How many from working class on Revleft

[Anderson]

I am curious if there is a way to find out whether we have any significant population of forum members from working class?

I see the least number of threads and posts are in the Worker Struggles forum.:(

[x359594]

I have no idea. I suspect that there are a lot of college and high school students here, living in the poverty of student life.

I do know that there are some union members at RevLeft, so at least that many come from the working class.

[Prometeo liberado]

I dont know where I would stand. I manage a transitional living complex helping newly released ex-cons?

[Leftsolidarity]

Yes, I am a wage slave and a student.

[honest john's firing squad]

revleft is entirely middle-class white students.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Well, that's because the "workers struggles" forum is for listing and talking about workers struggles. It's not a hangout for working class types or something.

[Leftsolidarity]

revleft is entirely middle-class white students.

Says the person who just joined this month.....

[Avocado]

I would be described as a white collar professional earning (in world terms) a wage around 250% of the world average

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17543356

and I would describe myself as working class.

[WanderingCactus]

Says the person who just joined this month.....
Eh. There's not much depth to RevLeft. First impression is generally correct here.

[honest john's firing squad]

Says the person who just joined this month.....
so you actually thought I was being serious. that's a bit cute.

[Leftsolidarity]

so you actually thought I was being serious. that's a bit cute.

people have said it before so it wouldn't surprise me

[Avocado]

It would also be helpful if the OP defined what we mean by Working Class.

[tachosomoza]

Do lumpen count? :cool:

[La Comédie Noire]

I'm working class. Certified Nursing Assistant here. :cool:

There are a lot of working class people here and sometimes they aren't particularly shy about flashing their prole cred.

[honest john's firing squad]

people have said it before so it wouldn't surprise me
probably because there is a degree of truth to it. the entire soviet-empire.com membership, as well as the owners of every "national-bolshevik" and "jucheist" (lol) youtube channel, for example, are angsty teenagers with nothing better to do between homework and playing xbox. it's a bit problematic to assume one of the self-proclaimed "largest leftist forum communities" is an exception to this general trend.

I don't doubt there are actual workers and good quality posters here, however. I respect them.

[Martin Blank]

There are a lot of working class people here and sometimes they aren't particularly shy about flashing their prole cred.

I'm never shy about it. :cool:

[black magick hustla]

im grad student scum

[Avocado]

I'm working class. Certified Nursing Assistant here. :cool:

There are a lot of working class people here and sometimes they aren't particularly shy about flashing their prole cred.


What exactly is prole cred?

[o well this is ok I guess]

There are a lot of working class people here and sometimes they aren't particularly shy about flashing their prole cred. They're wasting their time. I'm obviously the proliest of them all.

[black magick hustla]

the true working class listens to shoegaze black metal

[tachosomoza]

they're wasting their time. I'm obviously the proliest of them all.

I eat from the garbage! THE GARBAGE! :crying:

[La Comédie Noire]

What exactly is prole cred?

It's your certification in being Prole as eff.

Which means basically "I'm working class so I know, anything you say, you read in a text book student!"

It's probably the only time in my life I can admit I'm blue collar and get prestige.

[La Comédie Noire]

im grad student scum

Dude didn't you live in poverty in like three different countries? I'm pretty sure if anyone would know the mean side of Capitalism and Imperialism it would be you.

[Avocado]

It's your certification in being Prole as eff.

Which means basically "I'm working class so I know, anything you say, you read in a text book student!"

It's probably the only time in my life I can admit I'm blue collar and get prestige.

And does it matter, in your opinion?

I couldn't give a fiddler's fart about my background.

It is what you do and think now that matters.

[black magick hustla]

Dude didn't you live in poverty in like three different countries? I'm pretty sure if anyone would know the mean side of Capitalism and Imperialism it would be you.

not really, my family is fairly middle class haha. i guess in the US i was kinda poor, but i was still a student so

[La Comédie Noire]

Unless it has a direct barring on the situation or someone needs a little working class perspective then no. Sometimes people will try to invoke their prole cred in order to win an argument, which I think is very dishonest.

It's very closely related to the "I'm too busy being active to read books." argument which tries to point out someone's perceived lack of real world experience.

You may very well have not have read the books, or you may very well be too busy working to debate intelligently, but then you have no right to argue.

[black magick hustla]

the moon is not made of cheese whether the queen of england or the miner believes it ok

[Nox]

I'm technically working class, although most people would call me "middle class"

[Avocado]

Unless it has a direct barring on the situation or someone needs a little working class perspective then no. Sometimes people will try to invoke their prole cred in order to win an argument, which I think is very dishonest.

It's very closely related to the "I'm too busy being active to read books." argument which tries to point out someone's perceived lack of real world experience.

You may very well have not have read the books, or you may very well be too busy working to debate intelligently, but then you have no right to argue.

I think you are right; good answer.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I'm working class and proud of it.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I am curious if there is a way to find out whether we have any significant population of forum members from working class?Just on averages, I'd guess that most are - if maybe students (future workers, to a lesser extent professionals) or the children of workers.

Even if it wasn't the case and a large number of people were from petty-bourgie families, I wouldn't care - it would just mean we have work to do in reconnecting radical working class politics to the general working class. But even if 100% of people on here at the present numbers (or the entire radical left for that matter) were workers, the work we have to do would remain the same. So yeah, not too important to me.

At worst it makes politics personal, not political. Being determines consciousness but some claim that means that people from non-working class backgrounds are suspect. It's true that being determines consciousness, but that's in a general sense - even for a shop-keeper or academic, the "being" in a class society with class conflict means that they can develop working class and even revolutionary consciousness too, even if indirectly. A serf or aristocrat in 1066 couldn't develop working class consciousness because their being didn't include a society with any real capitalist relations to speak of.

At any rate in case making this argument makes me suspect to anyone, I'll do the prol-credential thing. Both my parents are workers and were active in their unions, though liberal in politics. I'm a worker, and support myself - poorly :lol:.


