[Abstract]: After a century’s stirring labor movement, the working class are different from the traditional industrial worker in organizational structure,occupational characteristics, ideology, values or lifestyles, which would lead to the weakened class consciousness. The working class has the best moral sentiments of mankind. It inherits and develops civilization of human and eliminates the class prejudice. However, in the era of globalization and information, the moral status of the working class has experienced a huge fall as that of the economic and political status. Because of imperfection of knowledge structure and capacity in the new social structure, the gap of the social political and economic status between the working class and upper class is getting wider, which would result in social lost, uncertainty of new ethics and moral crisis. For the appropriate orientation and development in future’s political and economic democracy, the working class should rebuild their discourse right and their moral liberation can be achieved by the self-recovery of confidence and dignity. By eliminating themselves and the liberation of all mankind, the working class would finally liberate themselves.
[Keywords]: the working class, labor movement, moral identity
1.A century of stirring labor movement
1.1 The definition of working class
The working class, also known as the proletariat, can be traced back to the production of workshops and handicrafts in the 14-15th century in Europe. During the latter half of the 18th century, the invention of the steam engine and the cotton processing machine marked the industrial revolution, and triggered a comprehensive reform of civil society, which benefited the development and growth of the working class, and provided the working class an opportunity to enter the political arena. The Communist Manifesto made it clear that “the proletariat is the modern working class.” Engels noted in 1888 English edition of The Communist Manifesto, “By proletariat, the class of modern wage labors who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live ”[1] Therefore, to sum up, the working class, including manual and mental workers, are those who have no means and instruments of production and have to live on selling their physical and mental labor power, who create most of wealth but are exploited most by the bourgeoisie. Marxism holds that the working class is the representative of the advanced productive forces, the most progressive, visionary and promising class. It shoulders the great historical mission of the liberation of all mankind and the realization of communism. Engels clearly pointed out “they are the class that have their own interests and principles, and have their own independent views of the world, that opposes all propertied class, and that is related to the national strength and promotes the nation forward.” [2]
1.2 The modern labor movement
With the economic development of capitalist society, and the gradual awakening of workers, during 1930s and 1940s in some developed capitalistic countries such as Britain, France, Germany and other countries, the proletariat carried out an independent political movement, mainly including three prominent labor movements: two uprisings in Lyons of France; the Chartist movement in Britain; the textile workers’uprising in Silesian of German. Three labor movements showed that the proletariat stood on the stage of history as an independent political force. These movements provided conditions for the establishment of a proletarian party and socialist theory. Then, Marx and Engels established the first party of the proletariat - the Communist League and made the first combating program of the proletariat - "the Communist Manifesto". Since the birth of scientific communism, the international communist movements flourished. The First International was founded in 1864. It was the production of combining Marxism with the international labor movements. Under influence of The First International, the proletariat in Paris firstly had a great trial to smash the bourgeois state machine and establish proletarian dictatorship, which provided a valuable historical experience for future’s revolutionary movements.
During the period from the early 20th century to 1917, the proletarian seizure of power had become a reality. Lenin, as the representative of the Russian Communists, by combining the Marxism with labor movements in Russia, built up the Bolshevik Leninist Party and made a clear announcement that they would struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Bourgeois-democratic revolution in 1905 was the first battle of Leninism after its birth, and was a comprehensive exercise of the October Revolution. In 1917, the February Revolution overthrew the Tsarist autocracy, partly completing the task of the bourgeois democratic revolution. “Inspired by the success of the October Socialist Revolution, left political parties in East Europe showed up and ascended to the history stage.” [3] After World War I, as well as founding communist parties, the Communists had to shoulder the historical responsibility to prepare and launch revolutions like the October Revolution. During this time, in Germany, Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria and other countries, armed uprisings and revolutions took place here and there. The same things happened in developed capitalist countries. In 1925,totally 250 million of British coal miners, railway and transportation workers united to form a "triangular alliance " to strike together; In 1920, a nationwide general strike broke out in France, as“the Labor Union” did in 1922 in Italy; In 1920 in Philadelphia, Chicago and other cities of USA, 360 thousand railway and steel workers went on strikes,and so on.
