Big prisons have a way of cowing people. The "war on crimes" is the smartest move that the US ruling class made in response to the long sixties. America's incarceration rate is the highest in the world, and the rate is said to be as high as that under Stalin in the USSR.
Beyond that, masses, when unorganized, tend toward servility. As individuals, they are no match for forces at the disposal of the ruling class, and they are dependent on landlords, capitalists, creditors, etc. Only when they are organized do they have dignity. Desire for dignity is the most important motive in an attempt to organize, whether a plain and simple trade union or a social revolution.
Nowadays, servile masses are told to look to the ruling class not only for jobs and the like but also for solutions to problems that the ruling class caused them, like the Iraq War. :-> *****************
The producing class has only had some rare moments in history of being in control/ownership of the product of its labour. This fundamental social condition/alienation creates a psychological character structure of servility. The workers have to go hat in hand to the employing class and beg to have their skills and time bought by said class in order to be exploited at the point of production--have the product of their collective labour taken away from their control/ownership. As a result of this alienation from control/ownership of the social producti of their labour, political power flows downward from the employing class and their hired politicians, thus the State enforces servility, always threatening the violence of the nightstick (or worse) and imprisonment to those who would dare to challenge social relations.
But, as the working class becomes class consciously organized, they *can* and have *attained* various levels of power to overcome their servile position in class society. Still, they must face the fact that as long as the means of production are in the hands of an employing class and the producers are forced to sell their abilities to work for a wage to their employer (Arbeitgeber) in order to live, they remain wage-slaves. This circumstance of material weakness/servility is something the capitalist class didn't have to contend with in its class battles with the aristos. To have the courage to refuse the servile role within this set of social relations (Capital) is rare, IMO. It's much easier/less risky to cynically embrace ignorance/"reality" and accept one's role as an individualist seller in the labour market. Of course, the seller must pay the price of this sale.
Regards, Mike B)
http://happystiletto.blogspot.com/
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