I see the least number of threads and posts are in the Worker Struggles forum.:(I don't think that's due to the class composition of the website. Other demographic issues probably have a bigger impact: a large number of student and young members probably does mean some organic workplace concerns and issues aren't brought up much. But overall I think it has more to do with the low level of working class struggle in the workplace right now in many of the places that members of this site are from.

But the vast majority of what is posted on this site is "class struggle" of some form even if it isn't in the workplace.

[#FF0000]

i'm p. sure everyone here is working class. i know i am.

i go to school as well but I spend more time at work or looking for work than I do in class or studying and I am right on the verge of dropping out so :thumbup1:

[x359594]

Broadly speaking anyone who works for wages is working class. People who live exclusively off of dividends, rents, and investments are not working class. (I used "exclusively" as a qualifier because a lot of working people having savings accounts and receive interest payments.)

[Kitty_Paine]

I live with my brother who works 50 + hours a week to support us while I'm finishing HS. More than 50 hours a week, and we're still dirt poor?! How does that work? Hell, how is that legal?

lol, uh... so I guess I'm in the "working class" or at least my brother is.

[Ostrinski]

I will probably have a part time job when I go to school in the fall. My mother works for the government off of a grant.

[NewLeft]

I am bourgeois.

[Misocratist]

I would be described as a white collar professional earning (in world terms) a wage around 250% of the world average and I would describe myself as working class.

Working class isn't about how much you earn, it's not quantitative but qualitative. You're part of the working class if somebody else owns the means of productions you're using, if you're selling your labour power instead of the products of your labour, even if you're given a very high wage for that labour power.

E.g.:
- Jeweller 1 is paid $200,000 a year for producing $250,000 worth of gold rings, because the tools he is using to produce them does not belong to him: he sells his labour power to somebody who actually owns tools.
- "Jeweller" 2 is paid $70,000 for selling $130,000 worth of gold rings, he gave $30,000 to each of his two employees for producing them and he kept the rest for owning the tools his employees have been using, though he himself produced no gold rings.

Jeweller 1 is working class, while Jeweller 2 isn't, even though $200,000 > $70,000

"Middle-class" is quantitative though: regardless of how you acquired your money, you belong to the middle-class if your income is around some relative and illusory "average".

[bcbm]

i own a large luxury hotel chain and several michelin rated restaurants as well as dabbling in a bit of hedge fund management and stock trading on the side. it isn't all fun and games though and i probably spend 60 hours a week in business related activities so i would consider myself working class.

[eyeheartlenin]

My father drove a truck, and I worked in offices my whole adult life, until retirement, so I think I qualify. I am proud to be in a union, too. As it happens, the young anarchists in our local union branch are the best leftists in town (the alternatives being the ISO and the Quakers).

I hope my proletarian status deflects any infraction or other punishment for submitting a one-liner.

Lenin's repeated description of workers as "wage slaves" always sounded pretty accurate to me.

* * *

The responses on this thread sound awfully familiar. Has this question been asked previously? I seem to have heard the witticisms before. (They're still funny, BTW.)

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I'm prole, my dad is prole, my mom is prole, my grandma is prole, my grandpa is prole, my great-grandma was prole, my...

[ForgedConscience]

Currently a student with no job, in the future who knows. If I stop smoking herb and actually studied I'd probably go on to uni supporting myself as a wage worker, then go on to teach philosophy (not sure what being a teacher or uni prof counts as, white collar professional?)

If not then it'll be the lumpen for me!

[Hiero]

Working class isn't about how much you earn, it's not quantitative but qualitative. You're part of the working class if somebody else owns the means of productions you're using, if you're selling your labour power instead of the products of your labour, even if you're given a very high wage for that labour power. It has to be taken into account. Here in Australia working class people can earn more than middle class people. For instance in Australia some manufacturing workers can earn more than the average person in the human resources. Another example is workers in the mines. This include skilled and unskilled, operators, electricians, fitters, tuners and diesel mechanics. They can earn anywhere from $80 000 to $150 000. This could be significantly more than their middle class counter parts in human resources.

This places some workers in a higher living standard than other working class and even traditional middle class. There are however middle class people in HR who are in the higher echelon and they can earn anywhere from $100 000 to $200 000. This is a cause for class tension between middle class and working class for those middle class who earn significantly less than their working class counterparts.
Pierre Bourdieu uses capital in four fields to explain inequality; these terms are economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital. What I find middle class people in Australia engaging in is a symbolic conflict between them and the higher earning workers. This involves sarcastic and derogatory representations of workers as ‘bogans’. These workers are people who lack the right cultural capital (degrees, cultural interests, politics such as environmentalism) to legitimate their income. So while some working class have moved forward in economic capital, the middle class still reign their traditional field of symbolic and cultural capitals.
I would also add the Marxist definition you provided does not account for people in pink collar (pink for their gender histories) industries or engaging in affective labour. This include people in this thread who describe their jobs as nurses assistant and manager of housing for ex cons. Those people (myself included) traditionally would be described as middle class, though it is a little more complex.

Middle class generally is used to describe those who are not engaging in production (unless we mean petite bourgeoisie that own or rent some productive forces). In the pink collar industries the labour is affective labour, its production is social. Much like the mother’s traditional role in western society, hence the gender division in these industries. So while they are sort of middle class sort of working class and engage in affective labour rather than productive, in most cases they can earn significantly less than male dominated working class sectors (such as the ones I described above)


These are issues that are problematic for the class question, but rarely taken up by anyone interested in class especially Marxist. Marxist and much like people on this website are more likely to lump people together. However their lived realities are significantly different. They however have to be taken into account when dealing with class politics.

[a rebel]

Prole and proud. A broke high school student living in a condo and going to vocational to become a welder. Im pretty good at it to....

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Well, my dad is a truck driver (super-proletariat), but my mom is a branch manager at a local TD Bank. I myself am a student and my volunteer jobs I guess put me in the intelligentsia strata. I manage books and documents (intake, organization, record-keeping, yadayada, blahblah) at my local library and at my school (you would not imagine how much stuff they make me do at the local library). Along with that, I do volunteer work for my ROTC class (by my own choice) every single week, like preparing the school for events and ushering for activities.

