unusual problem

[valpurga]

Hi. I belong to a anarcho- communist organization in the country i'm from. In my organization there is a lot of hate towards bourgeois individuals. They don't hate bourgeois individuals who have communist views, but they treat them differently than other proletarian comrades. I naturally began to question my own class position. My father was (he died several years ago) a professor in high school and my mother works at the radio station as editor of art program. my mothers grandfather, who is very old but still alive, was a university professor of economics and he worked as an economist (state planned economy) in the United nations during the 50's. Does this makes me bourgeois?
I think that it does. And this really troubles me because i don't want to be trated differently in my organization. And its not only that - i always hated those bourgeois apolitical liberal people who don't see and don't care about the damage capitalism in causing. But, am i still one of them, even though i don't think like them?
And whats happening is that i am hiding it from the people in my organization, from other people and from myself as well. I have gradually become full of hatred for, apparently, my own class. And it makes me really sick and shizofrenic, I can't even think about anything else anymore. I mean, i know i am not like many bourgeois people, but i don't want to put myself in position to explain myself to my comrades, to tell them "you know, i am not really like that, i don't think like bourgeois people do" because they will treat me differently because of their proletarian class position. and what's worse, i agree with them, which makes me even more conflicted within myself. I can't accept my social class and that makes me so depressive i can't even think about anything else. do you have any advice for me? thank you!

[khad]

Are you fucking kidding? An average high school teacher's salary of 50k a year is hardly anything exceptional. University professors don't do much better. Starting salaries for both professions are near starvation wages.

Moreover, your organization must be fucking worthless if they can't wrap their head around the definition of bourgeoisie.

Does your high school teacher father run a shop and extract surplus value from his workers? Does he contract out his own teaching business? Did he have the luxury of not working and just live off the interest accrued from his copious bank accounts? Of course not. Hence, not a member of the bourgeoisie.

I suggest you find another organization that isn't nearly as shit-brained when it comes to elementary class analysis.

[MarxSchmarx]

Are you fucking kidding? An average high school teacher's salary of 50k a year is hardly anything exceptional. University professors don't do much better. Starting salaries for both professions are near starvation wages.

Moreover, your organization must be fucking worthless if they can't wrap their head around the definition of bourgeoisie.

Does your high school teacher father run a shop and extract surplus value from his workers? Does he contract out his own teaching business? Did he have the luxury of not working and just live off the interest accrued from his copious bank accounts? Of course not. Hence, not a member of the bourgeoisie.

I suggest you find another organization that isn't nearly as shit-brained when it comes to elementary class analysis.

OP: In light of the above, I suppose it bears asking as to what you see the benefits of this organization are?

Having said that, Khad, it's also important to understand it's not just about whether one can live off one's bank accounts or rental properties. I think there are a number of "borderline cases" for example, a surgeon who does very well for himself but still works a regular job versus a small-time grocer who inherited her business and employs a few teenagers part time. In some sense the former is a worker and the latter a "petty-bourgeois", but they could live very different lifestyles and their children grow up in different environments independent of their family background. Another example are people like lower-to-mid level officers in the military, which we on this site go on and on about whether they are "really workers".

The point is is that it is probably correct to speak of a broad "bourgeois", or at least "petty-bourgeois" worldview as distinct from a proletarian world view that is to some extent independent of people's relationships to the means of production. It also has to do with, again with a mountain of caveats, things like educational attainment, how you talk, who your children go to school with, where you live, etc... than simply whether you live off surplus value or produce it (not to trivialize this, to be sure).

I agree that considering a high school teacher and small-time radio worker "bourgeois" is a bit much, not to mention their rubbish policy of excluding people based on social origin as opposed to current status. But I guess the OP must see something attractive about them, perhaps they could elaborate on that a bit more?

[o well this is ok I guess]

The same arguments they would use against you could just as easily be used by third-worldists to call the lot of you "bourgeoisie".

Don't let it get to you, drop the group. They don't sound like a nice bunch. Our organizations should start from the love of man, rather than our hate of particular ones.

[jake williams]

In some sense the former is a worker and the latter a "petty-bourgeois", but they could live very different lifestyles and their children grow up in different environments independent of their family background.
It's in the marxist sense that the former is a worker (generally speaking) and the latter petty-bourgeois. Income and family background and whatnot aren't irrelevant for understanding social life, interpersonal relationships, politics and so on but they're not at all the same as class in the marxist sense of the term. Marx and almost everyone serious since then has readily recognized that both the working class and the bourgeoisie are heavily, heavily stratified, to the extent that some workers might live subjectively easier lives than some elements of the petty bourgeoisie. In fact it's been recognized for some time that the petty bourgeoisie constantly occupies a precarious class position and routinely faces serious personal and economic stress.

[valpurga]

Thank you, I must say I do feel better now. But I just wanted to point out that my grandfather worked for the United nations and he receives it's pension which is not small. i know that jobs of a radio editor and high school teacher could not be classified as bourgeois jobs, but i think working for an international organization like UN could. Right?
I mean, my country doesn't have high standard of living and it's very poor. So my family does come off as being rich, just because of my grandfathers pension. my organization once called a guy who's parents are a lawyer and an architect bourgeois. were they right?
I mean, yes, in terms of owning the means of production, no, I am not bourgeois then. but in terms of material situation i have to say that we do live better then a lot of people in my country.

[valpurga]

To answer about the benefits of the organization. I guess the reason is there aren't any other in my city. There are few homophobic leftist groups so I didn't want to join them, and they are for state, and this one I'm in is anti state and anti capitalist which is closer to my views.
The whole story is this - my grandfather worked for the UN in the 50's. He retired in the 80's. He bought a summer house which we sold recently, because we couldn't afford it when he dies only with my mothers salary. we bought two apartments out of this house. I live in one apartment and my mother rents the other one. My mother, my grandfather and my sister live in the third apartment. I'm a student and I don't work to pay for this appartment i live in, my grandfather and mother help me financially. I realise that I live better than my friends do, and they don't even live alone, they live with their parents. And although many people would say "shut up, you don't have much money problem, why are you complaining", I fear that class concious leftist people would hate me for my status and that they would put me in a box, so to speak, with capitalists and so on. There have been riots in my country, people stressing out about their lack of money, about the unemployment and so on and i sometimes think my comrades would say "why are you involved in the riots and demonstrations, you live alone, your mother and grandfather pay for the apartment, you don't have a reason to complain". And this thought gives me a lot of stress because I want a fair society too. I know it's probably horrible of me to think in such a way, to even ask you for advice while people are getting fired from their jobs and everything but it's just troubling me and I have no one to talk to.

[MarxSchmarx]

It's in the marxist sense that the former is a worker (generally speaking) and the latter petty-bourgeois. Income and family background and whatnot aren't irrelevant for understanding social life, interpersonal relationships, politics and so on but they're not at all the same as class in the marxist sense of the term. Marx and almost everyone serious since then has readily recognized that both the working class and the bourgeoisie are heavily, heavily stratified, to the extent that some workers might live subjectively easier lives than some elements of the petty bourgeoisie.

Well to me this speaks more to the limitations of an approach to class analysis that focuses exclusively, or for that matter primarily, on relationship to the means of production.