How, precisely, ought worker, proletariat, capitalist, bourgeois, to be defined

[TC]

There is often some presumption that working class, capitalist class, proletariat, bourgeois, refer to sets of people in the world and when leftists use these terms they are using them to refer to the same sets of people.

But is this the case?

I would like to invite people here to state their *precise* definitions of the following terms, noting the *elements* by which it could be determined if a given person fits into a given class.

1. Working class

2. Worker (same as working class or no?)

3. Proletariat (same as worker or no?)

4. Bourgeois

5. Capitalist (same as bourgeois or no?)

6. Petty bourgeois


When offering definitions please offer definitions that could be used to actually distinguish between people in classes given their contemporary realities - so "the class that will liberate itself through the revolution" is not such a definition, "people who earn 79% or more of their income through investment" is such a definition.

After definitions are offered, we can consider hard cases that do not clearly fit into a given category or where the precise formulation of a category yields unexpected results that would give us cause to reformulate the category.


Please refrain from appeals to authority (such as X class is defined as Y because a great dead revolutionary said so) but give explanations as to why you think a certain definition is a good definition, and if you feel inclined, add some analysis as to the political relevance of these terms.

[Tim Cornelis]

Working class = Labouring population living under the rule of a ruling class (vaguest definition)
Worker = member of the working class
Proletariat = Dispossessed working class population, confronts the objective conditions of their labour as alien property
Bourgeois = member of the bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie = capitalist class
Capitalist class = personification of capital, those that command and control capital
Petty bourgeois = member of the petty bourgeoisie
Petty bourgeoisie = 'small business owner' class, owns means of production but still labours

[G4b3n]

Working class = Labouring population living under the rule of a ruling class (vaguest definition)
Worker = member of the working class
Proletariat = Dispossessed working class population, confronts the objective conditions of their labour as alien property
Bourgeois = member of the bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie = capitalist class
Capitalist class = personification of capital, those that command and control capital
Petty bourgeois = member of the petty bourgeoisie
Petty bourgeoisie = 'small business owner' class, owns means of production but still labours

I agree with these definitions for the most part but it needs a bit more detail. What about the lawyers, scientists, professors, and other professionals? Surely they are not workers, they have more than their own labor and they ultimately retain their privileged positions through existing conditions, yet they are not necessarily the masters of these conditions.

[RedWorker]

"Proletarians, then, have not always existed? No. There have always been poor and working classes; and the working class have mostly been poor. But there have not always been workers and poor people living under conditions as they are today; in other words, there have not always been proletarians, any more than there has always been free unbridled competitions." - F. Engels (Principles of Communism)

1. Working class = a class of individuals who labour
2. Worker = a labourer
3. Proletariat = the class in capitalism which, due to no ownership of the means of production, is employed by the bourgeoisie and depends on wage-labor
4. Bourgeois = the class in capitalism with private ownership of the means of production which employs the proletariat for the purpose of extracting surplus value
5. Capitalist = same as bourgeois
6. Petty bourgeois = employs others but still needs to work

[TC]

Working class = Labouring population living under the rule of a ruling class (vaguest definition)

Like the title of the thread suggests though, my aim isn't to hear a bunch of vague definitions but precise definitions.

What does "labouring population" mean? It does little good to define worker as "working population" when the question is *who is a worker* since such a definition is circular absent a definition of labour or work.

And what does "under the rule of a ruling class" mean exactly? What is a "ruling class".



Proletariat = Dispossessed working class population, confronts the objective conditions of their labour as alien property

Without an explanation of those terms (dispossessed, objective conditions, labour, alien, and property) this definition does nothing to clarify who is a proletariat.


Bourgeois = member of the bourgeoisie

Thats not a definition that explains what that means in any material sense, it is self-referential.



Capitalist class = personification of capital, those that command and control capital


Okay so - what is a "personification of capital"? It doesn't make sense that a person can be a personification of a concept.

If someone who commands and control's capital is, in virtue of that fact, a capitalist, then there will be a ton of unexpected capitalists.

A poor farmer who owns and controls two sheep is a capitalist if he can breed those sheep to make a third sheep (since part of his wealth will expand if consumption is deferred).

