What happens to the self employed after revolution?

[ContrarianLemming]

What happens to the self employed after revolution? the petit bourgeoisie

[John "Eh" MacDonald]

I would imagine as long as they were not exploiting their employers if they had any and gave a fair share to the people they would be able to keep their "investment". Sorry if this is a little bland. I'm not quite good at explaining myself.

[Broletariat]

They'd be strung up and shot

More likely, I think their resources would, like all resources, be compiled into a general pool of resources that people could draw from as they needed to accomplish productive tasks and the like.

[Tablo]

They would become workers or not receive the necessities of life from the rest of society.

[danyboy27]

What happens to the self employed after revolution? the petit bourgeoisie

why should anything happen to them?
they work, provide needed service, why should we care they are petit bourgeois ot not?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Because most self-employed do not, repeat, do not perform productive labour (contribute to surplus value especially reinvestment and capital expansion, direct or indirect contribution to workers consumption bundle, etc.).

Joe the Plumber should either volunteer to become an employed schmuck or be forced into becoming one.

[Jimmie Higgins]

In the short term (during the process of revolution) I think that workers should win them over to support working class rule. Many self-employed people are also hurt by capitalism and so while their class interests are a little more vague and shifting than workers or bosses, I think the majority can be convinced on working class leadership of society during a heightened period of struggle.

So I would argue that radical workers in that position should say that self-employed people should be allowed to continue what they do and negotiate with worker cooperatives or councils for getting resources or distribution of their goods. In the 1930s in the US many small business owners sided with the working class struggles and became allies that allowed striking workers to use their space to organize or helped prepare food for the unemployed.

Post-revolution: if someone works their own business and needs more labor though, they can't hire people for wage labor - they would have to take on equal partners if they could not do all the labor themselves. That probably would be self-regulating though because why would people work for a wage if there was a stable socialist society?

[Martin Blank]

There are a few options. For those providing necessary services (e.g., doctors, farmers), we could use incentives (and dis-incentives) to "encourage" them to give up their independent operations and integrate en masse as highly-skilled wage laborers. For those engaging in wholly unproductive and obsolete labor, they will have to undergo re-training in an establish job-transition program. For those in between, we'll have to take them case-by-case.


why should anything happen to them?
they work, provide needed service, why should we care they are petit bourgeois ot not?

Because we are looking to abolish all classes, not just one of them. I know a lot of leftists "forget" this basic point, but they do so at their own historic peril.

[robbo203]

There are a few options. For those providing necessary services (e.g., doctors, farmers), we could use incentives (and dis-incentives) to "encourage" them to give up their independent operations and integrate en masse as highly-skilled wage laborers. For those engaging in wholly unproductive and obsolete labor, they will have to undergo re-training in an establish job-transition program. For those in between, we'll have to take them case-by-case.



Because we are looking to abolish all classes, not just one of them. I know a lot of leftists "forget" this basic point, but they do so at their own historic peril.


I thought the question was about what would happen to the self employed after the revolution. It seems to me that you envisage the retention of generalised wage labour here which means in effect that you will still have capitalism and that a socialist revolution had not yet ocurred.

Most of the self employed are, of course, part of the working class. They dont possesss sufficient capital to live upon and are thus economically obliged to sell their labour power in the market. In their case it tends not to be to a capitalist but to "consumers" that they sell this labour power though some self employed can called "multifariously" employed by the capitalists. An example would be the small shopkeeper who is in effect a glorified saleman for the companies whose wares he or she stocks

In the classless society established by a revolution, there will be no more buying and selling of labour power because the means of production are owned by everyone. The whole idea of "employment" diappears and of course, along with it, "self emplopyment"

[ContrarianLemming]

Theres a bit of fussing in here about "classlessness" but isn't a classless society not one where we're all in the same mode of employment, but rather, one where no one is born into a class.

Given that the self employed are not "abusers" or otherwise opressors of others, is it moral to influence them to end there self employment and joi a collective? That seems to be Miles suggestion.

Robbo, you say at first in your post that since theres no buying and selling of labour, theres no employment.
That's not quite true, in a classless society, people will still have to contract builders and such to do tasks for another group, we would still "employ" people to do things because they have specialised skills. So there could loically still be self employed.

I ask because I was asked a similar question on another board, and a self employed anarchist suggested that te self employed are still "workers" or a specialised variety and would not pose a threat to anarchy, and there existence does not end the classlessness.

Given that anarchists do not usually define a class by it's relationship to the means of production, but instead it's standing in the stratified social scale, the self employed would not pose in a problem in anarchist theory post revolution. However marxist class analysis does show that the self employed are a different....

fuck it, we'll figure it out when we get there.

