What class do I belong to?

[CesareBorgia]

I'm a database architect at a medium sized (around 50 employees) company.

My current salary is $106,000 but as I understand it, classes are determined by their relation to the means of production and not income.

So, technically, what class do I belong to? Am I 'petty-bourgeois'?

[red cat]

Capitalist.

[CesareBorgia]

Capitalist.

How so? I don't exploit labour power, I don't have employees, I don't live off dividends, and I don't own means of production. I always thought of myself as a salaried worker.

[red cat]

So what? You're a capitalist nevertheless.

[Manic Impressive]

not bourgeois as you don't own t-m-o-p. Are you middle management? can you hire and fire employees? if so you might be petit bourgeois under some definitions. If not then you're proletarian. $100k is a good salary but it's not a lot in the grand scheme of things.

[Manic Impressive]

So what? You're a capitalist nevertheless.
why what are you basing that on?

[Тачанка]

No, you stupid maoist! You're the capitalist, you have a computer. Now hush, back to your mommy's basement.


Yes, you're working class, and might develop revolutionary tendencies, although you may not be exposed to revolutionary thoughts or circumstances leading to such (bail-out, homelessness, losing your job...) as much as others, you're still working class. But I believe there's some point at which one won't even care about anything in the world anymore... but one's own money, even though one is just a really highly paid employee... :(

[red cat]

why what are you basing that on?

The fact that he is a capitalist.

[SacRedMan]

The fact that he is a capitalist.

But he clearly types that he don't exploit labour power, don't have employees, don't live off dividends, and don't own means of production...

[CesareBorgia]

not bourgeois as you don't own t-m-o-p. Are you middle management? can you hire and fire employees? if so you might be petit bourgeois under some definitions. If not then you're proletarian. $100k is a good salary but it's not a lot in the grand scheme of things.

No, I am not management, I do not oversee any other employees.

[red cat]

But he clearly types that he don't exploit labour power, don't have employees, don't live off dividends, and don't own means of production...

He is still a capitalist.

[Kotze]

If you don't own means of production and don't command workers around you are certainly NOT a capitalist in the Marxian sense and I don't even see how you could be one of those muddy cases between clear examples of worker and capitalist.

Next thing you know, someone on this forum will say that athletes are capitalists because they themselves "own human capital" by being talented or some shit like that. :rolleyes:

[StoneFrog]

how does middle management denote petit-bourgeois? They aren't using their own capital to gain profit; from what i've come to see petit-bourgeois are those who own the means of production via their capital yet cannot live of their capital like the bourgeois (such as small shop owners).

The OP is a Proletariat IMO.

[Manic Impressive]

how does middle management denote petit-bourgeois? They aren't using their own capital to gain profit; from what i've come to see petit-bourgeois are those who own the means of production via their capital yet cannot live of their capital like the bourgeois (such as small shop owners).

The OP is a Proletariat IMO.
That's why I said "under some definitions". I think the IWW doesn't allow members who are in a position to hire and fire workers.

[hatzel]

Seems that if you're not a third-world farmer with a gun, the Maoists won't believe you're a proletarian. Figures :)

Seriously, you haven't given enough detail here. But if somebody employs you, and you don't employ anybody, then that sounds prole to me. Not that I know what a 'database architect' is...

EDIT: I'll just clarify that I find these 'what class am I?' threads that pop up every now and then to be a bit stupid...

[Os Cangaceiros]

Lumpenprole.

[RedTrackWorker]

I'm a database architect at a medium sized (around 50 employees) company.

My current salary is $106,000 but as I understand it, classes are determined by their relation to the means of production and not income.

So, technically, what class do I belong to? Am I 'petty-bourgeois'?

I have no idea why "red cat" is just repeating that you are capitalist without any kind of evidence or argumentation.

But I don't agree with Manic that "can you hire and fire employees? if so you might be petit bourgeois under some definitions. If not then you're proletarian."

Hiring and firing makes you management, a particular part of the petty-bourgeoisie, but not being management and not being capitalist doesn't make you a proletariat.

Some "professional" type jobs (like teachers and medical workers) are not determined solely by the nature of their work or how much they make but must be judged by their overall relation to the class struggle. I would say that doctors in the U.S. are quite clearly petty bourgeois even if they don't hire and fire, but in some Latin American countries, they're part of the better-off working class.

I would tend to think a professional-type job like computer work that makes over $100k (income can be an indication) would be petty-bourgeois, but it partly depends on the role of the job in the company and for small companies that can be harder to determine outside of an actual struggle.

[Tommy4ever]

Don't listen to these lot.

Unlike more primitive 'the rich' vs 'the poor' class distinctions Marxism analyses your class according to your relations to the means of production. If you exploit no labour, if you own no means of production, if you work yourself then you are no bourgeiosie. This is according to the Marxist definition.

However, if we look at the more primitive 'rich' vs 'poor' I am sure you realise that you are clearly a very well off individual.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Yall been trolled by a redcat.

[Lord Testicles]

So what? You're a capitalist nevertheless.

Your in-depth analysis would have made Marx proud.

[hatzel]

Your in-depth analysis would have made Marx proud.

Of course Marx would have written three lengthy volumes to say it. Red cat's just giving us the edited highlights...

[Kuppo Shakur]

You're doing relatively well in capitalist society, that's for true, but when it comes down to it, you are still a filthy prole.

[Reznov]

The fact that he is a capitalist.

lol, that really clears it up.

And I think we would classify as Communists, since we are aware and actively fighting in the class struggle.

But proletarian nonetheless.

[Ocean Seal]

I'm a database architect at a medium sized (around 50 employees) company.

My current salary is $106,000 but as I understand it, classes are determined by their relation to the means of production and not income.

So, technically, what class do I belong to? Am I 'petty-bourgeois'?
No, you're not petit-bourgeois. You're a proletarian. You earn a rather high salary, but as you said classes are determined by the means of production. You are educated and belong to a professional strata of the proletariat. So I would put you at upper strata proletarian. Materially you are a revolutionary because the revolution would benefit you, but being that $106,000 means you're probably going to be joining the revolution more for ideological purposes than material ones.

[Dunk]

The contemporary, empirical, income based class definitions arbitrarily slap names on certain sections of the population - even while their may be common interests between two separate classes by these definitions (which sort of violates the entire concept of class to begin with), and purchasing power really screws with these definitions.

The more analytical, Marxian definitions of class are, in my opinion, much more tangible than contemporary definitions because they capture the common interests of groups of people based upon their relations to private property.

But there are still problems. Like this one. This is the same problem we have when contemplating super star professional athletes - they don't own the team, they don't own the league, etc. Some people even have reasoned that they have a monopoly on their own skill, which makes that skill it's own means of production, which could explain in Marxian terms why such a seemingly rich proletarian is actually a member of the bourgeoisie. But, I think that's a load of crap.

Defining classes in terms of the relations to the means of production is sufficient in explaining class for the overwhelming majority of the population. But when a worker is so highly paid that they can simply become a member of the bourgeoisie with one or two transactions they can easily afford, then it's insufficient to explain what class you belong to.

I couldn't tell you what class you belong to. You make a shit ton of money, and I don't know anything about your purchasing power, and whether you use your money to invest, or whether you actually do manage workers, whatever. What I'm going to tell you is that it doesn't matter. You're a leftist, and this is fantastic because you make so much - you can have a much higher impact than the rest of us workers eking out our own survival.

So don't be discouraged or elated over whatever anyone tells you what class you belong to. You have a greater power to make a difference - and when you use that greater power, that should make you happy. :)

[28350]

middle class


trollface.png

[L.A.P.]

He is still a capitalist.

Obviously you have a great understanding of social class.

@CesareBorgia:

The only thing that makes you a Capitalist is your fairly high salary but anyone with an elementary understanding of Marxist theory knows that it's your role in the means of production that determine your class more than just how much your salary is. If you don't manage or own any of the means of production and just sell your labor then you're not even a petty bourgeoisie, you're a proletariat with a pretty good salary.

[Zanthorus]

The only thing that makes you a Capitalist is your fairly high salary but anyone with an elementary understanding of Marxist theory knows that it's your role in the means of production that determine your class more than just how much your salary is.

