What class are children?

[Rafiq]

Personally, I think that children don't have a class until they have a job of some sort.

I also think children should play a large role in a proletarian uprising, regardless of their parents class.

[Proukunin]

Children of what age? and do you mean children in actual armed uprising?

[Obs]

Age doesn't affect your class. Until children actually start doing anything productive or owning capital or whatever, they're generally lumpen.

[Black Sheep]

The class of their parents, obviously.

Unless they go Kropotkin on them. :D

[Rafiq]

Children of what age? and do you mean children in actual armed uprising?

Like teens...

And no, I mean in a riot, demo, ect.

[Proukunin]

okay because I was going to say....WTF?

[TC]

Children are, like wives in patriarchal society, oppressed by the individual power of parents (and husbands) - separate and in addition to capitalist oppression. Children (and housewives to a lesser degree) are examples that precisely prove that the proletariat/bourgeois/lumpen/petit-bourgeois is a reductionistic and limited account of the diversity of class relations.

[TC]

The class of their parents, obviously.



Only if you think that class is a mystical, cultural, or genetic quality.

Economically children are most certainly not the class of their parents - they neither own investment property nor do they work for wages while expanding profit and/or expanding capital - so they are neither bourgeois nor proletarian - they are dispossessed of property and work like lumpen proletariat, but unlike lumpen proletariat they 1. have access to but not legal control over consumer goods and shelter of various qualities 2. they are not disproportionately engaged in criminal activity 3. they are legally subjegated to the will of superior private persons who control their movement, location, and behavior.


Children are actually closest not to any modern class of adults, but to domestic slaves, or serfs, or indentured servants, or wives under coveture, or even pets, - though none of these analogies is perfect. Children are treated as highly valuable objects of affection, like pets, without the legal rights of every other class of humans apart from prisoners.

[TC]

Age doesn't affect your class.

It most certainly does affect your class because age affects legal restrictions imposed on you by the state and state enforced patriarchy. Proletariat were distinguished from serfs in that they were, as Marx put it, free in two ways: free of from being bound to the land and a lord, and free from property or land (possessing none). In fact children are not free in the first way: they are bound to their parents and forced by the state to live under their parents dominion, and the state further forces them to participate in its indoctrination (school) and prohibits them from obtaining employment or from living on their own independently.



Until children actually start doing anything productive or owning capital or whatever, they're generally lumpen.

The lumpen are free in ways that children are not.

[Black Sheep]

Only if you think that class is a mystical, cultural, or genetic quality.


A kid of a CEO has the same benefits from communism as a kid from a working class family?
Do they get the same opportunities?

Age is not a class.Class is determined by one's relation to the means of production.
.Assuming that the family follows the inheritance tradition, and that parents generally do provide what they can to their kids, the children inherit their parents' class.

[TC]

A kid of a CEO has the same benefits from communism as a kid from a working class family?
Do they get the same opportunities?

This is only because the child of a ceo may anticipate someday joining the capitalist class, not because they are in fact part of the capitalist class.

Moreover there are divisions and conflicts and competitions within classes and social stratas. It is nonsense and totally unmarxist to assume that everyone within a single class has the same individual interests in the immediate short term - "workers of the world unite" is an aspirational goal not a statement of fact! (which is not to say that children are workers except those who actually work and are thus doubly oppressed by capitalism and patriarchy).


Age is not a class.Class is determined by one's relation to the means of production.A child's relationship to the means of production is radically different from their parents, and moreover, the relationship to the means of production is always mediated by law - in the case of workers and capitalists it is mediated merely by property and contract law, but in the case of children it is further mediated through status crime laws and laws of minority that restrict children's legal rights.


.Assuming that the family follows the inheritance tradition, and that parents generally do provide what they can to their kids, the children inherit their parents' class.Again children may anticipate joining a certain class and gaining a new relationship to the means of production in the future but that is totally different from actually possessing that relationship or actually being a member of that class at present.

[southernmissfan]

I think TC's analysis is pretty accurate. But as Black Sheep points out, there are certainly differences among them. Like any section/class/social grouping, some are better off in the current system than others. While children as a whole are subject to certain universal restrictions, discrimination, etc., some have it better than others. The children of bourgeois or wealthy parents are still subject to forms of domination but have, on average, significantly easier lives (at least materially) than the children of working class parents.

So the liberation of children is distinct from the liberation of the working class, but inevitably tied into the destruction of the capitalist system.

[Black Sheep]

@TC
isn't it safe to assume though, that "practically", children inherit their parents' class?
Since anticipation is always rewarded by what was anticipated.
Being a rich minor is a prelude to a rich adults' life.