The May Fourth Movement is a new starting point for Chinese workers. Workers’strikes and political struggles continued after the May Fourth Movement. At that time, the majority of intellectuals, influenced by thoughts like "sacred labor ","associating with labor", gradually reversed their minds to labors. Many intellectuals actively went close to workers, studied their lives and their working conditions, and publicized the socialism thoughts to workers. In early 1920s, the Chinese working class, heavily oppressed and exploited in reactionary rule of imperialism and the Northern Warlords, united to organize and mobilize the first climax of Chinese labor movements, which started from the Hong Kong seamen's strike in January 1922, and ended by the Beijing-Hankou Railway workers strike in February 1923. In 1919, Sun Yat-sen officially founded the KMT by reorganizing the Revolutionary Party; When the Chinese Communist Party was founded, Chinese labor movements and the Chinese Revolution ushered into a new dawn. The establishment of the two parties, in different degrees, have promoted the development of labor movements.
Despite the fact that labor movements, in terms of either scales or forms, had experienced a low ebb in developed capitalist countries since World WarⅡ, strikers reached 82 million in 7 western countries in 1971-1975,and then increased up to 90 million in 1976-1980 ; in 1985, British workers launched 813 strikes; since the 21st century, in France, Britain, the United States and South America, strikes are surging, . French workers also hold strikes continuously in recent years.[4] Accordingto Perry Anderson's view, China's entry into the market system will accelerate the cycle of the capitalist economic crisis. In the 21st century, strikes triggered by exploitation of factories increase fast in Foshan, Guangzhou, Wuhan and other cities of China.
Throughout these magnificent labor movements, we find that, while the proletariat were given birth and began their early struggles, and the industrial revolution changed the relations of production, the entire community was increasingly split into two opposing classes - the industrial bourgeoisie and industrial proletariat. The contradictions between workers and capitalists intensified, but workers’ knowledge of capitalism was only in the perceptual stage of cognition, and they directed their spearhead at machines and workshops. In the 1930’and 1940’, with the development of capitalism and the struggle of workers, the proletariat continued to mature, and their understanding of capitalism gradually rose to rational stage. They gradually recognized that the oppression and exploitation on them sprang from the capitalist system, so they began to take a new form of struggle. In modern times, despite various restraints on the subordination of the working class and their enthusiasm of struggle, the request of the working class to change the unfair fate through labor movements was constantly put forward. Ｉf the conduct of the Ｍarxist theory of the the workers themselves lack the power of speech, but the practice itself is still accessible ideal future,although this is a distant ideal.
1.3 The characteristics and form of the labor movement
From the Paris Commune to the beginning of the 20th century, except the Russian Revolution of 1905, no other countries happened revolutions, and society stayed in peaceful development. Since the second industrial revolution, the bourgeois paid more attention to exploit the relative surplus value of workers, and the cultural quality of workers also needed to be improved, thus workers’ wage level had to be raised markedly. The establishment of the Second International promoted the further development of international labor movements. Labor movements in the mid-19th century included the establishment of the First International, the revolution of Paris Commune, Polish workers’ anti-Russian uprising supported by European workers in 1864 .In this period, as the birth and spread of Marxism, and the formation of the capitalist world system, the consciousness of the working class and their organizations were improved. Workers built up their own organizations in many countries, and their struggles were featured with less spontaneousness but intensive international solidarity. Among these fights and struggles, the Paris Commune was the highest peak since 1830s , embodied all main features of labor movements in this stage, such as political struggles, violent fights, a certain degree of organization, influenced by thoughts of socialism, while creating a new experience in the establishment of proletarian power.
After 1870’and 1880’, the capitalism was in a relatively stable and peaceful development phase. By a long period of legal struggle,the working class had achieved some success; Moreover, many leaders of workers parties believed that the proletariat can take power through peaceful ways and parliamentary struggle. Many of the leaders worried about losing their favorable economic treatments and superior political status, so they avoided fierce confrontation with the bourgeoisie. At that time, the labor movement was, “by its very nature, a declaration of war to the factory owners for winning the favorable conditions for selling their labor, not the war to the government; the economic struggle, rather than the political struggle. This struggle was possible and necessary in that condition. "[5]
At its primary stage, the proletariat took struggles in a traditional form of collective refusal to work - this is the strike. These strike organizations must contain some primary class characteristics. In these organizations, the interests of each wage earners were determined by collective actions; they preferred a solution by class solidarity, rather than solutions from individuals (an attempt to increase their personal interests at the expense of income of others). This idea showed an initial awareness of the proletariat. Similarly, the wage labor instinctively learnt through practice of strikes that they must set up relief funds. These relief funds and help-each- other plans could partly protect workers from insecurity while out of work. These were primary forms of class organizations. But this awareness and the primary form of workers’ organizations did not means that they were aware of historic goal of the labor movement, nor did they understand the need of independent political actions of the working class.
