Are rich wage laborers considered bourgeois?

[Skyhilist]

What I mean is people who work for a wage, but one that is extremely high. Take Major League Baseball players, for example. They technically work for a wage but can be extremely rich. So what class would people such as this be considered a part of?

[Blake's Baby]

Sports stars aren't exctly wage labourers. Who owns the means of production? They are themselves their own 'tools' in one sense. So they're more like well-paid sole traders (see also actors and some others in the entertainment industry).

[The Jay]

Sports stars aren't exctly wage labourers. Who owns the means of production? They are themselves their own 'tools' in one sense. So they're more like well-paid sole traders (see also actors and some others in the entertainment industry).

I dunno about that. It would seem to me that the means of production are owned by either the team or by the league, i.e. the balls, stadiums, ect. The labor that they are putting in is a service of entertainment via the resources provided by the owners of the venue.

[Taters]

When they're making that amount of money, I just cut to the chase and call them bourgeois.

[Blake's Baby]

I dunno about that. It would seem to me that the means of production are owned by either the team or by the league, i.e. the balls, stadiums, ect. The labor that they are putting in is a service of entertainment via the resources provided by the owners of the venue.

Yes, it's tricky. Is 'entertainment' itself a commodity?

[Flying Purple People Eater]

No.

A rich wage labourer is still a wage labourer. Their labour is still being exploited by a capitalist for gain in surplus.

P=s/(C+V)

Profit=Surplus divided by (Constant Capital + Variable capital)
The goal of capitalists is to raise the value of surplus (s) above Constant capital+Variable capital (c+v).

Although a particularly rich proletarian like, say, a football star, may have interests more in common with the bourgeoisie because of their paycheck (and indeed even use the money from their job to start their own, more profitable company).

[Starship Stormtrooper]

Strictly based on their relationship to the means of production, I would have to argue that as wage laborers they are still "proletarian," but after a certain level of wealth you have to question whether or not their class interests truly align with our own and what their probable actions would be in a revolutionary situation.

[The Jay]

Yes, it's tricky. Is 'entertainment' itself a commodity?

I don't think that it is because you cannot directly trade it. I think that their labor could be considered enabling - non-productive - labor and that the filming of the thing could be as well as the production of dvds or what not for sale.

It is rather complicated to me so I'm not sure.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Well when their wage exceeds the value created then they aren't properly proletarian, so I'd say no.

[Blake's Baby]

I guess what they mostly do (actors, sports stars etc) is bring in an audience so advertisers can sell more stuff. Their labour is indirectly used to entice people into buying stuff.

There was a thread about this some years ago - not sure if it got anywhere. I'll try to dig it up, though not today, as it's 4am here and I really should go to bed.

[The Jay]

I guess what they mostly do (actors, sports stars etc) is bring in an audience so advertisers can sell more stuff. Their labour is indirectly used to entice people into buying stuff.

There was a thread about this some years ago - not sure if it got anywhere. I'll try to dig it up, though not today, as it's 4am here and I really should go to bed.

Thanks, that would be interesting.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

When they're making that amount of money, I just cut to the chase and call them bourgeois.
Petit-bourgeois would be more accurate, I think.

[Rafiq]

there is no correlation between romantic and ideological conviniences regarding capitalism... and actual capitalism. capitalist relations are characterized scientifically, so yes, millionares can be proletarians, just as hominids can be human

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[Taters]

there is no correlation between romantic and ideological conviniences regarding capitalism... and actual capitalism. capitalist relations are characterized scientifically, so yes, millionares can be proletarians, just as hominids can be human

I stand corrected; I was being 'unscientific'. Still, I can't quite shake the feeling that these particular proletarians wouldn't be quite so amenable to communism.

[rojas3600]

No.

A rich wage labourer is still a wage labourer. Their labour is still being exploited by a capitalist for gain in surplus.

P=s/(C+V)

Profit=Surplus divided by (Constant Capital + Variable capital)
The goal of capitalists is to raise the value of surplus (s) above Constant capital+Variable capital (c+v).

Although a particularly rich proletarian like, say, a football star, may have interests more in common with the bourgeoisie because of their paycheck (and indeed even use the money from their job to start their own, more profitable company).

You're confusing profit with surplus value.

[The Intransigent Faction]

there is no correlation between romantic and ideological conviniences regarding capitalism... and actual capitalism. capitalist relations are characterized scientifically, so yes, millionares can be proletarians, just as hominids can be human

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Perhaps, but what about the above points that this kind of "proletarian" person is far more able to make the transition into a bourgeois/petit bourgeois relation to some means of production, and that their wage exceeds the value created?

That said, of course they lack proper class consciousness when they're paid that much, but this doesn't change, it seems to me, the ultimately dependent nature of the relationship---if they don't own the means of production.

Does it make any difference that their paid fixed salaries through contract for "non-productive labour"/entertainment/service/whatever you want to call it, and not hourly wages?

[Lucretia]

What I mean is people who work for a wage, but one that is extremely high. Take Major League Baseball players, for example. They technically work for a wage but can be extremely rich. So what class would people such as this be considered a part of?

Professional athletes are definitely at the extreme end of the labor aristocracy -- workers who use restrictions on the supply of labor (either in the form of unions or through possession of a unique skill) to appropriate a great deal of the surplus they generate. But not all of it, which is why they are still technically workers.

