[Turning Point]

And if I had a nickel for every time a Communist condemned fascism for its death-count whilst, simultaneously, praising a state with a far greater one of its own...

Its arguable whether or not Stain or Mao actually killed more people then Hitler, esp. considering the fact that Nazi Germany was committing mass industrialized genocide on a European-wide scale and the death toll from the Final Solution would've been even greater had Nazi Germany won the war.

A convenient point often left unmentioned when one tries to claim that Nazi Germany "onlykilled X amount of people in death camps" and that Mao apparently killed "more people then Hitler and Stalin combined" or something of that nature which tends to ignore actual concrete conditions and/or facts.

I could just as easily call Communism the result of Tsarist Monarchy not being able to rule in the old way. In that case one elite with its own secret police and a zero tolerance policy toward political dissent was replaced with another elite with its own secret police and a zero tolerance policy toward political dissent.

And, no, the rise of fascism in Greece can just as easily be blamed on the Communists as the Democrats; neither of those elements of providing the Greek people with what they really need (food).

Ya, your right on one point: the Czarist monarchy was ineffective and gave way to an equally ineffective Provisional Government in February 1917 which fell by October 1917 of the same year.

It's debatable as well whether or not the Russian (October) Revolution of 1817 initially gave way automatically to an authoritarian order complete with its own secret police (i..e. the Cheka). Revisionist historians such as Alexander Rabinowitch point to the decentralized nature of Bolshevik Party organizations in the months after Red October while the soviets were also decentralized whereas the Cheka was decentralized as well and rooted in local soviets and was controlled by multiple parties (Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries directed the Cheka, which was spread out across local soviets on a district-by-district level while the organization itself was envisioned as a temporary organization against the very real threat of domestic and foreign counterrevolution)

The rise of fascism in Greece...blamed on the communists? First of all, Syriza as a political party has the potential to cast aside austerity and to actually build an economy geared towards ending unemployment and poverty which due to austerity have been compounded and thus we've seen the rise of fascism in Greece. (the same can be said of Germany under the Wiemar Republic, a country wracked by unemployment and poverty and inflation which sped up the rise of the National-Socialists)

Fascism is an outgrowth of a capitalism and bourgeois government in crisis, while socialism could potentially fight the conditions which give rise to fascism in a country such as Greece.

Can you argue that a campaign of genocide towards a particular national identity was not carried out?

Again, its arguable whether or not there actually was a genocide in the Ukraine.

The Soviet Union purposefully implemented inefficient and poorly thought-out agricultural techniques that went against the wishes of the Ukrainian people.

The Soviet Union was seeking to socialize the land through collectivization which hadn't been attempted before except through a few civil war-era attempts at collectivization.

[Travesty]

Middle class and Working class do not come under same umbrella, hence this comparison is faulty.

What do you mean by that? I know they are not in the same umbrella. The point is that the middle class outnumbers the working class in the West. And communism is the ideology of the working class not the middle class who are the petite bourgoisie.

And, no, the rise of fascism in Greece can just as easily be blamed on the Communists as the Democrats; neither of those elements of providing the Greek people with what they really need (food).

Not Modern Greece. However, If the Bolsheviks hadn't taken power in Russia then the National Socialists would never have come to power either. German society at the time was threatened by Lenin's useful idiots and the failed revolutions like the Bavarian Republic. Bavaria became the Nexus of the national socialist movement and the Commies ensured that Germans would end up supporting Hitler.

And if I had a nickel for every time a Communist condemned fascism for its death-count whilst, simultaneously, praising a state with a far greater one of its own...

I see it this way. Modern Liberal Capitalist's, National Socialists/Fascists, And Communists all exploit people and practice imperialism when powerful enough to do so.

Historically things go like this in a nutshell : Liberal Capitalists refrain from exploiting their domestic populations with brutal repression and forced labor, instead they focus on colonization and what is today called neo-colonialism and imperialism.

National Socialists target domestic racial and other undesirables but don't exploit or target who they consider to be racially pure, the majority of their population and like the Liberal Capitalists focus on expansion and colonization only in more brutal form.

Communists brutally and indiscriminately (actually they would also target particular ethnic and of course class groups) exploit their domestic population in the early stages and then proceed to practice their own imperialism when powerful enough, while still maintaining a network of forced labor camps.