Apart from Germany, the working class in 1848’s national revolutions did not show up as a modern political party. It followed everywhere in the back of the petty-bourgeois radicalism. In France, the bloody incident in June 1848 showed that the working class went away from the petty-bourgeois radicalism, but failed to form an independent political party. In those reactionary days after 1848’s revolution, the fruits of labor movements, in most developed countries except Germany, mainly were trade unions and mutual-aid groups of the working class. Germany's fight for universal suffrage agitated LaSalle to form a workers’ party, the German Workers.
The Paris Commune is the origin of modern labor movements and is all-inclusive. It was born in a spontaneous mass movement, rather than a carefully crafted plan or pre-produced programs. It proves that the working class naturally inclines to more than a purely economic struggle - the direct motivation of the Paris Commune significantly was political: the Paris workers did not trust the bourgeoisie. Bourgeoisie were accused of trying to give up Paris to the Prussian army surrounded the city - and combined the economic requirements and political demands together. This is the first time the working class tended to seize power, even in a city range. The Paris Commune shows a natural tendency to destroy the state organs of the bourgeoisie, and to pursue more advanced democratic form, the proletarian democracy. It also proved that, as long as there is no conscious revolutionary leadership, the brave revolutionary spirit of the proletariat couldn’t guarantee their final victory.
A factor of the failure of the Paris Commune is that it was so lack of a unified revolutionary leader party that their struggles seemed more scattered and isolated. With the launching of the second industrial revolution, in capitalist countries in Europe and America, social- economic formation have changed, and capitalist economy have developed rapidly , all which contribute to the further growth of the working class. This shows that the labor movement must be under the leadership of a corresponding organization or political party. Therefore, at this stage, the German Social Democratic Party, the United States Socialist Labour Party, the French Workers Party and other political parties and organizations were set up. In 1889, the Second International was established. In 1903, the Bolshevik Party declared its birth in Russia. It was a new type of proletarian revolutionary party and suggested a new dawn of the Russian Revolution.
As the spread of Marxist theory, the consciousness of the working class was integrated with the scientific theory at the highest level. Marx and Engels were not the first to discover ideas of social classes and class struggles, but Marx explained the origin of the class and reasons of class’s development by a scientific method, and pointed out that the history of all society can be interpreted as the history of class struggles. Particularly he made out that, under some physical and cultural conditions, the divided class society could give way to a socialist, classless one. They also illustrated how the development of capitalism prepared conditions, including material and social forces, for the advent and victory of a new socialist society. This victory is not a simple dream or wish, but a logical outcome of human history, and an inevitable result of constant class struggles.
“The Communist Manifesto” represents the highest form of the class consciousness of the proletarian. It teaches the working class that socialist society is the outcome of class struggles against the bourgeoisie; that the working class must fight not only for raising wages, but also for abolishing wage system itself; that for the most important, the working class need to build an independent workers’ party and launch national and international political actions to push forward and complete their movements inspired by economic requirements. Briefly, the modern labor movement comes from the integration of primary class struggles of the working class with Marxist theories.
In China, on May Day of 1920, a variety of newspapers unprecedentedly took a fervent participation in this year's commemoration. Newspapers such as Beijing "Morning", Tianjin"Ta Kung Pao ",Shanghai"Republic Daily",etc. all made reports or memorial articles on people’s celebration of "May Day". "New Youth","consciousness","Weekly Review"and other publications published special issues to commemorate the May Day. In fact, this is a manifestation of the combination of Marxism and Chinese labor movements. Through the commemoration activities of the May Day, the Marxism was propagated more extensively. In August 1920, "the Communist Manifesto" was translated and published in China. Soon, Engels’ “the Development of Socialism from Utopian to Scientific” and Lenin's "State and Revolution " also were introduced to China one after another. The successive publications of Marxism works and the rapid spread of scientific socialism help greatly the intellectuals who were trying to abandon various false socialism and adopt scientific socialism. In 1920, Chen Duxiu participated in editing the Labor Day Memorial Issue of the New Youth. In this book, he exposed capitalist exploitation by views of the Marxism, and expressed his enthusiastic support to revolutionary struggles of the working class. In his article of "On Politics", he strongly criticized the anarchism and the moderate socialism with a clear-cut ideology of scientific socialism ."I admit that to build a nation of labor class (that is, the class of production) by a revolutionary way, and to create politics and law that prohibits all internal or external exploitation, is the first requirement of modern society. "[6] These words played an important role in promoting a group of progressive intellectuals to accept Marxism.
