Endnotes 4: Trying to dazzle us with bullshit
I have been reading Endnotes 4, when I came across an argument by the collective in Part 3 on why the industrial working class never became the majority of society and how this led to the failure of the working class movement. The argument the collective makes has my mind twisting:
“Revolutionaries’ belief that trends would continue to move in their favour was enshrined in the policy of abstentionism. Social Democratic parties became the largest factions in parliaments, even if they remained in the minority; but those parties abstained from participating in government. They refused to rule alongside their enemies, choosing instead to wait patiently for their majority to arrive: ‘This policy of abstention implied enormous confidence in the future, a steadfast belief in the inevitable working-class majority and the ever-expanding power of socialism’s working-class support.’ But that inevitability never came to pass.”
So, the workers’ parties expected that a working class majority would soon arrive and produce a majority in favor of socialism. Is this the argument the Endnotes collective is trying to make? If true, where did this belief in inevitability go wrong?
What happened, according to the Endnotes collective, is that the working class met its external limit of growth long before it became a majority of society: