Hustling and Class

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I know these threads are dumb but humor me. I am curious to what class my profession would be classified under. Some of you know that I work for a sales and marketing firm, so I was wondering, where do salesmen, hucksters, peddlers, transient retail merchants, etc. fit into the class struggle? I'm talking about those whom go door-to-door still, with our vacuums, cable, knives and energy. That's another thing, I don't sell any tangible product. I was just curious as I often feel, in the large scheme of things, I don't contribute anything, really, I mean, I don't think it's ever been said "Oh, yes, obviously you're forgetting the salesman Humphrey the Haggler who patented the royal courtship and IQ close on the queen in 1040," you know? I feel like the above just kind of sums up Marx's definition of lumpenprole but idk, Revleft mystics, analyze your tea leaves and tell me.

[Comrade #138672]

Interesting question.

As a programmer, I have a similar problem. I do not produce anything tangible, only 'virtual commodities' to be sold (by my employer). I wouldn't say that we belong to the lumpenproletariat, but we are not 'strictly' proletarians either. Neither are we (petty) bourgeoisie, because we don't own any means of production. I don't suppose we are classless?

I know that we both work on the level of distribution, because what I do is eventually used to distribute actual commodities, which are not produced by myself. Sometimes I feel that we lack another class definition, simply because there weren't so much people in distribution in Marx' own time, that he was unable to recognize it as a somewhat seperate class, and people don't like to change it, despite the fact that we live in another time.

[Lynx]

Do you work for wages, or commission?
Sales work and hustling (excepting politicians) fall within the merchant or retail sector, I think. You are proletarian!

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Do you work for wages, or commission?

I work strictly off commission, if I don't get deals, I don't eat. We actually go through a lot of people because of this because (and I'm not playing), if you can't sell a deal in my career you don't get shit; think Glengarry Glen Ross.


Sales work and hustling (excepting politicians) fall within the merchant or retail sector, I think. You are proletarian!

"Alongside decayed roués with dubious means of subsistence and of dubious origin, alongside ruined and adventurous offshoots of the bourgeoisie, were vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, maquereaux [pimps], brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ grinders, ragpickers, knife grinders, tinkers, beggars — in short, the whole indefinite, disintegrated mass, thrown hither and thither, which the French call la bohème."-Karl Marx.

Now, while I would not refer to myself as a swindler, it does seem like all of the above don't really contribute socially in the sense that other workers due even if currency is exchanged and commission is obtained.

[Ravachol]

Interesting question.

As a programmer, I have a similar problem. I do not produce anything tangible, only 'virtual commodities' to be sold (by my employer). I wouldn't say that we belong to the lumpenproletariat, but we are not 'strictly' proletarians either. Neither are we (petty) bourgeoisie, because we don't own any means of production. I don't suppose we are classless?


That'd be a blast. But the proletarian condition has nothing to do with the tangibleness of what one 'produces', whether one engages in manual or immaterial labor or whether one is employed or unemployed. The proletarian condition is defined by a shared dispossession, the inability to structurally reproduce oneself save for engaging in the sale of the only thing the proletarian possesses: labor power.

Besides, as a programmer myself, whether something is tangible or not isn't what defines a commodity. Capital expands and wraps its tentacles around everything in this world, it renders everything, from food to songs, from strawberries to ideas, from algorithms to houses pregnant with the value-form and throws them up on the market. The process of commodification sees no barriers in the immaterial nature of software.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Vox Populi, the commission you receive is a small share of the profit the bosses get from that sale. Think of yourself as the final step of the production line - you haven't physically created the object (even services or 'virtual commodities', etc, same mechanics as building and then selling a car), but after it's been created you have handled the last leg of the logistics of getting that commodity through the market while your boss be extractin yo surplus value. You do not own the capital, you do not receive the full value of your work, you do not pass 'go'. If you own stock in the company, however, you could be stepping into petty-bourgeois territory.



This is a similar situation to Wal-Mart and other retail workers, pest control salesmen/techs who receive a small portion of the total contract, automotive sales people who receive a small portion of the car sale revenue while the owner pockets the rest, etc, etc, etc. Dat capitalism.

[Il Medico]

This is overly simplified of course, but generally speaking a good way to figure out your class.

A). Do you own the means of production and live off the labor of others? - Bourgeoisie

B). Do you own the means of production, but still rely on your own labor to live? - Petite-Bourgeoisie

C). Do you not own the means of production and rely solely on your own labor to live?- Proletariat


I'm pretty sure salesmen would fall under C.