An 18 year McDonalds employee who has 20 dollars in an interest baring savings account is a capitalist by that definition.


Petty bourgeoisie = 'small business owner' class, owns means of production but still labours

Its not clear how "labours" is defined but it would seem then that the CEO of Apple is petty bourgeois since, although he owns a lot, he still works very long hours engaged in idea generation, making deals, building the business, etc.

[Creative Destruction]

I agree with these definitions for the most part but it needs a bit more detail. What about the lawyers, scientists, professors, and other professionals? Surely they are not workers, they have more than their own labor and they ultimately retain their privileged positions through existing conditions, yet they are not necessarily the masters of these conditions.

Why are they "surely" not workers? If they don't own the means of production, then, yes, all they have is their labor to sell. I do not know what you mean by "their privileged positions" here.

[TC]

As I indicated, I'm looking for precise definitions that would actually clarify who is in what group.



1. Working class = a class of individuals who labour

What does "labour" mean then? Is the rich stockbroker who sells shares labouring? How about the poor Verizon retail employee who sells phones and data plans (though she doesn't actually build phones)?



3. Proletariat = the class in capitalism which, due to no ownership of the means of production, is employed by the bourgeoisie and depends on wage-labor

No ownership? So anyone with a share of stock or accumulating social security benefits is a proletariat? No one with an interest bearing savings account is a proletariat?

And as for depending on wage-labor, a salaried store clerk is not a proletariat, but a law firm partner who charges $800 an hour to a capitalist firm for her legal research labor is a proletariat?


4. Bourgeois = the class in capitalism with private ownership of the means of production which employs the proletariat for the purpose of extracting surplus value

So, if you own a share of GM stock, you're a capitalist? But a hedgefund manager though who owns no stocks himself, and employs no one (or at least no one who 'labours' whatever that means) and keeps all his money in the caymen islands, is not a capitalist?



6. Petty bourgeois = employs others but still needs to work

So, like, a CEO of a fortune 500 company whose wealth is leveraged in such a way that losing his job working long hours would lead to bankruptcy is petty bourgeois?


---


As you can see, there are some issues with these definitions (or, at least, they would lead to overlapping attributions as to who is in what class, and lead to profoundly counter-intuitive results not keeping with leftwing political ideas about these classes).

[Creative Destruction]

Like the title of the thread suggests though, my aim isn't to hear a bunch of vague definitions but precise definitions.

What does "labouring population" mean? It does little good to define worker as "working population" when the question is *who is a worker* since such a definition is circular absent a definition of labour or work.

It's defined by your relation to the means of production. If you don't own or manage production, then you're a worker or laborer.


And what does "under the rule of a ruling class" mean exactly? What is a "ruling class".

The ruling class is the class that has a monopoly on political and economic power.


Without an explanation of those terms (dispossessed, objective conditions, labour, alien, and property) this definition does nothing to clarify who is a proletariat.

Labor = defined above
Alienatation = the process in which the worker is alienated from the production of their labor
Property = means of production
Dispossessed = Forcibly made to be without

"Objective conditions" should be self-explanatory. It's our material reality, as opposed to a metaphysical "reality."


If someone who commands and control's capital is, in virtue of that fact, a capitalist, then there will be a ton of unexpected capitalists.

What do you mean?


A poor farmer who owns and controls two sheep is a capitalist if he can breed those sheep to make a third sheep (since part of his wealth will expand if consumption is deferred).

Yeah, and? That's not unexpected. Poor farmers are petty-capitalists.


An 18 year McDonalds employee who has 20 dollars in an interest baring savings account is a capitalist by that definition.

No, because "20 dollars" in an interest bearing savings account doesn't mean he controls capital in any meaningful way. The vast majority of their income is from selling their labor to the company.


Its not clear how "labours" is defined but it would seem then that the CEO of Apple is petty bourgeois since, although he owns a lot, he still works very long hours engaged in idea generation, making deals, building the business, etc.

CEOs of these big companies are paid for in substantial stock, meaning most of their income is derived from controlling capital. They often do not work aside wage workers, as many petty-capitalists do.