I think that exploiting and killing others is always better then exploiting and killing your own population to achieve the same goals. A government is ultimately responsible for the population and its well being.

[Cromwell]

What the fuck even is common birth? What is culture? Is it static or dynamic? If latter, then how it binds people forever. Beside "common culture" is a very loaded term and there can never be a consensus on what exactly it is.

Common birth means exactly what it would appear to mean; a Britisher is born to British parents just as a Frenchmen is born to French parents. As for culture, I will not argue on its definition because you will inevitably push me into the nebulous territory of the liberal professor who should not accept the idea of Earth's atmosphere because there is no obvious line of demarcation to distinguish it from space.

I will, however, ask this? Was there no Indian nation under the British Empire? Why, if there was none (because you assert that there is no difference between a nation and a nation-state), would Indians campaign for independence?

A fascist/nazi sympathizer talking about sympathy. And no it was not man made or a deliberately created by the state one. False accusations are false and they have nothing to do with any concept of sympathy.

Even if true, its not genocide. Inefficiencies =/= genocide, seriously. And regarding purpose, please provide evidence for this claim. Any official soviet document, any which mentions something akin to this?

I will answer this in a thread in the History topic. If I don't get around to making it, you can assume I've conceded.

What? Whatever it is, its much better position than your blanket statement and lumping up (falsely without any historical context) a large number of people in one homogeneous group.

You say that there cannot possibly be a Ukrainian national identity, so all of those who welcomed the Nazi invasion must have been reactionaries.

I don't think you will ever be able to see it. If you would, your whole political position will radically transform but your mind is already made up and is not going to change over one debate on teh internet.

I have clearly stated where the contradiction of interests lies but all your response is a blank "no", I don't see it. You are not even attempting to prove me wrong.

I am a socialist. I understand the exploitation of the working class, but you have not convinced me that the exploitative relationship of the classes is inherent, nor that it can only be ended by the liquidation of the upper class. Was Robert Owen an oppressor? Should he have been hanged?

Mental labor also matters and taking risk (as you tried to claim) is not that either. Gambling is such a laborious work after all.

Enterprise is not gambling; a businessman gathers together the means of production with a view to producing something valuable.

And it is directly related to labor front. Opportunities for women to join this front was severely choked down by these reactionary regimes.

You say this as though the Weimar Republic represents Communism; it was far more capitalistic than its successor; what does it matter that women had marginally better employment prospects, when they came with none of the benefits afforded by the Nazi state. I have described to you the better lot in life that German workers were afforded (when compared with the western capitalist power and the Soviet Union) and all you can do pick at their social prejudices (which were common for the time, even in the West).

People are still believing this big huge pile of bull crap. Because Nazis were so friendly towards jews before 1933 and they turned against them only after the boycott. Please do tell how were jews presented in 20s and before that declaration of boycott of German goods after the Nazis who have been saying from beginning apparently not very nice things about jews.

Its quite clear who declared war on who and that would be Nazis right in 20s much much before the boycott you are talking about.

The Nazi treatment of the Jews, prior to then, was much better than the treatment of the blacks by the US or the treatment of the cossacks, kulaks and aristocrats by the Soviet Union. Would the Americans not have responded to a call for blacks to boycott American produce? Would the Soviet Union not have responded to a call for, let's say, Kazakhs to boycott Soviet produce?

What? I thought we were discussing fascism in general and on country by country basis. But still here you go :

Manifesto of Race

Which was obviously a cave in on Mussolini's part; before then, Fascism in one of its purest forms had been much kinder to the working class, as a whole, that had any other government in history.

So? So if any particular group can be identified as dramatically under represented by any criteria, they are expendables? Not eligible for any state services?

Thank you for proving again and again that this ideology is not for working class.

I am not excusing what was done. I'm just pointing out that it is silly to bring up the treatment of a tiny subsection of a group because you don't want to admit that Germany treated the working class far better than Russia did. Especially, if we consider that Nazi policy was not formulated with the idea of working-class Jews in mind; they were presumed to all be well-off (partly because, they disportionately were).

Its arguable whether or not Stain or Mao actually killed more people then Hitler, esp. considering the fact that Nazi Germany was committing mass industrialized genocide on a European-wide scale and the death toll from the Final Solution would've been even greater had Nazi Germany won the war.

