Why are people uncomfortable with the term "Class Warfare"?

It’s very name implies a vastly unbalanced war.

This link from USA Today, really? It’s divisive and a political flame war bait, see? Unless you see Americans using catapults hurling chunks of stone at each other, resist from using any words with “war” as suffix or prefix.

It’s a code term for Marxism.

Because in America we are not allowed to discuss class, it is almost taboo. We are the country without a Caste system. We are the country that anyone can start from nothing and work their way to the upper classes. America is incredibly silent about class for the most part. We don’t like to think there is any difference between the poor guy and the rich one. We want to believe we can all attain the status of the upper class, the American Dream that anyone can be successful.

@Qingu Shouldn’t Marxists in America feel just a tad uncomfortable? Not unsafe, to be sure, but just mildly uncomfortable?

@saint, I meant the term itself makes conservatives feel uncomfortable. If you call an action, like raising taxes on t he rich, “class warfare,” that implies that the people pushing the action are motivated by Marxist reasoning.

Obviously the wealthy and conservatives have been engaged in class warfare for decades… against the poor and middle class. But Marxism isn’t a bogeyman for liberal voters so the term doesn’t have the same emotional effect it does for cons.

I think the term is a bit dramatic. (Most) everyone is just trying to protect their own ass.

@JLeslie: What America are you in? The one I’m in discusses “class” as a divisive and separatist concept ad nauseum, no taboo involved. Poorer people vilify richer people, richer people look down on poorer people, there are all sorts of colorful terms pertaining to class, often involving dirt; “filthy rich”, “trailer trash”, stuff like that. The discussions of taxation based on income and capital go on and on, it never ends. That’s the America I live in. Because changes in class are personally attainable, and not set up by traditional old country methods does not change it. America does not have a classless society, nor is the subject avoided in conversation.

@JilltheTooth Of course America does not have a classless society, but it seem to me people find it unPC to make mention of it, mention statistics that can be studied about it, people on fluther, and in America in general seem intolerant to discuss any generalizations about the classes in mixed company. All conversations are either behind closed doors with a lot of negativity, or among sociologists and marketers. Anyone who brings up social class to explain some generalizations can look to get some flack from people.

I saw a poster from a protest once – “It’s only called warfare when we fight back.” I’d add that when we don’t, it’s called capitalism, unchecked.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir
“It’s only called warfare when we fight back.”
And then what is it called when it is they that fights back?
Just as a point of order.

@JLeslie Thankfully, not all of us are caught up in the myth of the middle class and willing to ignore what actually goes on. I taught my ‘class and stratification’ class yesterday and it really sunk in for my students. Let me just give you this statistic, in case anyone is also misinformed about how inextricably linked race and class are. 4/5 of all poor people live in the southern portion of our world (Latin America, Africa, South Asia) and just about 4/5 of all people who are NOT white live in the same area. Coincidence? Only if you’re deluded.

@saint Oppression. Exploitation. It’s called ‘time to fuck this system’.

When Republican rhetoric is aimed at a “Joe the Plumber” audience, they paint the Left as a bunch of “elites”. When it’s aimed at their Wall Street constituency, the Left is suddenly the rabble rising up against the elites. Go figure.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir That opens up a whole other not PC conversation that generalizing about race through statistics, which from what I can tell is much more offensive than using social class, there actually is reason to tie the two things, race and class together. Or, rather it is possible to use the two terms almost interchangeably, but not completely of course. And, so, there is conjecture that when Republicans talk in terms of social class, especially the poor, and not wanting to help them, it is a race issue.

I speak mostly of the US, you bring up the world. In the context of the world I find that discussion incredibly interesting. I have never put much effort into studying or discussing it, but I am curious to the why? Why is it that race has defined social class and prosperity all over the world? Why is it that most countries that are predominately not caucasian were less likely to become industrialized? Of course this is not universally true, but it is quite significant.

@JLeslie – You might find Guns, Germs, and Steel interesting.

@JLeslie I believe the relationship dates to colonialism and imperialism. There are many reasons (none good) why specific people and later on countries were prevented from industrializing. Now that I’m close-reading Marx’s Capital, I am better at understanding how England (where it all began) made very strategic decisions as to who would be involved in international trade and industrialization.

Class warfare has been going on in this country for at least the last decade. The wealthy declared it ages ago.

Actually, I don’t see her rhetoric as class warfare. Just the opposite. It’s about us all being in it together. We all cooperate. We pay for roads and education and police and you give us jobs. That’s the deal between working people and capitalists. The capitalists need to understand that we already subsidize their profits, and when times are tough, they can’t expect to keep even more while the rest of us either pay more, or accept less services.

The problem is that if we cut back on paying for education and safety and road, then the capitalists won’t have good workers, or be safe from crime and they won’t be able to get their products to market. There are some business people who recognize this and they are in favor of better schools for the hoi polloi. Others hire folks and do the training themselves, and wonder why the schools didn’t do it. They then thing that public schools are a waste because they didn’t do a good job.

Still other business critters hire folks who are too unskilled to do the job and just complain about being unable to get good workers, and they don’t even have a clue as to why that is. Must be Democrats, they think. Far too often, that’s what passes for analysis among the monied classes.

It’s simply the Rupublicans again using the old “Seeing the Forest Rule” which states “When right-wingers are accusing others of something it is usually a cover for something they are doing.” The Republicans have been masters of this for a while now. George W. Bush spent his entire military career in Northern Texas instead of going to Vietnam. Bush’s mere attendance was questionable, as months of his whereabouts are undocumented. What did the Republicans do when he ran against Kerry… they make Kerry out to be a coward who did not serve his country with honor, despite his medals for valor in conflict.

In Wisconsin the Republicans have painted teachers as being greedy and uncaring about education. Meanwhile, the Republicans give huge tax-breaks to their donors, increase tax payouts to private religious schools, and cut public educational funding by $800 million.

Now the Republicans, after years of wounding the middle and lower-classes through massive tax-breaks for the upper-class and attacking social programs, are screaming “class warfare”.

Why am I uncomfortable with the term “class warfare”... because it’s another lie to cover their former lies.

The problem is that it is a phrase that people have an immediate negative emotional reaction to. So what you’re doing when you call something class warfare is you are telling people, disapprove of this. You are not telling people to do their own research, read up on it, make an opinion of their own, you are telling people to agree with you.

It’s much easier to shoot at someone if you don’t like them, even easier if you hate them. We are not in a shooting war but the principle holds true. If you can discredit the person or group, it becomes easier to justify taking something away from them. If the Rich are merely greedy and and stealing your money, it is easy to justify taxing the hell out of them. If the poor are merely lazy and want a free ride, it easy to justify taking away some of the benefits.

That’s why a lot of the rhetoric goes to motives. Motives are impossible to prove. Accusations are easy and hard to defend. If you make enough accusations, something will stick. And there are always good examples. Some rich people really are just greedy. Some poor people really are just lazy and looking for a free ride. So we line up on opposing sides and call each other names. You can’t trust what the other side says because you’ve already proven they can’t be trusted. We’re losing any chance of a dialogue. Unfortunate.

Wow, Jaxk, I never thought I’d give you a GA!

Class warfare is a Marxist term, and a lot of what Marx said runs counter to a lot of what we (well, maybe not you) hold dear. It’s also often used in politically-themed tirades, and nobody likes those.

It’s a shame that Marx is such a bogeyman in conservative circles. He got a lot wrong, obviously, but he also had some pretty fascinating and true ideas. His ideas have also been among the most widely influential in modern history, which alone makes them worth studying.

@Qingu Us re;iogious-conservative types are pretty peeved at his desire to substitute God with the state, and to tear down the family.

@Nullo, us atheists get peeved at a lot of stuff that religious philosophers say, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to acknowledge, for example, Descartes or Max Weber as great and important thinkers.