Capitalism and exploitation outside the factory

[smash_the_system]

What are your thoughts on wages for "cognitive proletariat" or middle class jobs in general- PR, marketing, etc. who aren't big shots, but live comfortably enough on wage labour. Do you feel they are being exploited? For example, the CEO makes 10 times the amount of money the worker, but he founded the company, has worked in it over the years, gets customers for the company,... on the other hand, the employee has a much smaller role.

An example:
the boss makes 10 times more money than the guy in marketing, because:
1) he is the founder of the company,
2) he works hard and means more to the company in terms of his knowledge (even though he does different stuff from those lower than him, like attending meetings, getting customers, etc.).

It's obvious this is exploitation, but from a pragmatic point of view isn't this normal to expect - that a person with experience, knowledge, etc. has progressed throughout the years and awarded more?

[NecroCommie]

If we look at the employer employee relation only, then no: It is not exploitative, or at least not inhumane. But we have to see that the only reason we westerners can afford these humane wage labour jobs is because of imperialist exploitation of the third world. Only sustainable way to afford humane labour for all people is the overthrowing of the capitalist class.

[Poison]

Not to mention that it's fairly likely the wages they've been given are dependant on connections, not actual skills--I hardly think anyone's work is valuable enough as a CEO to justify such inflated paychecks. You're also forgetting the rest of the employees...the countless others from every level of the business, all the way to the sweatshops, they are exploited. By focusing only on the "hard working CEO" and the middle class office worker you're buying into a capitalist viewpoint.

[Tjis]

What is this cognitive proletariat? If we're talking about desk jobs, please remember that just because someone is not working in a factory doesn't suddenly make them middle class. There's more to it than just a difference in wage.
The middle class is the class that have authority granted to them by the ruling class. Managers, teachers and civil workers are middle class. Programmers and mathematicians for example are not (provided they're not in a manager function of course).

I'm a computer science student and have a part time job as a programmer. Sure, it pays better than other jobs I could get, and the workplace is better since we are allowed to have stuff like a pingpong table, but the core problems are still the same. I have 0 influence in the company and have nearly no rights (students get a contract which allows the company to throw us out at any moment they wish, but full-time employees don't have much influence either). I have to give up all rights on the code I write. It becomes the intellectual property of the company.

I agree completely with anyone who says that it is unfair that a "desk" makes more money just because they were able to go to college, but we are still part of the working class, and we're still being exploited.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

What are your thoughts on wages for "cognitive proletariat" or middle class jobs in general- PR, marketing, etc. who aren't big shots, but live comfortably enough on wage labour. Do you feel they are being exploited? For example, the CEO makes 10 times the amount of money the worker, but he founded the company, has worked in it over the years, gets customers for the company,... on the other hand, the employee has a much smaller role.

An example:
the boss makes 10 times more money than the guy in marketing, because:
1) he is the founder of the company,
2) he works hard and means more to the company in terms of his knowledge (even though he does different stuff from those lower than him, like attending meetings, getting customers, etc.).

It's obvious this is exploitation, but from a pragmatic point of view isn't this normal to expect - that a person with experience, knowledge, etc. has progressed throughout the years and awarded more?

I think ten times more is understating it, but anyway, of course it's normal to expect. It's also normal to expect people to go homeless and hungry. It might seem all well and good when we look at it within the framework of capitalism, but when we look at it in comparison with a socialist system where all of the stuff you think that the CEO does that's important wouldn't even matter, it's a lot different.

[Invincible Summer]

What are your thoughts on wages for "cognitive proletariat" or middle class jobs in general- PR, marketing, etc. who aren't big shots, but live comfortably enough on wage labour. Do you feel they are being exploited? For example, the CEO makes 10 times the amount of money the worker, but he founded the company, has worked in it over the years, gets customers for the company,... on the other hand, the employee has a much smaller role.

An example:
the boss makes 10 times more money than the guy in marketing, because:
1) he is the founder of the company,
2) he works hard and means more to the company in terms of his knowledge (even though he does different stuff from those lower than him, like attending meetings, getting customers, etc.).