[Tablo]

I would generally say they inherit their parents class as they are under their parents domination and have many of the financial restrictions that their parents have. That is if we were to assign a class to them. I agree with Black Sheep.

[southernmissfan]

@TC
isn't it safe to assume though, that "practically", children inherit their parents' class?
Since anticipation is always rewarded by what was anticipated.
Being a rich minor is a prelude to a rich adults' life.

Maybe the best way to say it is that children typically share the benefits/drawbacks of their parents' class while existing outside the traditional class system and facing unique forms of domination. If one has to predict the loyalty of children, probably the best indicator is the anticipated class position.

[Tablo]

Maybe the best way to say it is that children typically share the benefits/drawbacks of their parents' class while existing outside the traditional class system and facing unique forms of domination. If one has to predict the loyalty of children, probably the best indicator is the anticipated class position.
That seems accurate since they don't really take any part in production.

[Black Sheep]

I made that point parents' class--> offspring class, because there's a lot of reactionary crap about 'the youth', the 'new people' that will revolutionize everything, portraying them as a seperate social body...

Which is a load of crap.

[Luís Henrique]

I made that point parents' class--> offspring class, because there's a lot of reactionary crap about 'the youth', the 'new people' that will revolutionize everything, portraying them as a seperate social body...

Which is a load of crap.

Evidently.

Class is hereditary. And, at least for Marxists, they are social classes, not juridical classes. So the children of the bourgeois are bourgeois, too, and the children of workers are working class.

Luís Henrique

[Thirsty Crow]

Children are, like wives in patriarchal society, oppressed by the individual power of parents (and husbands) - separate and in addition to capitalist oppression. Children (and housewives to a lesser degree) are examples that precisely prove that the proletariat/bourgeois/lumpen/petit-bourgeois is a reductionistic and limited account of the diversity of class relations.
These categories you list are classes inasmuch as they refer to a specific group of people who have the specific relation to the means of production in common (they do not own it and are forced to sell their labour power, in the case of the proletariat). Now, these relations are called productive relations, and they function as the basis for the formation of wider social relations. As you can see, the social relation between parents and children in fact does not constitute the two as social classes, unless you'd be able to argue why would it be better to change the basic Marxist perspective on class.

Children do not occupy a specific position characteristic of social classes in capitalism. But, in my opinion, their life experience may be conceptualized within the framework of at least two distinct aspects of wider social relations: teacher-pupil, parent-child. And here I'd tend to agree with you and conclude thatspecific forms of oppression are at work.


Evidently.

Class is hereditary.
I think that such monolithic statements should be avoided at all costs, just for the sake of not being ambushed by "a-ha SOCIAL MOBILITY" arguments. The process of the formation of social classes has become much more complex with the fall of the rigid and hereditary systems characteristic of feudalism.
Southernmissfan's formulation has much more merit to it than this one.

[Kuppo Shakur]

What do y'all think Marx meant by petite bourgeoisie?
So it's settled, children are cappies.

[PhoenixAsh]

In Marxism class is defined by the relationship to the means of production....and belonging to a class is dictated by the position of the induvidual towards those means of production. Children in western countries do not own means of production and can not sell their labor. So in most western countries I say its a fair argument to make to assume them as either classless or lumpen....since they can not induvidually be classed along the previous lines. I think its not a valid argument to classify them as belonging in a Marxist sense to the class of their parents since children have no legal claim to the MOP and I do not think future prospect should determine the class denomination. So far I am with TC.

With this side note...in certain countries or certain population groups children maybe required for any reason to work. In that case they do have a connection to the means of production...an in that case that connection decides which class they are.

Its also possible that children are kept as actual slaves...btw.

Where I have some problems with TCs position is in equating children with a form of slavery...though this argument is not without merit and I understand the general reasoning...I think the terminology is a bit too heavy and has too much of a connotation....depending to the age and development stage of children there is a real question if a child can or should be entirely independent. But thats more or less another debate.

[Manic Impressive]

The bourgeois child lives of the capital which is accumulated from the labour of a proletarian. Same would go for a spouse who does not directly own the means of production but still benefits from the proletarians labour.

That's not to even mention the benefits of being in an elevated social class for instance better education, health, opportunities for extra curricular activities, help getting into better jobs by association, etc.

So yes they are bourgeois and class is inherited.

[PhoenixAsh]

But income does not define class in a Marxist way. Children simply do not have a claim to the means of production. In fact they do not have a direct relationship to them at all unless they are working.

They offcourse "benefit" from the class relations of their parents but that is not a classification which is Marxist.

[Manic Impressive]

But income does not define class in a Marxist way. Children simply do not have a claim to the means of production. In fact they do not have a direct relationship to them at all unless they are working.

