TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION?

It is curious that self-proclaimed “leftists”—or “progressives” or “democratic socialists”—carp all day long about the lack of institutional representation of this or that group, defined along the lines of race, gender, sexual orientation, sexual identity, national origin, etc., but the most encompassing, comprehensive and powerful identity—and hence threatening to the laissez-faire capitalist status quo—is constantly ignored. That identity is, of course, that of a worker as worker. In other words, the member of the body politic who approaches the market place as the underseller of the only commodity he owns—his labor power—and by doing that he makes the circulation of capital—and therefore its a posteriori expansion and concentration—possible.

Without a doubt, the donor/master caste, and by extension its propping castes—political and bureaucratic—must be very happy with that interesting lack of focus. It is no wonder that that peculiar hierarchy of interests and priorities within the upper echelons of the “American left” is generously rewarded. Indeed, we see throngs of politicians accumulating obscene amounts of money and properties on salaries, albeit obnoxiously generous, clearly not enough to sustain that kind of wealth growth. This is so to such a shocking extent, that the vast majority of members of Congress are richer than pretty much each one of their constituents, or close enough.

We can conclude that, after all, we workers are good enough to work and make others rich, and perhaps to vote, but not good enough to take power for ourselves and transform the state into what was always meant to be: a politically functional and deontological reflection of the people. In other words, we are only good to obey, but not to lead in this wonderful “liberal democracy”, as the propagandists call the liberal state. We are good enough to cowardly follow the driver to the slaughterhouse, making sure we do not bleat very loudly along the way. So much for “freedom”….