What constitutes a bourgeois?

[Drowzy_Shooter]

What specifically?

The reason I ask, is because I was having a debate with myself weather someone who is a planner is a bourgeois. For instance, say someone plans how groceries work (the logistics and whatnot)in a grocery store. Does that make them a bourgeois?

[Nox]

If you are profiting from the labour of the working class, you are bourgeois.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

A member of the bourgeoisie is a person who owns means of production (i.e. factories), has the ability to manipulate capital, and also does not labor under the present wage labor system in order to keep alive. A planner, in the sense that you described it, is not bourgeois.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

A owner of a profit making labor system,specializing in commodity production, which either works part time or no time at all and exploits labor to reap surplus value.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Oh, and what Nox said.

[NewLeft]

What specifically?
The are a class of capitalists who own the means of production and "employers of wage labour" who own assets like capital, land..etc.


The reason I ask, is because I was having a debate with myself weather someone who is a planner is a bourgeois. For instance, say someone plans how groceries work (the logistics and whatnot)in a grocery store. Does that make them a bourgeois?
It depends, do they satisfy the definition above?

[marl]

The "jerb (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8ZJu-f-XOE) creators".

[Drowzy_Shooter]

The are a class of capitalists who own the means of production and "employers of wage labour" who own assets like capital, land..etc.


It depends, do they satisfy the definition above?

I was more thinking that they were just hired to plan. Not necessairily that they own the factory.

[GoddessCleoLover]

They are owners. The above posters have described well the essence of the definition of a bourgeois.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

A planner, in the sense that you described it, is not bourgeois.
Could be petit-bourgeois though, no?

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Could be petit-bourgeois though, no?

But not if his only job is that of a planner. He would have to be someone who does not own any real means of production, but still lives off the labor of others (i.e. a small business owner).

[Cirno(9)]

Question: Under the limited-liability system of corporate ownership, could a factory worker that has a small amount of shares (that they didn't directly buy but acquired as part of the employment contract) in the company they work for count as "bourgeois" to some degree?

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

But not if his only job is that of a planner. He would have to be someone who does not own any real means of production, but still lives off the labor of others (i.e. a small business owner).
True, but such a planner would seem to me to be part of a managerial position, so not proletarian, either.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Question: Under the limited-liability system of corporate ownership, could a factory worker that has a small amount of shares (that they didn't directly buy but acquired as part of the employment contract) in the company they work for count as "bourgeois" to some degree?
Are they still forced to sell their labor power to survive?

[Cirno(9)]

Are they still forced to sell their labor power to survive?

I see. So would the idea be that owning any bit of capital isn't what makes one bourgeois but rather whether one survives by virtue of the economic labor of whose who must sell their labor power?

[NewLeft]

Question: Under the limited-liability system of corporate ownership, could a factory worker that has a small amount of shares (that they didn't directly buy but acquired as part of the employment contract) in the company they work for count as "bourgeois" to some degree?
It's also an issue of whether it translates into making any actual decisions over any corporate assets, which is not the case.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I see. So would the idea be that owning any bit of capital isn't what makes one bourgeois but rather whether one survives by virtue of the economic labor of whose who must sell their labor power?
I'd reverse that, to say that what makes one proletarian is that one must sell one's labor power to survive even if one might have some small amount of stock given as part of an employment contract.

[Erratus]

I have a few questions regarding this topic also. What if a person owns the means of production, but also uses their own labor to create commodities? Let's say a person who makes and sells rugs? Would they be capitalists because they buy commodities made by proletariat (the material used to make the rugs)?

[NewLeft]

I have a few questions regarding this topic also. What if a person owns the means of production, but also uses their own labor to create commodities? Let's say a person who makes and sells rugs? Would they be capitalists because they buy commodities made by proletariat (the material used to make the rugs)?
If a person uses their own labour to produce commodities and own the means of production, they are petite-bourgeois. They don't have sufficient capital or machinery to exploit the labour of others. Someone who makes and sells rugs is petty-bourgeois for the same reason.

[Geiseric]

The main thing is ownership of production, not control thereof. By the "profits off other peoples labor," definition, a Monarchy would be Bourgeois. Bourgeois is very specific. It is the Bankers, Stock owners, Andrew Mellon, Carnegie, Rockefeller, that is Bourgeois. Planners and managers, even if they're paid alot, are not bourgeois. They could act like it, but they are more dangerous since they want to be Bourgeois.