working classes have existed since time immemorial - peasants, serfs, peons, slaves, plebians, journeymen, etc., etc., etc..  But the term "proletariat" is much more specific.

"Working class" is an economic category, but "proletariat" is something much more than that - for one thing, it is a political category.  The comparison I was making, in a rather ham-handed and somewhat artificial and joking way, was obviously to Nietzsche's philosophy, and specifically the concept of the "death of God".  For Marxists (though perhaps not for Marx himself), the concept of the proletariat (if I were a bit more pretentious, I might say, "the signifier of the proletariat") functioned something very much like the idea of God.  

Marxists were convinced that the proletariat would collectively be a kind of savior, that "the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves."  They had faith that the proletariat would arise without the help of the bourgeoisie, the aristocracy, or anyone else.  Moreover, they thought that this would happen any day now - indeed, that it was already happening, for those who had eyes to see it.

They believed this because they thought that the proletarians were the only ones capable of revolutionary change, because of the position of the proletariat vis-a-vis the social relations of the means of production.  And they may have been right about that.

So they waited for the proletariat to rise up.  Marxists were like the characters in Beckett's play, "Waiting for Godot," waiting for a character to arrive, with the promise that the real drama of the play will begin upon that character's arrival.  Of course, Godot never comes.

In this sense, Marxism could almost be considered something like a religion - perhaps some kind of Christian sect.  And within this sect are many sub-sects, all at war with each other.  Some of the sub-sects try to remain true to the orthodox faith, even though the proletariat never arrives, never awakens, never rises up.  It is a bit like family members anxiously sitting around a loved one in a "persistent, vegetative state" (we don't say "brain-dead" - that's rude), constantly scanning the patient, looking for the slightest traces of life.  Did the finger just wiggle?  Did the eyelash flutter slightly?  We debate it endlessly.  

Some sub-sects try to give the corpse a little nudge.  It can't hurt, can it?  What if the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy intervene just a teeny weeny bit, you know, just to get it going?  Others say no.  The movement of the proletariat must be completely spontaneous, or it doesn't count.  Some sub-sects believe that all it would take is for the proletariat to achieve self-consciousness, and the battle would be over before it even began.  There are tiny subsects out there like Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin to arise by maintaining the most sincere pumpkin patch.  On the other hand, there are those who are waving the corpse of the proletariat around like a puppet, and who have even permanently installed strings, bolted into its arms and legs, like some ghastly scene from "Weekend at Bernie's."

Still we search for signs of life.  Populist movements erupt here and there; Bonapartist charlatans bilk them for all they're worth.  "Yellow jackets" disrupt the streets of Paris.  A Canadian trucker convoy is going across the country protesting against Covid restrictions.  Is this the sign that the proletariat is finally waking up - the moment we've all been waiting for?  (The "last Marxist" is not Chris Cutrone, but Haz al-Ghul - a farce of a farce of a farce, looking for signs of a rising proletariat among the MAGA.  No, I take it back - he's not the last either.  There will be examples even more absurd than this.)  I'll admit it: I do it, too.  I see workers protesting against the Chinese government and a little part of me thinks: IS THIS IT?  IS IT FINALLY HAPPENING? OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD

No.  It's not happening.  It's never happening.  The proletariat is dead.