Anyone with an elementary understanding of Marxist theory knows to go into 'citation from Marx needed' mode whenever anyone starts making claims about what is involved in an 'elementary understanding of Marxist theory'. Anyway, I think this just about sums up all that needs to be said in reply to these endless 'what class is x in' threads:


In particular, it [the Marxist view of class] is not the sociological view that feels it has to account for everybody. The classic sociological definition is one of income: from 0 to $5000 a year is lower working class, $5000 to $10,000 is upper working class, $10,000 to $15,000 is lower middle class, $15,000 to $20,000 is upper middle class, and so on. That is, of course, very neat-it takes care of everybody; nobody is left out; everybody belongs to some class. But in real life there are a lot of marginal people. In which class is the guy who runs a gas station, puts in 80 hours a week, pumps gas, gets his hands dirty, but also employs half a dozen people and makes a profit? If you really have to define everybody, then you are not in the business of making revolutions, you are in the business of defining people.

And what I want to get away from is the idea that unless every living soul is taken care of, there is something wrong with the theory. We are dealing with social categories, which are abstractions, and which are only approximations of reality. They can never include every human being in any kind of definition.- Martin Glaberman, Marxist Views of the Working Class

[Ballyfornia]

He is still a capitalist.
So if any one works, to you they are all capitalist?

[red cat]

Don't derail the thread, he is a capitalist.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Don't derail the thread, he is a capitalist.

Care to share your thoughts as to why you consider him a capitalist? Naw, I thought not.

CB is a highly paid member of the working class.He does work which is of great service to the ruling classes enternal pursuit of capital accumulation and this is well rewarded but he is still a worker.

[Robocommie]

so what? You're a capitalist nevertheless.

Marxism!

[hatzel]

Marxism!

Don't mention Marx, he was a dirty cappie...

[RedHal]

another rich trot, why am I not surprised from reading your other posts:rolleyes:

[BostonCharlie]

"Given these economic preconditions, it is quite possible, after the overthrow of the capitalists and the bureaucrats, to proceed immediately, overnight, to replace them in the control over production and distribution, in the work of keeping account of labor and products, by the armed workers, by the whole of the armed population. (The question of control and accounting should not be confused with the question of the scientifically trained staff of engineers, agronomists, and so on. These gentlemen are working today in obedience to the wishes of the capitalists and will work even better tomorrow in obedience to the wishes of the armed workers.)"

Lenin - State and Revolution, Chapter 5 Section 4

So it would appear that at least Lenin did not consider engineers to be either capitalists or proletarians. It would seem that technical experts form a minor separate class well into the development of capitalism. Marx's 1847 observation in the Manifesto that capitalist society was simplifying its class structure to bourgeois and proletarian was a limiting case that has not been reached.

[#FF0000]

another rich trot, why am I not surprised from reading your other posts:rolleyes:

stop. posting.

[tachosomoza]

OP is a very well paid prole. No ownership of means of production, no authority in regards to the affairs of other employees, no bourgeois. It's that simple.

[ZeroNowhere]

stop. posting.You're a capitalist.

[Jimmie Higgins]

You're a capitalist.We're all capitalists, it's the end of history - no more ideology, every person on the planet is a successful entrepreneur who has cashed-in at 30 and owns his or her private tropical island.

[RedSunRising]

Yall been trolled by a redcat.

Im not sure if he is trolling. Your man may well have (probably does have) shares in the company or at the very least in other ones.

[dernier combat]

you're probably going to be joining the revolution more for ideological purposes than material ones.
And what if the OP wishes to take part in the democratic administration of society and of their labour? That fits neither of the given categories.

[Kotze]

Do you have a Che shirt or are you a capitalist?

Do you think people doing the most arduous work should NOT be compensated or are you a capitalist? Don't forget that paying people for work is capitalist.

Do you fight for the third world by supporting exploited oil sheiks and revolutionary patriotic Foxconn managers or are you a capitalist?

Do you yearn for a life without evil technology and where people die toothless at twenty or are you a capitalist?

[The Idler]

There are only two economic classes, working-class and capitalist-class.
If your existence depends on you working, you belong to the working-class.


People are divided into classes according to their social relationship to the means of wealth production and distribution. These classes have changed according to changing social conditions (e.g. slaves and masters, peasants and lords). In capitalism people are divided into those who possess the means of production in the form of capital, the capitalist class, and those who produce but do not possess, the working class (which includes dependants).

The working class, as they have no other property to sell on a regular basis, live by selling their labour power for a wage or a salary. This class therefore comprises unskilled, semi-skilled, skilled, professional, and unemployed workers; it includes those at various stages of the reproduction cycle of labour power, such as students, housewives and pensioners. This class runs society from top to bottom. The capitalist class, on the other hand, does not have to work in order to get an income. They draw rent interest and profit (surplus value) because they own the means of life.

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

lol

[hatzel]

lol

Thanks for the insight, bro :thumbup:

(What was that even directed at? :confused:)

[ZeroNowhere]

There are only two economic classes, working-class and capitalist-class.That's not true, though. Marx was pretty clear about it not being true, for example in volume III of Capital with landowners (who were a feature of his work even in 1844).

[dernier combat]

There are only two economic classes, working-class and capitalist-class.
uh, no.


In capitalism people are divided into those who possess the means of production in the form of capital, the capitalist class, Middle-management aren't workers, yet they certainly don't do much in the way of possessing MoP. Where does this simplistic model of yours take that in to account?


and those who produce but do not possess, the working class (which includes dependants). Nope. I can do no better than quote TC on this matter:


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.

[The Man]

A new RevLeft meme? "You're a Capitalist"

[Rafiq]

The fact that he is a capitalist.

Than you're a capitalist as well.

That's extremely anti Marxian of you, red cat.

Class is not defined by wealth or income.

Stop asserting baseless bullshit, otherwise you're just a troll.

[Rafiq]

He is still a capitalist.

trooooooooolllllllllllllllll

[Rafiq]

There are only two economic classes, working-class and capitalist-class.
If your existence depends on you working, you belong to the working-class.

Petit-Bourgoiesie work too..... They aren't working class.

Fail.

[Die Rote Fahne]

He is still a capitalist.
trolololo.

[Die Rote Fahne]

Petit-Bourgoiesie work too..... They aren't working class.

Fail.
A lot of Lumpen work too...slinging drugs, and such is still work..

[Catmatic Leftist]

Even if he was capitalist, isn't it still possible for him to still support a proletarian revolution and join the working class in their revolution? I thought that some capitalists will do this when the time comes?

[bcbm]

i can tell you what class you are for real but i want a tenth of your salary

[tachosomoza]

OP is the richest person on revleft. :D

Maybe he should put some of that money towards the err.....good of the errr....people. Of which I am one.

[red cat]

A new RevLeft meme? "You're a Capitalist"

And a very effective one too :D

[Leftsolidarity]

I don't mean to steal your thread but I think we have (except for the trolls) agreed that you are a proletariat and I do not want to start a whole new thread for basically the exact same question.

I got in a discussion with my dad yesterday (very conservative) and he asked me what class I would consider him. I didn't know exactly because it is a little muddy.

He is very well paid (almost 200k a year I think and was paid large lump sums to join the company). He does not control the company in a huge way but does run one of their largest projects and manages a number of "lower" workers. I said he would probably be classified as lower bourgeoisie or very top proletariat.

Also, I was wondering what that makes me since I'm his son. I don't know if it makes any difference if I call myself a Marxist and belong to the SPUSA, I guess in reality I'm still just a rich white kid.

What would you said?

[Catmatic Leftist]

I don't mean to steal your thread but I think we have (except for the trolls) agreed that you are a proletariat and I do not want to start a whole new thread for basically the exact same question.

I got in a discussion with my dad yesterday (very conservative) and he asked me what class I would consider him. I didn't know exactly because it is a little muddy.

He is very well paid (almost 200k a year I think and was paid large lump sums to join the company). He does not control the company in a huge way but does run one of their largest projects and manages a number of "lower" workers. I said he would probably be classified as lower bourgeoisie or very top proletariat.

