[fuser]

They are seperate but it just so happens that socialy middle class people adopt a lot of the views and manerisms of the bourgeoisie (I guess they look up to them or aspire to be them or something)

This.

One of the things that Bouergiouse state (and propaganda machine) has done very successfully is to instil this false hope among these people that one day they all can be billionaries. Of course its total hogwash but it did created billions of status quoist.

[layman]

You still said clearly that middle class people live of the back of 'workers'.

If you dont state what you mean by that each time you bring it up then how is it clear in any way. When people usually refer to middle class they dont mean a mini capitalist who needs to be employing at least one person.

This marxist definition is still weird to me though. Doesnt it imply that the investment banker with 1million a year bonuses is a worker where as the joiner who employs a young guy to train up and help him out is an evil capitalist ....

[Cartertonian]

This Marxist definition is still weird to me though. Doesn't it imply that the investment banker with 1million a year bonuses is a worker where as the joiner who employs a young guy to train up and help him out is an evil capitalist ....

This is a circle I can't square, either. I'm sure the investment banker will be amongst the first against the wall when the Revolution comes, but surely he's the prole?

Furthermore, in terms of owning the means of production, in my job what I produce comes from between my ears so am I bourgeoisie by default because I own my own brain?

[Decky]

It is seperate from my political view that the (economic) middle class are parasites who only live off the labour produced by the (economic) working class.

I am sorry that is as simple as the concept can possibly be made.

[layman]

Decky I am just a simple worker so it seems your point is lost on me. You say they are 'completely seperate' and then say there is "crossover" and keep quoting the same line like I am dense or something.

You didnt actually answer my question though. Are you saying the economic middle class all need to be petit capitalists who employ people? That makes no sense to me as per my investment banker example.

- Investment banker on 1 milion + who employs noone. He is socially middle class with a posh London accent, hates blacks but employs noone.

- Builder from working class family and who is socially working glass. He has great sense of humor and is a great drinking buddy for Decky. However, he does employ one young worker as a helping hand.

Which one is the class enemy?

This is a circle I can't square, either. I'm sure the investment banker will be amongst the first against the wall when the Revolution comes, but surely he's the prole?

Furthermore, in terms of owning the means of production, in my job what I produce comes from between my ears so am I bourgeoisie by default because I own my own brain?

There were no investment bankers during Marx life time. He was alalysing a different world.

Hense Marxism seems to have no answer to this simple question.

[Decky]

They are seperate concepts but since lots of people who are socialy middle class have the same values as people from the economic middle class I find that being left wing and the inverted snobery work well together.

You didnt actually answer my question though. Are you saying the economic middle class all need to be petit capitalists who employ people? That makes no sense to me as per my investment banker example.

Class is about your relation to the means of production.

You have nothing to seel but your labour= Prolatarian
You own part of the means of production distribution and exchange= Bourgeois

You have a small bussines where you work alongside the person that you exploit (for example a carpenter who has a van and sells his skills as part of a bussines but also employed a labourer and an aprentice) =Petite Bourgeoisie

An investment banker will be paid partly in shares in his bank so he will be a member of the bougiouse anyway.

You own part of the means of production distribution and exchange = Bourgeois

[layman]

An investment banker will be paid partly in shares in his bank so he will be a member of the bougiouse anyway.

So you catch them with a technicality basically? Not all bankers have share options btw. Most do though you are right.

As long as you avoid owning shares then you will be safe when the revolution comes

[Decky]

So you catch them with a technicality basically?

Yea it is one of the first things a budding Marxist will learn to wriggle out of these sorts of debates. With something that looks (rather vaguely) like victory.

[layman]

I am going to do a 'Rei' and declare victory anyway as I beleive I just defeated Marxism.

Social Critic, eat your heart out

[Dagoth Ur]

While an investment banker is fundamentally a worker, he has sufficient capital in just raw money to gain entry into the bourgeoisie. Which of course they go for because to not do so would ostracize them from their betters and would effectively close the door to advancement completely.

Also labor aristocracy is a big chunk of the "middle class" too. They have the same apirational or servile moods.

[Rich]

This is a circle I can't square, either. I'm sure the investment banker will be amongst the first against the wall when the Revolution comes, but surely he's the prole?

There's nothing to understand. Marxism is bollocks. But its not alone. Just because something is at its heart utterly vacuous doesn't mean people won't sacrifice for it, die for it and can't discuss it endlessly. Take the Christian Trinity. Utter drivel, but that hasn't stopped some of the most intelligent minds analysing it and theorising about it for the last 1700 years.

You see the same with the term Capitalism. At first sight it might seem obvious what it is. But when you look at it it means nothing. Marxists can't even agree whether the Soviet union was Capitalist or not. For some Marxists the Soviet union ceased to be Capitalist with the ending of the NEP. but for others this is precisely the moment when it stopped being a workers state and became state capitalist. Look at Ancient Rome, By the late Republic the majority of the population were wage labourers, so was that Capitalist?

[Potemkin]

Look at Ancient Rome, By the late Republic the majority of the population were wage labourers

No, they weren't. The work was done by slaves, and the Roman proletariat were basically dole scum.