It's obvious this is exploitation, but from a pragmatic point of view isn't this normal to expect - that a person with experience, knowledge, etc. has progressed throughout the years and awarded more?

Firstly, there is no such thing as the "middle class." It's a term that the ruling classes use to give the working classes the feeling that they're "moving on up" in society.

Secondly, founding a company doesn't mean shit other than having your name in the company history. And the amount of work a CEO does - even in a smaller scale company - is peanuts relative to the actual employees that do all the work. The CEO just takes credit for the work "on behalf of the company" and that somehow justifies his fat paycheck. It may not necessarily be the same type of exploitation that Marx wrote about in regards to factory workers, but it's very similar.

Thirdly, jobs like PR, marketing, etc are some of the most bullshit jobs that capitalism creates. They're just jobs which have the sole purpose of promoting capitalism.

[Decolonize The Left]

What are your thoughts on wages for "cognitive proletariat" or middle class jobs in general- PR, marketing, etc. who aren't big shots, but live comfortably enough on wage labour. Do you feel they are being exploited? For example, the CEO makes 10 times the amount of money the worker, but he founded the company, has worked in it over the years, gets customers for the company,... on the other hand, the employee has a much smaller role.

An example:
the boss makes 10 times more money than the guy in marketing, because:
1) he is the founder of the company,
2) he works hard and means more to the company in terms of his knowledge (even though he does different stuff from those lower than him, like attending meetings, getting customers, etc.).

It's obvious this is exploitation, but from a pragmatic point of view isn't this normal to expect - that a person with experience, knowledge, etc. has progressed throughout the years and awarded more?

As a leftist, my perspective on social divisions is a class perspective.

What this means is that I see things in terms of two classes: the capitalist class (the bourgeoisie) and the working class (the proletariat).

You may note that I do not see things in terms of upper-middle-lower classes, this is because I apply a Marxist analysis, as opposed to a liberal analysis. The "upper-middle-lower" class differentiation exists within a capitalist system for the following reason: the middle class (which, from a Marxist perspective, is often a part of the working class) exists as 'buffer zone' between the upper and lower classes. Should these two classes confront one-another in daily existence, the relative deprivation (a term used to describe the difference between perceived well-being and actual well-being) of the lower class would become so great that they would take up arms and overthrow. The middle class exists to buffer this potential violence by appearing as though there is a way to success.

Why mention this?
Because the "cognitive proletariat" or middle class jobs in general- PR, marketing, etc." was the core of your question.

This middle class is a created illusion when we look at material reality. In reality, there are only the employers and the employees. The employees, or those who sell their labor, are exploited through the systematic theft of surplus value (profit). So, from this perspective, we can see that the jobs which you mention are no different than industrial/agricultural jobs.

They are different in terms of their labor content, but not in terms of their class value.

- August

[benhur]

This middle class is a created illusion when we look at material reality. In reality, there are only the employers and the employees. The employees, or those who sell their labor, are exploited through the systematic theft of surplus


I beg to differ, because my own peculiar case is proof that middle class isn't an illusion, nor is it true that there are only two classes, employer and employee. I do neither, so I am neither bourgeois nor working class. So at least for practical purposes, we need to have another category that's different from both. Middle class seems appropriate in this regard.

[AvanteRedGarde]

In reality, there are only the employers and the employees.

Can our rhetoric move beyond 1909. There obviously has to be more to it beyond this.

[Bitter Ashes]

Marketting is an intresting one actualy.
If the marketting is done by contracting then it's certainly at least petty bourgeois. After all, the marketter is in control of thier own means of "production" (a list of contacts, the software or photography equipment and other stuff they need to do thier jobs). Obviously, if it's a big marketting company then it goes into the realms of bourgeois.
The people who work internally for a company's marketting department are still employees of that company and will have targets and company policies and such inflicted upon them. They also use the company's name and assets to give them more bargening power with media companies, newspapers, etc. This is thier means of production and it's owned by company via Trademark, making them workers (albiet in a job that would have no point in a post-capitalist system).