A convenient point often left unmentioned when one tries to claim that Nazi Germany "onlykilled X amount of people in death camps" and that Mao apparently killed "more people then Hitler and Stalin combined" or something of that nature which tends to ignore actual concrete conditions and/or facts.

How is it arguable? I have not come across one single historian who has ever claimed Hitler killed more than Stalin, let alone Mao.

And, bringing up alternate histories is not an argument.

Ya, your right on one point: the Czarist monarchy was ineffective and gave way to an equally ineffective Provisional Government in February 1917 which fell by October 1917 of the same year.

It's debatable as well whether or not the Russian (October) Revolution of 1817 initially gave way automatically to an authoritarian order complete with its own secret police (i..e. the Cheka). Revisionist historians such as Alexander Rabinowitch point to the decentralized nature of Bolshevik Party organizations in the months after Red October while the soviets were also decentralized whereas the Cheka was decentralized as well and rooted in local soviets and was controlled by multiple parties (Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries directed the Cheka, which was spread out across local soviets on a district-by-district level while the organization itself was envisioned as a temporary organization against the very real threat of domestic and foreign counterrevolution)

I'll look into this. But you cannot deny that, under Stalin, the lines between Chairman of the Party and Czar of Russia became incredibly blurry.

The rise of fascism in Greece...blamed on the communists? First of all, Syriza as a political party has the potential to cast aside austerity and to actually build an economy geared towards ending unemployment and poverty which due to austerity have been compounded and thus we've seen the rise of fascism in Greece. (the same can be said of Germany under the Wiemar Republic, a country wracked by unemployment and poverty and inflation which sped up the rise of the National-Socialists)

Fascism is an outgrowth of a capitalism and bourgeois government in crisis, while socialism could potentially fight the conditions which give rise to fascism in a country such as Greece.

So what of all the proto-fascist philosophers? What of the independent development of fascist literature and early fascist experiments (like the Italian Regency of Carnaro)? Are these all just "an outgrowth of... bourgeois government in crisis"?

Again, its arguable whether or not there actually was a genocide in the Ukraine.

3.9 million (conservative estimate) seems like genocide to me...

The Soviet Union was seeking to socialize the land through collectivization which hadn't been attempted before except through a few civil war-era attempts at collectivization.

Oh, Marxist sycophancy justifies atrocity?

[Dagoth Ur]

That shit travesty posted reads like a fantasy wiki article on race classes. Jesus.

Also lol@trav claiming that 70% of Brits own productive Capital.

[Travesty]

That shit travesty posted reads like a fantasy wiki article on race classes. Jesus.

Well its a survey, and a big one, if you want to dispute the methodology behind the survey and the results have at it.

Also lol@trav claiming that 70% of Brits own productive Capital.

Bankers don't own productive capital either. Explain this to me a non-Communist. What's the wealth measure for being a bourgeoisie these days? Do you have to own a means of production (factory), do you have to have X number of money in a bank account? And I thought the middle class was distinct form the proletariat and the lumpen's. Aren't they supposed to be classed as petite-bourgeoisie?

[Dagoth Ur]

In what world is a bank not productive capital? Remember productive doesn't mean just raw material products. Banks specialize in all sorts of financial commodities and generates profit from it.

Now onto the notion that wealth has any correlation to bourgeoisieness. A poor shopkeeper and a CEO are in the same class, just as the rich lawyer (who is rich from lawyering) is in the same class as the industrial worker. There are striations in the two classes, but nobody ever said the classes end on a hard line. They mesh at the edges. Also there is no middle class. There is the class that owns and the one that doesn't. Just because the small bourgeoisie get fucked regularly doesn't mean they are separate from the big bourgeoisie. They still have the same interests.

To be completely clear:
Bougeoisie = Owns/Lives on Capital (property that generates wealth)
Proletariat = Those who derive their livihood from their work alone (ie no assets of real value [small stocks don't count])

That's it. There is nothing more complicated about it.

[Travesty]

In what world is a bank not productive capital? Remember productive doesn't mean just raw material products. Banks specialize in all sorts of financial commodities and generates profit from it.