The most proletariat things I do: babysit almost every weekend, work at a Mexican store during the summer, and be a counselor at a local day camp (obviously only during the summer).

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Dad works in a factory, mom is a secretary, I work at McDonalds and major in history.

[Ele'ill]

My mother was a teacher and I've had a lot of jobs mainly construction and warehouse.

[El Oso Rojo]

I have a part time job as someone looking for employment, I live on social security for autism along with my mother. My partner is doing petition for a living wage campign here in Missouri but we do not live with each other. He lived in the hood and I live in a all black surburban neighbourhood.

[El Oso Rojo]

Well, my dad is a truck driver (super-proletariat), but my mom is a branch manager at a local TD Bank. I myself am a student and my volunteer jobs I guess put me in the intelligentsia strata. I manage books and documents (intake, organization, record-keeping, yadayada, blahblah) at my local library and at my school (you would not imagine how much stuff they make me do at the local library). Along with that, I do volunteer work for my ROTC class (by my own choice) every single week, like preparing the school for events and ushering for activities.

The most proletariat things I do: babysit almost every weekend, work at a Mexican store during the summer, and be a counselor at a local day camp (obviously only during the summer).

I volunteer at our local LGTB center, I am thinking about doing an intership with our lgtb adovate group.

[Martin Blank]

Broadly speaking anyone who works for wages is working class. People who live exclusively off of dividends, rents, and investments are not working class. (I used "exclusively" as a qualifier because a lot of working people having savings accounts and receive interest payments.)

This is far too broad and vague of a definition, and it completely erases the petty bourgeoisie from social relations.

I would say that a worker is someone who has only their ability to work (their labor-power) to sell as a means of survival. The other commodities he or she possesses (house, car, clothes, etc.) are for use, not for sale to make a profit. The working class as a whole is a social grouping that includes those who match the description above and those in their family who are dependent on them (children, spouses, etc.). Income is wholly irrelevant.

[Drowzy_Shooter]

I belong to an upper middle class white suburban family. I'm what one would call a "class traitor". My family would probably be described somewhere in between petty and regular bourgoisie. I'll probably get some sort of academic scholarship, my parents have said they will help with the rest. I'll probably get some sort of buisness, marketing (mainly because I'm very good with the concepts of buisness and capitalist economics), or law degree. I'll probably emigrate to Canada or another foreign country after college. End up as an upper middle class white collar worker. It's sad for me to say, but I am trying to find a way to make rnough income to support a family and live "well" and succeed in the world without hurting the working class.

I should also add, I plan to make sure I never make too much of a salary, what extra I have will go to charity or to anarchist organizations.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

I belong to an upper middle class white suburban family. I'm what one would call a "class traitor". My family would probably be described somewhere in between petty and regular bourgoisie. I'll probably get some sort of academic scholarship, my parents have said they will help with the rest. I'll probably get some sort of buisness, marketing (mainly because I'm very good with the concepts of buisness and capitalist economics), or law degree. I'll probably emigrate to Canada or another foreign country after college. End up as an upper middle class white collar worker. It's sad for me to say, but I am trying to find a way to make good income and succeed in the world without hurting the working class. So far it's not going to well. I'm also to selfish and prideful to work in a hourly wage job. My attempt to help bring about a workers revolution will be supply money to the movement, so that we can help the poor and reach and teach the masses about anarchism.

From someone who comes from a working class neighborhood and background, any bourgeoisie who is a traitor to their class is an ally to me :D

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

I volunteer at our local LGTB center, I am thinking about doing an intership with our lgtb adovate group.

I am one of the event organizers for the Gay and Stright Alliance group at my school. I am not even gay, but I like to be involved. I just organized a fundraiser (with a bunch of upperclassmen) for an AIDS clinic in Atlantic City. It took so fucking long just to organize everything with the clinic and get a response from the fundraising company, but it was worth it. All volunteer work is worth it.

Do the internship or I will eat your pets.

[Renegade Saint]

Well, my dad is a truck driver (super-proletariat), but my mom is a branch manager at a local TD Bank. I myself am a student and my volunteer jobs I guess put me in the intelligentsia strata. I manage books and documents (intake, organization, record-keeping, yadayada, blahblah) at my local library and at my school (you would not imagine how much stuff they make me do at the local library). Along with that, I do volunteer work for my ROTC class (by my own choice) every single week, like preparing the school for events and ushering for activities.

The most proletariat things I do: babysit almost every weekend, work at a Mexican store during the summer, and be a counselor at a local day camp (obviously only during the summer).
You're in ROTC?
Why'd you join?
And how do you stay in without the cognitive dissonance killing you?
(FYI, I'm not judging you for it, just asking)

Me, I'm prole as fuck. My grandfather was a teamster, my dad an aircraft mechanic. My mother and grandmother worked PT or stayed home. I'm currently an over-educated (for my job) wage slave making less than the US average wage.

[El Oso Rojo]

I am one of the event organizers for the Gay and Stright Alliance group at my school. I am not even gay, but I like to be involved. I just organized a fundraiser (with a bunch of upperclassmen) for an AIDS clinic in Atlantic City. It took so fucking long just to organize everything with the clinic and get a response from the fundraising company, but it was worth it. All volunteer work is worth it.

Do the internship or I will eat your pets.

The thing is that They will support anybody who say they support us, including republicans and they might be a problem with my party.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

You're in ROTC?
Why'd you join?
And how do you stay in without the cognitive dissonance killing you?
(FYI, I'm not judging you for it, just asking)

I did it to learn discipline and to learn more about the other side's view on my nation. I learned neither, it was a waste of time, and I am going to take theater next year. lolz

[x359594]

...I would say that a worker is someone who has only their ability to work (their labor-power) to sell as a means of survival. The other commodities he or she possesses (house, car, clothes, etc.) are for use, not for sale to make a profit. The working class as a whole is a social grouping that includes those who match the description above and those in their family who are dependent on them (children, spouses, etc.). Income is wholly irrelevant.

Yes, this is much better.

[Os Cangaceiros]

aspiring petit bourgeoisie! :thumbup1:

[Hiero]

I should also add, I plan to make sure I never make too much of a salary, what extra I have will go to charity or to anarchist organizations.

