Wobbly Times number 49

Capital is a social relation. Just as Slavery was a social relation between master and slave, so Capital is a social relation between the employing class and the working class. As long as the slave is forced to work for his master, Slavery will exist: the master will own the wealth which his slaves produce. And, so as long as the workers are forced by necessity to sell their skills and time to the employing class, Capital will exist and the employing class will own and control the wealth produced by the workers.

He who owns the product of labour, rules. He who owns the lion's share of the wealth produced in a society rules. Political power = the ownership of the wealth produced by the working class in class societies dominated by Capital. Whether these socieities are dominated by Capital from outside their political borders or inside by their own ruling classes makes little difference to the daily lives of wage-slaves.

He who owns the collective product of labour also owns the natural resources of a country, for workers cannot be employed to create wealth outside of Nature. Even finance capitalists depend on Nature to make wealth. Houses and other buildings are built on land from materials which come from natural resources. Without natural resources, nothing is worth being financed.

What workers of Africa need to do is to realise that they will never be free as long as wage-slavery exists. As Brother Malcolm X once observed, the lives of those who became "house niggers" for their slave masters had it easier than those who toiled on as "field niggers"; but they all remained slaves for the master, their owner and the owner of the wealth they created through their labour. Will African workers allow themselves to be divided into hard toiling wage-slaves while others in their class become white collar, 'middle class' wage-slaves for their masters in the employing, capitalist class?

Obviously, a lot of them are doing just that. Really, it's pity that this is so. Are you one of them? Are you satisfied watching the majority of African workers living a low standards of living?

And finally, does it really matter whether your bosses have black skin, white skin, yellow skin or brown skin? Do they not remain your masters? Do you not remain the producers of wealth and as wage-slaves, the producers of your masters' politcal power over you?

What is needed for freedom to prevail is for the workers to own the wealth they produce. What is needed is a free association of producers who hold common ownership over the collective product of their labour. What is needed is social ownership and democratic management of the means of production by a society-wide association of producer-consumers.