They offcourse "benefit" from the class relations of their parents but that is not a classification which is Marxist.
They have a claim to it through inheritance. So a child who is not working does not for want of a better term "make their living" from the labour of a proletarian albeit slightly indirectly through the parent?

[PhoenixAsh]

Inheritance is future potential. Thats like arguing that students with a summer job are burgeoisie because they can expect a high paying job in management....or...somebody who shows potential for promotion to mabager class is in effect belonging to the management class already. The current actual relationship to the MOP determines the class.

And yes...children do not exploit workers to make their living. THey do not have the legal status to do so. They also do not make a living.

[Manic Impressive]

And yes...children do not exploit workers to make their living.
How do they eat? How do they have a roof over their head? How do they get a new pair of Nike trainers? How do they get a new car for their 16th?
Indirectly from the exploitation of the labour of the proletariat.

[28350]

Honestly the class of your parents has so much impact on your class. While it's not explicit, there are institutionalized mechanisms that segregate and stratify children based on the class of their parents. SAT (in the US is a standardized test high school students take) scores line up pretty well with parent income.

[black magick hustla]

this question is so throughly academic and sociological that it evades the point of marxism in the first place

[RedSunRising]

While class has its base in relations to the means of production it also expands on from there to include a wider outlook. So children are the class that their families are. Surely even in terms of social power people can see that?

[PhoenixAsh]

How do they eat? How do they have a roof over their head? How do they get a new pair of Nike trainers? How do they get a new car for their 16th?
Indirectly from the exploitation of the labour of the proletariat.

Some of the get breast fed...



Unfortunately this means that if taken to logical extend everybody in the west is burgoisie compared to the exploitation of the lesser and lest developed countries since we all indrectly benefit from that exploitation. Or the homeles guy who lives in my street who is maintained by the rich burgoisie family around the corner by handing him food and old discarded clothes...he also "benefits" indirectly. So no...I do not agree with your assesment.

Marxist class theory depends on the induvidual and current actual relationship to the means of production. The ownership of the MOP is codified by law and as TC argued...children simply do not have that legal right. They do not have a relationship to the MOP.

[PhoenixAsh]

Honestly the class of your parents has so much impact on your class. While it's not explicit, there are institutionalized mechanisms that segregate and stratify children based on the class of their parents. SAT (in the US is a standardized test high school students take) scores line up pretty well with parent income.

Yes...it has. Nobody is arguing against that. Unfortunately thats future potential...not current. As soon as the child gains legal status and a job that job decides the relationship to the means of production and therefore decides the class.


this question is so throughly academic and sociological that it evades the point of marxism in the first place

Yes. It is indeed. Doesn't mean we shouldn't debate it.


While class has its base in relations to the means of production it also expands on from there to include a wider outlook. So children are the class that their families are. Surely even in terms of social power people can see that?

No. I do not agree with that assessment. Social power is not necessarilly a decider in class unless that social power comes from being able to decide over others because somebody owns means of production other than their own labor.

In my street there is a guy (not the homeless one) with a whole lot of social power and influence. Simply because he is well liked, respected for his aid to others, his knowledge and his open and friendly demeanor. People listen to him and people respect him....he is however a worker and belongs properly in the proletarian class.

[Agent Ducky]

Ok, if children are the class of their parents, what if one of their parents is petit-bourgeoisie, a small business owner who doesn't make a lot of money at all, so their other parent works and is therefore proletariat.

What does that make the kids?

[Manic Impressive]

Some of the get breast fed...
:rolleyes:


Unfortunately this means that if taken to logical extend everybody in the west is burgoisie compared to the exploitation of the lesser and lest developed countries since we all indrectly benefit from that exploitation.
No although the western proletariat does benefit in terms of cheaper commodities giving them greater spending power the outsourcing of labour to 3rd world countries has a detrimental effect on the western proletariat due to decreasing wages.


Or the homeles guy who lives in my street who is maintained by the rich burgoisie family around the corner by handing him food and old discarded clothes...he also "benefits" indirectly. So no...I do not agree with your assesment.
According to Marx beggars are lumpen although many now reject that notion. But they do not survive by gaining capital from bourgeois charity but more generally from their own labour or from the labour of proletarians.


Marxist class theory depends on the induvidual and current actual relationship to the means of production. The ownership of the MOP is codified by law and as TC argued...children simply do not have that legal right. They do not have a relationship to the MOP.
But they do have a legal right to the ownership of the MoP on the death of the owner in the mean time they will continue to benefit from the labour of the proletariat.

If it is soley who owns the means of production which class would you put a professional landlord who does not own the means of production but maintains themselves by collecting rent?

