One of the most basic tenets of Marxist thought is the key role that "the workers" will play in any revolution. The problem for modern Marxists is that the nature of the worker has changed significantly since Marx was writing. What are these changes and how can we reconcile them to Marxist theory?

When Marx, Engels and Lenin were writing, the working class were primarily employed in labour intensive heavy industries, were primarily utilised for heavy manual labour and were subject to very blatant and unapologetic exploitation.

The potential for revolution in such a situation is obvious. The workers are an obvious source of "muscle" for any revolution and its aftermath, they are grouped together in large, close knit communities making it easier for them to co-operate and to organise. And of course the exploitation gives them a motive for revolution.

The situation is not the same today. Labour intensive heavy industries are much less common in the Western world. Teams performing manual labour tend to be much smaller scale and more transient. Far from having a job for life, workers will often not work on the same job for more than a couple of weeks and then the contract ends. The next contract may be in a completely different area of the country. All this militates against the forming of working class communities with strong common identities.

In addition to these diminished means there is also, in the Western world at least, diminished motive. Workers today have far more rights, more money, more opportunities and more respect than they did in the time when Marx was writing. Technically, it is still the case that they are exploited, for their employers benefit from the value of their labour rather than themselves. Nevertheless they lead good lives, with access to advanced facilities, credit, strong health and safety laws and abundant opportunities to sue their employers for any mistreatment. Nor are they disrespected in the they were in the 19th Century. Workers are seen as fulfilling a different role in society to that of professionals and managers but not a lowlier one. Plus they are protected by a welfare safety net should they suffer any kind of misfortune.

So, does this negate Marx's predictions of a workers' revolution? Are modern Marxist groups wrong to address their comments to workers/the working class, and to raise grievances about the "persecution" of that class? Finally, how will the changes discussed above impact on the coming revolution which is the subject of this website?

The hypothesis of this website is that the revolution will come about spontaneously, in response to government attempts to end the welfare state. Mass demonstrations, riots and popular uprisings will make the country ungovernable, as will the government's inability to shore up the state of its finances.

These uprisings will not be carried out by groups consciously identifying as Workers. They will not be organised by Workers' organisations and there will be very little strategic co-ordination between the various uprisings that occur.

Of course the vast majority of people who participate in these uprisings will be workers, in the sense that they will be employed by someone else. But they will not be participating specifically as workers and they will not be participating in protest at oppression by their employers.

Nevertheless the uprisings will still be an expression of a new, concealed class divide that operates in the Western World - that between those who employ and those who are employed.

Previously, when people talked of a class divide, of workers and bourgeoisie, they had in mind a division between manual and non manual labour. When Marx, Engels, Lenin talked about "Workers" they meant manual workers.

It is the contention of this site that such a division is out of date. Firstly, manual workers are increasingly asked to work with their head as well as their hands, and to take on specialist administrative tasks. Secondly, non-manual workers do not have the same level of social prestige that they used to have. Thirdly, there is less of psychological divide between those two groups - it is quite common these days to have families where some of the children work in the professions, others in management and others perform manual work.

What we have instead are employers and employees. Employees are still subject to the same problems and indignities as the workers Marx was writing about - the power imbalance, the fact that they are not in control of their destiny, the fact that their employers enjoy the fruits of their labour. It is just that a much broader range of employees are covered by this definition - not only factory workers and miners but lawyers, doctors, teachers, accountants, administrators.

All these people receive a much smaller slice of the pie than do those who employ them. All these people suffer more and more as Capitalism, a system based on competition and exponential returns, feeds more and more money to those at the top of the pile at the expense of those lower down. This is why we are starting to see radicalism and industrial action from people traditionally classified as "bourgeoisie" - doctors, teachers and lawyers. This is why we hear so much from politicians and pundits these days about the miseries of the "squeezed middle". Except that they're not really the middle because they are actually now in the same boat as those traditionally called working class - insecure working conditions, wage inequality and, crucially, reliance on the state to provide services they cannot afford themselves.