So young and naive.

[Rusty Shackleford]

I own several hundred thousand acres of land which i let people live on in exchange for them filling the ranks of my armies and feed me.

[WanderingCactus]

I should also add, I plan to make sure I never make too much of a salary, what extra I have will go to charity or to anarchist organizations.

Why? Working class is not a lifestyle or identity. Being a worker isn't something to aspire to; it generally sucks. If you can avoid it, you should.

[kevster03]

my mom is a nurse, my dad is a welder. so needless to say i couldn't afford Uni. I've been working my adult life in IT so... maybe? If you count computer work as part of being the 'working class' :confused:

[piet11111]

i am too drunk to know what this thread is about i can not afford to get drunk in a bar so i do it on cheap beer at home.

I am way prolier then thou art.

[Blake's Baby]

Oh, another of those 'Blake doesn't notice that the thread has gone on for another four pages because he's too busy getting annoyed by something saomeone said on page one, so he then has to go back and edit it so as not to look like an idiot' posts.

Ha, managed to fool you all, and you never noticed, nothing to see here, tum-te-tum.

[Permanent Revolutionary]

My grandparents were working class, but I would classify my parents as middle-class, as my dad is a small business owner.

I myself am a college student

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Not currently part of a union as there isn't one for the jobs I work but after I finish trade school I will be joining the IAM.

Prole as foooook.

[Azraella]

revleft is entirely middle-class white students.

Excuse me, I'm a hipster graduate now ;)

But seriously I am a working class shrink livig in genteel poverty.

[here2learn]

When I was a trucker I think I was probably working class I suppose Before taxes I made a lil over 45k yr.
　
I “m now desk jockey making almost twice that. It is a boring numbers job but pays well.
　
So I suppose this would put me in the lower middle class maybe closer to the middle of the middle class.

[anarcho-dystopian]

Members of the working class occasionally do pass through the left, but almost all of them leave. The most spectacular recent example of that was Stan Goff, who ended up so disgusted with Marxists that he found Jesus instead. This isn't a surprise, as most of the left today is just a live action role playing game for fat, white, socially retarded males who come mostly from the upper class. The working class has better things to do, and the truth is that we don't want any dirty workers crashing our leftarded role playing game.

[Left Leanings]

Members of the working class occasionally do pass through the left, but almost all of them leave. The most spectacular recent example of that was Stan Goff, who ended up so disgusted with Marxists that he found Jesus instead. This isn't a surprise, as most of the left today is just a live action role playing game for fat, white, socially retarded males who come mostly from the upper class. The working class has better things to do, and the truth is that we don't want any dirty workers crashing our leftarded role playing game.

Totally untrue. You obviously don't know much about left-wing activists and groups, if this is your opinion.

[bcbm]

in my experience that is pretty much dead on, though they forgot to mention students.

[Left Leanings]

in my experience that is pretty much dead on, though they forgot to mention students.

Seriously? I simply disagree. I come from a manual background. When I was a student, the comrades I was close to in the SWSS, were definitely working-class, of all ages too. It tended to be members of the Labour Club who were more affluent, to be honest.

I know people argue the toss over class, whether there is, or is not, a 'middle-class', for example. But I maintain there is a good mixture of people from both more affluent and manual backgrounds in groups.

Having said that, in my work in the service-user movement, there are some peeps who are proletarian and ex-leftists. But then they are getting on a bit, and have health issues to contend with.

But I don't think the groups consist of mainly 'upper class' people, no way.

[Pretty Flaco]

I should also add, I plan to make sure I never make too much of a salary, what extra I have will go to charity or to anarchist organizations.

you hit your fucking head or something?

[BE_]

Came from working class. OH SHIT!!!!

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

I don't know if I'm working class. I have two jobs, Civil Engineer for a mid-western firm, and Lecturer. I work for my living by not exploiting others, so that would make me working class, correct?

[Tim Finnegan]

What exactly is prole cred?

They're a system of coupons that can be redeemed for plaid shirts and domestic beer.

[black magick hustla]

Members of the working class occasionally do pass through the left, but almost all of them leave. The most spectacular recent example of that was Stan Goff, who ended up so disgusted with Marxists that he found Jesus instead. This isn't a surprise, as most of the left today is just a live action role playing game for fat, white, socially retarded males who come mostly from the upper class. The working class has better things to do, and the truth is that we don't want any dirty workers crashing our leftarded role playing game.

lol. honestly it depends. in my experience wingnut groups in the us are mostly composed of students. wingnuts do come from many different shapes, colors, sexes and sizes tho

[o well this is ok I guess]

i am too drunk to know what this thread is about i can not afford to get drunk in a bar so i do it on cheap beer at home.

I am way prolier then thou art. I'm so broke I take my Colt 45 up the bum.
Top that.

[Ele'ill]

I'm so broke I take my Colt 45 up the bum.
Top that.


keystone light


Anyone here start out the first ten years or so of their life in a stable financial environment and then things got bad where their social/family fell apart and had their class position change drastically as well? Anyone middle class until their adult life started and then it all went down hill?

[Misocratist]

Though a university student from a working class family, I do not proudly identify myself with some "proletarian culture", unlike some people on this forum.

I live on little money. Though I dress in cheap, simple clothes, you wouldn't be able to guess my background from them: black, blue or beige dress shirts, with corduroy trousers. I do not like cheap white-trash beer, nor do I drink much alcohol, exept for that long-lasting bottle of gin in my wardrobe. I have a rather shitty $250 netbook, but an impressive personal library, filled mostly by second-hand books. As for "culture", I do not like that DIY anarcho-punk thing, I listen to pedantic stuff like jazz. I like to play chess, snobbish game par excellence, "owning" an old beaten-up wooden chessboard. I do enjoy classic literature, I dislike watching sport and all that prolefeed.

Really, few things feel as good as to see the distressed faces of haughty, condescending bourgeois when you quote Augustine, Dante or Thoreau at social events; when they realize that you are much more noble than them despite earning less than a fifth of their income.