[jake williams]

Children and unemployed spouses are part of the same class whose income they live on, because this establishes their collective social relationship to production. Anyone can use the term "class" to mean whatever they want, but neither women nor children share a collective relationship to the means of production, as workers and capitalists both do. While I don't want to push the theory that men and women have fundamentally contradictory interests, there are conflicts of a social scale between different parts of the family - but there are conflicts of social significance between different industries. Finance capitalists and energy capitalists aren't part of a different class. This is all aside from the fact that about half the labour force is women anyway.

Class mobility doesn't mean anything, anymore than your ability to move to a different country means you're not presently living in a country. Children can go up and change their fundamental social relationship to the means of production, albeit rarely, but the fact that this is a "change" is because they start of, ignoring edge cases (eg. kids who are abandoned by their parents etc.), in the same class of their parents - and, again, almost always stay there.

[PhoenixAsh]

Ok, if children are the class of their parents, what if one of their parents is petit-bourgeoisie, a small business owner who doesn't make a lot of money at all, so their other parent works and is therefore proletariat.

What does that make the kids?

...well...if they have more than one we can perhaps devide them over the parents....

[PhoenixAsh]

:rolleyes:


No although the western proletariat does benefit in terms of cheaper commodities giving them greater spending power the outsourcing of labour to 3rd world countries has a detrimental effect on the western proletariat due to decreasing wages.

One can argue that we have a higher standard of living and live expectancy because of that exploitation.


According to Marx beggars are lumpen although many now reject that notion. But they do not survive by gaining capital from bourgeois charity but more generally from their own labour or from the labour of proletarians.

well..the homeless guy I indicted pretty much gets around by being maintained by one of the wealthy burgoisie families in the burrough. And seeing as that makes him indirectly benefitting from burgeoisie relations...what class does he fall into?



But they do have a legal right to the ownership of the MoP on the death of the owner in the mean time they will continue to benefit from the labour of the proletariat.

The same could be said and argued for the children of the proletariat who live and benefit from the exploitation of their parents. That however does not imply there is a direct relationship to the means of production.


If it is soley who owns the means of production which class would you put a professional landlord who does not own the means of production but maintains themselves by collecting rent?

Collecting rent for what? Because if he is collecting rent from renters for the one who owns the appartments I assume he gets a wage from him or her?

[Manic Impressive]

One can argue that we have a higher standard of living and live expectancy because of that exploitation.
Yes our purchasing power is higher but the price of our labour is lowered. Am I repeating myself?



well..the homeless guy I indicted pretty much gets around by being maintained by one of the wealthy burgoisie families in the burrough. And seeing as that makes him indirectly benefitting from burgeoisie relations...what class does he fall into?
Source? Nah didn't think so. How am I meant to respond to stories of some bloke you know which seems pretty unbelievable to be honest.


The same could be said and argued for the children of the proletariat who live and benefit from the exploitation of their parents. That however does not imply there is a direct relationship to the means of production.
How they get the capital which is used to sustain them is their relation to the means of production.


Collecting rent for what? Because if he is collecting rent from renters for the one who owns the appartments I assume he gets a wage from him or her?
A landlord in this case one who owns multiple buildings and collects multiple rents which they use to sustain themselves.

[Agent Ducky]

...well...if they have more than one we can perhaps devide them over the parents....

Divide them? As in, decide that the kid is half-proletariat and half petit-bourgeoisie, and possibly create a new stupid portmanteau like petit-Proletargeoisie?

[PhoenixAsh]

Yes our purchasing power is higher but the price of our labour is lowered. Am I repeating myself?

Fair enough.


Source? Nah didn't think so. How am I meant to respond to stories of some bloke you know which seems pretty unbelievable to be honest.

Well..believe it or not. I offcourse have no source for this....its just the case. Lets treat it as a hypothetical if that makes it easier for you. My argument would mean this guy is still Lumpen...since he has no ties to means of production and he gets by by not working or receiving wages in the proletarian sense. Your argumenst would mean he is burgeoisie since he is maintained by indirectly "benefitting" from the exploitation of the workers and has indirect ties to the means of production.

Yet he can not claim them legally. Like the children. Who can only claim them legaly if certain future conditions are met...which could, in all fairness, be decades into the future if we are talking inherritance


How they get the capital which is used to sustain them is their relation to the means of production.

Well...I am pretty much sure Marxist theory describes the ownership of them. And ownership is very much a legal construct...which kids don't have over means of production in a very real sense. Objective reality states that they may inherrit those, they may even be expected to join the class of their parent(s) or they may even be groomed for it....but they do not yet have that direct relationship to them which implies ownership and have no role in the social organisation of labour.



A landlord in this case one who owns multiple buildings and collects multiple rents which they use to sustain themselves.

If that is his sole income generating ability then he is arguably part of the remnants of the landlord class (ML) which should be seen as a predecessor and comeptitor class to the PB.