Thus, although the working class has some natural advantages, it is not an organized leading class by birth. Only armed with advanced thoughts, they can be organized well, united and disciplined well, to persist in gritty struggles. Without Marxism, in conditions of modern capitalist society, the working class could only produce economic sense, guild consciousness, and only see some interests partly. They couldn’t understand the law of development of human history. This huge progress was made by Marx and Engels. The combination of Marxism and labor movements makes the emancipation of humanity as a realistic socialist movement possible. From this perspective we can see, only because the modern working class firstly have their own consciousness by relying on Marxism, they can become the leading class to create history and become a real class-for-itself who fights for their own interests.
1.4 The development of working class
Since 1980s, industrialization and informationization have developed rapidly all over the world, this new technology revolution have promoted the adjustment of industrial structure in most countries , and the working class tends to become a class that has a great increase in number, sustained growth in proportion, rapid promotion in quality, and continuous optimization in structure and distributions, that has the strongest vitality and most ambitious future. In socialist China, this trend is particularly evident.[7]
Facing the impact of the market economy, the Chinese working class keeps pace with the times, growing up in transmutation, reborn in the Nirvana, and is converted from a ＂class-in-itself＂under market economy conditions to a" class-for-itself ". However, along with the further development of China's market economy, the intensive social mobility of labors, the identification of science and technology as the primary productive force, and the recognition of capital, the internal structure of the working class has experienced a huge change. However, as the socialist market economy and enterprise reform go deepened, changes in the composition of the working class in an enterprise are even more obvious: the internal splits of the traditional working class continues, the number of white-collars increases rapidly and the proportion of blue-collars drops down, and the number of workers in manufacturing reduced relatively; white-collar workers play increasingly prominent role, and the income gap within the working class begins to expand. The working class as a whole is split into different strata, enjoying different benefits of scientific achievements. as well as that, the unity of the working class on thoughts is weakened. The modern working class varies both in the organizational structure, occupational characteristics, ideology, values or ways of life with the traditional industrial workers, which could lead to the weakening of class consciousness.
1.5 Changes on the combination of labor movements with social movements
Over the past 30 years, the global labor movement is at its a low ebb. In the U.S., the density of trade union in private sectors decreased from 1 / 3 in 1979 down to 7% today. In the UK, from 44% to 15%. At present, in the OECD countries, less than 1 / 15 of workers participate in trade unions. In recent years, Chinese workers also often go on strikes. Typical strikes include the Foxconn event marked by a staff of 13 workers jumping from high buildings, and the nearly 20-day strike in South China Honda . Overall, these labor movements have characteristics as following: First, most labor disputes are relatively simple economic disputes, mostly occurred in non-public enterprises, sometimes in state-owned enterprises, which relates to the damage of workers’ interests in the restructuring of these enterprises, involving the loss of state assets and collusion, etc. caused by polical and historical factors. Second, most strikes are spontaneous. In China, strikes are spontaneous, because there is no trade union as an organizer or leader. If a trade union carries out struggles purposefully and strategically, workers may take up more initiatives in labor relations. However, for workers, self-organized fights always are forced to be their last option in reality. In China, the official union can’t represent the interests of workers. There are some collective bargaining, but too formalistic. In reality, workers often strike firstly, and then return to the negotiating table; Third, there is a weak class consciousness. According to views of Lenin, the thought of Marxism that the economic base determines the class division is the most fundamental, in fact, an important symbol of class formation is a common class consciousness. When people put their personal interests together with the fate of the whole class, they are regarded as subordinated to this class. In the event of the South China Sea Honda strike, not everyone was unsatisfied with the wage, but they realized that the collective activity was directly related to their future’s development. At first, only front-line workers went to strike, the employer wanted to dismiss all the strikers. Later, the office staff and managers also joined the strike. Requirements of senior management staff are not the same with workers, but in labor relations, they have common interests. So, after two or three decades of social changes, the new generation of industrial workers have accessed to modern industrial relations. They have a relatively accurate self-positioning, and are growing to mature. Fourth, links between workers are lack. In Foxconn, for example, fellows or schoolmates are distributed into different parts of the factory. Workers work and live with strangers. In result, even his roommates didn’t know why or how a man jumped off the building. Employers fear the unity of the workers, and try their best to prevent workers from unity. In Foxconn, although there are hundreds of thousands of workers, they are not organized, and lack of reliance, like a heap of loose sand. Some of them had to express their struggles to the reality by ending their lives.
2.The Moral identity of the working class
2.1 The moral sentiments of the working class
Marx said that ＂Conscience is determined by knowledge and the entire lifestyle of people.＂ [8] ＂Not to achieve some ideals, but rather to liberate those new social factors pregnant in the collapse of the old bourgeois society.＂[9] Compared with the greed and pitilessness of the bourgeois, ＂the humanity of the workers is constantly manifesting itself pleasantly. They have experienced hard times themselves, and can therefore feel for those in trouble, whence they are more approachable, friendlier, and less greedy for money, though they need it far more than the property-holding class… hence the workman is much less prejudiced, has a clearer eye for facts as they are than the bourgeois, and does not look at everything through the spectacles of personal selfishness.＂[10] However, about what kind of future and destiny workers would have, Engels pointed out very seriously, " once more the worker must choose, must either surrender himself to his fate, become a ‘good’ workman, heed ‘faithfully’ the interest of the bourgeoisie, in which case he most certainly becomes a brute, or else he must rebel, fight for his manhood to the last, and this he can only do in the fight against the bourgeoisie. If the operatives have, nevertheless, not only rescued their intelligence, but cultivated and sharpened it more than other working-men, they have found this possible only in rebellion against their fate and against the bourgeoisie, the sole subject on which under all circumstances they can think and feel while at work.”[11]; Thus, " since no single field for the exercise of his manhood is left him, save his opposition to the whole conditions of his life, it is natural that exactly in this opposition he should be most manly, noblest, most worthy of sympathy. "[12]
The destiny of the working class, in Marx's view, finally means the dissolution of class society, the elimination of private ownership, and the possibility of true liberation of human. Now if the proletariat can’t eliminate itself as a class, they can’t liberate all mankind. So the elimination of the class itself is the most concentrated expression of all requirements of the proletariat. Precisely, because there is the proletariat, there will be liberation of the current working class and labors, and there is an objective basis for the harmony and equality among men. To completely wake up the morale of workers, Engels inspired them in " in celebration of all the people in London" :"the proletariat all over the world have common interests and common enemies, and face the same struggle; all proletariats were born without national prejudices, and all of their accomplishments and actions are essentially humanitarian and anti-nationalistic. Only the proletariat can eliminate the isolation of various nationalities, and only the awakening proletariat are able to build the brotherly friendship between all nationalities. " [13] Because, "for the proletariat who do not want to be regarded as blockhead, courage, self-esteem, a sense of pride and independence are more important than bread. " [14] " the rebellious resistance against the oppressive environment around the working class, and the intense effort for the restoration of their status as a person - consciously or semi-consciously, all are historic, and therefore should also have a place in the field of reality. "[15] In other words, the working class have been possible with the best of human moral sentiments, it is the inheritance and development of human civilization, it can eliminate the class prejudice.
2.2 the moral role of the working class
Morals, a kind of social consciousness, are behavioral standards and norms for people living together, and different classes have different moral concept in different times. The working class, the representative of advanced productivity and advanced relation of production, is the most farseeing, impartial, organized, disciplined, revolutionary, and have formed a spirit of diligences, creativeness, devotion, solidarity and mutual assistance in long production practice. Just as pointed by Engels, “are members of the great and universal family of Mankind, who know their interest and that of all the human race to be the same, and no step you will have to take in your onward march will be lost to our common cause, the cause of Humanity.＂ [16] The advanced nature of the working class determines they have advanced morals. In socialist society in the future, workers who are not only the host of means of production but also the host of the nation have more master's sense of responsibility, and whose moral value will become the dominant value. However, since the market-oriented reform, values such as ＂money is supreme＂, ＂capital worship＂,＂efficiency first＂are more and more popular and values of the working class are not respected and thought highly of as it used to be. People′s class identity has presented a framework on the basis of a pluralistic trend. Position evaluation and expectation are emphasized by all strata, but that of common workers are at a lowest level. Class identity that was almost unified in the past begins to polarize. The working class is considered to be in the low social status, meanwhile technical personnel and manage personnel begin to escape from this class actively or passively, leading to the fact that common workers in low positions become the notable representative of the working class. In short, the moral role of working class, just like their economic and political role declines tremendously.