[Vogel]

Perhaps it would help to explain the 5 ways of organizing the means of production.
1. Working class 2. Worker 3. Proletariat 4. Bourgeois 5. Capitalist
6. Petty bourgeois
These are ways of describing classes in capitalism. Capitalism is when one person or small group of persons gets to control the wealth created by their workers(employees), or owns the value added to commodities. It is exploitative. What makes capitalism special is that workers get to choose who they work for, and aren't tied to the land they were born on.

When you say that the poor farmer who owns two sheep is a capitalist, that is actually a different class system. That is when one person, who works for themselves, doesn't work for someone and no one works for them. This self-employed person creates his own wealth, and gets control of that wealth he created, unlike in capitalism. It is non-exploitative. Karl Marx called this person a member of the 'Ancient class', simply because it had been around along time.

Honestly I am not to keen on the words, but I do know the differences.
Slavery: A slave labors, but is not a 'worker', he is a slave, what he produces is automatically owned by the slave owner. What makes slavery special is that the person is tied to the man, not land, and doesn't get to choose whom owns them.
Feudalism: A lord owns land, lets serfs live on it to farm it. The serfs get to keep a little of what they produce, but must give the Lord a large portion of what they produce.

And then Communism, the 2nd non-exploitative system, where people work together and collectively own what they produce.

[TC]

It's defined by your relation to the means of production. If you don't own or manage production, then you're a worker or laborer.

So, if President Obama or the NYPD police chief sold all their investment instruments, they'd be workers/laborers?




The ruling class is the class that has a monopoly on political and economic power.

What does this even mean? What constitutes a monopoly and what constitutes a class here? If the Chamber of Commerce has 90 out of 100 units of political and economic power and the AFL-CIO has 10 out of 100 units of political and economic power, then neither have a monopoly separately and both have a monopoly together - so are both the Chamber of Commerce capitalists and the AFL-CIO capitalists together (since taken together they both have a monopoly if considered a class)? Or are neither the ruling class because neither has achieved a monopoly on power?

If a protestor with a megaphone exercises *some* power, does that break the monopoly (therefore rendering no class the ruling class) or does that protestor become part of the ruling class?

If someone has 100 dollars to spend then they quiet literally have some economic power.




Labor = defined above


You only defined laborer not labor, which you defined as if you don't "own or manage production"

Under such a definition you've offered, a police chief (who owns no capital), an unemployed child, a capital-less president, etc. are all laborers but someone who owns a few shares of McDonalds stock or manages one other McDonalds fry cook is not a laborer? And what if McDonalds fry cooks rotate management of each other according to shifts, are none of them laborers then?



Alienatation = the process in which the worker is alienated from the production of their labor

That is a self-referential definition that doesn't explain the meaning it simply restates the word in another part of the sentence.



Property = means of production

So investment capital isn't property? A saw and hammer are property but an e-commerce company isn't property? A corn field is property but a fifth avenue penthouse isn't property?

This is a strange definition of property!



Dispossessed = Forcibly made to be without

Okay but isn't everyone dispossessed of everything which they don't own - and no one owns everything? So while this definition is logically coherent it doesn't narrow anything down.

[/quote]
"Objective conditions" should be self-explanatory. It's our material reality, as opposed to a metaphysical "reality."[/quote]


Then the original definition would read:

"Proletariat = Dispossessed [read, everyone] working class [not a coherently defined term] population, confronts the objective conditions [filler phrase that adds nothing since everyone confronts reality] of their labour [not defined since laborer above is defined as non-owner/manager not according to 'labor'] as alien property [this is contradictory with your definition of property as the means of production - labor and the means of production aren't the same thing, alien or otherwise]"

So your definitions aren't helping Tim Cornelis's initial definitions make much sense.



What do you mean?

Just that: that the definition of capitalist offered is grossly over-inclusive because a huge number of people own and control capital who leftists would not typically consider 'capitalists'.




Yeah, and? That's not unexpected. Poor farmers are petty-capitalists.

Okay well I appreciate your willingness to bite the bullet on this one but if you define capitalist so expansively you'll find an awful lot of poor people count as capitalists and a non-negligible number of rich people count as workers, which makes calling for the later to seize power from the former a somewhat suspect agenda for people committed to social equality.




