A question on Class.

[eric922]

I'm kind of confused on the issue of class in Marxist thought. My understanding of it is the bourgeois/capitalist class are the ones who own and control he means of production. Those who do not control the means of production are the proletariat or working class. Based on this definition, which I could have wrong, it seems that the vast majority of people in the world are working class and that there is a wide income gap even between the working class.
My question is this if you are say a doctor or lawyer, does that mean you are working class since you don't have control over the means of production and still must sell your labor to survive even if it is skilled labor and you are making a lot more money than say a mechanic? The doctor still has to sell his labor to a hospital clinic, etc. The lawyer has to sell his labor to a university, company, state, larger law firm, etc.

In America some of these professions would be considered wealthy, but if I understand it doesn't have to do with money so much as your relation to the means of production and whether or not you must sell you labor( be it physical or intellectual) or whether you control capital and make your living off the labor of others.

I'd appreciate any help in understand this issue.

[Nox]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think it's the Capitalists who control the means of production, I think the bourgeois are just the 'rich people'/middle class

So I assume wealthy people like doctors and such would be considered bourgeois

[eric922]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think it's the Capitalists who control the means of production, I think the bourgeois are just the 'rich people'/middle class

So I assume wealthy people like doctors and such would be considered bourgeois
I've always heard the bourgeois to be the ones who control the means of production, but as yo can tell from the fact that I posted this thread I'm confused so I could be wrong.

[Commissar Rykov]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think it's the Capitalists who control the means of production, I think the bourgeois are just the 'rich people'/middle class

So I assume wealthy people like doctors and such would be considered bourgeois
Wealthy =/= Bourgeois. It is about the relation of the person to the Means of Production not about their personal wealth.

[Nox]

Wealthy =/= Bourgeois. It is about the relation of the person to the Means of Production not about their personal wealth.

Ok, my bad, how are the Bourgeois related to the means of production?

[Commissar Rykov]

Ok, my bad, how are the Bourgeois related to the means of production?
They control it.

[Comrade Gwydion]

OP is completely right: Those who do not control their means of production is Working Class, those who own means of production and employ (many) others is Bourgeoise/Capitalist, and a very small group owns their own means of production without employing others, the 'petit-bourgeoise' (These can vary from artist, to small shopkeeper, to even a rich and powerfull lawyer)

[Tommy4ever]

Those who control the means of production are the bourgeiosie or capitaist class.

Those who control no means of production and sustain themselves through wage labour are the proletariat or working class.

There are indeed great inequalities within the working class itself.

[Blake's Baby]

The point about doctors and lawyers though is that in some sense they own their own means of production - the years of training have given them comparatively rare skills (unlike a machine-minder in a factory) allowing them to set their own income levels. They're not exactly 'hired hands' like the majority of the working class, they're essentially small businessmen (and women of course), in a kind of sub-contractor' relationship. They are considered as part of the petite-bourgeoisie.

I don't think that the defining characteristic of the petite-bourgeoisie is that they don't employ wage labour (many do), rather it's that they also add their own labour (the owner of a haulage firm that also drives a truck, the dentist that practices his specialisation while also having receptionists and hygienists and technicians working for him, the shopkeeper who employs a few shop assistants), unlike the boss of a company who employs others to work (and manage the work) for him. Thus, a sole trader is petit-bourgeois, as is the owner of a small firm if the owner still works there.

[Hit The North]

Obviously, the class system is more complex than merely consisting of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and Marx makes this point at various times. He also mentions the remnants of the feudal aristocracy that survives capitalism but increasingly become fused with the bourgeoisie; and the petite bourgeoisie - owners of small capital. In Theories of Surplus Value, Marx even refers to the growth of the middle classes as a consequence of capitalist development.

It is important to note that Marx viewed social class as dynamic and changing. Before the advent of large state and private health providers, doctors would have been self-employed members of the petite bourgeoisie. In the UK, doctors openly opposed the creation of the National Health Service, fearing, correctly, that it would erode their autonomy and turn them into wage slaves. So doctors, along with scientists, teachers and, to a lesser extent, lawyers, have been victims of a process of proletarianisation - albeit retaining a privileged position as a "professionalised" sub-class. However, these privileges are being undermined all the time by capitalism as the services these groups offer are further commoditised and conditions of employment are eroded such as the recent attacks on the pensions of public workers, for instance.

The reason Marx prioritises the bourgeoisie and the proletariat is that these are the two classes that are special to capitalism. It is their relationship that makes capitalism possible through the extraction of surplus value. It is the exploitation of the proletariat which holds the key to understanding how capitalism becomes a process of expanding accumulation. So, it is the developing relation between these major classes of capitalist society, between capital and labour, that hold the key to the fate of other classes.

[eric922]

So in a potential revolution which side do the petite bourgeois fall? Obviously you can't make completely blanket statements as it is likely that even some true bourgeoisie might support the working class either out of fear of what would happen if they side with the capitalist class and lose or simply out a moral compulsion.

I would assume a lot of the petite bourgeois would end up siding with the working class, simply because as you said as mentioned a lot of them are close to being actual proletariat.

[Octavian]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm

This is the principles of communism. It lays out the basic concepts of class within the Marxist perspective. I suggest you read it.