2.3 moral identity of the working class to society
When summarizing the achievement and experience of 30 years′ reform and opening-up, people always attribute the success to powerful effect of system innovation, attribute the success to capital power and entrepreneur’s entrepreneurial spirit. It is a pity that they neglect the great power of workers and their contributions, even their demands. because of the variety of attribution, the abruption of social morals appeares and leads to the fact that upper-level stratum are hard to forge a consensus with the working stratum .Before reform and opening-up in China there is no vast chasm between the rich and the poor .Politics is the most important. Economy and culture have no own independent and individual life depends on public life completely. In this absolutely average society, the worker stratum can get social acceptation, owning the pride of feeling. The growth of society is slow and the worker stratum are content with their status quo and have a relatively stronger happiness. The traditional morals are swallowed without thinking much about it and play important role in workers′lives. However, the reform and opening-up give rise to the breakthrough of this traditional pattern in China, resulting in downplays of collectivism and sense of moral responsibility. Thoughts of “valuing official titles” and “Survival of the fittest” are be highly appreciated and money worship, individualism, hedonism are in vogue. What is more, almost everything is measured by money, which gives rise to social polarization and morals crisis. Because workers are deficient in ability and short of skill, the gap of the political ,economic and social position between workers and a member of the middle-upper class are widening in new social construction, leading to morals crisis of the working stratum, simply because they are at a social loss and felt lost about new social morals.
2.4 moral identity of the working class to themselves
Along with the transformation of social and economic system, the rights, income, status of the working class have dropped, and their moral identity has changed. The working class produce a sense of loss, a sense of social injustice and unfairness, and a strong sense of deprivation. The alienation, once described by Marx, had increased, the dissatisfaction with society government and officials also increased, and workers had a stronger desire to change the existing system. Engels vividly and profoundly revealed the phenomenon of moral bankruptcy in parts of workers in the book The condition of the Working Class in England , complained of spiritual persecution of workers from the bourgeoisie. Engels pointed out that there was a phenomenon of moral decay among British workers that broke social morality such as indulging in alcohol, lust, theft. The root of moral degeneration of workers is the capitalist exploitation system and spiritual persecution from the bourgeois to workers. ＂his whole position and environment involves the strongest temptation to immorality.＂ [17] These people are the poor homeless, lost the meaning of life. They hit keys of the day, playing unchangeable, tedious and incurable tone. "(Rilke) workers’ moral self-confidence were destroyed, some workers lose confidence in life. They couldn’t control their fate and felt lost about their uncertain future. Today, some of them are still accused of lack of class consciousness, organization and discipline, lack of initiative and creativity, laziness, irresponsibility and lack of work ethics . Of course, these immoralities are disgraced; but is there anyone trying to find the environmental sources of workers’moral depravity?
3.The future of the working class
Engels pointed out that" the condition of the working-class is the real basis and point of departure of all social movements of the present because it is the highest and most unconcealed pinnacle of the social misery existing in our day."[18] The working class not only suffer social disasters, but also shoulder social mission for the future. When the working class is in a socially vulnerable situation, changes of the social status put them at an unequal disadvantage in political participation, economic status, feelings of happiness and expression of the right to speak ,which make the working class produce various inner unequilibrium and conflicts with mainstream culture in values, moral identity, behavior patterns and other aspects, finally result in unharmony among various classes and the blocking of social development.