No, because "20 dollars" in an interest bearing savings account doesn't mean he controls capital in any meaningful way. The vast majority of their income is from selling their labor to the company.

So whats your dollar threshold for "meaningful" control of capital? Is a 200k savings account meaningful then? You could live on that if structured well, but you couldn't live the lifestyle many would think of as rich. What if the 20 dollars in savings was actually this kids only source of income - he was unemployed - would that make him a capitalist?

Are you saying that what defines a capitalist from a worker is when *most* of their income comes from capital as opposed to wages?

That would be an appealing way out but then you'd have the problem that, between two equally wealthy CEOs of large companies, one might be a capitalist if he was compensated in stocks and the other might be a worker if he was compensated purely in wages for work, even though both perform the same job and have the same income.



Most CEOs are paid for in substantial stock, meaning most of their income is derived from controlling capital.

Sure but its easy to imagine instances where this need not be the case, such as the CEO of a privately held company owned by some other set of people but compensated in cash at or above the level of publicly traded company CEOs...

...and many lower level employees in some companies are compensated in stock (even retail level employees can be).


They often do not work aside wage workers, as many petty-capitalists do.

If you are adding "work aside wage workers" to your definition of petty-capitalist then the farmer you previously called a petty-capitalist wont qualify as a petty-capitalist anymore (he is a full scale capitalist since he doesn't work next to wage workers?)

And lots of highly paid professionals and executives work alongside wage workers or may themselves be paid in some fashion according to an hourly or weekly rate.


It seems increasingly like the definitions hinge on mere compensation structure such that people can change classes without really changing their work or their standard of living but simply by changing the way they're compensated for it.

[contracycle]

Argument to and from "definitions" is inherently weak, and I would suggest, basically useless. Although it is certainly a good idea for everyone in a discussion to share a common vocabulary, to presume that an argument can be won or lost, or reality understood, purely on the basis of dicking about with word salad, is nuts. Reality is fuzzy, borders are indistinct - just as any physical object, however solid it may feel to us, is mostly made of empty space.

So the question, TC, is what is it that you really want to know?

[Creative Destruction]

So, if President Obama or the NYPD police chief sold all their investment instruments, they'd be workers/laborers?

If they sold their investment instruments, then they obviously get the money in exchange for those investment instruments. If that's the vast majority of their income, then, no, they're not laborers. If they use up all that money by not reinvesting (which is what most people do) and they have absolutely nothing left but their labor to sell, then, yes, they'd be workers and laborers.

The problem you seem to have is that there is a fluidity here. That's not an issue of definitions as much as it seems to be an uncomfort with material reality. I can't really help you there.


What does this even mean? What constitutes a monopoly and what constitutes a class here? If the Chamber of Commerce has 90 out of 100 units of political and economic power and the AFL-CIO has 10 out of 100 units of political and economic power, then neither have a monopoly separately and both have a monopoly together - so are both the Chamber of Commerce capitalists and the AFL-CIO capitalists together (since taken together they both have a monopoly if considered a class)? Or are neither the ruling class because neither has achieved a monopoly on power?

Jesus Christ. Think about it for a couple of seconds.

If you have 10 "units" of power (whatever the fuck that means) compared to someone's 90 "units" of power, then you don't have much, if at all, room to exercise that "10 units of power" now, do you? You have, effectively, no power since your 10% doesn't amount to shit. The people who hold most of the power thereby are the only ones who are in a position to exercise that power.


If a protestor with a megaphone exercises *some* power, does that break the monopoly (therefore rendering no class the ruling class) or does that protestor become part of the ruling class?

If they can convince the majority of people to take over power, then, yes, they'll become the ruling class. But an individual doesn't have the power to set or influence policy, the economy, and what not, so your comparison is ridiculous.


If someone has 100 dollars to spend then they quiet literally have some economic power.

They have effectively no power when compared to the people who set and influence policy and the economy. That "100" dollars is barely a spit in the ocean compared to the accumulated wealth of others; those that actually hold economic power.


You only defined laborer not labor, which you defined as if you don't "own or manage production"

Labor (or labor-power) is the commodity that the laborer sells to capitalist in exchange for wages.