[robbo203]

Robbo, you say at first in your post that since theres no buying and selling of labour, theres no employment.
That's not quite true, in a classless society, people will still have to contract builders and such to do tasks for another group, we would still "employ" people to do things because they have specialised skills. So there could loically still be self employed.

I ask because I was asked a similar question on another board, and a self employed anarchist suggested that te self employed are still "workers" or a specialised variety and would not pose a threat to anarchy, and there existence does not end the classlessness.

Given that anarchists do not usually define a class by it's relationship to the means of production, but instead it's standing in the stratified social scale, the self employed would not pose in a problem in anarchist theory post revolution. However marxist class analysis does show that the self employed are a different....

fuck it, we'll figure it out when we get there.

Aeon,

I am not obviously talking about "employment" in the loose sense that you mean of employing people in the sense of contracting them to do things. This is using employment to mean using people in the same way that I might "employ" force to prise open a jammed door.

Im talking obviously of employment in its specific capitalist context to mean a quid pro quo arrangement whereby a worker sell his or her labour power to a capitalist in exchange for a wage or salary . There clearly will be no more buying and selling in a post revolutionary (hence the reference to the "communistic abolition of buying and selling" in the Communist Manifesto) including the buying and selling of labour power. If you have common ownership of the means of production as opposed to class or sectional ownership, buying and selling becomes logically and practically impossible and indeed absurd. Who would the sellers of labour power sell their labour to - and for what possible reason? - when everyone owns the means of production, including the supposed sellers of this labour power?


The very fact that you have buying and selling of any kind means that you do not have a classless, communist and post-revolutionary society.

[Martin Blank]

I thought the question was about what would happen to the self employed after the revolution. It seems to me that you envisage the retention of generalised wage labour here which means in effect that you will still have capitalism and that a socialist revolution had not yet occurred.

Looking back at what I wrote, I definitely misspoke when I said "wage laborers". I was in something of a hurry when I typed that post (as evidenced by the misspellings), and was not thinking clearly. My apologies for the confusion. I should have just said "laborers" or "producers", as something distinct from "wage laborers", since the wages system is one of the first things to be abolished during the transition to communism.


Most of the self employed are, of course, part of the working class. They dont possess sufficient capital to live upon and are thus economically obliged to sell their labour power in the market. In their case it tends not to be to a capitalist but to "consumers" that they sell this labour power though some self employed can called "multifariously" employed by the capitalists. An example would be the small shopkeeper who is in effect a glorified saleman for the companies whose wares he or she stocks

It's not a matter of "possessing sufficient capital", it's a matter of their ability to extract surplus value. The self-employed petty bourgeoisie (as opposed to the so-called "self-employed" temporary or day laborers) can set prices for their services that allow them to make a profit. The amount of capital possessed and acquired from this may be minuscule in comparison to what major corporation make, but that's why they are the petty bourgeoisie.


In the classless society established by a revolution, there will be no more buying and selling of labour power because the means of production are owned by everyone. The whole idea of "employment" diappears and of course, along with it, "self emplopyment"

Yes and no. For some of those considered self-employed, this is true. Those who work as "independent contractors" for larger enterprises will likely see themselves transformed into skilled laborers and integrated into the larger body of producers. But others, such as individual farmers, shopkeepers, independent professionals, etc., it will not be an unconscious, automatic process. There will have to be plans made to break them from their old sets of relationships.

[Martin Blank]

Given that the self employed are not "abusers" or otherwise opressors of others, is it moral to influence them to end there self employment and joi a collective? That seems to be Miles suggestion.

It's not a moral question. It's a question of abolishing one mode of production and establishing another. That cannot be done in any meaningful way as long as elements of the overthrown mode of production continue to exist -- and especially not if they are allowed to flourish in the absence of their "grand" competitors. By doing so, the revolution ceases to be of benefit to the working class (and I use this term consciously here, because preserving the existence of the petty bourgeoisie means the de facto preservation of the existence of the working class), and shifts the advantage to the petty bourgeois, since they are now "liberated" from the domination of the grand bourgeoisie.

[ContrarianLemming]

The very fact that you have buying and selling of any kind means that you do not have a classless, communist and post-revolutionary society.

This isn't true. In "to each according to word done" communism, or Parecon, there is buying of product using credits, which you receive based on labour done. There would be buying, however, the community is selling to the individual.
This would still be a classless society.