Also, I was wondering what that makes me since I'm his son. I don't know if it makes any difference if I call myself a Marxist and belong to the SPUSA, I guess in reality I'm still just a rich white kid.

What would you said?

He's petit-bourgeoisie, I think? But that just makes you the son of a petit-bourgeoisie/capitalist. I think you're still proletarian. Correct me if I'm wrong?

[Leftsolidarity]

He's petit-bourgeoisie, I think? But that just makes you the son of a petit-bourgeoisie/capitalist. I think you're still proletarian. Correct me if I'm wrong?

I don't think that fits because he is not self-employed and his salary is paid by someone else.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Everyone in here is a capitalist that got trolled for almost 3 pages straight.

[DienBienPhu]

Marx never said it was only two classes in the society. He only said that bourgeoisie and working-class were the two which fundamentally structure the society. And Lenin never said it either.

Property of production's means is not the only criterion for class-belonging. Or else, you consider Exxon-Mobbil's CEO as member of the working-class : after all, he is only a salaried !

Divide between those who own the production's means and those who don't is the base of the capitalist mode of production, but what determine class-belonging is the place in the relations of production, and that's wider than just the property. Relations of production it's also distinction between those who manage and those who obey, between those who product surplus-value and those who benefit of it (not only capitalists), between those who design and those who apply, the salary's level (if you can accrue or just survive with), etc.

All this contradictions don't juxtapose anyway, and you can find people who don't belong clearely to a class.

Between Bourgeoisie and Proletariat, you got middle-classes, which is a heterogeneous group, with principally classic pretty-bourgeoisie (little storekeepers, artisans, etc.) and a salaried sector : engineers, teachers, executives.


About CesareBorgia, I would say he belongs to the Upper- or Middle-middle-class. He is salaried, he doesn't manage people, but it salary is extract from social surplus-value of the working-class. You could respond that a cleaning lady is in the same position, but difference is that CesareBorgia's salary is very above what he needs to reproduce it labor power and he can accumulate his own little capital : a vacation's house, etc.

[ZeroNowhere]

Everyone in here is a capitalist that got trolled for almost 3 pages straight.We're not capitalists, we're just pretending to be in order to make you feel at home.

[Rusty Shackleford]

We're not capitalists, we're just pretending to be in order to make you feel at home.
Such a capitalist thing of you to do.

[ZeroNowhere]

Such a capitalist thing of you to do.Precisely.

[Johnny Kerosene]

He is still a capitalist.

Based on your definition of capitalism, anyone who works a job and is given money in return for it is a capitalist. Surviving in capitalism doesn't make someone a capitalist.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Based on your definition of capitalism, anyone who works a job and is given money in return for it is a capitalist. Surviving in capitalism doesn't make someone a capitalist.

i dont know whether to laugh or cry.

[black magick hustla]

it doesnt matter, its not like "medium sized company data architects" with a 100k salary are part of a sizeable political force so its kindof meaningless to posture whether you are working class or not

[Die Rote Fahne]

You're a peasant.

[Tim Finnegan]

He's a prole, he's just a prole with a decent wage. I really don't understand why that idea is so hard for some people to grasp.


I have no idea why "red cat" is just repeating that you are capitalist without any kind of evidence or argumentation.

But I don't agree with Manic that "can you hire and fire employees? if so you might be petit bourgeois under some definitions. If not then you're proletarian."

Hiring and firing makes you management, a particular part of the petty-bourgeoisie, but not being management and not being capitalist doesn't make you a proletariat.

Some "professional" type jobs (like teachers and medical workers) are not determined solely by the nature of their work or how much they make but must be judged by their overall relation to the class struggle. I would say that doctors in the U.S. are quite clearly petty bourgeois even if they don't hire and fire, but in some Latin American countries, they're part of the better-off working class.

I would tend to think a professional-type job like computer work that makes over $100k (income can be an indication) would be petty-bourgeois, but it partly depends on the role of the job in the company and for small companies that can be harder to determine outside of an actual struggle.
What's the distinction you're making between "proletarian" and what I can only call "waged petty bourgeois"? :confused: You've left it so far very ambiguous.


About CesareBorgia, I would say he belongs to the Upper- or Middle-middle-class. He is salaried, he doesn't manage people, but it salary is extract from social surplus-value of the working-class. You could respond that a cleaning lady is in the same position, but difference is that CesareBorgia's salary is very above what he needs to reproduce it labor power and he can accumulate his own little capital : a vacation's house, etc.
In what sense? Are you suggesting that he is somehow selling his labour at above its exchange value, which would imply that he is selling his labour at an immediate loss to the capitalist? That doesn't strike me as sitting particularly well alongside the Marxian theory of value, at least as I understand it.

[RedTrackWorker]

What's the distinction you're making between "proletarian" and what I can only call "waged petty bourgeois"? :confused: You've left it so far very ambiguous.

you're right. I didn't explain it very well. DienBienPhu started the job:


Divide between those who own the production's means and those who don't is the base of the capitalist mode of production, but what determine class-belonging is the place in the relations of production, and that's wider than just the property. Relations of production it's also distinction between those who manage and those who obey, between those who product surplus-value and those who benefit of it (not only capitalists), between those who design and those who apply, the salary's level (if you can accrue or just survive with), etc.

Class is not a static category. It is a social relationship.

One cannot say: "wage=worker; property=capitalist" or whatever various static definitions have been thrown around on this thread. For one, I assume the poster is salaried, not waged. But I hope no one will claim all salaried employees are not proletariat.

So what's the difference between a proletarian and a waged or salaried petty-bourgeois person? Well, depending on the situation it can be ambiguous--that is my point. The class struggle itself clarifies such questions and it's not static. Especially in periods of boom (post-WW2) certain sectors can be "lifted up" out of the proletariat and especially in times of crisis sectors of what were petty-bourgeoisie could be proletarianized, but even that's an oversimplification--because their can be "inter-penetration" of categories (semi-proletarian, etc.).

Let's look at cops, soldiers, security guards and other state workers as an example. I think teachers and child care workers in the U.S. are proletarian and are in an oppressive relationship to their students/clients (see a letter on a childcare workers union case on our website: http://www.lrp-cofi.org/letters/piercetragedy041111.html). But I think this is different from cops who aren't workers despite having wages, managers, "unions," having working-class origins mostly, etc.

Trotsky said:
The fact that the police was originally recruited in large numbers from among social-democratic workers is absolutely meaningless [talking about Germany]. Consciousness is determined by environment even in this instance. The worker who becomes a policeman in the service of the capitalist state, is a bourgeois cop, not a worker. Of late years, these policemen have had to do much more fighting with revolutionary workers than with Nazi students. Such training does not fail to leave its effects. And above all: every policeman knows that though governments may change, the police remains.

How would the various definitions on this thread explain cops? This is not just a matter of definition like "is Pluto a planet?". There is a live debate in Tunisia and Egypt on how to relate to cops with most of the "left" supporting them forming unions. The League's position is that they should be disbanded and disarmed and replaced by a militia of workers and poor people. The idea that cops should just be "reformed" and allowed to form unions is an invitation to a bloody reaction.

Or take soldiers. There's a difference between a working-class draftee and a volunteer for a mercenary/volunteer army. In general, it's a class difference but in the U.S. today there is a kind of "economic draft" so you have the experience of, for instance, mass refusal to obey orders from a mostly Black Mississippi-based regiment that's reminiscent of the class conflict within a drafted army.

Then security guards today are an even more mixed group. Some are basically private police and others are ID-checkers and many more are in between. Static definitions won't help you determine their class and how to relate to them in the class struggle.

[DienBienPhu]

In what sense? Are you suggesting that he is somehow selling his labour at above its exchange value, which would imply that he is selling his labour at an immediate loss to the capitalist? That doesn't strike me as sitting particularly well alongside the Marxian theory of value, at least as I understand it.

The pay he received is constituted for a part by what he needs to reproduce his labour power, but for an other part by surplus-value socially extract to the working-class, and that bourgeoisie transfer to the intermediate salaried classes, for various reasons.

[DienBienPhu]

One cannot say: "wage=worker; property=capitalist" or whatever various static definitions have been thrown around on this thread. For one, I assume the poster is salaried, not waged. But I hope no one will claim all salaried employees are not proletariat.

