Hawkers / street vendors: petit-bourgeois, lumpenproletariat, or what?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Are hawkers / street vendors (I'm not using the word "peddlers"), folks selling snack items, jewelry, sport fan items (in a sports venue), petit-bourgeois, lumpenproletariat, lumpen petit-bourgeois, or what?

[PhoenixAsh]

For me they are proletarians. They do not employ people and they are simply not well to do enough to classify as petit-burgeoisie. Sure,,,they may fit the discriotion of self employed....but the fact of the matter is that they are hanging on by a thread. More so than the empoverished shop keeper....and more so than wage workers....

[TheGodlessUtopian]

For me they are proletarians. They do not employ people and they are simply not well to do enough to classify as petit-burgeoisie. Sure,,,they may fit the discriotion of self employed....but the fact of the matter is that they are hanging on by a thread. More so than the empoverished shop keeper....and more so than wage workers....

I would say this as well.

I would guess that they are proletariat (so as long as they aren't selling items as part of a corporate chain).

[9]

Street vendors are petit bourgeois.

[Os Cangaceiros]

They may or may not be petit bourgeoisie...I think the term is a bit deceptive when it comes to street vendors. A lot of them have it pretty bad (Mohammed Bouazizi was a street vendor), and while I know that Marxist categories regarding class don't really take into account income as a defining factor, the words "petty bourgeois" automatically brings to mind a very specific type of person in the minds of many people who know the term, I believe.

I like this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2125897&postcount=28) post, and I think it's relevant to the topic.

[Nox]

Technically they are petit bourgeoisie, but I do sympathise with them.

(Btw, isn't lumpen petit-bourgeoisie a contradiction?)

[Rafiq]

For me they are proletarians. They do not employ people and they are simply not well to do enough to classify as petit-burgeoisie. Sure,,,they may fit the discriotion of self employed....but the fact of the matter is that they are hanging on by a thread. More so than the empoverished shop keeper....and more so than wage workers....

Sure, if you want to cling to the unscientific notion that income ("well-offness") defines class.

[Tim Cornelis]

Petite-bourgeois own means of production, street vendors don't.

[Leftsolidarity]

Sure, if you want to cling to the unscientific notion that income ("well-offness") defines class.

Why are you such an asshole?



I'd say that they are part of the petit-bourgeoisie. But I go with what Explosive Situation said.

[Rooster]

Petite-bourgeois own means of production, street vendors don't.

Do small shop owners not count as petite-bourgeois then?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Class isn't determined by financial success. It's determined by relation to the means of production.

The miner who makes 72,000 a year and the unemployed guy in line at a job fair both belong to the proletariat.

The way forward for the working class is to abolish private property, wage slavery, etc.

The way forward for the petty-bourgeois merchant is to do well in business, expand, exploit workers, and become a big bourgeois.

McDonald's started as a small burger joint, and Walmart began as a small variety store in Arkansas.

[Firebrand]

They're petit-bourgeois
The thing about the petit-bourgeois is that they can be worse off than many workers. They also tend to be more vulnerable to economic instability. In a downturn most companies will try to cut workers wages in preference to actually firing them. Wheras even small shifts in the economy can be enough to send a small businessman or shopkeeper under, leaving them with no income at all.
Thus the petit-bourgeois are not necessarily obstacles to the revolution, they are often in positions that mean capitalism doesnt benefit them. However this does not make them a revolutionary class, for the same reason that the peasantry is not a revolutionary class. They depend on keeping their business functioning, more than the capitalist system depends on their business functioning. Wheras the working class are in the position where if they stop working the system grinds to a halt, hundreds of peasant farmers and small businesses could go under and the system would not suffer. Indeed individual capitalists would be able to benefit. The reason the petit-bourgeois is not a revolutionary class is because they have no leverage not because they have no motivation.

[Zealot]

I've seen a lot of this while I was in Asia and while they are petty-bourgeois, it is hard to comprehend someone covered in flies trying to earn a dollar on the street as having any chance of achieving bourgeois status. A lot of them are old and not only do they have no hope of becoming the bourgeoisie, they have no hope of becoming proletarian either (who are better off in many cases).