[anarcho-dystopian]

Totally untrue. You obviously don't know much about left-wing activists and groups, if this is your opinion.

I go to the local leftist meetings & protest marches and I look at the people who show up. It isn't rocket science to figure out the demographics.

It is the same demographic that shows up for role playing games and star trek conventions. Fat, white and socially retarded is very evident.

I should add that I am speaking here about the west coast American left, and I see that you are from the UK. Things may not be so bad on the other side of the pond.

They are almost beyond belief around here.

We have an IWW here in Portland. In theory they should be organizing the hobos and day laborers. That is the last thing they ever do. The really painful and retarded part of it is that they used to have a hall that was on the same block as the local jornalero work corner. The people they were supposed to be organizing were literally right out there doorstep. They did nothing to organize them. Now the IWW is vegan coffee shop for hipsters that is right across the street from one of the largest soup kitchens in the city, one that serves hundreds of workers every night. The physical distance between the two is tiny, but the social distance is almost infinite.

[Left Leanings]

Though a university student from a working class family, I do not proudly identify myself with some "proletarian culture", unlike some people on this forum.

I live on little money. Though I dress in cheap, simple clothes, you wouldn't be able to guess my background from them: black, blue or beige dress shirts, with corduroy trousers. I do not like cheap beer, nor do I drink much alcohol. I have a rather shitty $250 netbook, but an impressive personal library. As for "culture", I do not like that DIY anarcho-punk thing, I listen to pedantic stuff like jazz. I like to play chess, snobbish game par excellence. I do enjoy classic literature, I dislike watching sport.

Really, few things feel better than to see the face of haughty, condescending bourgeois when you quote Augustine, Dante or Thoreau to them at social events; when they realize that you are much more noble than them despite earning less than a fifth of their income.

Exactly. The idea that cos we come from working-class backgrounds, we are somehow all beer drinkers and know-nothings, is pretty annoying. And it's endemic in the bourgeois to take this view.

I had a well snooty lecturer at uni. He came from a manual background, and thought he had made it fucking big. He banged on about how he lived in a large Victorian house with "all the traditional fittings", and how is daughter was being privately educated and was gonna go to medical school.

He bored me fucking ragged. I submitted a paper offering a critique of the world economy, and how messed up it was, saying socialism would be a better way of organizing society. He actually said describing the world economic system as capitalist was wrong, and "depended on what shade of a Marxist you are". He said I was subjective, and not objective. A load of bollocks. Cos conclusions are subjective anyway. What's important it to arrive at them through an objective process of consideration. Marxists and capital reach different 'subjective' conclusions, objectively considered from our different class positions and interests.

The same guy used to talk about his mate at the pub, who was a plumber. He said cos he was working-class, he couldn't express ideas properly, and had no culture. I'm sure fucking glad I never had to go for a drink with him, cos he would have worn his glass of beer.

I have a wide range of interests including art, wine, Baroque and classical music, Indian classical music, and a large collection of books also. I'm still proletarian cos of my class origins and position in the economy today. And yeah, the toffee-noses really don't like it when they talk shit about wine, and you actually know more than them, the stuck up bastards.


I go to the local leftist meetings & protest marches and I look at the people who show up. It isn't rocket science to figure out the demographics.

It is the same demographic that shows up for role playing games and star trek conventions. Fat, white and socially retarded is very evident.

I should add that I am speaking here about the west coast American left, and I see that you are from the UK. Things may not be so bad on the other side of the pond.

They are almost beyond belief around here.

We have an IWW here in Portland. In theory they should be organizing the hobos and day laborers. That is the last thing they ever do. The really painful and retarded part of it is that they used to have a hall that was on the same block as the local jornalero work corner. The people they were supposed to be organizing were literally right out there doorstep. They did nothing to organize them. Now the IWW is vegan coffee shop for hipsters that is right across the street from one of the largest soup kitchens in the city, one that serves hundreds of workers every night. The physical distance between the two is tiny, but the social distance is almost infinite.

Yeah I see where you're coming from. It's all a question of where you are located, and what's going on in your neck of the woods. I am re-engaging with leftist politics after a long period of absence due to health issues. The peeps I used to be involved with were on the whole from working-class backgrounds, and were very keen on organizing and agitating in the sort of situations you describe. I am currently in discussions with two groups regarding membership and involvement. I will wait and see what happens, but the colleague I have met with so far, is both educated and proletarian, and is certainly not fat lol. He is an active trade unionist, and ran a stall in a one of the local towns this weekend.

[Loony]

Working class person here! :) With a working class family!

[marl]

My mom translates patents and my dad does finish carpentry. I do community service.

[Rusty Shackleford]

there is pretty much a 0% likelihood of someone on here owning capital and using the labor of others to enrich themselves. (at least, outside of OI, and even then, its a stretch)


basically that means everyone here is of the 'underclasses'

i also doubt anyone here is a peasant or an aristocrat.



and one more thing, you dont 'inherit' class positions in society at birth anymore. that is an old thing of slavery and feudalism. you can inherit property, but you are not born a capitalist or a worker. more than likely though you very quickly encounter the means of production and assume the position of a class.

[black magick hustla]

Fat, white and socially retarded is very evident.


ok i used to crack self denigration jokes like this but i think this is pretty disturbing and shouldn't be tolerated. leftist rules taught us that we can't laugh at black or gay people but we sure can be mean as fuck about alienated, social outcasts :rolleyes:

[black magick hustla]

hey gueys lets make fun of people for not fitting in the social order we want to destroy

[black magick hustla]

except us obv. cuz' we are posting in the internet arguing nerd shit

[Zukunftsmusik]

I do role playing (as in running around in the woods with latex swords). And I'm white. I'm not fat, but I could maybe be described as "socially retarded/awkward" to a certain extent. I never bring latex sword or costumes to demonstrations, though, to put it that way.

[Zukunftsmusik]

hey gueys lets make fun of people for not fitting in the social order we want to destroy

nerds of the world, unite

[moulinrouge]

Really, few things feel as good as to see the distressed faces of haughty, condescending bourgeois when you quote Augustine, Dante or Thoreau at social events; when they realize that you are much more noble than them despite earning less than a fifth of their income.