Under such a definition you've offered, a police chief (who owns no capital), an unemployed child, a capital-less president, etc. are all laborers but someone who owns a few shares of McDonalds stock or manages one other McDonalds fry cook is not a laborer?

No, that's not true "under my definition." You're failing to understand what I'm saying. I can only restate it, which I've done above. It's up to you to actually comprehend what the terms are.


And what if McDonalds fry cooks rotate management of each other according to shifts, are none of them laborers then?

In this fantasy land of a worker managed McDonalds, then they would be managers of capital. They would be petty-capitalists, as any other worker-owner in a cooperative is under a capitalist system.


That is a self-referential definition that doesn't explain the meaning it simply restates the word in another part of the sentence.

Good lord. You understand English, right? Look up "alienated" in the dictionary. You're just being a sniping contrarian for the sake of it at this point, and not actually aiming to hold a productive conversation on these terms.


So investment capital isn't property? A saw and hammer are property but an e-commerce company isn't property? A corn field is property but a fifth avenue penthouse isn't property?

Investment capital is money-commodity. So, no, it's not property. It's what's used to purchase the means of production, i.e., property. An "e-commerce company" isn't property. It's a legal designation ("company"). The people who are assigned that legal designation own the means of production used to make the company operate. A "fifth avenue penthouse" is personal property, but it isn't what anarchists and communists refer to as "property" when we're talking about the economy. It's in the same class as "toothbrush" and "t-shirt."


This is a strange definition of property!

Sorry! I thought we were on a revolutionary leftist forum where these definitions are more or less understood by everyone. Apparently, you're the exception.


Okay but isn't everyone dispossessed of everything which they don't own - and no one owns everything? So while this definition is logically coherent it doesn't narrow anything down.

That's why Tim tacked on qualifiers in the definition he offered up. The dispossessed working class is a working class that is dispossessed of the means of production and only have their labor to sell to capitalists.

You're just having an argument for an argument's sake. You're not actually engaging, in good faith, in what is being said here.


Then the original definition would read:

"Proletariat = Dispossessed [read, everyone] working class [not a coherently defined term] population, confronts the objective conditions [filler phrase that adds nothing since everyone confronts reality] of their labour [not defined since laborer above is defined as non-owner/manager not according to 'labor'] as alien property [this is contradictory with your definition of property as the means of production - labor and the means of production aren't the same thing, alien or otherwise]"


So your definitions aren't helping Tim Cornelis's initial definitions make much sense.

Maybe, maybe not. But you're not really reading them honestly, either, so I'm not so much worried about that. Tim can dispute me if he feels the need to.


Just that: that the definition of capitalist offered is grossly over-inclusive because a huge number of people own and control capital who leftists would not typically consider 'capitalists'.

It's not dependent on who "leftist" (whatever this bunch may be) think who are not typically considered capitalists.


Okay well I appreciate your willingness to bite the bullet on this one but if you define capitalist so expansively you'll find an awful lot of poor people count as capitalists and a non-negligible number of rich people count as workers, which makes calling for the later to seize power from the former a somewhat suspect agenda for people committed to social equality.

The point of the analysis was never really to pin down who gets more income than x-person. It's to analyze what the exploitative relationship (the extraction of surplus labor by the owners of the means of production) there is between those who own capital, and extract surplus value, and those who just have their labor-power to sell, and which they have surplus value extracted from by the capitalist. You're starting from a false point and expecting these definitions to conform to your preconceived notion. If you're concerned with how much income someone is making, as a determining factor in their class relations, then almost no one in the Western world is exploited, because even workers in the Western world make out better -- in terms of income and standard of living -- than middle-class capitalists in third-world shitholes. In other words, it's not a meaningful metric for which to peg class to where it regards conversations about exploitation, surplus value and what not.


So whats your dollar threshold for "meaningful" control of capital? Is a 200k savings account meaningful then? You could live on that if structured well, but you couldn't live the lifestyle many would think of as rich. What if the 20 dollars in savings was actually this kids only source of income - he was unemployed - would that make him a capitalist?

I already told you what the "meaningful" threshold is. Sorry you ignored it.


Are you saying that what defines a capitalist from a worker is when *most* of their income comes from capital as opposed to wages?