ML descibes several other classes besides the Proletariat; petit-burgeoisie; burgeoisie...who do not fit the description of these. Most of them are irrelevant or marginalised to such an extend.

[SacRedMan]

Are childeren aware of class struggles? And are they really a class?

[El Chuncho]

Depending on the age, they can have a class or are classless. Young children are exempt from being a part of any class, unless you wish to label them as lumpen. They cannot vote, they are below the age of consent, therefore it is not right to call them members of a class, especially not the class of their parents.

[PhoenixAsh]

Divide them? As in, decide that the kid is half-proletariat and half petit-bourgeoisie, and possibly create a new stupid portmanteau like petit-Proletargeoisie?


hehehe. I was actually attempting to be a bit sarcastic... ;-) Not towards you though because I think you raised an excellent point which highlights some of the problems in classifying children along the lines of the class relations of the parents.

[Ocean Seal]

I would argue that children are indeed the class of their parents especially those at a young age. If you're parents are proletarians constantly at risk of being fired, less and less able to pay the bills, it becomes your struggle as well. If you're parents are on strike, then it is in your best interest to see that they succeed and win better wages/ working conditions and so on. And on top of that I think that most kids think well of their parents and want the best for them. So, I don't think that we'll see Barack Obama's children, or Donald Trump's children on the front lines of the revolution because inheritance would make it such that they will probably inherit the bourgeois empires.

Not all children of proletarians will be proletarians and not all children of bourgeoisie will be bourgeoisie. But most children of proletarians will remain proletarians and most children of bourgeoisie especially at the higher levels of the bourgeoisie class will stay bourgeoisie. Class is almost essentially hereditary.

[Luís Henrique]

In Marxism class is defined by the relationship to the means of production....and belonging to a class is dictated by the position of the induvidual towards those means of production. Children in western countries do not own means of production and can not sell their labor.

But they are fed and raised by either proprietors of means of production, or by sellers of labour power (no one can sell labour, which is not a commodity).

And of course, that small fact pretty much determinates what they will be as adults. The son of a finance mogul isn't a hapless slave at the hands of his parents; he is the heir of a financial empire.


So in most western countries I say its a fair argument to make to assume them as either classless or lumpen....since they can not induvidually be classed along the previous lines. I think its not a valid argument to classify them as belonging in a Marxist sense to the class of their parents since children have no legal claim to the MOP and I do not think future prospect should determine the class denomination. So far I am with TC.

You will learn, if you read Marx, that this is not how social classes are defined. The lawyer for a capitalist company - or even its CEO - may well not own a single means of production. But he is fed from surplus value extracted from workers, and paid not for his labour power, but, instead, allowed a (grantedly smallish) part of such surplus value as a reward for making profits possible. Same for children, old people, disabled people, sick people, or people on vacations.

The stay-at-home wife of a welder is a working class housewife. The schyzophrenic brother of a capitalist manufacturer is a schyzophrenic bourgeois. A retired taylor is still a proletarian, and no worker becomes a lumpen or a classless person because it is Sunday or a hollyday.


Where I have some problems with TCs position is in equating children with a form of slavery...though this argument is not without merit and I understand the general reasoning...I think the terminology is a bit too heavy and has too much of a connotation....depending to the age and development stage of children there is a real question if a child can or should be entirely independent. But thats more or less another debate.

Children are children, they cannot be expected to have the same responsibilities as adults. This is a fact that won't change with a socialist revolution.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Marxist class theory depends on the induvidual and current actual relationship to the means of production. The ownership of the MOP is codified by law and as TC argued...children simply do not have that legal right. They do not have a relationship to the MOP.

I am a Marxist, and I completely disagree with that. I look at your profile, and it says, "anarchist". Are you deliberately trying to make Marxist theory sound ridiculous?

Again, social classes are not juridical classes.

Luís Henrique

[PhoenixAsh]

But they are fed and raised by either proprietors of means of production, or by sellers of labour power (no one can sell labour, which is not a commodity).

And of course, that small fact pretty much determinates what they will be as adults. The son of a finance mogul isn't a hapless slave at the hands of his parents; he is the heir of a financial empire.

Which he wil inherrit eventually...but untill that time he is neither and does not own means of production except his own labor power nor do they controll the production proces or the division of labor....nor are they able to wage such controll or possession.




You will learn, if you read Marx, that this is not how social classes are defined. The lawyer for a capitalist company - or even its CEO - may well not own a single means of production. But he is fed from surplus value extracted from workers, and paid not for his labour power, but, instead, allowed a (grantedly smallish) part of such surplus value as a reward for making profits possible. Same for children, old people, disabled people, sick people, or people on vacations.

