Rich "Proletariats"

[SoupIsGoodFood]

According to Marxist theory, proletariats are the people who don't control the means of production. Does that mean that doctors, lawyers, professors at big universities, and famous actors are proletariats? I guess they are technically exploited for their work, but they don't seem very oppressed to me, and would probably side with the capitalists in a class struggle.

[Die Rote Fahne]

According to Marxist theory, proletariats are the people who don't control the means of production. Does that mean that doctors, lawyers, professors at big universities, and famous actors are proletariats? I guess they are technically exploited for their work, but they don't seem very oppressed to me, and would probably side with the capitalists in a class struggle.

Working class is a term used in academic sociology and in ordinary conversation to describe, depending on context and speaker, those employed in lower tier jobs as measured by skill, education, and compensation.

[Tower of Bebel]

They also earn wages. And they get those from either individual capitalists, a group of capitalists or the state. So many doctors are not workers, for example.

[Module]

Working class is a term used in academic sociology and in ordinary conversation to describe, depending on context and speaker, those employed in lower tier jobs as measured by skill, education, and compensation.
Marxists use it to mean, as SoupIsGoodFood said, those who sell their labour power for a wage, however.
I made a thread about essentially this same thing not long ago (http://www.revleft.com/vb/professionals-t113655/index.html?t=113655).

[Manifesto]

Really whats with all these threads being remade?

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Because some people are new and hadn't seen them before? It's hardly a crime.

[Misanthrope]

It is not an issue. I could care less if they are proletariat or bourgeoisie. Medical professionals are essential to society regardless of the economic system, capitalists are not essential.

[LOLseph Stalin]

capitalists are not essential.

Capitalism should be illegal. It breaks most of its own laws it created.

[*Viva La Revolucion*]

So could a professor living in Hampstead be classed as a member of the proletariat?

Where are farmers in this, btw?

[rosie]

This may help a bit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourgeoisie

[Random Precision]

Almost all doctors, at least in the United States, are able to decide which procedures to do, and which patients to see. Also, they are able to direct those who work under them, nurses, interns, technicians etc., and their salaries can be said to include a portion of the surplus-value taken from them.

The same of course, goes for lawyers who can decide which cases to take and have a share of surplus value from their paralegals, secretaries, etc. whose work they direct.

As for "famous actors", they are likewise able to decide what productions they lend their talents to. The same does not go, however, for the vast majority of actors, who have to take whatever role is offered them, which makes them proletarians.

I'm not sure about college professors. Perhaps you could make a case that those who don't actually teach much, and spend their time instead on research, are not workers. Especially if they are supported in their research by the labor of graduate students.

What's common with all these groups is that they can decide what work to do, which workers in a normal line of work are not able to do. Also, they receive a share of surplus-value from those who work under them. So they do contribute alienated labor, however those factors make them petty-bourgeois rather than proletarian.

[Niccolò Rossi]

What's common with all these groups is that they can decide what work to do, which workers in a normal line of work are not able to do. Also, they receive a share of surplus-value from those who work under them. So they do contribute alienated labor, however those factors make them petty-bourgeois rather than proletarian.

I'm not sure I understand the logic in this. Could you elaborate on it and draw out the distinction?

[8bit]

This really depends on what kind of doctor/lawyer/actor/etc... you're talking about. For example, a lawyer who works his own private firm can be considered bourgeoisie or petite bourgeoisie because they control the business which they work for. (For example, the lawyers you see on local TV advertising their own firms can usually be considered petite bourgeoisie.) Alternatively if a doctor/lawyer/whatever works within a firm owned by a separate individual they can often be considered members of the proletariat class.

Yes, doctors/lawyers/etc... usually work moderately "high" paying jobs, but what we know as blue collar and traditional working class is really an anachronism today. In the 1800s factory work and farm work was the common form of work for the middle class, or working class, however, as technology has improved, and as we've come closer to socialism, the working class has become better endowed- better educated, and able to achieve more mentally straining, and less physically straining jobs which make use of current technology. Today the proletariat is a secretary, a computer scientist, a receptionist, an IT specialist, a telemarketer, and yes, even some doctors, lawyers, and actors.