I said Banker though. Bankers don't own those assets. A Goldman Sachs VP or one of any other large banking institution will have a salary of maybe a 150K plus Bonuses but he is management (CEO's wouldn't own them either but whatever) and there are a lot like him in one bank.

A poor shopkeeper and a CEO are in the same class, just as the rich lawyer (who is rich from lawyering) is in the same class as the industrial worker.

[small stocks don't count])

So lawyers, the managerial class, civil servants etc would still be proletariat? It has nothing to do with wealth but ownership of property or assets that generate wealth. Ok then.

[fuser]

What do you mean by that? I know they are not in the same umbrella. The point is that the middle class outnumbers the working class in the West

You can be in middle class and working class at the same time. This statement that middle class outnumbers working class doesn't make any sense. btw, Marxists do not divide classes based on their income.

And communism is the ideology of the working class not the middle class who are the petite bourgoisie.

Again false ditchomony. Not all middle class are petite bouergoise. There is no corelation between marxian classes and this bouergiouse nonsense of upper middle and lower class.

Common birth means exactly what it would appear to mean; a Britisher is born to British parents just as a Frenchmen is born to French parents.

Okay

but as my point is were these "British" or "French" were always there? or did they evolved pretty much from something completely different. Basically my point is that "culture" is always dynamic and if we look more and more deeper, there can be countless division of any nation by your own definition too.The "myth" exists exactly in creating a large "common" thing that will supposedly bind all the people. In India among nationalist this common thing that they have found out (a myth created) is that India is a Hindu Nation.

I will, however, ask this? Was there no Indian nation under the British Empire?

India is not exactly a nattion actually, its exactly that a nation state composed of various nationalities.

You say that there cannot possibly be a Ukrainian national identity, so all of those who welcomed the Nazi invasion must have been reactionaries.

Of course there can be Ukranian Natinol identity. Even the Soviet Union recognized that, that's why division of SU in different SSRs. But my point is not all of Ukranian Nation rose up to welcome Nazis, there was a specific historical context to that.

I am a socialist. I understand the exploitation of the working class, but you have not convinced me that the exploitative relationship of the classes is inherent, nor that it can only be ended by the liquidation of the upper class.

I seriously don't know, how can I convince anyone who are already politically motivated.

Was Robert Owen an oppressor? Should he have been hanged?

Individual example doen't matter really. and Of course Robert Owen was not an oppressor. But so there were many slave owners who were very caring to there slaves but that doesn't mean that slavery as a whole was not a disposable system.

Enterprise is not gambling; a businessman gathers together the means of production with a view to producing something valuable.

The most important thing here is that he has the means of production and anyone with that can be enterprising, including the working class. There really isn't need for a bouergiouse class. Btw, the end plan of communism also involves evaporation of working class as well and end of all classes (and thus class antagonism) from human society.

You say this as though the Weimar Republic represents Communism;

It doesn't matter to my point, which is that women's right were thoroughly regressed during Nazis.

I have described to you the better lot in life that German workers were afforded (when compared with the western capitalist power and the Soviet Union)

Not all german workers. All the things that you have mentioned can be applied to SU as well and more. Comparatively SU made far more bigger jump than any fascist state regarding rights and condition of working class. Also I don't belive everything that you have said as in actuality :

Unemployment still existed and the downfall was partially because of exclusion from employment many undesirables including jews, women etc.

Real wages actually dropped by 25 percent between 1933 and 1938, working hours increased from 43 o 47 hours during same period, etc. Obviously they will be given something to hold on to like subsidized holiday to ward of a complete revolution resulting from detiorating situation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany

The Nazi treatment of the Jews, prior to then, was much better than the treatment of the blacks by the US or the treatment of the cossacks, kulaks and aristocrats by the Soviet Union

There was no Nazi treatment of jews prior to that as nazis weren't in power. But their ideas and attitudes towards jews(and other people) were widely known. Jews were obviously right in boycotting once nazis came into power. The point is Nazis had declared war on Judea long before any reaction by the latter.

Saying that marginalization and extermination of jews took place because of their boycott of German goods is ridiculous to say the least.

Which was obviously a cave in on Mussolini's part; before then, Fascism in one of its purest forms had been much kinder to the working class, as a whole, that had any other government in history.