[Ocean Seal]

Class isn't determined by financial success. It's determined by relation to the means of production.

The miner who makes 72,000 a year and the unemployed guy in line at a job fair both belong to the proletariat.

The way forward for the working class is to abolish private property, wage slavery, etc.

The way forward for the petty-bourgeois merchant is to do well in business, expand, exploit workers, and become a big bourgeois.

McDonald's started as a small burger joint, and Walmart began as a small variety store in Arkansas.
For me, I see the street vendors as workers, being that just because they exchange wares doesn't make them property owners. They aren't able to expand because they aren't ever able to acquire capital (albeit like most petit-bourgeoisie), they don't actually own productive property besides perhaps a few tools to make wares. They are employed in a sense because if they don't work they starve. They effectively exploit themselves.

[PhoenixAsh]

Sure, if you want to cling to the unscientific notion that income ("well-offness") defines class.

Fine...than tell me how they relate to the means of production?

Since their cart doesn't actually produce anything, they usually do not own capital, do not own land, and do not employ other human capital.

[Rafiq]

Petite-bourgeois own means of production, street vendors don't.

So an owner of, say, a gas station is not Petite Bourgeois because he doesn't own the means of production?

Comrade, I don't think the Petite Bourgeoisie own the means of production, any way.

[Rafiq]

Why are you such an asshole?


:confused:

[Rafiq]

Class isn't determined by financial success. It's determined by relation to the means of production.




Well, I'd have to disagree here. Class is determined by people's relations to the over all mode of production. The means of production is really only just a part of the capitalist mode of production.

If we define class as merely one's relation to the means of how things are produced we end up with bizzare and obscure solutions to capitalism, such as Petite-Bourgeois "Socialism", etc.

[Rafiq]

Fine...than tell me how they relate to the means of production?

Since their cart doesn't actually produce anything, they usually do not own capital, do not own land, and do not employ other human capital.

They relate to the mode of production in the same way an owner of "Uncle Joe's party store" is related to it. They find, buy, take and then they sell. They own their own labor and rent it out to no one but themselves.

Look, comrade, perhaps street vendors could be useful allies. I don't know. But it's important we stick to solid, scientific definitions of class. A basket ball player who makes 10 million bucks a year is still a proletarian. A member of the bouregeoisie who donates all of his money and lives in a box is still Bourgeois.

[Die Neue Zeit]

So an owner of, say, a gas station is not Petite Bourgeois because he doesn't own the means of production?

Comrade, I don't think the Petite Bourgeoisie own the means of production, any way.


Well, I'd have to disagree here. Class is determined by people's relations to the over all mode of production. The means of production is really only just a part of the capitalist mode of production.

If we define class as merely one's relation to the means of how things are produced we end up with bizzare and obscure solutions to capitalism, such as Petite-Bourgeois "Socialism", etc.

Thanks for backing me up with your second statement, comrade, though I must say that you've got a slightly different definition of Petit-Bourgeoisie than I do.

[No worries, though, because you've got a production-based critical thinking approach, too.]


Petite-bourgeois own means of production, street vendors don't.

One part of my question is whether "means of production" applies to their mobile stands. To what extent does "capital property" (which the mobile stands are) = "means of production"? If not, are they like the self-employed?

[PhoenixAsh]

The problem to this scientific approach is that that street vendors more often than not do not own their spots but have to lease them or are temporarilly licensed to them or are in fact considered illegal or merely tolerated by the law making them wholly dependend.

This does not constitute ownership and in fact differs greatly from the owner of "Uncle Joe's party store" who is probably registered at a center of trade commerce and is in fact the owner of the brand and location/shop.

So the scientific method falls apart quite rapidly at these facts...and this would mean that the group of street vendors can not be homogeneously classified.

[Leftsolidarity]

The problem to this scientific approach is that that street vendors more often than not do not own their spots but have to lease them or are temporarilly licensed to them or are in fact considered illegal or merely tolerated by the law making them wholly dependend.

