Class analysis of management

[southernmissfan]

At what point is a manager bourgeoisie or petit-bourgeoisie?

For example, I am a shift manager (the lowest possible management position) at a fast food place. I neither employ labor nor have any share in the means of production, yet I have authority over other workers. How does this affect my class status?

[KC]

In general, managers are members of the petit-bourgeoisie.

From the basis of production relations, they don't own the means of production or profit off the production of surplus value. There are, of course, exceptions to this that can tie managers closer to the bourgeoisie; significant ownership of stock in their company gives them a material incentive to support the exploitation of workers and a connection and indirect benefit to the production of surplus value.

Also, incentives are commonly offered to management to increase or maintain a certain level of productivity, so while they are not benefiting directly from the production of surplus value, they are indirectly, and this can tie them closer with the bourgeoisie.

Managers are also paid more, receive better benefits, and are treated in many cases as actual business partners. This cultural connection with the bourgeoisie in many cases separates them from workers and brings them closer to the bourgeoisie as a sort of faux-bourgeois. Many members of the petit-bourgeoisie are constantly attempting to reconcile their bourgeois cultural inheritance and their connection with the bourgeoisie with the material fact that they are not actually bourgeois, which leads them to act in a sense "more bourgeois" than the bourgeoisie itself. Life becomes an act.

However, as Marx rightly noted, in periods of aggravated class struggle the petit-bourgeoisie becomes divided, with one section breaking off and siding with the bourgeoisie while another sides with the proletariat due to their attempts to further their own interests. Upper level managers, managers with a direct stake in the process of production of surplus value and members of the petit-bourgeoisie that are culturally closer to the bourgeoisie will side with them. Others will side with the proletariat for various reasons.

Generally, the question "what class am I?" is not cut and dry, as class itself isn't, and your personal experiences can play a lot into how you have developed in terms of consciousness and ideology. I'm guessing that the only real difference between your role and the role of the workers is that you are responsible for the actions of various workers, which in a sense ties you to the petit-bourgeoisie, but considering the fact that you hold such a low position (which is very similar to those others working with you), and considering the fact that you would probably side with your workers in terms of struggle, you fall somewhere between petit-bourgeoisie and proletarian.

It's all a huge gray area, though, and really doesn't matter. What matters is what you believe, and how you act, and where you stand in the struggle. When Marx said that a section of the petit-bourgeoisie would break off and side with the proletariat, he wasn't implying that they would sell their businesses or quit their management jobs and become wage-labourers. He was saying that they stood on the side of the proletariat in the struggle; class is defined not only by the relations to the means of production, but also the relations to other classes. Social being includes both subjective and objective factors, and the class struggle and the development of the productive forces are the same thing and must both be considered in the determination of class.