What difference between "waged" and "salaried" ?


So what's the difference between a proletarian and a waged or salaried petty-bourgeois person? Well, depending on the situation it can be ambiguous--that is my point. The class struggle itself clarifies such questions and it's not static. Especially in periods of boom (post-WW2) certain sectors can be "lifted up" out of the proletariat and especially in times of crisis sectors of what were petty-bourgeoisie could be proletarianized, but even that's an oversimplification--because their can be "inter-penetration" of categories (semi-proletarian, etc.).

Yes !


I think teachers and child care workers in the U.S. are proletarian and are in an oppressive relationship to their students/clients

Do you think they opress students/children or they are oppressing by them ? I think teachers are just executive, because they manage...children, as a firm's executive manages workers, even if it's not to extract labour power. Social role of teachers is to train future workers.

[Tim Finnegan]

The pay he received is constituted for a part by what he needs to reproduce his labour power, but for an other part by surplus-value socially extract to the working-class, and that bourgeoisie transfer to the intermediate salaried classes, for various reasons.
On what basis is this claimed? Is it not simply possible that his labour power is applied in such a manner as to produce a great exchange value, thus permitting the paying of a greater range while maintaining, if not perhaps the same rate of exploitation (although the social nature of labour makes such quibbles rather a moot point), then the fact of exploitation? You seem to presume that there is some natural maxim wage which people may naturally acquire, and that anything above that is necessarily evidence of some indirect exploitation, which is an idea that I quite frankly do not see emerging from the Marxian theory of value as I understand it.


*snip*
I'm sorry, but that doesn't actually address individuals such as the OPer. It makes a case against those waged individuals who are in effect the non- or under-socially productive dependants of the bourgeoisie- the police force being one example, certain over-paid professionals another- but not about workers who simply have access to a fairly high salary. You assert that American doctors and the like are "petty-bourgeoisie", but you don't actually address why this is the case, beyond cryptic references to some unique "relationship to class struggle", which I take to suggest that proletarian status is judged by a tendency towards engaging in class struggle, which strikes me as simplistic. Perhaps I'm miscomprehending?


Do you think they opress students/children or they are oppressing by them ? I think teachers are just executive, because they manage...children, as a firm's executive manages workers, even if it's not to extract labour power. Social role of teachers is to train future workers.
I'm not sure that this neat delineation between management and non-management that you imagine is actually the case, and especially not in this day a. First and foremost, it simplistically assumes that coordinator-activity is the unique province of formally designated managerial staff- "executives", as you call them- when it can really be much more fluid and that. In a supermarket, if you'll allow a personal example, you certainly get the battalion of shirt-and-tie'd managers, yes, but you also get non-managerial supervisors who hold a level of deferred authority, and at times employees who are attributed an informal seniority by dint of greater experience.

[Decolonize The Left]

This thread now deserves the following:
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTFenUGnKfIiwnvUIDmQF6fnvItXJJkx zJyMb6cHrRXVDt_y6GQRA
http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSUJuUslOFQX7ltxXQnVlJgGsIjYeNHG dLyxtF4NA5-GBc2Lx4h
http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS4dPxQkauqy6Yo1xVbkM0XXZCivU5tv BFC75fEiioLMFRVRkkBRg

Yes... capitalist baby animals! Look at them hoarding the means of production in their adorable little eyes!!?!

- August

[hatzel]

This thread now deserves the following

August, I know that you know that there are rules about posting off-topic pictures in threads, because you read when Sam_b was telling me off for it. So don't do it. Or put them in spoiler tags. Or just do it anyway, see if I care! :lol:

(Also they're super cute, no doubt!)

[Decolonize The Left]

August, I know that you know that there are rules about posting off-topic pictures in threads, because you read when Sam_b was telling me off for it. So don't do it. Or put them in spoiler tags. Or just do it anyway, see if I care! :lol:

I did it because this thread should have been closed and trashed when red cat started trolling it in the first place. But given that it's still open and being trolled, it gets animal pics as a necessary response.

Not my fault. You leave troll threads open you get animal pics. It's fucking dialectics man...

- August

[Weezer]

While I realize red cat is just trolling, but class is based on the percentage of the means of production one owns, not wealth, though those with more wealth usually are more bourgeois, but it does not always mean one is bourgeois.

I think that's one of the biggest misunderstandings of Marxist theory, usually by capitalist ideologues.

[hatzel]

capitalist ideologues

You mean the OP? :rolleyes:

[Agent Ducky]

Yeah, inb4AugustGetsToldOff

But D'awww they are so cuute how can they possibly be so EVIL AND CAPITALIST?

[Tim Finnegan]

Well, donkeys aren't capitalists, they're intelligentsia- didn't you ever read Animal Farm? http://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/mischief.gif

[hatzel]

Last time I checked, Marx wrote that one's class is decided entirely by how one has one's eggs in the morning. Fried for the proletariat, scrambled for the petite bourgeoisie and an omelette for the big dogs! And lumpen get jack shit. So, OP, how do you like your eggs in the morning?

[Weezer]

You mean the OP? :rolleyes:

Can't tell if that was sarcastic or not.

In any case: nope. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvdf5n-zI14)

[hatzel]

Can't tell if that was sarcastic or not.

But but but I used the smiley which is specifically called 'Roll Eyes (Sarcastic)'; why do we have it if people don't get it?! :crying:

[RedTrackWorker]

I'm sorry, but that doesn't actually address individuals such as the OPer. It makes a case against those waged individuals who are in effect the non- or under-socially productive dependants of the bourgeoisie- the police force being one example, certain over-paid professionals another- but not about workers who simply have access to a fairly high salary. You assert that American doctors and the like are "petty-bourgeoisie", but you don't actually address why this is the case, beyond cryptic references to some unique "relationship to class struggle", which I take to suggest that proletarian status is judged by a tendency towards engaging in class struggle, which strikes me as simplistic. Perhaps I'm miscomprehending?

That would be a pragmatic way to put it (tendency to engage in class struggle)--the more theoretical way to put it would be a concrete analysis of a particular strata to predict how they will relate to class struggle.
Consider Trotsky's comment:

While an electrician can, day after day, install electric wiring in the offices of ministers, bankers and their mistresses, and yet remain himself in spite of this, it is a different matter for a doctor, who is obliged to find music in his soul and in his voice which will accord with the feelings and habits of these persons.

In other words, one cannot determine "electrician=worker; doctor=petty-bourgeois" by referring to their amount of income or even type of work. I think Trotsky's analysis is over-simplified to make a point--but one can look at doctor's in this country and how they're socialized and say they're not part of the working class. I admit that's an assertion not an analysis itself but I've certainly never seen any evidence to suggest otherwise.

Like I said for the poster, the class position of a database adminstrator in a small company cannot be judged just by knowing that--though the likelihood is, I think, that concrete analysis would show it's a professional layer not a proletarian layer.


What difference between "waged" and "salaried" ?

Generally waged means someone is paid a rate based on how long they work, whereas salaried means they're paid, for example, a yearly amount to do a certain job and not paid overtime if it goes beyond 40 hours a week (in the U.S. for instance).


Do you think they opress students/children or they are oppressing by them ? I think teachers are just executive, because they manage...children, as a firm's executive manages workers, even if it's not to extract labour power. Social role of teachers is to train future workers.

I meant the teachers oppress the students (though I would be careful to put it in so unqualified a way but definitely not the other way around).

[Tim Finnegan]

That would be a pragmatic way to put it (tendency to engage in class struggle)--the more theoretical way to put it would be a concrete analysis of a particular strata to predict how they will relate to class struggle.
Consider Trotsky's comment:

While an electrician can, day after day, install electric wiring in the offices of ministers, bankers and their mistresses, and yet remain himself in spite of this, it is a different matter for a doctor, who is obliged to find music in his soul and in his voice which will accord with the feelings and habits of these persons.In other words, one cannot determine "electrician=worker; doctor=petty-bourgeois" by referring to their amount of income or even type of work. I think Trotsky's analysis is over-simplified to make a point--but one can look at doctor's in this country and how they're socialized and say they're not part of the working class. I admit that's an assertion not an analysis itself but I've certainly never seen any evidence to suggest otherwise.