Quote digging isn't a good thing, and reading classical literature doesn't make you better then other people.

[moulinrouge]

I go to the local leftist meetings & protest marches and I look at the people who show up. It isn't rocket science to figure out the demographics.

It is the same demographic that shows up for role playing games and star trek conventions. Fat, white and socially retarded is very evident.

I should add that I am speaking here about the west coast American left, and I see that you are from the UK. Things may not be so bad on the other side of the pond.

They are almost beyond belief around here.

We have an IWW here in Portland. In theory they should be organizing the hobos and day laborers. That is the last thing they ever do. The really painful and retarded part of it is that they used to have a hall that was on the same block as the local jornalero work corner. The people they were supposed to be organizing were literally right out there doorstep. They did nothing to organize them. Now the IWW is vegan coffee shop for hipsters that is right across the street from one of the largest soup kitchens in the city, one that serves hundreds of workers every night. The physical distance between the two is tiny, but the social distance is almost infinite.

According to marxist class analysis it should be the working class who are in IWW, and especially the coloured working class since they also have to suffer racism.

Is there somebody who can explain this contradiction?

[Tim Finnegan]

nerds of the world, unite
There are some anarchists who argue that could be a serious program (http://humaniterations.net/2011/09/10/scientists-as-a-revolutionary-class/).

[Misocratist]

According to marxist class analysis it should be the working class who are in IWW, and especially the coloured working class since they also have to suffer racism.

Is there somebody who can explain this contradiction?

Ronald Inglehart's post-materialism can. While I mostly disagree with him, there is no doubt that post-materialism can explain quite a few cases, such as this one.

The post-WW2 era has provided a feeling (justified or illusory) of material security to some parts of our society, people whose sole concerns aren't to provide themselves with the bare material necessities of life anymore: when that happens, marxist historical materialism can't be of no use to explain the social behaviours of those people.

Over-sheltered suburban male white kids thus do not value "hard-work" and "frugality" as much as their great-grandparents did, their survival do not depend on it anymore. Having vanquished the fear of hunger, they have come to value silly thing such as "change" and "justice" instead, being concerned with more "abstract" issues: for some, it has been "fetal rights", "gay rights" or "the environment"; for others, it has been "control over the means of production", "class struggle" and "imperialist America enslaving countries I can barely locate on a map".

People who should be concerned with "class struggle" and "ownership of the means of production" are just too busy avoiding starvation and paying rent to read fancy economic treatises by fancy communists, especially since they have indeed come to think (and rightly so?) of communists as latte-drinkin', fixie-ridin' liberal college students who have never been through "an honest day's work for an honest day's pay", who do not know about the real life of honest bible believin', hard-workin' people who humbly enjoy nascar.

*To mods who are going to approve this post, please note the sarcasm.*

[Misocratist]

Quote digging isn't a good thing, and reading classical literature doesn't make you better then other people.

Reading classical literature means that you withdrew yourself from the prolefeed American Idol, Britney Spears and 90's sitcom thing that capitalism has been feeding you since childhood, that you have altered your petty, alienated tastes and that you might be trying to get out of the "bread and circuses" routine into a quest for the best that has been said and thought by your fellow men.

It means that you have been trying to think beyond the current decade, that you may even be trying to make sense of "how we got here" as a culture, gaining a critical perspective on our day and age from the study of dead ideals, coming to think that the capitalists ideals might very well die too, and others resurrect, as they sometime did.

It doesn't mean that you're better than other people, but it means you're much more dangerous. Bourgeois don't fear "good people", they fear "free spirits".

[Die Neue Zeit]

I don't know if I'm working class. I have two jobs, Civil Engineer for a mid-western firm, and Lecturer. I work for my living by not exploiting others, so that would make me working class, correct?

I guess that depends if you have subordinates under you as civil engineer.

[MustCrushCapitalism]

I'm a member of the feudal nobility.

[moulinrouge]

Reading classical literature means that you withdrew yourself from the prolefeed American Idol, Britney Spears and 90's sitcom thing that capitalism has been feeding you since childhood, that you have altered your petty, alienated tastes and that you might be trying to get out of the "bread and circuses" routine into a quest for the best that has been said and thought by your fellow men.

It means that you have been trying to think beyond the current decade, that you may even be trying to make sense of "how we got here" as a culture, gaining a critical perspective on our day and age from the study of dead ideals, coming to think that the capitalists ideals might very well die too, and others resurrect, as they sometime did.

It doesn't mean that you're better than other people, but it means you're much more dangerous. Bourgeois don't fear "good people", they fear "free spirits".

I don't think it means your superiority complex is justified.

[Yefim Zverev]

count me in.

[Sasha]

my mom and dad both came from solid working class backgrounds (my grandpa on my dad's side was the first in his family to remain in school after he turned 13 but thats was because his childhood polio made him unable to work the land like his brothers did but my mum came from an quite educated unionized labor background, her family where mostly in the bookprinting buisness) but like a lot of babyboomers both went to university. They worked hard to give me and my sisters what you could call a "middle class" life (what one calls midle class in the US that is, not england), a nice house in a nice neighboorhood, a good education till the highest level and while never remotely rich certainly also never poor.
on the other hand i'm living the working class life now certainly, while i have a renting house now i have been living in squats for years, me and the GF do not go hungry but luxury is pretty much out of the question, we both work only slightly above minimum wage part-time and thanks to my failed attempts at college i have a nasty student debt.
but this is all more of a choice than that we are forced to it by our class backgrounds, we could both probably find a better paying full time job if we wanted to but we rather keep a lot of time free to make the art we want to make (but fail to sell till now)

[Landsharks eat metal]

I've never been sure about my class. I've not led a very working class-esque life because my family is intellectual as fuck. My mother is a French professor (and she is in charge of hiring students to help with tutoring and running the computer lab), and my father is a chemical engineer (who has no real power himself but often finds himself, as the most experienced member of his group, filling in for his boss). My sister is going into forensic science. We've never had problems making ends meet. We don't live in luxury, but we could, perhaps. My parents are rather frugal, but our house is kind of huge.

