Which class does my friend belong to?

[UltraWright]

I have a friend who is a physician. He owns a two rooms apartment in a very poor area which he uses as a clinic. He carries the medical examination in one room and uses the other as a waiting room. He hires a nurse to help him run the "clinic". The patients come to the clinic without prior booking and the nurse keeps track of who came first so that my friend can examine them (a FIFO stack :)). My friend has a constant fee for examining the patients, but he accepts less from the people who cannot pay much or even examine them for free.

What does that make my friend? Is he a bourgeoisie or a proletariat? Is he a capitalist or a socialist?

[Olentzero]

He's a worker. Though he runs his own clinic, he still very much has to work for a living. He gets no income from investments, and can't actually invest anything in expanding his business as the income he does get isn't enough to do so. True, he does hire a nurse to help him with administrative work but (I'm guessing) he doesn't try to keep her wages at an absolute minimum to create more profit.

Is he a socialist? That depends on his political views, not his relation to social production. I'm guessing he's certainly progressive in that he thinks health care should be a right rather than a privilege (otherwise why provide it for free?) but he'd only be a socialist if he thought that all medical care should be free and the only way we'd get that is the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.

[Devrim]

What does that make my friend? Is he a bourgeoisie or a proletariat?


He's a worker.

No, he is a member of the petit-bourgeoisie. It is about his relationship to the means of production, not how much he earns, or how hard he works.

Regardless of how nice he may be, he is a small businessman and an employer.

Devrim

[Desperado]

Is he a capitalist or a socialist?

As pointed out, socialist describes a persons political views, not a relation towards the means of production. But "capitalist" (when not in the mode of production context) can also be used this way - i.e, a supporter of capitalism, and this can prove quite confusing to non-leftists to whom capitalist nearly always means this. Engels was a capitalist in relation to the means of production (he was an industrialist), but not in the political viewpoint sense (obviously). Conversely plenty of workers are "capitalist" in that their political viewpoints are pro-capitalism.

[Dunk]

I have a friend who is a physician. He owns a two rooms apartment in a very poor area which he uses as a clinic. He carries the medical examination in one room and uses the other as a waiting room. He hires a nurse to help him run the "clinic". The patients come to the clinic without prior booking and the nurse keeps track of who came first so that my friend can examine them (a FIFO stack :)). My friend has a constant fee for examining the patients, but he accepts less from the people who cannot pay much or even examine them for free.

What does that make my friend? Is he a bourgeoisie or a proletariat? Is he a capitalist or a socialist?

Devrim is correct. He owns and controls the clinic but must labor alongside the worker(s) he's hired.

I will say that just because a person is petite-bourgeoisie doesn't mean they're an enemy of the working class. They can sometimes be very powerful allies, although we mustn't forget that they have their own class interests acting upon them.

But your story and what class your friend fits into also says nothing of whether he's a socialist. Socialism isn't something you are because of what you own or where you work. You are a socialist when you believe that all existing social conditions must be overthrown and private ownership replaced with common ownership.

[tachosomoza]

I have a friend who is a physician. He owns a two rooms apartment in a very poor area which he uses as a clinic. He carries the medical examination in one room and uses the other as a waiting room. He hires a nurse to help him run the "clinic". The patients come to the clinic without prior booking and the nurse keeps track of who came first so that my friend can examine them (a FIFO stack :)). My friend has a constant fee for examining the patients, but he accepts less from the people who cannot pay much or even examine them for free.

What does that make my friend? Is he a bourgeoisie or a proletariat? Is he a capitalist or a socialist?

Your friend is not a capitalist, if you define a capitalist in the traditional sense. Yes, he owns a small means of production. But, he works WITH the worker he employs, who is a member of the proletariat. Traditional capitalists are those who OWN means of production, but hire managers and supervisors (petit-bourgeois) to oversee the day to day operations of the firm and to manage the workers. The traditional capitalist pays the managers and workers, and pockets the rest of the profit. He does no work. Your friend most definately isn't a communist/socialist because we advocate for the complete overthrow of the current system and replacement with a system based on collective ownership.

[syndicat]

ordinarily i would put physicians in the bureaucratic class. that's because, altho they may have a "practice" that takes the legal form of a business, the real basis of their income isn't ownership of capital assets but their expertise. They translate this expertise usually into control of practices where they hire employees and/or great influence in institutions such as hospitals, where they serve on the board.

but a medical practice is also a business with employees, so some people would put them into the small business (small capitalist) class.

various groups in the "middle layers" of society have some sort of ambiguous status like this.

