People get really confused about the class position of cops because they look at the salary and are like oh these are wage earners they must be part of the working class. But if you pull the analysis out a bit you see what vulgar Marxists miss:
Moreover, ICE must be destroyed
Moreover, ICE must be destroyed
the "wage" that cops make isn't really a wage at all. Most of what cops actually do is ticketing or fee collection, it's how they fund themselves. Their job is to take other people's money and put it back into the police force. The most infamous
Moreover, ICE must be destroyed
Moreover, ICE must be destroyed
variation of this is civil asset forfeiture, which is just them directly stealing shit from people. But that's also what their fees, tickets, and fines are. Economists euphemistically call this rent extraction but what's really going on here is
Moreover, ICE must be destroyed
Moreover, ICE must be destroyed
just armed robbery. They show up, they take your money at gunpoint, and then they leave and if they even perceive you resisting in any way they shoot you. The police are really just bandits. Now they're bandits with the backing of the state's
Moreover, ICE must be destroyed
Moreover, ICE must be destroyed
monopoly on the legitimate use of force and they have a bunch of fancy documents backing them up that through the rituals of bureaucracy are turned into legal writs, but what they're doing is no different than what any other bandit does. Once you
Moreover, ICE must be destroyed
Moreover, ICE must be destroyed
understand where the cops' money comes from (the other roughly half is extorted money laundered through the rest of the state apparatus) it becomes clear that their "wage" isn't a wage at all, it's a division of the spoils of rent extraction (or
Moreover, ICE must be destroyed
Moreover, ICE must be destroyed
to put it more crudely it's a division of the spoils of their theft). And once you realize that it becomes clear that the cops are really just state sanctioned bandits, not workers. They're landlords with guns except instead of an apartment what
Moreover, ICE must be destroyed
Moreover, ICE must be destroyed
you get by paying them is the ability to (maybe) live another day. There is no solidarity with these ghouls, there is only class war.
Moreover, ICE must be destroyed
Moreover, ICE must be destroyed
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