The RC Fundamentals of Working-Class Liberation
In the broadest sense, we are all either working class (of necessity we have to work for a living) or owning class (we own the means of production or otherwise possess enough wealth that we do not need to work in order to survive).
In RC we have found it useful to organize around four class distinctions—raised poor, working class, middle class, and owning class. These distinctions are based on the roles that we play in relation to the production of wealth in our economic system.
In RC we usually claim one of these roles based on how we were raised. Why? We know that our earliest hurts have the most lasting influence on our ability to think and to make our way through the world. For those of us raised working class, the hurts of working-class oppression are primary distresses that we must overcome.
But we have recently shifted our emphasis in this work. Instead of looking only at how we were raised, we are more and more looking as well at our current class position. We are also moving away from thinking of our class position as an identity and moving toward thinking of it as a role that we currently occupy in the class system.
IMPORTANT DIRECTIONS FOR PEOPLE RAISED WORKING CLASS
The following are some important directions for those of us raised working class:
- Claiming pride in being working class
- Claiming our significance as human beings
- Claiming our intelligence
- Claiming our knowledge, experience, and clarity about how society does and doesn’t work
- Overcoming our fear of visibility and humiliation
- Finding our voices. Part of this is overcoming fear of humiliation. Also, we are seldom asked for our thinking, so we need to find the words to talk about what we know. And we need to remind our allies to give us time to think and speak about anything and everything of concern to human beings and to welcome the discharge that may be required for us to do so.
- Combatting discouragement. We have watched many of our people be destroyed by the oppression or struggle through addiction and discouragement. We have watched the people who loved us and were the smartest people we knew feel bad about themselves. Witnessing these things is a hurt that we must discharge.
The following questions have been useful for discharging the hurts of class oppression: What do I love from my class background? What do I treasure? What would I never trade away? What do I hate about being from my class background? What has not been useful? What are the “stupid voices in my head” that I wish I were free of?
THE WORKING-CLASS COMMITMENT— A CONTRADICTION TO WORKING-CLASS DISTRESS
The RC Working-Class Commitment is a great statement of the reality of who we are as working-class people and a good contradiction to our distresses. Here it is:
I solemnly promise that, from this moment on, I will take pride in the intelligence, strength, endurance, and goodness of working-class people everywhere.
I will remember to be proud that we do the world’s work, that we produce the world’s wealth, that we belong to the only class with a future, that our class will end all oppression.
I will unite with all my fellow workers everywhere around the world to lead all people to a rational, peaceful society.
I am a worker, proud to be a worker, and the future is in my hands.
It’s good to take this commitment to Co-Counseling sessions and repeat it out loud to our counselor in a tone of pride. We can let the discharge come and share our thoughts.
I have memorized it and use it frequently in sessions. It has guided my life.
KEY POINTS TO REMEMBER IN SESSIONS
In a two-part program for Co-Counselors for class liberation, a first step is to discharge the early hurts from our class backgrounds. A second step is to set goals and have a plan for ending working-class oppression.
The following are some key points for us to keep in mind in our sessions:
- Working-class people are the people who make it possible for society to function. Nothing works without our labor. We play a fundamentally important role in society and have great power.
- RC is not about “fixing” ourselves. We are not “broken” people. RC is about our intelligence and our many strengths and abilities. It is about what is right with us, not what is wrong.
- Working-class people are natural leaders. A sensible definition of leadership is “seeing that everything we are in contact with works well.” We do this habitually and of necessity. If we don’t, our lives quickly fall apart.
- We are not insulated from the realities of life. For that reason, we are better informed about the reality of most issues of importance to humans. And for that reason, we must learn to be visible and to make our voices heard.
- Making our voices heard can bring up a fear of being humiliated. It is of extreme importance to the future of society that we contradict this fear and discharge it.
- One of our great strengths is our ability to struggle, often in situations that may seem hopeless. When we discharge our patterns of hopelessness and discouragement, we are a powerful force for change.
- Hope is a discipline. We are familiar with this discipline. Every day we push our distresses aside to do the necessary things. We can be as disciplined as clients as we are in our work. We can reclaim our pride and challenge and eliminate our distresses.
- The world needs our experience, our leadership, and our good thinking.
UPWARD MOBILITY AND RECLAIMING OUR PEOPLE
Many of us in RC who identify as working class have been upwardly mobile, have gone to university, and are now in middle- or owning-class roles. (See “Middle-Class People and Ending Classism” <www.rc.org/publication/liberationpublication/newtorc/ruth> and “The Owning Class and Ending Classism” <www.rc.org/publication/liberationpublication/newtorc/saunders>.) We have to discharge the hurts installed by upward mobility and our more recent class roles.
Here are some useful questions to ask ourselves: What was the price we paid to escape the harshness, insecurity, violence, dehumanization, and humiliation of a working-class life? How did we assimilate? What was and is it like to function in a middle- or owning-class world without having learned its “rules” or being familiar with its culture? How do we experience classism as we try to adjust to our new position? What piece of ourselves or our culture have we lost? Who did we have to leave behind?
We also need to work on what I call “going back after our working-class people”—the friends and family we have been segregated from.
We need to discharge any feelings that they are not worthy of our time, or any shame we feel about them, or any way we no longer find them interesting, or any hopelessness we feel about the distresses they carry.
Perhaps they feel that we are not one of them anymore, and we don’t know what to do with that. What do we need to discharge to keep working-class people in our lives and to join them in organizing for the liberation of all workers?
A RECENT FOCUS ON “DIRECT PRODUCTION WORKERS”
Recognizing that many of the working-class people in RC are upwardly mobile, the RC Communities approved a new goal, Ending Classism, at our 2017 World Conference. It acknowledges that the currently poor and working-class people of the world are underrepresented in RC.
It also reflects, as mentioned above, that we are moving away from thinking of our class membership as an identity and moving toward thinking of it as a current role. To clarify the role of those who are currently working class, we are using the words “engaged in the direct production of goods and services.”
Those of us who are “direct production workers” directly create the wealth that the rest of society lives on. We do the work that is essential to the functioning of society. We build things. We make things. We directly care for and maintain people and things. The emphasis in this definition is on production, not on our thinking (although to thrive in a production situation requires enormous intelligence).
Direct production jobs typically don’t require a university education. And the work is controlled and managed by someone else. They control the way that we do the work, the speed with which we have to do it, and what we are paid. We are typically not asked for our opinion about how the job should be done. In fact, this type of opinion is often actively suppressed.
The Ending Classism goal commits the RC Community to “build connections with and learn from members of economic classes that are underrepresented in our Community yet who represent the majority of the world’s people—the sector of the working class engaged in the direct production of goods and services, and poor people” and to “get the theory and practice of RC into their hands and encourage, support, and follow their leadership.”
ADDITIONAL READINGS
Here are some additional readings:
“Defining ‘Direct Production Workers,’ and Why We Are Using This Term” <www.rc.org/publication/present_time/pt195/pt195_065_dn>
An Introduction to Co-Counseling, by Dan Nickerson, available from Rational Island Publishers. Written for factory workers, and by a factory worker, this pamphlet is a short introduction to Co-Counseling that can be read in about ten minutes by anyone who can read at all. It is one of the most translated writings in RC.
Freeport, Maine, USA
(Present Time 207, April 2022)