[Chris]

Your friend is, as far as I can see, neither proletarian nor bourgeoisie. He is petty-bourgeoisie. He owns the means of production and can live off them, but has to work with them himself. Petty-bourgeois is not really derogatory as such, and are FAR more likely to be progressive and revolutionary than bourgeoisie. Lenin was petty-bourgeois, for example.

How does he treat his employee, both in terms of wages/rights and respect?

[GPDP]

As pointed out, socialist describes a persons political views, not a relation towards the means of production. But "capitalist" (when not in the mode of production context) can also be used this way - i.e, a supporter of capitalism, and this can prove quite confusing to non-leftists to whom capitalist nearly always means this. Engels was a capitalist in relation to the means of production (he was an industrialist), but not in the political viewpoint sense (obviously). Conversely plenty of workers are "capitalist" in that their political viewpoints are pro-capitalism.

In my opinion, to avoid further confusion, the correct term for pro-capitalist ideologues should be liberal, with a qualifier depending on how progressive or reactionary they may be (reformist, conservative, etc).

[28350]

i notice people often conflate marxist class definitions with moralistic value judgments

[MarxSchmarx]

Lenin was petty-bourgeois, for example.
His father was, but apart from a brief period of his life I don't think Lenin derived any income from property or capital he owned and subsisted on basically a salary from the party until he took over the Russia. I could be mistaken on the details, but although Lenin's outlook was probably shared by a lot of the petite-bourgeoisie of the time, he himself never really occupied a relation to the means of production that fit that definition.

[Chris]

His father was, but apart from a brief period of his life I don't think Lenin derived any income from property or capital he owned and subsisted on basically a salary from the party until he took over the Russia. I could be mistaken on the details, but although Lenin's outlook was probably shared by a lot of the petite-bourgeoisie of the time, he himself never really occupied a relation to the means of production that fit that definition.

He worked as an independent lawyer from 1891 to the mid 1890s, which at least I would classify as a petty-bourgeois profession.

[Olentzero]

OK, point conceded; the doctor is petty bourgeois. But only just - he's riding the ragged edge of proletarianization. Marx even spelled it out in the Manifesto - his 'two great camps' quote and a more detailed passage in which he said the petty bourgeois were becoming more and more like proletarians in their working conditions. Dunk's got it right when he says your doctor friend is not necessarily an enemy of the working class, and I think that is more than sufficiently proved by what he's doing with his career.

[MarxSchmarx]

He worked as an independent lawyer from 1891 to the mid 1890s, which at least I would classify as a petty-bourgeois profession.

Yes, as I said:


but apart from a brief period of his life

[Zanthorus]

No, he is a member of the petit-bourgeoisie. It is about his relationship to the means of production, not how much he earns, or how hard he works.

I disagree that class is about 'relationship to the means of production'. For example, the workers' in a co-operative firm may have a different relationship to their means of production than those in a more traditionally structured enterprise, nevertheless they constitute proletarians, the product of their labour is still capital. I think the key to class is the necessary categories which the system needs to reproduce itself in all it's essential features. You cannot have capital without 'free' wage-labourers, and where free wage-labourers exists you're bound to find capital. What constitutes a class cannot be established transhistorically, but only with reference to the analysis of how a given set of social relations are reproduced.

With regards to the OP, I would note that we've had a lot of threads of this kind on the past. I think they really miss the point, as I noted above. Marx's class analysis is not intended to be a way of classifying individuals, like some kind of game where we see what class everyone ends up in. Rather it constitutes a foundation stone of the understanding of how capitalist social relations are reproduced, as well as a stepping stone on the way to understanding how capital ultimately runs into historical limits which it cannot surpass.

[thriller]

Your friend owns property, hires workers, and controls their wage. He is most certainly not a prole. However he seems, from what u described, like a caring person who is not greedy or selfish. As much as well all, including myself, decry capitalism for all it's bullshit, sometimes people have to work within the system to help people out.

[Desperado]

In my opinion, to avoid further confusion, the correct term for pro-capitalist ideologues should be liberal, with a qualifier depending on how progressive or reactionary they may be (reformist, conservative, etc).

We can't describe fascism as liberal, yet it is certainly pro-capitalism. Liberal is used both for social and economic stances.