And as you conclude yourself: "A retired taylor is still a proletarian, and no worker becomes a lumpen or a classless person because it is Sunday or a hollyday." (sic)

The class devisions are based on the relationship to the means of production and the division of labour.

As Marx explained being wealthy alone is not enough to belong to the burgeoisie. What is bhowever a determining factor is if that wealth is actively used to make it self-expansive through employment and exploitation of labour.

Children can not do this. The do not have the means to do so since they lack the legal and therefore actual possibility to wage such power and influence.

Conversely proletarians need to work to sustain themselves. They own nothing except their labour to sell. Children do not need to work in many countries and as long as they do not need to and are legally prevented from doing so....they therefore do not belong in the proletarian class....untill they need to.

And that simple fact makes it so that they can not one-on-one be grouped inside the class of their parents.

THey "benefit" from that class relationship of their parents and in all likelyhood they will eventually end up in the same class...but they are not in that class yet

Being part of the elite does not constitute a class. As I remember Marx stated that being part of the military leadership or being part of the leadership of dominant religious institutes is consideredd to be elite and to exert influence. But that is not a class in itself. The dominant class, in this instance the burgeoisie, is the class which is able to own (and therefore excludes children), or at least control (again excluding children per default), the means of production or property which formed the basis for wealth

As for lawyers they are a very diverse group. And their relationship to the means of production and labour in the hierarchy of companies determines their class status....and some may even be considered to be petit-burgoisie or are in fact proletarians...albeit...often well paid proletarians if they are working in a law firm on the basis of wage.

CEO's are an entirely different matter. Their legal status grants them temporary status of akin to ownership of a company and the means of production and gives them direct controll over those means of production and the division of labour.



The stay-at-home wife of a welder is a working class housewife. The schyzophrenic brother of a capitalist manufacturer is a schyzophrenic bourgeois. A retired taylor is still a proletarian, and no worker becomes a lumpen or a classless person because it is Sunday or a hollyday.And the daughter of a welder is the daughter of a welder....and perhaps part of a working class family. But he is not working class yet.


You still have not answered the question about mixed class families and the class of the children in such families.





Children are children, they cannot be expected to have the same responsibilities as adults. This is a fact that won't change with a socialist revolution.

Luís HenriqueOn that we absolutely agree.



I am a Marxist, and I completely disagree with that. I look at your profile, and it says, "anarchist". Are you deliberately trying to make Marxist theory sound ridiculous?

Again, social classes are not juridical classes.

Luís Henrique

Are you trying to say ownership is not a legal construct and capitalist power that is derived on such ownership is not entirely codified? Because if thats your argument I think you need to reevaluate the status and implementation of laws in the construction and the enabling of class dominance and subjegation.

[RED DAVE]

Children are all lumpen proletariat. They are socially useless. Beware of them. :D

RED DAVE

[PhoenixAsh]

@ Luis.

On the position of stay at home women. I have a somewhat different view which may or may not be entirely Marxist.

I think stay at home women are an exploited group in themselves. Not because of their relations to the means of production but because they are women and as such are forced inside a gender role which is to serve men. As such I think they are classed not by their relationship to the means of production but because of their relation to somebody who does have such a relationship...in effect classing them based on the relationship of their husband is imo, and this is not only a theoretical aswel as an emotive position, akin to designate them as property because their class identity depends not on their own induviduality or personhood but by evaluating them as insubordinate and even property owned by the man...which gives them their identity.

Now...I do not deny the freedom for women to decide to want to stay home. But I tink that freedom is at the moment mostly an illusion. That does not deny that such choices are made voluntarilly but they are imo more often than not a result of fostering the societal inequality of gender roles...and often mere necessity.

[Luís Henrique]

The class devisions are based on the relationship to the means of production and the division of labour.

On the social relationship to the means of production. Not on the juridical relationship to the means of production.

The children of the bourgeois live from the property of means of production. And so they are members of the capitalist class. They are part of the haves, not of the have nots.


As Marx explained being wealthy alone is not enough to belong to the burgeoisie. What is bhowever a determining factor is if that wealth is actively used to make it self-expansive through employment and exploitation of labour.

So, for instance, if I am a millionaire, but do not employ workers, instead just lending money for other capitalists, I am not a bourgeois? In my book, rentists are capitalists also.


Children can not do this. The do not have the means to do so since they lack the legal and therefore actual possibility to wage such power and influence.

This is irrelevant. Such power is exerted in their behalf, and for their benefit.


Conversely proletarians need to work to sustain themselves. They own nothing except their labour to sell. Children do not need to work in many countries and as long as they do not need to and are legally prevented from doing so....they therefore do not belong in the proletarian class....untill they need to.