Like I said for the poster, the class position of a database adminstrator in a small company cannot be judged just by knowing that--though the likelihood is, I think, that concrete analysis would show it's a professional layer not a proletarian layer.
This appears to refer to cultural and ideological constructions of class, not objective relations to production. A non-proletarian waged class can only be argued on the basis of an objective economic interest in the maintenance of private property- such as that found among law enforcement, bourgeois politicians, and so forth- which I don't think can be said of essentially productive workers, such as doctors (outside of the upper strata) and of "professional artisans" such as a database architect. At most, they have a subjective or percieved interest in preserving certain beneficial arrangements which may lead them to support the status quo, but you could very easily say the same thing about the legions of social democrat skilled workers who adopted a staunch anti-communism in the inter- and post-war periods. That strata strikes me as one of workers compromised by attributed social status and financial comfort, rather than something set apart from the working class altogether.

[syndicat]

class is a power relation between groups. the capitalists dominate and exploit the working class. this is a group to group relationship. for the capitalists, this is rooted in their relative monopoly of ownership of means of production. but there are ways that a group may have power that enables it to dominate and exploit workers. within contemporary capitalism you have a class I'd call the bureaucratic class, whose power is based on their relative monopoly over decision-making and the information that is key to control of the decision-making. so you have corporate middle managers, lawyers, top accountants etc but people who have power within the state apparatus also, such as military officers, judges and whatnot.

but I can't tell whether the OP is a member of the bureaucratic class without knowing more about his/her position.

for example, i worked for years in software engineering departments. there was usually someone who had a title like, say, "System Architect." in my experience this was usually a senior engineer who was a close adviser of management. they would have a lot of say over who got assigned what job, how the work was broken up, who was hired, and so on. there were also "project managers" who rode herd on all the programmers. I would place these people in the bureaucratic class along with middle management because of the direct control over workers and the overall production process. in other words, in virtue of their organizational position.

but there were also buildmeisters, sys admins, programmers, tech writers...these people i would regard as simply skilled workers...that is, members of the skilled section of the working class. there are people in this category I know who make more than $100k a year. it's not their high wages that determine their class position, but their relative lack of control over the production process and other workers. that is, in virtue of the particular structure that controls production. when we're talking about class we're talking about a position in a social structure.

[Tim Finnegan]

class is a power relation between groups.
Not as I understand it. Power relationships are analogue and non-universal, while class is a collective of shared objective economic interests, which are non-analogue and universal. I have supervisors at work who make not a penny more than me, so to expel them to some "bureaucratic" class because they can tell me whether to stack the onions or the salads strikes me as more than a little absurd.

As I said previously, if there is to be a waged non-worker class, it has to be addressed in terms of its objective economic interests, and that means an objective dependence on private property, something which may encompass lawyers, politicians, and senior managers, but does not realistically encompass senior skilled workers. There is nothing about their labour that is objectively incompatible with socialism, even if certain subjective factors- an attachment to authority, for example- may make them individually maladjusted towards it.

[ar734]

I would say you are neither petit-bourgeoise (a small business) or capitalist. I suppose "database architect" means you write computer programs. If you work in an office or use computers and computer programs owned by somebody else then you don't own the means of production.

On the other hand, if the company you work for provides programming for the military, then I guess you might be some kind of very well paid parasite.

[Tim Finnegan]

I would say you are neither petit-bourgeoise (a small business) or capitalist. I suppose "database architect" means you write computer programs. If you work in an office or use computers and computer programs owned by somebody else then you don't own the means of production.

On the other hand, if the company you work for provides programming for the military, then I guess you might be some kind of very well paid parasite.
The distinction between socially productive and non-productive labour does not generate a class distinction between different sets of waged workers. The defining factor of the proletarian experience under capitalism is the manner in which labour power is sold, not the end to which it is employed.

[syndicat]

Not as I understand it. Power relationships are analogue and non-universal, while class is a collective of shared objective economic interests, which are non-analogue and universal. I have supervisors at work who make not a penny more than me, so to expel them to some "bureaucratic" class because they can tell me whether to stack the onions or the salads strikes me as more than a little absurd.

you'll have to explain what you mean by vague terms like "analogue" and "universal." people called "supervisors" may or may not be members of the (bottom edge of) the bureaucratic class, but it depends on what power they have in the structure over workers.




As I said previously, if there is to be a waged non-worker class, it has to be addressed in terms of its objective economic interests, and that means an objective dependence on private property,

non-sequitur. that's because a bureaucracy can have power as a dominating class without private ownership of means of production. See USSR for example.

Also, "objective economic interest" is un-explained and un-argued for, and is too vague. What the working class do share is an objective interest in liberation from being a subordinate, exploited class. particular groups within the class may or may not have identical economic interests. in a racial caste system the dominant caste may not have an identical objective economic interest with lower caste members of the working class.



something which may encompass lawyers, politicians, and senior managers, but does not realistically encompass senior skilled workers.


Now you're begging the question. in the example I gave, i mentioned various skilled workers who I said were members of the, to repeat, skilled section of the working class. I differentiated these people from the bureaucratic class.

if you want to say our bosses are in the working class, you can say that, but I will take that as apologetics for some kind of bureaucratic class system.



is nothing about their labour that is objectively incompatible with socialism, even if certain subjective factors- an attachment to authority, for example- may make them individually maladjusted towards it.

so you mean that socialism, in your view, is compatible with the hierarchical, taylorized division of labor created by capitalism? so, then, apparently nothing is to change under socialism in terms of worker power at the point of production. Not on your assumptions.

[Tim Finnegan]

you'll have to explain what you mean by vague terms like "analogue" and "universal." people called "supervisors" may or may not be members of the (bottom edge of) the bureaucratic class, but it depends on what power they have in the structure over workers.
"Analogue" in the sense that "power" is not an on/off situation, but a variable derived from a complex intersection of varying factors. "Universal" in the sense that social classes are universally present throughout a society, and not thrown up on a temporary basis within an inhabited workplace.


non-sequitur. that's because a bureaucracy can have power as a dominating class without private ownership of means of production. See USSR for example.State ownership is still private ownership. Soviet collectivism was a legal fiction, not an economic reality, and the capitalist and bureaucratic classes- nomenklatura and apparatchik- were in objective terms distinct, even if a shared institutional space blurred mystified the boundaries somewhat. After all, the Roman Catholic Church is a nominally collectivist organisation, but you'd have a hard time arguing that a parish priest and the pope were of the same class.


Also, "objective economic interest" is un-explained and un-argued for, and is too vague. What the working class do share is an objective interest in liberation from being a subordinate, exploited class. particular groups within the class may or may not have identical economic interests. in a racial caste system the dominant caste may not have an identical objective economic interest with lower caste members of the working class.It's a pretty basic concept of Marxist thought, which I would've thought you were familiar with.

[Edit: Actually, not, that's a feeble answer, and too smarmy by half. I'll try again: what I mean is that a social class share certain general economic interests as determined by their relationships to production. In the case of the bourgeoisie, this means the maintenance of private property and so the maintenance of exploitation through wage labour, and in the case of the proletariat this means the overthrow of private property and so the abolition of exploitation through wage labour, that being the only feasible way can be abolished. Of course, you're well aware of all this, so I'll get to the point, which is that if there is a class of waged non-workers, it would have to have a set of objective interests set apart from these, which is to say interests which demanded the maintenance of both private property and, as such, of their own subservient status under a system of private property. This is something that can certainly be said of executives, many higher-ranking professionals, and so forth, but it's much harder to argue on the point of supervisory skilled workers, which is why I suggest that their opposition to socialism is subjective, that is, based on some individual biases, illusions, or attachments to petty authority.]


Now you're begging the question. in the example I gave, i mentioned various skilled workers who I said were members of the, to repeat, skilled section of the working class. I differentiated these people from the bureaucratic class.I said "senior skilled workers", that is, workers with some sort of supervisory position, as distinct from run-of-the-mill skilled workers.


if you want to say our bosses are in the working class, you can say that, but I will take that as apologetics for some kind of bureaucratic class system.Well, I tend not to base my theoretical understanding in the fact that I think my boss is a dick, so, yeah, I see how could lead that to us not quite seeing eye-to-eye.

