Politics

The Chameleon

The petite bourgeoisie is an amazing social phenomenon. On the color spectrum of social forces, and compared to the two main classes in capitalist society, i.e., the bourgeoisie and the proletariat who have a relatively fixed economic position and social identity, the petite bourgeoisie has neither. Instead, it fluctuates along the spectrum. That is, depending on the conditions of class struggle; depending on the balance of power, the petite bourgeoisie can transform itself into any color and it can take any identity; it can convert into any ideology and it can show affinity towards any denomination, because the petite bourgeoisie is full of dreams and it grabs any string to achieve its dreams especially if that string seems to be the shortest path to salvation.

In the absence of a revolutionary force capable of challenging the big bourgeoisie and its dictatorship, in the absence of a revolutionary platform to stand up against capitalist hellish reality, the petite bourgeoisie; the chameleon of class struggle, weaves its most fantastical of all dreams out of thin air: winning the war without fighting, or better yet, asking the wardens of the global capitalist prison to set humanity free!

The natural tendency of the petite bourgeoisie in its quest for change is the pompous tale of this delirious illusion that as if humanity can break free without breaking the chains that keep it in captivity. And it is for this that our chameleon’s dream, despite its sparkling beauty, remains a dream— a dream that will never nor can it ever come true on the cold hard ground of reality but will remain only in the mind of its beholder.

The fact of the matter is that we live in a class society where the entire human race has been fragmented into groups with antagonistic interests. These antagonistic interests have alienated humanity from itself, and have led for millennia to systematic oppression and domination of one group by another, and to conflicts and wars of every stripe. And this has been the history of the human race ever since. Therefore, so long as we are confined within a class-based system, so long as we are fragmented and alienated from one another, humanity will remain broken and in captivity.

Any serious attempt, therefore, to end oppression and injustice, any serious attempt to free humanity from all forms of bondage and captivity must aim at resolving human alienation. Yes, it is a mammoth task but it is the only way out. And this is what the petite bourgeoisie is by default neither able to grasp nor willing to commit.

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