No true scotsmen? There is no such thing as "pure fascism", "pure communism" or pure liberalism.

you don't want to admit that Germany treated the working class far better than Russia did.

Which is simply not true as already pointed out. Then every group beloging to working class shall matter to any working class ideology, period. Thus another reason why fascism can never be a working class ideology.

[Dagoth Ur]

I said Banker though. Bankers don't own those assets. A Goldman Sachs VP or one of any other large banking institution will have a salary of maybe a 150K plus Bonuses but he is management (CEO's wouldn't own them either but whatever) and there are a lot like him in one bank.

The Bankers are the ones who own and direct the bank (through intermediaries or whatever). Even leading managers have significant stock in the bank which counts as ownership even if it is partial. Bank workers are normal workers otherwise.

So lawyers, the managerial class, civil servants etc would still be proletariat? It has nothing to do with wealth but ownership of property or assets that generate wealth. Ok then.

Exactly. Except to be clear only assets that generate wealth can even be considered Property in the social sense. A house you live in with your family is not property.

[Travesty]

I don't understand why you guys don't acknowledge the existence of the Middle Class. Even Marx acknowledged their existence (Marx himself was of the middle class lol) . He predicted that competition with the High Bourgeoisie would eventually squeeze the middle class into the proletariat and that they would seize to exist. He got that wrong. Today, lumping lawyers, Managers, Bankers, Civil Servants together with factory workers, cleaners into the same socio/economic class makes no friggin sense. Their relationship to the means of production isn't even the same. Today's managerial class is the mainstay of the corporate world, it "manages" the means of production while the workers "work" it. While ownership is decentralized. The Middle Class can partially own the means of production but still has to work to survive that makes them distinct from the proletariat and bourgeoisie. Another important aspect is class identity and consciousness. The middle classes don't identify themselves as proletariat or working class. They for the most part share the morals and values of the bourgeoisie and are closer to them by status and wealth. Due to their relationship with the means of production and their values Marx considered the Middle Class to be conservative and reactionary towards a potential revolution and therefore an enemy.

The Bankers are the ones who own and direct the bank (through intermediaries or whatever). Even leading managers have significant stock in the bank which counts as ownership even if it is partial. Bank workers are normal workers otherwise.

Well that depends on the banking institution. Goldmann Sachs is publicly traded its not owned by the management. Is even partial ownership through stocks a criteria for bourgoisieness? Because you said stocks don't count. Is it the amount of stocks? If bankers are "workers" then, them potentially owning the means of production partially, through stocks, should be considered a good thing no?! There are labor unions who partially own their workplaces/companies to increase bargaining strength are they bourgeoisie?

[fuser]

Travesty,

Middle class =/= Petite Bouergiouse.

Marx was talking about Petite Bouergiouse and not middle class.

I myself am a working class but according to this bouergiouse nonsense, also belong to Middle class.

This nonsense class is determined by your level of income whilst marxian class depends on your relationship with means of productions.

Millions of Indians who are classified as middle class here can be described as poor in USA but a working class Indian will stil be working class in US or anywhere.

[Travesty]

Travesty,

Middle class =/= Petite Bouergiouse.

Marx was talking about Petite Bouergiouse and not middle class.

Are you sure?

The lower strata of the middle class – the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen, generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants – all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialised skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production. Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population.

Note that the corporate managerial class, or the service sector didn't exist in the 19th Century in any significant numbers. So you will have to lump friggin bankers, lawyers, and managers in with workers into the same class as their relationship to the means of production i.e lack of ownership is the same if you ignore the middle class.

The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by chance, they are revolutionary, they are only so in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.

So the Middle Class here is clearly an enemy of the proletarian revolution and are reactionary. If you look at the history of the 20th Century then you will find that the growth of the Middle Class in the West is in a large part of what prevented a proletarian revolution from taking place as Middle Class interests are opposed to working class interests like it is outlined here.

This lower middle-class — as “The Communist Manifesto” proclaims — “stands half-way between the proletariat and the capitalist class. Being a necessary complement of capitalist society, this class is constantly being reborn.” Composed of extremely mixed elements of the pre-capitalist epoch — the so-called “toiling intelligentsia,” the lackeys of the capitalist class — this class was to be found, in France, in Switzerland, and to a certain extent in Germany, at the advanced posts of the revolution of 1848. According to “The Communist Manifesto,“ the Communists were to support the various party groupings of these elements, while the latter were in opposition, understanding clearly, however, that if the representatives of the lower middle-class were really revolutionary in sentiment, it was only when faced with their immediate descent into the ranks of the proletariat.

