The cost of living depends upon the means of production. Capitalism is the superstructure of today’s world upon which everything else rests from ideology to cost of production. There was class consciousness present in society. When it comes to fighting the class war in times when the rich have brought us to the brink of poverty and starvation.
In recent news, Britain has been witnessing a crisis in the increased cost of living due to which people have protested across the country. The Russia- Ukraine war has led to many crises and one of such crises is the increase in cost-of-living. The fuel price, food, and oil prices have soared high. People are in a state of flux on how to manage the higher cost of necessary commodities. This has led to a class war between the Tories and ordinary people.
Covid has been left unchecked, the NHS starved of the resources of its needs, energy prices, and rising inflation rates which are rising above the wages, and little or nothing is done to address the climatic change. All of these have contributed to people’s agitation.
Capitalism is based on class conflict and crisis. On boom and slump, the cost of living has been a significant issue for the left working people since the development of industrial capitalism in the 18th century. As Lenin had said, “sometimes- history needs a push”. History clearly reflects that in the past, the Corn Law had affected the cost of bread making it more expensive. And a traditional song was sung to reflect the views that roast of beef was a right of “freeborn Englishman”. But in reality, only a few could afford it.
The law was eventually repealed by the bourgeois liberals in anti-corn law. As Marx correctly noted, the reality of repeal was that the industrialists would reduce wages, as the loaves of bread cost less and to make more profit.
In the 19th century, only better-paid workers could afford to eat meat regularly, which was an occasional phenomenon. Their poor diet was only one element of the cost-of-living crisis which still prevails in the modern world. There was an impact on bad housing conditions, which led to the immature death of the workers. The situation after so many decades still remains the same with some modern crises as well.
The was in the past and also in the present. Friedrich Engels has showcased the same scenario in his book, “Condition of Working Class in England 1844” where the book traced how the working class and lower spectrum people live and how they are devoid of their basic necessities. The cost-of-living crisis is one of the major crises still yet to be resolved. But the bourgeois class can never take this agenda into consideration because they are always in class conflict with their antagonist class.