3.1 find position in politics
Political interests of workers are their most fundamental interests. With the protection of the political status, all other problems will be solved. Marx and Engels clearly pointed out" the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy. "[19] The improvement of the workers’social status and production conditions, the increasing of social welfare and changing of employment structure, to a certain extent, cut down class consciousness and class identity. Even many of workers regard themselves as middle class, and no longer hold large-scale labor movement for gaining class interests. To protect interests of the whole class in society, to find a reasonable position through democracy, and to protect themselves out of being socially marginalized, firstly, the working class has to set up trade unions, and implement ＂democratic management system＂, so that different categories of workers can form common sense of belonging and identity, have chances to participate in management, and have rights to control the company in form of organization, all which absolutely ensure that workers have a feeling of "ownership"; The working class has to carry out collective bargaining system, under which a trade union represents interests of the working class; They should participate in the negotiations so that in the distribution of benefits across society, interests of the working class won’t be occupied by others; they should implement the system of the workers involved in the board of directors so that voices of workers can be heard in policy making; They should practice worker review mechanism and electoral system, and so on .Through the implementation of a series of systems, overall interests of the working class can be ensured. Secondly, strengthen the calssclass consciousness and concept of equality and freedom. The class consciousness of the working class is ,weakened, and even some scholars advocate that the working class has disappeared. In such a social environment, the working class should rebuild themselves as a social acting class and play a role in the democratic political society. The development of democratic politics so depends on the working class, as in England, "the concept of democracy irrelevant with the British middle class", [20] because democracy stands for equality and justice, and equality of the working class is really needed. Small Kautsky pointed out: "only when the consciousness of the working class formed, the party of the public can be really set up in the world." [21] If there is no revolutionary consciousness of the working class, there is no democracy. Finally, globalization has spawned a new global working class. Farmers reduce sharply worldwide and the working class rise greatly, which have laid the foundation for a new global-scale class politics. The working class need to find national political support or political power to represent and safeguard their interests, but they should fully be aware that the ruling class have different interests with them, so they should convert themselves from a "class-in-itself" into a " class-for-itself", reshaping their battle effectiveness, organized tightly, putting the core political issues into the scope of labor movement, finding common goals and positioning clearly in struggles.
3.2 seek development in economy
First, change economic system. Compared with the status of the British workers described by Engels, living conditions of the working class in economic globalization, have taken earth-shaking changing. However, as Marx said, "A larger part of their own surplus-product, always increasing and continually transformed into additional capital, comes back to them in the shape of means of payment, so that they can extend the circle of their enjoyments; can make some additions to their consumption-fund of clothes, furniture, &c., and can lay by small reserve-funds of money. But just as little as better clothing, food, and treatment, and a larger peculium, do away with the exploitation of the slave, so little do they set aside that of the wage-worker. "[22] We must clearly remember the historical mission of the proletariat. Second, obtain the legitimate right of economy. In the context of economic globalization, the future of the working class locates in the economic democracy and conversion of the economically disadvantaged status, locates in economically social recognition and their own emotional awareness, which may require the joint efforts of society and the working class itself. At first, all countries enhance functions of economic management to create a favorable social and economic base for the working class, utilizing new mode of production instead of the capitalist mode of production, depending on each other, sharing resources, replacing private ownership by state ownership, to realize economic democracy. Nations should ensure improvement of economic status of the working class by system as development of capital, bring ownership spiritof the working class into full play through incentive policies, and change the labor-alienated situation of the working class. Then, enterprises should improve workers’ loyalty and satisfaction. The working class is full of cohesion and team spirit. National trade unions should play a full role in the collective bargaining process. Through negotiations between trade unions and the capitalists, standardize conditions of employment and resolve treatment issues, definite rights and obligations of the working class, and reduce the unemployment rate of the working class. When the working class experience inequality and injustice, there should be a relief channel for them. When the trade union can not maintain the legitimate rights and interests of workers, the working class should unite and go to strikes in the form of labor movement, in order to issue their "the collective voice." At last, improve the technological level and cultural quality of the working class, reduce the working intensity of workers, shorten working hours, improve wages to enable workers to enjoy more social insurance and welfare and feel more sense of belonging and achievement. Increase their consumptions on tourism and in entertainment. On the source of income, the working class not only earn money through labor, but also from other ways. Workers in enterprises should set up a special trust Foundation that is fully guaranteed by enterprises, and workers can subscribe shares to be shareholders. Through the system of worker-shareholding, interests of workers can be really guaranteed.