[CryingWolf]

Perhaps, but what about the above points that this kind of "proletarian" person is far more able to make the transition into a bourgeois/petit bourgeois relation to some means of production, and that their wage exceeds the value created?

Everyone has a non-zero chance of becoming bourgeois. Until they are bourgeois, they're not bourgeois.

Also, how can their wage possibly exceed the value they create?




Does it make any difference that their paid fixed salaries through contract for "non-productive labour"/entertainment/service/whatever you want to call it, and not hourly wages?

Yeah I'd say it does make a difference, since some athletes can produce so much value that it puts them in a higher bargaining position than their employers (though I'm not sure how current hiring practices and laws affect this relationship). However, I wouldn't say that makes them bourgeois because their method of producing value is so different.

[rojas3600]

Everyone has a non-zero chance of becoming bourgeois. Until they are bourgeois, they're not bourgeois.

Also, how can their wage possibly exceed the value they create?


Because individual capitalist/corporations do not receive profit according to how much value their workers produce(they can produce none at all, or employ no workers) but according to their total investment.

Does anyone honestly think Kobe Bryant produces 60 million dollars worth of value?

[Flying Purple People Eater]

You're confusing profit with surplus value.

What? No I'm not. Explain?

[Conscript]

Because individual capitalist/corporations do not receive profit according to how much value their workers produce(they can produce none at all, or employ no workers) but according to their total investment.

Does anyone honestly think Kobe Bryant produces 60 million dollars worth of value

Do you honestly think the individual capitalist/corporations did because of their investment? Seems even less likely.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Of course they are. The difference with athletes is that they have a monopoly on the labour, being talent. However the only way the sport-clubs can pay for these salaries is if they gain more off of the labour, sport-matches, by ticket sales, victories etc. so yes they are still being exploited.

Now you can question if with these kind of wages they have much interest in a revolution, perhaps they are the true labour-aristocracy.

[MarxArchist]

When they strike I won't be joining millionaire sports players on the 'picket line'.

[rojas3600]

Of course they are. The difference with athletes is that they have a monopoly on the labour, being talent. However the only way the sport-clubs can pay for these salaries is if they gain more off of the labour, sport-matches, by ticket sales, victories etc. so yes they are still being exploited.

If the only way capitalists can make money is by exploiting someone then how does a laundromat for example make any profit? Just because you have profit doesn't mean there is production of surplus value or exploitation. In the case of a laundromat the profit comes out of the value produced by the working class as a whole. The same is true for the profit and salaries of these sports teams, it comes out of the value produced by the rest of us. They are able to command a salary that far exceeds the value of their labor.

To quote Brendan Cooney:


The same way in which supply and demand fluctuate around equilibrium price also creates an average rate of profit amongst capitalists. That is, if one capitalist is making more profit than the rest, other capitalists will start doing whatever (s)he is doing and thus eat into his/her profits. Through this sort of competition an an “average rate of profit” is established among capitalists.

But this average rate of profit seems, at first, to conflict with something else that I’ve talked about in other videos: the organic composition of capital.

Let’s illustrate this with an example. Let’s say there are two industries: one makes coffee and the other cars. Within both industries there is competition to make their workers the most productive by introducing the newest labor-saving machines. Thus within each industry there is about the same ratio of workers to machines. (This is what the “organic composition of capital” is- the ratio of machines to workers. When there are a lot more machines than workers we say the organic composition is high. When there are more workers, we say the organic composition is low.) But between industries this ratio differs. Some industries just naturally have a higher ratio of machines to workers than others. In our example, the automobile industry uses a lot of machines! The coffee industry uses a lot more workers.

Now if value can only be created by human labor, it would seem that the coffee industry creates a lot more value than the car industry. And, actually this is the case- the more work that’s done in an industry, the more value it creates. Yet, under conditions of competition, under the law of the average rate of profit, both industries receive the same profits, even if one creates much less value. An average rate of profit means that each capitalist receives the same rate of return on their total investments, regardless of what proportion of this investment goes to workers or machines. How is this possible? (Do the workers in the auto industry just work harder? Are they more exploited? There’s no necessary correlation between the ratio of machines to workers and their wages so lets assume that the rate of exploitation is equal in both industries.)

Here is the solution to this puzzle. The total amount of value in society is equal to the total amount of prices. The total amount profit is equal to the total amount of surplus value (Surplus value is the difference between the value of a commodity and the cost of paying workers and paying for raw materials, machines, etc.) The total rate of profit measured in value, in society as a whole, is equal to the total rate of profit measured in money.

These are the “three aggregate equalities” that form the holy trinity of the theory of the prices of production. Individual capitalists can have money prices or profits that diverge from their values, but in the aggregate these equalities prevail. But how?

All capitalists contribute to the total amount of surplus value according to how much labor they employ. So if coffee makers have more workers, they contribute more to the aggregate surplus value than car manufacturers. But capitalists withdraw their money profits from this total surplus value according to the average rate of profit- that is, in proportion to the total cost of their production. Regardless of how many workers they actually employ, they all receive the same rate of return on their investment, even if all of their investment goes into machines!

[Skyhilist]

So it sounds like from what I've heard ITT is that they are technically proletarian, but prone to allying themselves with bourgeois ideologies due to their socioeconomic standing. Would this be accurate?

[Blake's Baby]

This seems to be the thread I was referring to earlier:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/labor-theory-value-t173831/index.html?t=173831&highlight=sport

Hope some of it helps.

[adipocere]

In this case, athletes are fine example of Lumpenproletariat.