I guess those jobs are still proletarian?? I'm not good with the whole class thing.

I just always feel way richer than anybody else here (but when I move out on my own, I likely won't be.)

[and I probably sound like the biggest dumbass in the world in this post]

[anarcho-dystopian]

According to marxist class analysis it should be the working class who are in IWW, and especially the coloured working class since they also have to suffer racism.

Is there somebody who can explain this contradiction?

Marxism 101: No theory without practice.

So what is the practice?


To operate a “revolutionary” union as a social club for disaffected members of the white upper class, mainly tree huggies and vegans, in the case of the Portland IWW.

Is it a surprise that this doesn’t appeal to people with real problems and real enemies?


The oppressed have better things to do than sit in the dingy basement and listen to some old assbag flatulate about vanguards and proletariats.

[Left Leanings]

Bourgeois don't fear "good people", they fear "free spirits".

Fucking spot on.

The ruling class need us to toil and slave away for them, as the profits roll into their fat purses, and they steal off us what we have already made and own.

But we don't need them. And they know it.

That's why in the face of mass working-class self-organization, capital will either become brutally oppresssive, or back the fuck down. Think of the Paris Commune. Then think of the Poll Tax non-payment campaign, the demonstrations, the riots.

A class conscious and orgainized working-class. The bourgeois nightmare.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

I am standard service / retail sector, (grubby) white collar worker, wages are 54% of the United Kingdom average and 112% of the world average.

Often accused of being 'a bit posh' but since leaving parental home(s) been in pretty crap jobs, have no qualifications worth noting and live in dreary suburb w-class / benefit claiming families...so always felt like I wasn'ty wclass (because of the posh label) but I suppose I am.

[El Oso Rojo]

I go to the local leftist meetings & protest marches and I look at the people who show up. It isn't rocket science to figure out the demographics.

It is the same demographic that shows up for role playing games and star trek conventions. Fat, white and socially retarded is very evident.

I should add that I am speaking here about the west coast American left, and I see that you are from the UK. Things may not be so bad on the other side of the pond.

They are almost beyond belief around here.

We have an IWW here in Portland. In theory they should be organizing the hobos and day laborers. That is the last thing they ever do. The really painful and retarded part of it is that they used to have a hall that was on the same block as the local jornalero work corner. The people they were supposed to be organizing were literally right out there doorstep. They did nothing to organize them. Now the IWW is vegan coffee shop for hipsters that is right across the street from one of the largest soup kitchens in the city, one that serves hundreds of workers every night. The physical distance between the two is tiny, but the social distance is almost infinite.


I have a facebook photo of me in a sea of white people at 1877 labor commeration. usually it depend on what even i am at. Anarchist ones mostly white people, PSL events different races, pro palestine rallies differant races, pan leftists different races, green party stuff white old middle class.

[aty]

Why should you be on revleft if you are not working class? Odd question...

[Tim Finnegan]

You could be a Stalinist. They generally seem to have only the vaguest comprehension of working class existence, hence their eagerness to fold everyone into a monolothic and one-dimensional Arbeiterklasse, completely lacking in heterogeneity or agency.

[RedAnarchist]

My dad has been a postal worker for nearly forty years and when my mum was alive she had various jobs. My family are strongly working class. As for myself, I'm unemployed and have been since I left university in 2008.

[fabian]

Blue collar here!

[Yuppie Grinder]

I do role playing (as in running around in the woods with latex swords). And I'm white. I'm not fat, but I could maybe be described as "socially retarded/awkward" to a certain extent. I never bring latex sword or costumes to demonstrations, though, to put it that way.
hella steez

[Anderson]

Why should you be on revleft if you are not working class? Odd question...

Supporting working class or fighting for working class is not same as belonging to the working class

[ComradeOfJoplin]

I am Computer Support Technician for a public school.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

I own a textile company in Bangladesh where I screw employees over with salary cuts, long working hours and hired paramilitary battalions. I just come on here to watch the lousy workers fragment themselves again and again, for the lulz.

I kid, I kid. I work at a lousy fish shop. :crying:

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

I own a textile company in Bangladesh where I screw employees over with salary cuts, long working hours and hired paramilitary battalions. I just come on here to watch the lousy workers fragment themselves again and again, for the lulz.

I kid, I kid. I work at a lousy fish shop. :crying:

Oh my god? You got shampoo to kill those lice?? :blink:

Me i work as a car-mechanic (the diagnostics-specialist type).
And I am an entrepreneur on the side the keep my head above water.

[Q]

I sell my ability to work to help people over the phone if they have an issue with their Apple products.

You could say I'm your digital janitor.

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

I sell my ability to work to help people over the phone if they have an issue with their Apple products.

You could say I'm your digital janitor.

So are you saying that apple products are shit?? :p

[l'Enfermé]

I'm twice as proletarian as any of you wankers, by virtue of working 2 different part-time jobs right now :cool:

[Let's Get Free]

I'm a student, I work at Fed Ex, I live at home, and I'm constantly broke. I'd say that's pretty proletarian.

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

I'm twice as proletarian as any of you wankers, by virtue of working 2 different part-time jobs right now :cool:

Oh damn, i beat you! I work a full-time job and a part-time job on the side ;)

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

i'm from a working class background, almost lumpen in some ways. i'm a student now though which pretty much makes me 'middle class' by society's standards

[StalinFanboy]

It has always weirded me out that a significant portion of leftists like to brag about how much capitalism is fucking them.

[Philosophos]

I work at grape fields right now. pay is awful as always... I'm not in any union because they are idiots and they sell their ass to every government takes power...

[RedAnarchist]

Currently work two days a week as a Systems Administrator for the HR department of a retail company. My contract runs out at the end of December, and I hope to get a permanent, full time job after it.

[La Guaneña]

I come from a working class family and work as a bike messenger when I'm not in school. Prole as fuck

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I'm working class now however for the vast majority of my life I've been lumpenprole (woop woop), what I was born into.

[ed miliband]

I come from a working class family and work as a bike messenger when I'm not in school. Prole as fuck

what's a "working class family"?

