class struggle
Ancient Rome, like America has always been a contradiction, a republic, but never a democracy. She was an empire governed by patricians - the rich - with a political morsel now and then thrown to the plebeians - the poor. The members of the Senate and the ruling consuls were enlisted from the ranks of the patricians only. The successful wars and subjugation of nations did not benefit the plebeians, who grew poorer, but only the patricians, who grew richer.
Saul Alinsky teaches us that the setting for the drama of change has never varied. Mankind has always been divided into three parts: "the Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Have-a-Little, Want Mores. On top are the Haves with power, money, food, security, and luxury. They suffocate in their surpluses while the Have-Nots starve. Numerically the Haves have always been the fewest. The Haves want to keep things as they are and ore opposed to change. Thermo-politically, they are cold and determined to freeze the status quo. On the bottom are the world's Have-Nots. On the world scene they are by far the greatest in numbers. They are chained together by the common misery of poverty, rotten housing, disease, ignorance, political impotence, and despair, when they are employed their jobs pay the least and they are deprived in all areas basic to human growth."
Classes do not exist because there is a conflict; the conflict exists because there are classes and it is easy for the strong to exploit the weak. Neither the race nor sex conflict touches directly the class struggle. The class supremacy is in economic discrimination and not in the color of your skin or your gender. Each color and sex can be the oppressor and it is this system of oppression that pits races and sexes against each other. To take the side of the poor or the rich is to choose against the other, the oppressed against the oppressors, one class against the other. This is the choice that divides the church and exposes the nature of that which perpetuates the struggle. The lukewarm church is smug, and will sacrifice truth for comfort.
The classical interpretation of class struggle today is between the capitalist (or owning) class and the proletariat (or working) class. It has been put another way as the haves against the have-nots. When the poor of the world do rise up, it will be because they have finally gained sufficient number to be a social force powerful enough to achieve a higher state of civilization. The overthrow of the nations of the north and the fall of Babylon will ultimately prevail for a time by abolishing classes as the culmination of an prophetic process. God will bring this about, we do not need to, it is our responsiblilty to accept the new wine of the spirit, gather the harvest and get our friends out of Babylon before it is too late. It will happen with Armageddon as the climax.
[172, 180, 189, 150, 327]
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