These hopes of the lower middle-class, little sanguine though they were, nevertheless were completely shattered. (oops )The revolution of 1848 clearly revealed the political bankruptcy of the revolutionary section of the bourgeoisie. That revolution laid bare not only their weakness, but also how dangerous they were to the work of the revolution. During the French revolution of that year, the proletariat was crushed, not by the capitalists, but by this very lower middle-class. “The small shopkeeper,” wrote Marx in “The Class Struggle in France,” “rose up and moved against the barricades, in order to restore the movement from the street into his shop. And when the barricades had been destroyed, when the workmen had been defeated, when the shopkeepers, drunk with victory, turned back to their shops, they found their entry barred by the saviours of property, the official agents of financial capital, who met them with stern demands: ‘The bills have become overdue! Pay up, gentlemen! Pay for your premises, pay four your goods.’ The poor little shop was ruined, the poor shopkeeper was undone!”

The lower middle-class is not fit to wield power, and a long government by it is unthinkable. This, first and foremost, for economic reasons: the small shopkeeper is the debtor of the great capitalist, and must remain in dependence on him as long as there exists the system of credit — which cannot be destroyed while the domination of private property continues.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/kun-bela/1918/05/04.htm

That last part about the credit system and the middle class dependency is completely true and still applies to today's situation btw. Do you agree with this description that it stands between the proletariat and bourgeoisie and that it constantly re-inventing (As Capitalism and technology changes I guess) itself but remain the lackeys of the bourgeoisie?

[fuser]

Yes, I am sure.

Middle class of marxism is =/= Bouergiouse concepts of Social class.

Marx means petite Bouergiouse only, the widespread use of term begun after his death btw. By, middle class he basically means the ones who are in "middle" of the ruling class (the bouergiouse) and the working class and they are characterized by their relationship to means of production only i.e. they own means of production but can't employ wage labor where as the Bouergiouse notion of social classes describe your income level.

Was it clear?

Nowadays no marxist use the term "middle class" to describe petite bouergiouse.

[Travesty]

Allright, so a class between the bourgeoisie and proletariat does exists. Discarding that Pravda piece on the Middle class a petite bourgeoisie then is somebody that owns property that generates wealth "small businesses" if you will, and has nothing to do with Middle Class which is false concept according to Marxists. Now It makes sense if Marx is predicting that small businesses would be wiped out by Higher bourgeoisie. Revolutions of 1848 also make sense with that definition.

Therefore, all salaried employees and intelligentsia even if they have the capital to partially own means of production through stocks and identify themselves as a different class (through false consciousness according to Marxists) are still proletariat. Cool. Makes sense and is consistent. Kinda strange calling a banker a proletariat but it is consistent.

[The Immortal Goon]

Don't play coy. Marx, even where you cited, is clearly talking about everyone's relation to their means of production. He even mentions peasants, which are a dying relic of feudalism. But it each case, it's their relationship to the means of production that matters.

You're trying to pervert that into being how much money you have.

You may wonder why this is important as rich people tend to protect what makes them rich.

But Marxism is a material analysis, so studying how materials interact with each other-ie, our relationship to the production of material is paramount.

You might then point out that there is collaboration across lines. That some people that don't own the means of production will fight for the system, and some people-lawyers like Lenin and Castro for instance-will transcend their money and try to abolish the system.

To which I say, so?

Marx was well aware Engels was a factory owner, and I guess Engels knew that too. It doesn't really matter for something abstract, we use it to study history.

[Travesty]

I'm not playing coy I don't even know what that means.

I originally wanted to know how today's middle class fits into the Marxist narrative, which is about the relationship with the means of production only, I guess . Middle Class in the non-Marxist sense is in essence about how much money you have. I didn't know that petite bourgeoisie as in middle Class in the Marxist sense would be distinct from the Middle Class in the non-Marxist sense. As far as I can tell a petite bourgeoisie is somebody who owns a means of production not on a sufficiently large scale to be classified as a Bourgeoisie, like a shopkeeper or a minor tradesman of some kind so a small business. Salaried employees therefore are still proletariat regardless of how much money they may have.