3.3 play discourse right in participation
French Philosopher Michel Foucault published an article "order of discourse" in 1970s. He wrote these words:people struggle by speaking and for speaking. In order to obtain interests of the working class, they have to rebuild the right to speak. The working class get a sense of identity with power from discourse. The essential of reconstructing power of discourses is to protect and safeguard core values oriented from interests of the working class.[23] But the right to speak is neither talent , nor is charity of the bourgeois, it comes from their fights and struggles against the bourgeois. Firstly, the working class can seize culture leadership to disintegrate the collective will of the bourgeoisie, and then create historical conditions to snatch political power from hands of the bourgeoisie. Secondly, the working class should make efforts to achieve more social concerns,and to enable them to fully express their demands and enhance discourse right. If workers have some or no discourse right is closely related with the power, status and capital, accordingly increased with economic and political advancement. Channels through which the working class seek national power to safeguard their own reasonable and legitimate interests are dredged. Any “blessing” for the working class from government is based on legality, not sympathy, relief and compensation for the weak. The pursuit of interests of the working class can not become a mere game between employers and employees. Except pursuit of working right, other pursuits such as the protection from national power and collective actions for maintaining legitimate rights and interests of their own can be recognized by society and enterprises. On one hand, negotiate and consulate through trade unions; on the other hand, utilize new medias as a tool. For example, open a column “workers’ voice” in media. This column will build a communication and interaction platform between the workers as well as society, government and enterprises. It expresses the true aspirations of the working class and timely care for workers’ living and working conditions, for example, whether wages of the working class are increased, whether security is guaranteed and whether their legal rights get unfair treated. It also gives advice about how to protect the reasonable rights of workers and how to organize labor movements, and so on. Its purpose is to defend the dignity of workers and help workers go out of the pain of loss and helplessness, and find a channel to express their emotion.
3.4 achieve moral liberation in ethics
The working class is in the state of relative poverty and they bear double loss at social rights and social welfare. They are also lack of self-identity and emotional awareness. They are suffering pain of life, ideological confusion, spiritual lost, and they are given new ethical relationship and ethical fate in face of reality. In the background of globalization, if the working class obtain moral liberation, it closely related to an inner sense of belonging, working emotions and the overall development of themselves. Firstly, workers are dependent on trade unions rather than entrepreneurs and government. They obtain the protection of interests through trade unions, and obtain a sense of belonging, which accepted the moral inculcation from the social conformity. Government and business are more concerned about the living condition and quality of life of the working class, and meet the working class’s material and spiritual needs, so that they have strong social and moral cohesion. In complying with the code of ethics, the working class concerns more social interests and their behaviors of taking the interests of the whole into account becomes their faith, which ensure moral judgments of the working class not to be alienated, and to form a unified sense of moral cognition. Secondly, only when the working class obtains free and comprehensive development, moral emancipation could be realized. Marx and Engels think that the free and comprehensive development of each person is the value target of the liberation of the working class. In a capitalist society, however, alienation is the main form of labor. Labor is fully forced, in the alienated labor, the working class can not understand freedom and happiness. Spiritual things of the working class such as the sense of satisfaction and fulfillment are completely deprived from the labor process.[24]
Marx pointed out that the capitalist system of private ownership of production is the root cause of alienated labor, In order to overcome the alienation of labor, achieve the true possession of their own nature, get dignity during laboring, be access to social recognition, result in cognitive emotional resonance , and achieve free and full development of the working class, it has to start from the system, changing the existing relations and mode of production.
Jean Baudrillard architectured the systematic logic of the contemporary society and its appetence logic by worship and consumption. Consumption attempts to establish a balanced system that both produces poverty and generate wealth, that not only produce satisfactory things, but also unsatisfactory things. Bacically, it is for the forever existence of system. Baudrillard criticized," the system knows only the conditions of its survival, it knows nothing of social and individual contents "[25]The liberation of the proletariat can be obtained from the rebuilding of their self-confidence and the recovery of their dignity. The working class can finally liberate themselves by liberating all mankind..
【References】
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[21]John Hans Kautsky. Social Democracy and the Aristocracy [M]. Transaction Publisher，2002: 21
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[23] Cited in Peng Hengjun,Cao Fengyue. Reconstruction discourse of the working class[N]. China Education,2009-09-03
[24] Zhu Zhongxiao. Labor, the internal tension of alienated labor and human emancipation[J].Guizhou Social Sciences,2008（3）
[25] Let Jean Baudrillard. Consumer society[M]. Nanjing :Nanjing University Press，2001:42-43
（录入编辑：红珊瑚）