[Vera Politica]

While they themselves may not have access to cultural capital, many of them are aiming for their children to join the "proper" middle-class. It's an aspirational thing.

Yes, sure. But so what?

An investment banker will be paid partly in shares in his bank so he will be a member of the bougiouse anyway.

This needs to be qualified: workers, often enough, also get paid in shares or receive interest in their savings/investments. These details really do muck up a neat and dry distinction, but we do have a very intuitive notion about who is a proletariat, in the Marxist sense, and who is not. Here is my suggestion: if the income received from investments is enough to earn one's subsistence, then one is no longer working class. Subsistence, as Marx would have is, is socio-historically and culturally sensitive, but other than that this expression is murky too. In any case, Marx's theory does not rise or fall on because the class concepts employed has a certain degree of vagueness. Many useful concepts have some degree of vagueness. I am comfortable with this vagueness and I do not see why it should be a criticism against Marxism that certain concepts it employs gets a little muddle in vague contexts. Do you agree, or do you think there should be a determinate fact of the matter, for every case, determining in which class an individual falls?

[Dagoth Ur]

For one I do and you echo my long held stance that tiny shares (which for most workers is retirement plans held in escrow) do not constitute ownership of the MOP anymore than house ownership does.

Glad to see you around more lately Vera.

[The Clockwork Rat]

I also find snobbery tiresome, Carter. The only people I feel okay to look down upon are those who do it to myself first - those who as you say, assume the worst. Some people are just irredeemable cunts.

[Vera Politica]

I also find snobbery tiresome, Carter. The only people I feel okay to look down upon are those who do it to myself first - those who as you say, assume the worst. Some people are just irredeemable cunts.

How do you feel about many leftists (mostly intellectuals, etc.) who tend to think of themselves as voices for the struggling classes but who tend to dismiss a lot of what many working class people think as "ignorant", "racist", etc.?

[Conscript]

You still said clearly that middle class people live of the back of 'workers'.

If you dont state what you mean by that each time you bring it up then how is it clear in any way. When people usually refer to middle class they dont mean a mini capitalist who needs to be employing at least one person.

This marxist definition is still weird to me though. Doesnt it imply that the investment banker with 1million a year bonuses is a worker where as the joiner who employs a young guy to train up and help him out is an evil capitalist ....

One is certainly bourgeois, a part of the modern rule of finance capital and lives on funds derived from the productivity of the labor he invests in.

A contractor isn't exactly the capitalist stereotype, but is firmly petit-bourgeois. Not too different from an artisan or a small property owner/peasant.

Additionally, people like CEOs and managers are technically proles, but perform a job irrelevant to social production and just particular to safeguarding bourgeois interests in capitalist production (especially if it's related to finance capital). And like doctors and such, they are rare enough to have some mobility with the formal class of owners.

[The Clockwork Rat]

How do you feel about many leftists (mostly intellectuals, etc.) who tend to think of themselves as voices for the struggling classes but who tend to dismiss a lot of what many working class people think as "ignorant", "racist", etc.?

Frustrated. There's not really anything I can do outside of those who I know personally. With those I do know I just remind them that people are a product of their environment.

[Goldberk]

Additionally, people like CEOs and managers are technically proles, but perform a job irrelevant to social production and just particular to safeguarding bourgeois interests in capitalist production

Manager is such a poor term to use in this discussion as it covers to much ground, from a factory manager, to a call centre supervisor, to a charity project coordinator.

[Vera Politica]

Frustrated. There's not really anything I can do outside of those who I know personally. With those I do know I just remind them that people are a product of their environment.

But even this doesn't seem all that productive, no? I mean, treating the sentiments of ordinary workers as simply "the product of their environment" seems better but not all that much better. Implicit in this explanation (although I am not sure you intended this) is that ordinary workers have limited exposure or experience; their thoughts are the products of a limited environment. Bah, maybe that's not right at all.

Here is my real concern: why is it that so much of the left no longer wishes to engage with what workers are actually saying and thinking (and so break away from political correctness)? In general, I think the left's elitism is one of the primary reasons that fascists still resonate with working people. They are not afraid to speak their language. Here, then, is what I think is a real problem for the left: how do we become the voice of ordinary working class people when many of them are racist and even hostile to much of the kinds of policies the left advocates? I don't think this is entirely the fault of Marxists though, since Marxists have been painted as disconnected from the ordinary, every day issues that the working class is concerned with.

Manager is such a poor term to use in this discussion as it covers to much ground, from a factory manager, to a call centre supervisor, to a charity project coordinator.

I think this is an important point. My father, for example, is a sub-foreman. All the foremen are promoted from the rank and file, but they are considered management nonetheless. Call my father middle class, though, and he will laugh. My impression, then, is that many ranks of management across industries are still class conscious (and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that there are many management positions that do no ask for an education and are filled by many who do not even have a high school diploma). So, yes, the error is to treat 'management' as synonymous with 'educated white-collar' when, often, managers are both blue-collar and uneducated.