[Rei Murasame]

The petty-bourgeoisie also includes the 'labour-aristocracy' as well as certain types of state employees of the present moment, I think. So that makes it not as simple as merely being 'salaried'.

[Travesty]

labour-aristocracy as well as state employees

Really. So what's their relationship to the means of production and ownership?

[Rei Murasame]

Basically every single reference I've ever seen them make to that term, refers to them as 'bourgeoisie-ified workers'.

The evidence would be this, Lenin's displeasure:

Social-chauvinism is an opportunism which has matured to such a degree that the continued existence of this bourgeois abscess within the socialist parties has become impossible.

Those who refuse to see the closest and unbreakable link between social-chauvinism and opportunism clutch at individual instances—this opportunist or another, they say, has turned internationalist; this radical or another has turned chauvinist. But this kind of argument carries no weight as far as the development of trends is concerned. Firstly, chauvinism and opportunism in the labour movement have the same economic basis: the alliance between a numerically small upper stratum of the proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie—who get but morsels of the privileges of their “own” national capital—against the masses of the proletarians, the masses of the toilers and the oppressed in general. Secondly, the two trends have the same ideological and political content. Thirdly, the old division of socialists into an opportunist trend and a revolutionary, which was characteristic of the period of the Second International (1889-1914), corresponds, by and large, to the new division into chauvinists and internationalists.

To realise the correctness of the latter statement, one must remember that social science (like science generally) usually deals with mass phenomena, not with individual cases. Let us take ten European countries: Germany, Britain, Russia, Italy, Holland, Sweden, Bulgaria, Switzerland, France and Belgium. In the first eight countries, the new division of socialists (according to internationalism) corresponds to the old division (according to opportunism): in Germany the magazine Sozialistische Monatshefte, which was a stronghold of opportunism, has become a stronghold of chauvinism. The ideas of internationalism have the support of the extreme Lefts. In Britain about three-sevenths of the British Socialist Party are internationalists (66 votes for an internationalist resolution and 84 against it, as shown by the latest counts), while in the opportunist bloc (the Labour Party plus the Fabians, plus the Independent Labour Party) less than one-seventh are internationalists.

And:

The relatively “peaceful” character of the period between 1871 and 1914 served to foster opportunism first as a mood, then as a trend, until finally it formed a group or stratum among the labour bureaucracy and petty-bourgeois fellow-travellers. These elements were able to gain control of the labour movement only by paying lip-service to revolutionary aims and revolutionary tactics. They were able to win the confidence of the masses only by their protestations that all this “peaceful” work served to prepare the proletarian revolution.

[...]

Social-chauvinism and opportunism have the same class basis, namely, the alliance of a small section of privileged workers with “their” national bourgeoisie against the working-class masses; the alliance between the lackeys of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie against the class the latter is exploiting.

Of course, Lenin was writing in 1915 and 1916 in those two quotes, so his assessment of what was happening described somewhat correctly the sham of Social Democracy at that time. It was also a foreshadowing of something else, but he couldn't have known it at the time.

He could not see into the future too far, and so he did not anticipate that the labour bureaucracy and petty-bourgeoisie could - together - create a dictatorship of the petty-bourgeoisie, in the 1940s, first under the Imperial Way faction in Japan and then under NSDAP in Germany, which would first shackle their own haute-bourgeoisie at home and then declare war abroad against the plutocratic countries as a whole - which they were 'proletarian' in relationship to.

Furthermore, he could not be aware of the same trend that would develop in the 'Third World' later on, as well.

The imagery of Hideki Tojo watching a massive military operation take place, or for that matter even the concept that someone like Saddam Hussein Al-Tikriti could exist, and the trends that led their existence, would have been inconceivable at that time, I think.

[Travesty]

I have serious reservations on weather the petty-bourgoisie shackled the High Bourgeoisie (i.e the major Industrialists and the Landlords who prospered) in Nazi Germany. Same with Japan which was ruled by an alliance of major Industrial elites/clans and the military.

I think that in the Marxist sense of things the Labour aristocracy are bourgoisified through a false consciousness and are mislead into acting against their interests. But they still aren't petite bourgeoisie.