In terms of ownership of stocks. If the vast majority of your income comes from ownership of the means of production, then you are fundamentally different from a worker who subsists on only having their labor to sell, even if they have $20 invested in the company.


That would be an appealing way out but then you'd have the problem that, between two equally wealthy CEOs of large companies, one might be a capitalist if he was compensated in stocks and the other might be a worker if he was compensated purely in wages for work, even though both perform the same job and have the same income.

No, because you're still ignoring, for some reason, the fact that CEOs are still managers of capital. I'd challenge you to find a CEO that is of comparable wealth as Tim Cook and makes their money through salary or wages. Given the amount of wealth CEOs amass, if that money was coming out of general revenues, then it would collapse the company in a matter of days, no matter how large they are, especially when you take into account that there are other executives that are paid in the ballpark of a CEO's payment package.

You can take the definitions and apply them to any silly ass scenario you can think of, but it's not a meaningful way of interrogating the definitions. Sorry. Try again.


Sure but its easy to imagine instances where this need not be the case, such as the CEO of a privately held company owned by some other set of people but compensated in cash at or above the level of publicly traded company CEOs...

"Imagining" is not the same as it being true. When you're trying to poke holes in the definitions, it's better to actually have concrete examples on hand, and ones that represent a generalized view of what goes on (since these definitions describe a generalized view of what happens in a capitalist economy), rather than imaginings from you while you sit at your computer with your thumb up your ass.


...and many lower level employees in some companies are compensated in stock (even retail level employees can be).

They can be but are they? No, not generally. The majority of their income does not derive from stocks in the company.


If you are adding "work aside wage workers" to your definition of petty-capitalist then the farmer you previously called a petty-capitalist wont qualify as a petty-capitalist anymore (he is a full scale capitalist since he doesn't work next to wage workers?)

"Work aside wage workers" is one half of the definition that I was using to respond to you. The others are completely self-employed owners of businesses, who do not rely on wage labor, but rely on their ownership of capital and the use of that capital for their livelihoods. Truck drivers come to mind, since most truck drivers are independent and own their rigs, and responsible for all the legal ramifications of doing such a thing.


And lots of highly paid professionals and executives work alongside wage workers or may themselves be paid in some fashion according to an hourly or weekly rate.

"Highly paid professionals" can be workers, too, if they're not managers. If they're managers (again, managers of capital) then they're apart of the petty-capitalist class. And, yes, executives of small companies do that and would be considered petty-capitalist, too. I am not sure what you're trying to get at here, because it doesn't present any problems for the definitions I'm presenting.


It seems increasingly like the definitions hinge on mere compensation structure such that people can change classes without really changing their work or their standard of living but simply by changing the way they're compensated for it.

Marxian class analysis does not depend on compensation of an individual worker to determine their class status, for reasons that I explained above. That you think this presents a problem is odd. I have a feeling that you're relying on liberal Weberian ideas of "class" before initiating this conversation, without actually understanding what people, at least on these forums and in the radical left, mean when they use them. There are levels of agreement between anarchists and Marxists on what they mean, so you're coming from some other point of view.

[Redistribute the Rep]

We can make vague categories based on qualitative differences without needing a precise, quantitatively drawn line, like "79% of income from investment." To give a more simplistic example, one might note the distinction between a bald and a hairy person. What exact amount of hairs does one need to be considered hairy, as a distinct category from bald? One hair? Most people would say no. One hundred hairs? Still, probably not. There's no discernable difference each time we add a single hair, so 101 hairs will probably not be considered hairy if 100 hairs is not. Where is the line explicitly drawn then? The answer is that there doesn't need to be one for people to recognize the difference between bald and hairy and come to a definition based on common understanding. Another example would be the distinction between two colors. We have a common understanding of the meaning of orange and yellow, yet we could put these two colors on a spectrum of wavelengths and not be able to pick out an exact point where yellow crosses the line to orange.

The definitions of these social classes were made to describe reality, and as we know, reality often consists of ostensibly infinite grey area. Defining classes in such a rigid, precise way, instead of recognizing class as qualitative descriptions of groups of individuals on a continuous spectrum, would probably be impossible, and superfluous.