This does not constitute ownership and in fact differs greatly from the owner of "Uncle Joe's party store" who is probably registered at a center of trade commerce and is in fact the owner of the brand and location/shop.

So the scientific method falls apart quite rapidly at these facts...and this would mean that the group of street vendors can not be homogeneously classified.


Kind of like a peasant maybe? Idk, just chiming in but the way you describe it makes me think of how peasants would be classified.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

The way forward for the working class is to abolish private property, wage slavery, etc.

The way forward for the petty-bourgeois merchant is to do well in business, expand, exploit workers, and become a big bourgeois.

Doesn't matter if the the petty-bourgeois merchant actually can become a big bourgeois.... just as it doesn't matter if the worker can find work. An unemployed worker is still a worker, an unsuccessful businessman is still a businessman.

This isn't to proclaim moral judgements or anything like that, but to get to the heart of the matter.

[Rooster]

The problem to this scientific approach

So we should give up on a scientific approach then? :confused:


is that that street vendors more often than not do not own their spots but have to lease them or are temporarilly licensed to them

Many small business owners lease their "spots" as well.

[Rooster]

Kind of like a peasant maybe? Idk, just chiming in but the way you describe it makes me think of how peasants would be classified.

A peasant can make their own subsistence such as food and fuel etc through owning land, and can sell their produce so they do not often completely rely on wage labour.

[Jimmie Higgins]

It depends. If they are independent they are small owners. Though in Oakland there are vendor owners (usually restaurants) who send people out with carts - so the restaurant owner is the businessman and the operator is contract worker/day laborer. I don't know the ins and outs since it's often semi-legal, but I see large crowds of people gathered at a warehouse near my apartment to get their carts and products... it looks like an old fashioned shape-up to me.

[bricolage]

It depends. If they are independent they are small owners. Though in Oakland there are vendor owners (usually restaurants) who send people out with carts - so the restaurant owner is the businessman and the operator is contract worker/day laborer. I don't know the ins and outs since it's often semi-legal, but I see large crowds of people gathered at a warehouse near my apartment to get their carts and products... it looks like an old fashioned shape-up to me.
yeah this is like a job I had selling sandwiches on a bike, you'd get your lot in the morning and ride around to offices and the like and at the end of the day you'd get a cut of what you sold... only thing is they subtracted the value of the sandwiches that weren't sold from the total you made meaning after a few days of making zero pounds and zero pence I packed it in.
on a different level I think it's probably quite rare for street sellers to be working solely on their own, those in big cities who sell say tourist trinkets or fake bags (two things I always seem to see around a lot) generally, I think, get them from central places who then take x amount of the money made.

[Rafiq]

DNZ I in no way was reffering to the petite bourgeois socialism in the third world that you mention, I was reffering to Market Socialism in the first world.

[Die Neue Zeit]

And I was pointing to your very definition of "petit-bourgeoisie" as a class, not any form of Petit-Bourgeois Socialism. :confused:


It depends. If they are independent they are small owners. Though in Oakland there are vendor owners (usually restaurants) who send people out with carts - so the restaurant owner is the businessman and the operator is contract worker/day laborer. I don't know the ins and outs since it's often semi-legal, but I see large crowds of people gathered at a warehouse near my apartment to get their carts and products... it looks like an old fashioned shape-up to me.

How exactly is the operator a "contract worker" or "day labourer"?

[Jimmie Higgins]

How exactly is the operator a "contract worker" or "day labourer"?

If they don't own the cart, but are picked to operate it that day by the owner of a fleet of the carts, then it's like day-labor. While there may be a few people who own induvidual carts around here, more likely there is a "hub" which then sends out lots of people because it's difficult and expensive for vendors to get a license let alone run and operate a refrigerated cart, not cost effective to buy perishables for just one cart etc.

So from my understanding the owners are mostly restaurant owners, but I don't know if the people operating the carts on the street are rented the cart, picked as in a shape-up, or have some kind of contract worked out. Even if they rent the cart or have a contract, I think it would be a case of employers trying to obfuscate the worker-boss relationship for legal reasons of licenses or wage-payment, rather than an individual operator renting the means of production as in a petty-bourgeois relationship.