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

what's a "working class family"?

A family that is working and has class.

[Comrades Unite!]

My family is working class(As are the majority in Ireland)

[Jas0n]

what's a "working class family"?

We could start with this, from Wikipedia:

Working class (or lower class, labouring class, sometimes proletariat) is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs (as measured by skill, education and lower incomes), often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes. Working classes are mainly found in industrialized economies and in urban areas of non-industrialized economies.

As with many terms describing social class, working class is defined and used in many different ways. When used non-academically, it typically refers to a section of society dependent on physical labor, especially when compensated with an hourly wage. Its use in academic discourse is contentious, especially following the decline of manual labor in postindustrial societies. It is often used synonymously for proletariat, particularly amongst Marxist authors. Some academics question the usefulness of the concept of a working class.

The term is usually contrasted with the upper class and middle class, in general terms of access to economic resources, education, cultural interests, and other goods and services. The cut-off between working class and middle class is more specifically where a population spends money primarily as a lifestyle rather than for sustenance (for example, on fashion versus merely nutrition and shelter). Problematically, relying on this method of distinction would rule out many of the people who are often identified as working class.

Its usage can alternately be derogatory, or can express a sense of pride in those who self-identify as working class.[/quote]

...


...and then leave ourselves with our own definitions as to that which constitutes a "family"?

[RedAnarchist]

I think you misunderstood what ed was talking about.

[La Guaneña]

what's a "working class family"?

Sorry if that came out bad, my English is really rusty.

Just a family made of working class people, nothing awesome

[the last donut of the night]

It has always weirded me out that a significant portion of leftists like to brag about how much capitalism is fucking them.

the modern left is a giant super ego

[Igor]

kinda, i guess. my dad is a small business owner working just by himself and was fucked up in the 90s and is still paying for that. my mom is a store clerk. i'm a student myself so don't really fit anywhere in the class picture of things and will probably end up as some kind of white collar jerk eventually

[Ravachol]

I'm a member of the landed nobility.

[Decommissioner]

Yes, been living on my own paying rent taking low wage jobs since I was 19 (I am 26 now). Never went to college, couldn't afford it and still I am unsure what I would choose to get a degree in if I went now, so I usually don't think about it. Most jobs I have held have been unskilled ranging from minimum wage to around 10 bucks an hour. For a while I had a job that paid 15 an hour, but that place went under after two years and I haven't been able to find a job in the same field.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find many people on here who aren't working class or come from working class backgrounds, just based on the fact most of the population is working class.

You could say I was a member of the petit-bourgeoisie from 2007-2009, some friends of mine and I pooled enough money to start a small hole in the wall diy punk venue. All the money we made went towards bands and rent, so it was never like we were in a position to quit are jobs, but if you want to split hairs you could say that still counts as petit bourgeois.

I find the idea of "prole cred" ridiculous though, theres no pride in being a wage slave, and there is nothing romantic about living paycheck to paycheck. Workers are workers because they have to be, not because they want to be, and most workers (including myself) would trade places with someone in a cushy petit-bourgeoisie position in a heartbeat.

[Sentinel]

I'm a definitely a worker by the classic definition, even though I'm rather well paid working on the sea and not under a "flag of convenience". As a redeeming feature, I give a goodish amount of my income to my organisation..

[hetz]

I'm a soldier of the reserve army of labor. :D

[StalinFanboy]

I'm a definitely a worker by the classic definition, even though I'm rather well paid working on the sea and not under a "flag of convenience". As a redeeming feature, I give a goodish amount of my income to my organisation..
10% i hope ;)

[CryingWolf]

I come from a wealthy family. My parents have a house on Long Island, and a summer house in Newport. They are divorced while my mother became sick and now resides at a sanatorium. My father grew up on an estate in Connecticut, and now owns an apartment in the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan, although he is apparently dying. My younger brother Sean attends Camden College. I attended Phillips Exeter Academy for prep school. I graduated from Harvard University in 1984, and Harvard Business School two years later and moved to New York City.

Currently, I'm an investment banker. I work as a specialist in mergers and acquisitions at Pierce & Pierce and live at 55 West 81st Street, Upper West Side in the American Gardens Building (right next to Tom Cruise).

[RedAnarchist]

Yes, but can you get a reservation at Dorsia?

[Comrades Unite!]

Phil Collins anyone?

[Thelonious]

I am a single father raising three school-age children in my home, with an obscenely high mortgage payment, in Newark, NJ. I am a bridge painter in the New York City metropolitan area and a member of a union. Although bridge painters are one of the highest paid tradesman, I consider myself solidly working class.

[Thelonious]

I am curious if there is a way to find out whether we have any significant population of forum members from working class?

I see the least number of threads and posts are in the Worker Struggles forum.:(

You would think that the "Worker Struggles" section would have the most posts and threads on Revleft. I admit that I was extremely surprised and disappointed to find that it did not.

[Sea]

You would think that the "Worker Struggles" section would have the most posts and threads on Revleft. I admit that I was extremely surprised and disappointed to find that it did not.Ongoing struggles, P&P, discrimination, politics and I'm sure a few others all deal in workers struggles to a point..

What's unfortunate is that this isn't a case of no news is good news.

[Let's Get Free]

I'm so working class, I use a metal utensil instead of a wooden spoon to eat my caviar

[#FF0000]

You would think that the "Worker Struggles" section would have the most posts and threads on Revleft. I admit that I was extremely surprised and disappointed to find that it did not.

Yeah. But that's sort of how it's going right now. Strikes are exceedingly uncommon in the US now. We rarely see over a hundred a year.

[Thelonious]

Yeah. But that's sort of how it's going right now. Strikes are exceedingly uncommon in the US now. We rarely see over a hundred a year.

That is true. A major strike by longshoremen was just averted here on the east coast; the ILA represents over 15,000 workers at east coast ports.

[RedAnarchist]

Currently work two days a week as a Systems Administrator for the HR department of a retail company. My contract runs out at the end of December, and I hope to get a permanent, full time job after it.

Update on this, I now work three days a week and my contract ends in March. looking very likely that I will get a full-time contract in April.