I don't feel the need to post my definitions since I agree with other posters for the most part. Although I might add that it would be more relevant to understand such social classes (and the distinctions between them) with regard to their contingency on the development of productive forces, rather than to conceptualize them in accordance with an abstract, unchanging set of principles. This can make classes seem arbitrary and divorced from the continuous flow of history.

[Crabbensmasher]

Here's my problem: There are situations where a means of production, such as a factory is split into shares almost equally among investors. Usually somebody is getting a larger slice of the pie, but it is possible for the shares to be owned equitably.

What if some capitalist social democracy tried to redistribute investment in such a way? There would be no clear bourgeoisie, or owner of the means of production. What if these investors are all clearly not deriving most of their income from investing but are in fact working class.

In this case, do the workers own the means of production? Has the bourgeoisie been eliminated?

[Creative Destruction]

In this case, do the workers own the means of production? Has the bourgeoisie been eliminated?

No, because it's still a select group of investors, the way you're describing it. Presumably, they'd be expecting profit from these enterprises, so the exploitation would resume. These "worker-investors" would be benefiting from the exploitation of their co-workers or others in society.

[Vogel]

Here's my problem: There are situations where a means of production, such as a factory is split into shares almost equally among investors. Usually somebody is getting a larger slice of the pie, but it is possible for the shares to be owned equitably.

What if some capitalist social democracy tried to redistribute investment in such a way? There would be no clear bourgeoisie, or owner of the means of production. What if these investors are all clearly not deriving most of their income from investing but are in fact working class.

In this case, do the workers own the means of production? Has the bourgeoisie been eliminated?

No. It has to do with the way stocks are. A board of directors gets to say how many shares there. They get to say how much a person gets in dividends. The Board of Directors still owns the company, so they set the pay. All they have to do is pay themselves higher so that the totality of the Board owns 51% of the stocks. The workers still have no ownership. The capitalist class wouldn't let itself be controlled by the workers so easily.

[G4b3n]

Why are they "surely" not workers? If they don't own the means of production, then, yes, all they have is their labor to sell. I do not know what you mean by "their privileged positions" here.

By privileged positions, I mean their autonomy. A college professor draws up her lesson plan and decides what she is going to teach. A doctor decides what medical action to take with a patient. A lawyer decides his legal action, etc. Do you know what a worker decides? Nothing.

[Creative Destruction]

By privileged positions, I mean their autonomy. A college professor draws up her lesson plan and decides what she is going to teach. A doctor decides what medical action to take with a patient. A lawyer decides his legal action, etc. Do you know what a worker decides? Nothing.

So what? The level of non-managerial decision making doesn't have anything to do with exploitation of the working class, or whether one job makes one a worker or not. That's dumb and arbitrary.

[G4b3n]

So what? The level of non-managerial decision making doesn't have anything to do with exploitation of the working class, or whether one job makes one a worker or not. That's dumb and arbitrary.

Autonomy is dumb and arbitrary? Did you seriously just say that? Do you even know what it is like to do nothing but follow orders all day, to actually have nothing but your labor, i.e., to actually be a worker?

You clearly do not know anything of what constitutes the exploitation of labor, not even in the dogmatic Marxian narrative, because Engels and Marx certainly did not see doctors, lawyers, and other privileged individuals as "exploited workers".

Engels on the proletariat: "The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose sole existence depends on the demand for labor."

There is nothing said about someone "who does not own the means of production". That is a falsification so the petty-bourgeois can feel more at home in the labor movement. And quite frankly, it is just offensive.

[Creative Destruction]

Autonomy is dumb and arbitrary?

As a measurement for exploitation within the class system, yes, it is. Why don't you try respond to my sentence in context instead of acting like a baby.


Did you seriously just say that? Do you even know what it is like to do nothing but follow orders all day, to actually have nothing but your labor, i.e., to actually be a worker?

Nearly every single day, you stupid sack of shit.


You clearly do not know anything of what constitutes the exploitation of labor, not even in the dogmatic Marxian narrative, because Engels and Marx certainly did not see doctors, lawyers, and other privileged individuals as "exploited workers".

Clearly? Let's try this:


The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007


Engels on the proletariat: "The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose sole existence depends on the demand for labor."

There is nothing said about someone "who does not own the means of production".

