The bleak reality behind Marxist abstractions

Marxist Isaac Deutscher on the New Left

The subjective experience of the young working class person in capitalist society -his first experience with the hell of THE JOB- puts real substance into the seemingly abstruse abstractions he or she will encounter in the introduction to Marxism.

                  Platitudes like one must EARN A LIVING hide the CLASS structure of society. Did the earliest humans think about " getting a job " in order to support MY FAMILY ?

                I recall the young Marx pointing out how our minds are stupefied and our thinking cramped by the capitalist division of labor. A school kid is asked : " And what do you want to be when YOU grow up ? " How few of us are completely FREE to determine our economic fate , our successive jobs, careers, free to get " educated " , to acquire the marketable skills necessary for " earning a living ".

            How many working class people experience anything resembling " democracy " in the work place ? How many think that THE BOSS can never be their FRIEND ?

         Nothing abstract about the feeling of ALIENATION in a society where nearly everything -even LOVE - is a commodity ?

        Nothing abstract about striking workers seeing THE COPS as class enemies ? Or the news media as voices of a privileged class ?

               Nothing abstract about thinking that nearly every radio or TV commercial is a LIE .
Nothing abstract about passing by homeless people and thinking " human life is not sacred " in this capitalist society.

               Nothing abstract about experiencing the fraud of EQUAL JUSTICE FOR ALL as an ACCUSED person -unable to afford JUSTICE - in the majestic court rooms where every YOUR HONOR judge is a pillar of PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS and a snob toward the working class.

Nothing abstract about a kid discovering at Christmas time that Santa Claus must think that rich kids are nice and poor kids are naughty.

               Something sad about a poor working class girl wanting to be a princess -just for a day but her parents can't afford the fairy tale wedding.

               Something sad about a working class , middle aged man who loses his job and soon after loses LOVE and his family , then loses his mind in the fog of alcoholism or drug addiction. An then a pauper's funeral .

               All this concrete social injustice behind the abstract phrase : " the hoarding of social surplus value ".