[Edit: Another snide and unhelpful comment. Apparently, I was not at my best... Anyway, basically the point I'm trying to make here is that "boss" is not an objective category, but an arbitrary set of lines drawn up within a given workplace environment, and so can't provide the basis for a class analysis. That some employees act as the agents of capital doesn't necessarily place them outside of the bounds of labour, any more than it places a worker with a tendency to snitch on others outside of labour; one may even argue that in some cases management positions is simply a formalised version of that sort of character, given how little personal authority many lower-level managers actually have.]


so you mean that socialism, in your view, is compatible with the hierarchical, taylorized division of labor created by capitalism? so, then, apparently nothing is to change under socialism in terms of worker power at the point of production. Not on your assumptions.I didn't say that, or anything of the sort. I said that there is nothing about the fundamental labour of senior skilled workers, when stripped of their appointed supervisory role, that is objectively incompatible with a socialist form of organisation. If this is rendered less than entirely true by the division of labour under capitalism, then it's something that applies to the great majority of workers, and not just to these workers in particular, and so has no implications as to their class status.

[The Dark Side of the Moon]

upper-middle class, the average wage is i believe (someone correct me if i am wrong) is 40,000 a year in the us

[ar734]

The distinction between socially productive and non-productive labour does not generate a class distinction between different sets of waged workers. The defining factor of the proletarian experience under capitalism is the manner in which labour power is sold, not the end to which it is employed.

I think it would be more accurate to say that the defining factor is the manner in which labour power is converted into a commodity and that the end to which all labour is employed under capitalism is the creation of profit, or, rather, the appropriation of surplus-value.

My use of the word "parasite," was wrong, but only in the sense that Jack Bauer is not a parasite. Bauer's torturing, I suppose it can be argued, produces something for his society.

[Tim Finnegan]

I think it would be more accurate to say that the defining factor is the manner in which labour power is converted into a commodity and that the end to which all labour is employed under capitalism is the creation of profit, or, rather, the appropriation of surplus-value.
But there's no single, definitive experience of such a conversion, not least because not all labour power is converted into a commodity. The whole point of Marx's discussion of the alienation of the worker from his labour is that the sale of his labour power and the employment of his labour power by the purchaser become distinct activities, and so exactly how that labour power is employed is, while hardly irrelevant, secondary to the fact of its sale. After all, not all labour is employed in the production of commodities, or even indirectly in the production of profit, and I see no reason to place individuals involved in such labour as something exterior to the working class. The household maid of a capitalist, for example, produces no commodities at all, only the use-value of a clean house, but she is in no sense, say, petty-bourgeois because of that.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Any data work is a function of management, and while there are differences between those with low training that are limited to punching in information into computers and those that actually model what everyone else is punching in (and maybe even administer how that information is put in), I would argue that it's not unproductive labor since the planning of input/output data has always been an important part of the production process.

And don't worry. I've always seen this question in the years that I've posted here. It's really not all that important. I swear to God, many here treat class status as a criteria that is of much political importance that Stormfront treats race. It's quite dogmatic.

[Comrade_Oscar]

You are proletariat because you do no exploit other people's labor. You can only be the bourgeoisie if you get your wealthy by using the labor of others.

[Agent Ducky]

Last time I checked, Marx wrote that one's class is decided entirely by how one has one's eggs in the morning. Fried for the proletariat, scrambled for the petite bourgeoisie and an omelette for the big dogs! And lumpen get jack shit. So, OP, how do you like your eggs in the morning?

And if you're a vegan that doesn't eat eggs.... What does that mean?

[hatzel]

And if you're a vegan that doesn't eat eggs.... What does that mean?

Middle class San Franciscan, of course :)


And don't worry. I've always seen this question in the years that I've posted here. It's really not all that important. I swear to God, many here treat class status as a criteria that is of much political importance that Stormfront treats race. It's quite dogmatic.

I'll agree with this. It's almost as if people assume that they're not even allowed to support socialism if they're not 'prole enough' or I don't even know. I don't know which side it comes from. I don't know if all that 'no war but class war, baby!'-stuff makes people believe that class is the be-all-and-end-all, or if there's some other reason somewhere, or what's the deal. But personally, I couldn't care what class somebody is if I'm going to chat with them about politics on a forum. I'd rather judge them by what they say, what they think and what they advocate.

[Kotze]

Like I said for the poster, the class position of a database adminstrator in a small company cannot be judged just by knowing that--though the likelihood is, I think, that concrete analysis would show it's a professional layer not a proletarian layer.After all, if you use your head for anything else than scrunching beer cans you aren't a real worker, the Latin word is BROletariat for a reason.

The most important thing is that we always stay flexible enough with our economic definitions so that we can put ayone in any category based on how we feel today about their character.

[syndicat]

State ownership is still private ownership.

you think you can arbitrarily change the meaning of words in English? Could a member of the bureaucracy sell means of production and pocket the proceeds legally? collective ownership doesn't have to be non-hierarchical. In most historical cases it has not been. There were no people who pocketed profits from sale of commodities on markets. The bureaucracy changed the system in the '90s precisely so they could do that. according to your schema, nothing changed.


Anyway, basically the point I'm trying to make here is that "boss" is not an objective category,

but it is. managers are bosses. people have this kind of authority in virtue of a position in the structure governing production.


I said that there is nothing about the fundamental labour of senior skilled workers, when stripped of their appointed supervisory role, that is objectively incompatible with a socialist form of organisation.

but to have decision-making authority and key forms of expertise & info related to the decision-making concentrated into a minority is very definitely incconsistent with worker liberation because it impliies that workers do not genuinely self-manage production but are subordinate to a dominating class. hence you are mistaken in thinking that relative monopolization of decision-making & expertise...the defining feature of a bureaucratic class...is consistent with socialism.


so I'll get to the point, which is that if there is a class of waged non-workers, it would have to have a set of objective interests set apart from these, which is to say interests which demanded the maintenance of both private property and, as such, of their own subservient status under a system of private property. This is something that can certainly be said of executives, many higher-ranking professionals, and so forth, but it's much harder to argue on the point of supervisory skilled workers, which is why I suggest that their opposition to socialism is subjective, that is, based on some individual biases, illusions, or attachments to petty authority.]



your formulation "senior skilled workers" begs the question as I would deny that this is an objectively adequate characterization of middle management and high-end professionals who directly advise them and work with them in the decision-making about production.

in the example i gave of a large software engineering department i worked in, there were some "senior skilled workers" (me, for example) who had no managerial position and didn't directly advise management and determine what people's jobs were going to be, the way the System Architect did, or control and monitor people's work the way the project manager did.

and in my department a younger worker was hired to be our supervisor because upper management wanted someone to crack down. he used his position to make life difficult for the senior skilled workers...and we all quit. The junior workers couldn't quit because they didn't have enough job experience to easily go get another job somewhere else. so the exercize of authority by the bureaucratic class need not be related to age or seniority, contrary to what your language assumes.

thus in fact there is an objective intereest that the bureaucratic class have, in maintaining their relative concentration, relative monopoly, of the decision-making authority, and to avoiid democratization of experise that would facilitate collective self-management.

[LancashireLenin]

'Aristocracy of labour'- a proletarian bribed with wealth through the super-exploitation of other proletarians, especially those of the developing world. Like most of us in the developed world.

[Tim Finnegan]

you think you can arbitrarily change the meaning of words in English? Could a member of the bureaucracy sell means of production and pocket the proceeds legally? collective ownership doesn't have to be non-hierarchical. In most historical cases it has not been. There were no people who pocketed profits from sale of commodities on markets. The bureaucracy changed the system in the '90s precisely so they could do that. according to your schema, nothing changed.
Well, I'm going to take the chicken-shit root here and wave in the direction of The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience (http://libcom.org/library/paresh-chattopadhyay-marxian-concept-capital-soviet-experience) by Paresth Chattopadhyay, which is pretty much what I'm deriving my position from. No need to watch me ham-fistedly argue a case which has been made before and by far wiser individuals.