They live from labour, from the selling of labour power - their parents (or whomever else is responsible for them) labour power. And so they are proletarians. Working class children, who will have no other commodity to sell than their labour power once they are adults.


And that simple fact makes it so that they can not one-on-one be grouped inside the class of their parents.

Again: a class, in the Marxist sence, is a social class. It cannot be reduced to juridical relations.


THey "benefit" from that class relationship of their parents and in all likelyhood they will eventually end up in the same class...but they are not in that class yet

Why not, if their whole life is determined by such relation to the means of production?

They are children of owners of means of production, or of non-owners of means of production - and that is itself a relation to means of production.


You still have not answered the question about mixed class families and the class of the children in such families.

Fine. It depends on where the income actually comes from. Is it from the father's shop, or from the mother's job as a teacher? What are the prospects of that family? Is the shop going to be actually inherited by the children? Or is it more likely that the children will have to sell their labour power in order to survive.

The petty bourgeoisie is a transitional class; the very fact that there are intermarriages between them and the proletariat shows this, and is part of their continual descent into the proletariat. So this is actually quite a non-issue.

Other kinds of class intermarriage are usually a specific form of coopting a petty bourgeois or a proletarian into the bourgeoisie. Proletarian or petty bourgeois women married to bourgeois men become bourgeois women, nevermind whether they are active partners in the family enterprises or housewives who have no say in DH's companies. Proletarian or petty bourgeois men married to bourgeois women don't usually have the option of being "househusbands", because such role isn't quite acceptable (yet) in our societies, but examples of petty bourgeois succesfully turned capitalist entrepreneurs by marriage are not unheard of (Sam Walton being the classic example).


On that we absolutely agree.

And what practical use would your strange theory of children's "classlessness" have, except to support inviable reivindications of children's autonomy (which is the reason, for instance, TC sponsors such ugly deviation from Marxism)?


Are you trying to say ownership is not a legal construct and capitalist power that is derived on such ownership is not entirely codified? Because if thats your argument I think you need to reevaluate the status and implementation of laws in the construction and the enabling of class dominance and subjegation.

No, but the codification is a result of the real relations of exclusion of common people from the enjoyment of means of production, and not the cause of it.

They took the means of production, and then made such appropriation legal. They didn't codify a theory of property into law and then used it to grab the means of production.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

I think stay at home women are an exploited group in themselves.

Well, no.

Of course proletarian housewives are exploited, because their class is exploited. But bourgeois housewives are not exploited. What they quite probably are, is oppressed - and I have no doubts that such oppression can reach unbearable proportions. But exploitation means that a person takes more of his/her share of social production, at the expense of another, who takes less. And these women take more than their share of social production, at the expense of their husband's employees, so they are members of an exploitative class.


Not because of their relations to the means of production but because they are women and as such are forced inside a gender role which is to serve men. As such I think they are classed not by their relationship to the means of production but because of their relation to somebody who does have such a relationship...in effect classing them based on the relationship of their husband is imo, and this is not only a theoretical aswel as an emotive position, akin to designate them as property because their class identity depends not on their own induviduality or personhood but by evaluating them as insubordinate and even property owned by the man...which gives them their identity.

Women are not property, haven't been such for a long time now.


Now...I do not deny the freedom for women to decide to want to stay home. But I tink that freedom is at the moment mostly an illusion. That does not deny that such choices are made voluntarilly but they are imo more often than not a result of fostering the societal inequality of gender roles...and often mere necessity.

I don't think there is "freedom" there, but rather mere abidance of social stereotypes.

*************

Classes are arguably the most important social group a person belongs to, but are by no means the only relevant group. Those usually criss-cross with class, but do not supercede it, nor become classes of themselves. There is something as "teenagers", as there is something as "the elderly" in general, regardless of class, and no doubt they have common needs and interests transversal to classes. But this doesn't mean that a bourgeois teenager or a retired bourgeois are classless, or that they compose a class of themselves, etc.

There is a trend of pseudo-Marxism that promotes such non-class groups into classes, and tries to take political consequences out of that (I remember a website that promoted the idea that the fundamental classes of society are "medics" and "patients", and was all for class struggle... of patients against medics - and for revolution, but a revolution of patients, not a proletarian revolution. Other examples abound, though most won't go as far in substituting such groups for the proletariat as the revolutionary subject). But they have nothing to do with Marxism, except perhaps terminology, and a nasty sectarianism copied from degenerate working class organisations...

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Children are all lumpen proletariat. They are socially useless. Beware of them. :D

...and that's why us communists eat them.

I like mine with mustard, please.

Luís Henrique

[PhoenixAsh]

On the social relationship to the means of production. Not on the juridical relationship to the means of production.

