We have gone too far. Far too far. The working class is fractured. Split into a thousand pieces. Unity replaced by microscopic individuals, each with negligible power. Nothing left. Where is the battle cry? Where is the resistance? Where is the solidarity among workers? We are all sitting in the same boat, fighting over who gets to sit closest to the hole in the sinking ship.
And it is worse. We think this is normal. We have been beaten down so far that Lilliputians look like giants. Instead of helping each other up we put each other down. Every attempt to better oneself smashed with a sledgehammer. One person tries to climb, a dozen pull at the legs. A colleague's pay rise is an insult. A neighbour's new car is a provocation. Envy pointed sideways, never up. We suffer, so you must suffer. Law of nature.
How did we get here? Decades of neoclassical political decisions have eroded what the working class fought for over a century. The eight-hour day, the weekend, the pension, the union card: none of it was given. It was taken, together. And a story was told to cover the tracks. A fairy tale of individualism. Of liberty and libertarianism. You can do it. Everyone can. Just work hard enough. Just put a little more effort in. We are all equal, all the chances for everyone. If you do not make it, it is your fault. You did not lock in. You did not want it enough.
The result: every little bit of progress gone. Every little bit clawed back by capital. No win-win. One winner, many losers. The swing went back the other way, back to feudal times. Neo-feudalism. Serfdom forever. Leibeigenschaft. Hello, old friend. Back in the mud, a churl again, slaving away from birth to death. No agency. No ownership. No rest for the plebs. Not even the promise.
That is the trap, and the trap has two jaws. The first is the fairy tale. The second is us, holding each other in it. Neither jaw is going to open on its own. The rich do not need to hold you down. They built the bucket and we supply the crabs.
Enough now. At least for me. And for you too. Join me on the way out. Few of us will move the world. Try, if called. But you can change your own life, and that is the only revolution underway that needs no permission. I pull you up, not down. Reach for my hand. I have been where you are and I see you. I want to help you. Come and join it. Find strength in unity. Changing your own life is not selfish. Enough of us doing it, side by side, is the unity we lost, rebuilt one street, one kith, at a time.
I believe in you. You and I deserve better. Against the odds, against the whole rigged board. Enough with win-lose. Win with me. Together. Become capital.