[Edit: And just to make that a tad less chicken-shitty, I'll quote Zanthorus' summary of the argument, from the RevLeft thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/marxian-concept-capital-p1990146/index.html#post1990146), below:]

Probably not particularly well, I've only read up to the chapter where he starts applying his categories to the Soviet Union empirically. The basic point so far seems to be that what differentiates labour under capitalism from non-capitalist forms of labour, what essentially means the existence of capital, is the seperation of labour from the conditions of labour. In contrast to pre-capitalist societies, the labourer under capitalism is a 'free' labourer with respect to the individual capitalists, she can choose her own employer. But he points out further that this category of 'free' labour only applies to individual capitalists, the individual worker is not free with respect to the capitalist class as a whole. This was largely the situation of labourers for the majority of the Soviet Union's existence, they were dispossessed from the means of production and free to choose between various employers, in fact he points out the fSU had relatively high turnover rates. During the Stalin period there were restrictions on this free movement of labour as well as the existence of GULAG labour but he points out firstly that there were also restrictions on the free movement of labour within countries which we would refer to as capitalist without any problems, because of the Second World War, and secondly that state intervention on a large scale is anyway a characteristic of other historical regime's undergoing the phase of the primitive accumulation of capital.

He also points out that it is not actually the Marxist view that capitalism is based on individual private ownership, but that it is rather the historical mission of capital to destroy individual ownership within the means of production, hence Marx and Engels' comments with regards trusts and joint-stock companies. Capital can continue to exist even with 'public' ownership of the means of production by the state, since there is a difference between functional and property-owning capitalists. This division is already latent in the division between financial and industrial capitalists, where the relation between capital and labour is brought to a different level, and now the capitalist himself is a labourer with respect to financial capital. But this division appears as a false one when compared with modern corporations where the functional capitalist is not really a capitalist at all but an actual wage-labourer hired out by the associated capitalists to enforce the will of capital within the enterprise. It would theoretically be possible for every enterprise in an economy to come under the ownership of the state, yet retain the existence of competing functional capitals. He points out that Marx actually repeatedly makes similar points, for example he cites a passage from I think volume III where Marx imagines a situation where one capitalist owns five different competing functional capitals. Again, there were seperate enterprises within the Soviet Union and they competed with one another despite being all owned by the state.


but it is. managers are bosses. people have this kind of authority in virtue of a position in the structure governing production.But that's exactly what I'm saying: there is no objective line between "powerful" and "powerless" within production other than that lent by ownership of private property. Individual authority is heavily gradated, according to localised systems of delegation,
To take a personal example, in the store I work there are managers and staff, but the staff themselves are divided into supervisors and non-supervisors. Now, managers would obviously be part of your conception of a "bureaucratic class", and regular employees would be workers, but what of supervisors? They are not formally part of the managerial set and do most of the same work as non-supervisors for similar pay, but they have authority over non-supervisors. Into which class would you place them?


but to have decision-making authority and key forms of expertise & info related to the decision-making concentrated into a minority is very definitely incconsistent with worker liberation because it impliies that workers do not genuinely self-manage production but are subordinate to a dominating class. hence you are mistaken in thinking that relative monopolization of decision-making & expertise...the defining feature of a bureaucratic class...is consistent with socialism. I'm honestly not even following you any more. When have I ever advocated this monopolisation to which you refer? Did you just read the word "communist" at the top of my post and think "Avast, here be the scurvy foe"? :confused:


your formulation "senior skilled workers" begs the question as I would deny that this is an objectively adequate characterization of middle management and high-end professionals who directly advise them and work with them in the decision-making about production.Granted, but that's not who I'm referring to. I'm talking about workers in a supervisory position, whose relationship to the means of production is still essentially the same, but who fulfil a different, somewhat more coordinatory role within production. They would still be able to function within a democratic workplace, we would simply see their coordinatory functions taken on by the group as a whole. The same can't be said of, as you mention, a good number of middle management and high-end professionals, whose labour is very specifically and exclusively a function of capital.


'Aristocracy of labour'- a proletarian bribed with wealth through the super-exploitation of other proletarians, especially those of the developing world. Like most of us in the developed world.
'Jabberwock (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Jabberwock)'- A fantastical dreaded monster with flaming eyes who is depicted in a poem of Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll.

Just while we're dealing in imaginary creatures, ken.

[RedTrackWorker]

Granted, but that's not who I'm referring to. I'm talking about workers in a supervisory position, whose relationship to the means of production is still essentially the same, but who fulfil a different, somewhat more coordinatory role within production. They would still be able to function within a democratic workplace, we would simply see their coordinatory functions taken on by the group as a whole.

This point on workers who play a supervisory role is important as it is increasing. Under the NLRB, supervisors can't have a union and now the NLRB is trying to say that if, say, a "head" nurse sets other nurses' schedules, then that nurse is a supervisor and can't be in a union (haven't been following the back-and-forth battle so might be out of date). I think that nurse is someone who is a worker who performs some supervisory functions.

In my workplace (NYC public transit), the supervisors can have a union (NLRB is for private companies) and they're in a separate union (the SSA--ass backwards) and I view them as management's "front line" rather than as workers who perform a supervisory function.

But the NLRB banned supervisors from unions (Taft-Hartley?) because--my loose understanding is--due to union's growing power on the shop floor many supervisors (promoted from the ranks) decided basically "if you can't beat them, join them" and decided it was better from them to side with the workers instead of being caught in the middle and as such, overall, it represented a way of strengthening the workers' position vis-a-vis management (regardless of whether in an ideal social organization those positions would exist or not). But in other cases I've heard of, supervisors being in unions become a tool of management.

But to get back to the case of expanding supervisory roles--in fast food, many workers are made supervisors for a quarter more an hour and more responsibility. Is it unprincipled for a revolutionary trying to build a union there or whatever to take that position? Should they be allowed in a union if one is formed? I don't know and it probably varies. But I don't think a categorical definition will help one figure that out.

[LancashireLenin]

'Jabberwock'- A fantastical dreaded monster with flaming eyes who is depicted in a poem of Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll.

Just while we're dealing in imaginary creatures, ken.

And what do you mean by that?

The original poster is a textbook example of what Kautsky, Lenin, Trotsky, etc, called the aristocracy of labour, that subset of the proletariat commented on by Marx and Engels in their correspondence also. The kind of white-collar worker who Hobsbawm wrote about in 'The Forward March of Labour Halted?'

$106,000 a year isn't an exploitative wage, it represents a standard of living subsidised heavily by the developing world in cheap consumer goods and a welfare state funded through taxing the superprofits derived from exploitation of the developing world.

The original poster is still a proletarian, however, in that he's alienated from the means of production, which is the primary developed world malaise, more so than exploitation. White collar workers are not the exploited proletariat in the globalized capitalist system.

[Tim Finnegan]

And what do you mean by that?

The original poster is a textbook example of what Kautsky, Lenin, Trotsky, etc, called the aristocracy of labour, that subset of the proletariat commented on by Marx and Engels in their correspondence also. The kind of white-collar worker who Hobsbawm wrote about in 'The Forward March of Labour Halted?'

$106,000 a year isn't an exploitative wage, it represents a standard of living subsidised heavily by the developing world in cheap consumer goods and a welfare state funded through taxing the superprofits derived from exploitation of the developing world.

The original poster is still a proletarian, however, in that he's alienated from the means of production, which is the primary developed world malaise, more so than exploitation. White collar workers are not the exploited proletariat in the globalized capitalist system.
Prove it. Shouldn't be hard, really, if one has a basic grasp of Marxian economic theory. How are the white-collar workers involved in a co-exploitative role, alongside capitalists? How is the distinction between co-exploitative and non-exploitive workers determined? Why is someone in a co-exploitative relationship considered "proletarian", rather than some third class, with distinct economic interests? And isn't "superprofit", in this sense, something that Lenin made up to plug a gap in his theory of imperialism? You have the floor.