[ContrarianLemming]

It's a question of abolishing one mode of production and establishing another. That cannot be done in any meaningful way as long as elements of the overthrown mode of production continue to exist -- and especially not if they are allowed to flourish in the absence of their "grand" competitors. By doing so, the revolution ceases to be of benefit to the working class (and I use this term consciously here, because preserving the existence of the petty bourgeoisie means the de facto preservation of the existence of the working class), and shifts the advantage to the petty bourgeois, since they are now "liberated" from the domination of the grand bourgeoisie.

Why would he self employed flourish? They are only one, and if they were to flourish, how could they establish dominence over everyone else?

And why are they not considered workers? They do, after all, still have to sell there labour, in a far more flexible way albeit.

Not that I don't agree with your suggestion, they should be influenced to join a collective group, they should, as was done in the Spanish revolution, come together for greater efficiancy and join the commune. In catalonia those formerly self employed or small shops, now controlled by workers, came together, closed those formally competing shops that weren't doing well, saved money on them, hired the former workers at these shops into more succesful shops and eliminated competition, leading to cheaper prices and more bussiness (with more staff)

[danyboy27]

Because we are looking to abolish all classes, not just one of them. I know a lot of leftists "forget" this basic point, but they do so at their own historic peril.
i know that, but overall, i highly doubt 90% of the self-employed consider themselves part of a special class, they do things their own way according to the system in place, and if our economical system would have to change, they will adapt themselves to the situation.

Self employed have always been around for millenia, in most economical and social system of the world, they usually play by the rule and fallow the wave, i dont see any reason why we should bother them.

[Martin Blank]

Why would the self employed flourish? They are only one, and if they were to flourish, how could they establish dominance over everyone else?

I guess it's a matter of the extent to which capital accumulation is abolished along with private ownership. Individual petty bourgeois -- independent producers and the like -- can still accumulate capital, even if private ownership is abolished, if they are allowed to do so.

The NEP in Soviet Russia, for example, was a broad form of what I'm talking about: even though private ownership of the means of production was not allowed, farmers and shopkeepers were allowed to extract surplus value from their production or services. This "New Exploitation of the Proletariat" allowed for the strengthening of the petty bourgeoisie, both in the cities and in the countryside.


And why are they not considered workers? They do, after all, still have to sell there labour, in a far more flexible way albeit.

It's not merely "flexibility" that the petty bourgeoisie has; it is the ability to set prices and, in turn, extract profit (surplus value) from their production or service. Indeed, the "flexibility" stems directly from their ability to extract and accumulate capital, albeit on a small scale. Having those social relations produces the by-products of "liberty" and "freedom".

[Martin Blank]

i know that, but overall, i highly doubt 90% of the self-employed consider themselves part of a special class, they do things their own way according to the system in place, and if our economical system would have to change, they will adapt themselves to the situation.

How these elements see themselves is irrelevant. It is their role in society, their relations to the capitalist mode of production and other classes, that necessitates their abolition as a class. Now, if 90 percent of them are willing to "adapt" to a society without private ownership or capital accumulation, then great! That makes the process of abolishing classes and class antagonisms that much easier. But I expect that, rather than simply taking the hint and giving up the ghost, they will do what the petty bourgeoisie has done over the last century when confronted with such a situation: flock to the fascist banner as the "savior of capitalism and individual liberty".


Self employed have always been around for millennia, in most economical and social system of the world, they usually play by the rule and fallow the wave, i don't see any reason why we should bother them.

The independent producer may have been around, in one form or another, since the beginning of class society, but our fight is not simply to establish another class society; it is to abolish all classes and class society itself.

[A.R.Amistad]

As a class the Petit Bourgeoisie are a dying class and will continue to die as a class even after a proletarian revolution. In the lower phase of a worker's state, I might be able to conceive of some small private businesses, but they would quickly be dominated by communal institutions. In a higher stage of socialism, private businesses (like restaurants, speciality stores, entertainment, etc.) would be community owned, and an individual who would open one would
1. Not be driven by profit, but instead by passion in their specific labor
2. Would not make a profit off the establishment
3. Would gain the consent of the community of workers to have the necessary resources for such an institution, which would be owned by the workers in the community and run by the individuals simply on the basis of their passion's and the demand for a certain "luxury" or such. If this makes some sense. The petis bourgeois institutions will eventually be replaced by socialist, worker-community owned enterprises.


The independent producer may have been around, in one form or another, since the beginning of class society, but our fight is not simply to establish another class society; it is to abolish all classes and class society itself.

What are "independent producers?" In socialism, everyone produces and all products are of value to the society (or as much value as the society chooses to put into them). If someone produces band shirts, and decides to have a venue to sell band shirts to a worker's who have a demand for it, that doesn't consitute a class if they don't profit, use a wage system or if their production means (building, producer, etc.) is worker-community owned.