Epstein class? My arse!

Have you noticed the recent creeping use of the phrase ‘the Epstein class’? It pops up everywhere – across news panels, podcasts, social media and commentary from pundits of every stripe. Not only is it meaningless; it is also dangerous.

Under capitalism there are only two classes: the working class and the ruling class. In scientific terms, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. This is not a matter of semantics or pedantry. It matters profoundly, because the language used to describe society shapes how we understand it – and therefore how we act within it.

In the opening chapter of The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels explain that the history of all previously existing society is the history of class struggle. In earlier epochs that struggle took different forms – slave and master, serf and lord. In the epoch of capitalism it has simplified into two great hostile camps: the bourgeoisie, the ruling class that owns the means of production, and the proletariat, the working class that must sell its labour power to live.

That basic division has defined capitalist society for centuries. But in the present era of monopoly capitalism – imperialism – the grotesque inequalities between the two classes have become impossible to hide. Not only their wealth but their corruption and depravity are increasingly exposed and circulated through modern channels of communication that the ruling class cannot fully control.

What the release of the Epstein papers reveals is not an aberration. The ruling class has always been murderous, barbaric and depraved. We are encouraged to believe that in earlier periods such brutality belonged to a less ‘civilised’ past – the age of slavery, colonial conquest or fascist dictatorship – or that it was the work of monstrous individuals like Adolf Hitler. But the truth is far simpler: exploitation and brutality are normal functions of a system built on profit and domination.

Remember that if it were not for organised working-class struggle, British children as young as five would still be labouring twelve or sixteen hours a day in factories and mines. Those conditions did not disappear because a suddenly enlightened ruling class discovered a conscience. They disappeared because workers organised, fought and forced change upon them.

Look at the world today. Our ruling class is complicit in the genocidal slaughter of Palestinian men, women and children. It presides over the plunder of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where millions have died in wars driven by control of minerals that feed global electronics, aerospace and defence industries. From illegal wars to slave labour and child trafficking, organ harvesting to the global narcotics trade, there is scarcely a crime or atrocity from which capital does not profit somewhere on the planet. That is not a collection of isolated scandals. That is capitalism!

Which brings us back to the absurd phrase ‘the Epstein class’. The danger of this invention is obvious. It suggests that the horrors revealed are the work of a particular degenerate clique rather than the predictable behaviour of a ruling class defending its wealth and power. It invites us to believe that if a few rotten individuals are removed, the system itself can continue untouched. But the problem is not a handful of corrupt personalities. The problem is the class that rules.

If the Epstein revelations threaten to destabilise the system too much, a few prominent heads may indeed roll. Sacrifices will be made, enquiries launched, reputations destroyed. And the working class will be encouraged to believe that justice has been done and the system has corrected itself. But it will not have done so because there is no ‘Epstein class’, there is only the ruling class, and the system it defends.

The masks are slipping. The corruption, arrogance and contempt with which the ruling class regards ordinary people stand exposed. They serve only wealth, power and empire. Nothing in their conduct reflects the humanity we value or the future we want for our children. You do not need to be a communist to see that the western imperial system is in visible decline – politically corrupt, economically weakened, morally bankrupt and increasingly isolated from the people it claims to represent.

For us, the working class, their wars offer nothing but death, devastation and decline. There is nothing to be gained from killing other workers in the name of king, country or any other banner draped over capitalist corruption. And yet we are constantly diverted from confronting the system itself. There is, for example, a march in London soon against racism. Ending racism is, of course, a worthy goal. But marching against racism while leaving capitalism untouched is like mopping the floor while the tap is still running. Racism is one of the many tools used to divide workers and weaken our collective power. If we want to defeat racism permanently, we must confront the system that continually reproduces it.

Likewise we are encouraged to believe that saving the planet depends primarily on recycling our plastics and sorting our household waste. Meanwhile imperialist wars and capitalist production devastate ecosystems on a planetary scale. Defeat capitalism and the priorities of production change overnight: the motive ceases to be profit and becomes human need. As the saying goes, the only good green is a red.

End exploitation – end capitalism.
End inequality for women – end capitalism.
End war – end capitalism.
End food insecurity and homelessness – end capitalism.

The list of worthy aims is endless but the solution remains the same. End capitalism!

So do not be distracted by fashionable phrases like ‘the Epstein class’. They exist to blur the truth and misdirect our anger. The real line of struggle is clear: between the working class that produces the wealth of society and the ruling class that monopolises it. Direct your fury accordingly. Only then can we begin to build the world that every working parent hopes their children might one day inherit.