(And, for the record, when Marx and Engels discussed the "labour aristocracy", it did not take the form described by Lenin, but, rather, referred to a strata of skilled tradesmen- specifically, those organised around the craft unions- who had reached certain compromises with the bourgeoisie which ensured stable employment and a decent living standard, the significant of these factors being their influences on the potential militancy of such workers. It was a sociological category, rather than the economic one hypothesised by Lenin.)

[LancashireLenin]

Prove it. Shouldn't be hard, really, if one has a basic grasp of Marxian economic theory. How are the white-collar workers involved in a co-exploitative role, alongside capitalists?

By the strength of their organisations and political clout they can force higher wages within the capitalist system, which are gained not at the expense of the capitalist class but through the more harsh exploitation of that section of the global proletariat which does not have the same level of strength in organisation or political clout. Our white-collar post-industrial economies emerged only with the shift of industry to the developing world after labour disputes hit a plateau.

There's no question that the capitalist class would be treating the developing world in a less exploitative way without the aristocracy of labour so I wouldn't say 'co-exploitative' is a fair term, it is merely that the harshest exploitation in the developing world makes the aristocracy of labour possible.


How is the distinction between co-exploitative and non-exploitive workers determined?

It's the gilded cage compared to the squalid one. Some receive a comfortable material existence, more than their labour's worth, while others receive much less. I don't know where the line falls, but it's clear that a wage-worker on hundreds of thousands is not exploited and couldn't exist without the harsh exploitation of other workers. A professional footballer's standard of living could not be sustained by the capitalist class without the harshest of exploitation elsewhere, but those most harshly exploited could exist on their standard of living without the football player.


Why is someone in a co-exploitative relationship considered "proletarian", rather than some third class, with distinct economic interests?

Because they are still alienated from the means of production, and their long-term class interests align with the proletariat because the very system that allows the sustenance of bribed wage-workers- pulling new, unorganized workers into the capitalist system- also creates the conditions by which those new workers can organize and fight against their own exploitation. It's not something that can be sustained indefinitely and even so, only on the axis of exploitation is the 'aristocracy of labour' different from the standard proletarian.


And isn't "superprofit", in this sense, something that Lenin made up to plug a gap in his theory of imperialism? You have the floor.

Not at all, there are of course conditions where higher than usual levels of profit can be drawn and one of those conditions is when the labour movement among a workforce is weak and the bare-minimum payment required to reproduce their labour is therefore low, since they will have no choice but to accept an impoverished standard of living.

In keeping with your signature (Roaring Jack are awesome by the way, shame about Alastair Hulett passing last year), it is about dividing and ruling the global proletariat.

For example, through the use of slavery, child labour and the most harsh exploitation of the disorganized workers of the Ivory Coast and elsewhere capitalism provides both a high level of profit to chocolate companies and keeps the price of it low enough for developed world workers to indulge and, for the time being at least, aligns their interest with the bourgeoisie. The developed world's relative prosperity is built on a bedrock of the most harsh exploitation.

As Marx said: 'If the free-traders cannot understand how one nation can grow rich at the expense of another, we need not wonder, since these same gentlemen also refuse to understand how within one country one class can enrich itself at the expense of another.'

As Engels wrote: 'The English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat alongside the bourgeoisie. For a nation which exploits the whole world this is of course to a certain extent justifiable' and 'the workers gaily share the feast of England's monopoly of the world market and the colonies.'

The figures show how consumer goods have been flowing into the developed world from the developing world, especially since the 1980s. The growth of our comfortable white-collar wage-worker has coincided directly with the growth of the harshly exploited proletarian in the developing world, the emergence of the 'Asian Tigers' and the 'Made in _____' countries.

[Tim Finnegan]

By the strength of their organisations and political clout they can force higher wages within the capitalist system, which are gained not at the expense of the capitalist class but through the more harsh exploitation of that section of the global proletariat which does not have the same level of strength in organisation or political clout. Our white-collar post-industrial economies emerged only with the shift of industry to the developing world after labour disputes hit a plateau.

There's no question that the capitalist class would be treating the developing world in a less exploitative way without the aristocracy of labour so I wouldn't say 'co-exploitative' is a fair term, it is merely that the harshest exploitation in the developing world makes the aristocracy of labour possible.
That's a summary of the theory, but it's not an explanation of the process, which is what I was actually looking for. What is the mechanical process by which one part of the proletariat appropriate the surplus value of another?


It's the gilded cage compared to the squalid one. Some receive a comfortable material existence, more than their labour's worth, while others receive much less. I don't know where the line falls, but it's clear that a wage-worker on hundreds of thousands is not exploited and couldn't exist without the harsh exploitation of other workers. A professional footballer's standard of living could not be sustained by the capitalist class without the harshest of exploitation elsewhere, but those most harshly exploited could exist on their standard of living without the football player.How is that determined, exactly? Labour is ultimately a social process, so its "worth" within capitalism is purely an exchange-value, not a use-value, and can only be determined within the context of a commodity market. If the market says that X is worth Y, than X is worth Y; we can't argue that, no, actually, X is over-rated, and therefore really worth Z.


Because they are still alienated from the means of production, and their long-term class interests align with the proletariat because the very system that allows the sustenance of bribed wage-workers- pulling new, unorganized workers into the capitalist system- also creates the conditions by which those new workers can organize and fight against their own exploitation. It's not something that can be sustained indefinitely and even so, only on the axis of exploitation is the 'aristocracy of labour' different from the standard proletarian.But if the "labour aristocracy" are currently in a position to indirectly appropriate some of the surplus value produced by the international proletariat, then why would it be in their interest to dissolve the institution of private property that enables this appropriation? It's all very well to observe that this state of affairs is not indefinitely sustainable, but that doesn't tell us anything about the state of class relations right at this time.


Not at all, there are of course conditions where higher than usual levels of profit can be drawn and one of those conditions is when the labour movement among a workforce is weak and the bare-minimum payment required to reproduce their labour is therefore low, since they will have no choice but to accept an impoverished standard of living.

In keeping with your signature (Roaring Jack are awesome by the way, shame about Alastair Hulett passing last year), it is about dividing and ruling the global proletariat.

For example, through the use of slavery, child labour and the most harsh exploitation of the disorganized workers of the Ivory Coast and elsewhere capitalism provides both a high level of profit to chocolate companies and keeps the price of it low enough for developed world workers to indulge and, for the time being at least, aligns their interest with the bourgeoisie. The developed world's relative prosperity is built on a bedrock of the most harsh exploitation.

As Marx said: 'If the free-traders cannot understand how one nation can grow rich at the expense of another, we need not wonder, since these same gentlemen also refuse to understand how within one country one class can enrich itself at the expense of another.'

As Engels wrote: 'The English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat alongside the bourgeoisie. For a nation which exploits the whole world this is of course to a certain extent justifiable' and 'the workers gaily share the feast of England's monopoly of the world market and the colonies.'

The figures show how consumer goods have been flowing into the developed world from the developing world, especially since the 1980s. The growth of our comfortable white-collar wage-worker has coincided directly with the growth of the harshly exploited proletarian in the developing world, the emergence of the 'Asian Tigers' and the 'Made in _____' countries.But none of that constitutes "superprofits" in the sense of a discrete phenomenon, they merely constitute profits of a higher level, if that. Superprofits, as Marx defined them, where profits above and beyond the average rate of profit, as enabled by an above average rate of productivity or by certain monopolies, neither of which are apparent in this case.

[WeAreReborn]

I'll agree with this. It's almost as if people assume that they're not even allowed to support socialism if they're not 'prole enough' or I don't even know. I don't know which side it comes from. I don't know if all that 'no war but class war, baby!'-stuff makes people believe that class is the be-all-and-end-all, or if there's some other reason somewhere, or what's the deal. But personally, I couldn't care what class somebody is if I'm going to chat with them about politics on a forum. I'd rather judge them by what they say, what they think and what they advocate.
How can someone from the bourgeoisie class properly advocate for a Socialist revolution if they are exploiting labor? It doesn't make sense. The reason we don't trust or accept the bourgeoisie is because they are then enemies we are fighting in the first place. Plus if they are truly comrades then they would consciously leave their class and become proletarian like everyone else. Though I get your point, the bourgeoisie are no comrades of mine.