The children of the bourgeois live from the property of means of production. And so they are members of the capitalist class. They are part of the haves, not of the have nots.

They are part of the elite. To that much I agree with you....but they are not actors in the means of production and that is pretty much required to belong to a class.



So, for instance, if I am a millionaire, but do not employ workers, instead just lending money for other capitalists, I am not a bourgeois? In my book, rentists are capitalists also.

The act of you lending money is directly involving ourself in the production process and the division of labour.




This is irrelevant. Such power is exerted in their behalf, and for their benefit.

No its not. Its exerted...and they benefit. Wether they are there or not is not in any way shape or form a prerequisite for that power being waged. They also do not hold any influence over it.



They live from labour, from the selling of labour power - their parents (or whomever else is responsible for them) labour power. And so they are proletarians. Working class children, who will have no other commodity to sell than their labour power once they are adults.

Exactly...once they come of age or are in the position that they need to work.



Again: a class, in the Marxist sence, is a social class. It cannot be reduced to juridical relations.

Property and ownership are pretty much legal constructs these constructs define class and the social realtions that come out of it....so yes...I agree with you but I think you are ignoring the role laws play in defining the prerequisites for class divisions.


Why not, if their whole life is determined by such relation to the means of production?

They are children of owners of means of production, or of non-owners of means of production - and that is itself a relation to means of production.

But not a participatory one. And that is pretty much what Marx described...as such they are children of proletarians, children of the burgeoisie, children of the petit-burgeoisie...not proletarian, burgeoisie or petit-burgeoisie.

Also...they do not inherrit anything until somebody actually dies. That maybe well into their 40's. And who lnows what kind of class relations they will have during that time. It may very well be that they get a job somewhere as managers or start their own small company or soho company...



Fine. It depends on where the income actually comes from. Is it from the father's shop, or from the mother's job as a teacher? What are the prospects of that family? Is the shop going to be actually inherited by the children? Or is it more likely that the children will have to sell their labour power in order to survive.

The petty bourgeoisie is a transitional class; the very fact that there are intermarriages between them and the proletariat shows this, and is part of their continual descent into the proletariat. So this is actually quite a non-issue.

No...really its not. If the theory that children belongs to the class of their parents is correct it should be correct for all the classes and not be dependent on the future outcome of wether or not a petit-burgoisie endeavour will survive.



Other kinds of class intermarriage are usually a specific form of coopting a petty bourgeois or a proletarian into the bourgeoisie. Proletarian or petty bourgeois women married to bourgeois men become bourgeois women, nevermind whether they are active partners in the family enterprises or housewives who have no say in DH's companies. Proletarian or petty bourgeois men married to bourgeois women don't usually have the option of being "househusbands", because such role isn't quite acceptable (yet) in our societies, but examples of petty bourgeois succesfully turned capitalist entrepreneurs by marriage are not unheard of (Sam Walton being the classic example).

And what if she or he retains her or his employment?


And what practical use would your strange theory of children's "classlessness" have, except to support inviable reivindications of children's autonomy (which is the reason, for instance, TC sponsors such ugly deviation from Marxism)?

I do not know what TC's motives are they are for her to decide. My motives are that children are not actors on the stage until they actually are....and until that time they are not our enemies.


No, but the codification is a result of the real relations of exclusion of common people from the enjoyment of means of production, and not the cause of it.

They took the means of production, and then made such appropriation legal. They didn't codify a theory of property into law and then used it to grab the means of production.

Luís Henrique

They more or less did depending on how long you want to go back....because property laws are one of the most ancient codified laws...wether they are codified in religious text or remained in oral form or codified in actual jurisprudence the authority to wage power and rule has always been explained as in terms of a legal construction...so yeah...ancient times perhaps...but otherwise the rules have chaged with society...but they have always been used to identify power and used to gain that power.

[PhoenixAsh]

Well, no.

Of course proletarian housewives are exploited, because their class is exploited. But bourgeois housewives are not exploited. What they quite probably are, is oppressed - and I have no doubts that such oppression can reach unbearable proportions. But exploitation means that a person takes more of his/her share of social production, at the expense of another, who takes less. And these women take more than their share of social production, at the expense of their husband's employees, so they are members of an exploitative class.

I think I meant that their gender is exploited....but I'll settle for oppressed.




Women are not property, haven't been such for a long time now.

I did not say they were property. But I think society still treats them as such. Depending on where you are in the world that view may be more or less true. But the fact remains that even in todays society women hold a lesser position than men in general and women are still viewed as extentions of their husbands. That view regulates the behaviour and the intepretation marriage laws....in which for example it is very customary that the woman takes the surname of her husband




I don't think there is "freedom" there, but rather mere abidance of social stereotypes.


very well.