What do you think "lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital" means? You clearly don't know what it is you're reading, you dumb jackass, because you just made my argument by quoting him.


That is a falsification so the petty-bourgeois can feel more at home in the labor movement. And quite frankly, it is just offensive.

What the fuck are you talking about? Defining the proletariat as a class that doesn't own the means of production is making the "petty-bourgeois .. feel more at home in the labor movement"? That makes absolutely no sense.

[contracycle]

Hang on a second: what distinguishes the modern proletariat from any prior working class is the fact that it is technical. Workers have to be educated, they have to be literate and numerate, in order that they can operate machines, or produce text and other forms of art, or do accounting, or construction, etc. etc.

So it should be quite clear that workers, even as workers, certainly do engage in acts of creativity, exercise a kind of autonomy within the limits prescribed by their job, make decisions. We aren't just dumb beasts of burden, and it is this technical capacity of the working class - the ability to actually run society - that opens the possibility for the proletariat to seize power.

[Tim Cornelis]

Your precise definition seems to need to be pages long. Apparently it's necessary to define ' dispossessed'. Definitions usually don't include definitions of other words.

Proletarian = a proletarian is a dispossessed worker. Dispossessed meaning non-ownership of means of production. Means of production meaning productive resources such as land and assets, assets meaning, etc. etc.

[Rudolf]

It must be said that a class analysis is not a means to categorise this or that individual but a means of understanding generalised social relations of production.

It is possible for one person to relate to others both as proletarian and bourgeois such as a worker that owns a house they collect rent from but gets the bulk of their means of subsistence through wage-labour. The pursuit of a definition to categorise every individual is folly and beyond the scope of social analysis.

[Shoutingatcloud]

Is it possible to still hole leftist beliefs but support a higher wage with reduced working hours?

[contracycle]

Some might say no, but I would say yes. For a bunch of reasons to do with engaging in class struggle and such, and for the purposes of politically conscious leftists being able to spread their ideas more broadly.

Anyway, the contrary position strikes me as absurd. As if it would be credible for a leftist to be some sort of class war masochist, urging capitalism to hurt the working class more and more.

The main issue is whether you think that these attempts to reform and restrain capitalism are IN THEMSELVES sufficient to overthrow capitalism, and usher in a new society. The revolutionary left position is to say no, they cannot do this.

[John Nada]

What about the labor aristocracy? Highly paid proletarians or petite-bourgeoisie? How do they relate to the proletariat and the petite-bourgeoisie?

[RedMaterialist]

Is it possible to still hole leftist beliefs but support a higher wage with reduced working hours?

absolutely. marx did it.

[RedMaterialist]

Here is Engels' definition:

What is the proletariat?

The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose sole existence depends on the demand for labor – hence, on the changing state of business, on the vagaries of unbridled competition. The proletariat, or the class of proletarians, is, in a word, the working class of the 19th century.[1]

[RedMaterialist]

There is often some presumption that working class, capitalist class, proletariat, bourgeois, refer to sets of people in the world and when leftists use these terms they are using them to refer to the same sets of people.

But is this the case?

I would like to invite people here to state their *precise* definitions of the following terms, noting the *elements* by which it could be determined if a given person fits into a given class.

1. Working class



A worker is a person who creates value through his/her wage labor but is not paid the full value of what he/she produces.

The difference between the value produced by the worker and the value received by him/her as wages is the profit of the capitalist, which is now mostly a gigantic corporate bureaucracy.

[John Nada]

Here is Engels' definition:

What is the proletariat?

The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose sole existence depends on the demand for labor – hence, on the changing state of business, on the vagaries of unbridled competition. The proletariat, or the class of proletarians, is, in a word, the working class of the 19th century.[1]

By Engel's definition, a majority of Americans are petite-bourgeoisie or bourgeoisie:http://www.gallup.com/poll/147206/Stock-Market-Investments-Lowest-1999.aspx But does a retirement fund count?

I'd imagine that most don't have enough stock to derive significant rent. However, this might pose a problem, since many might have some stake in capitalism. Can a proletarian be one who owns stock? Might it be like a bank account, where only a higher level that yields dividends "counts"?

[RedMaterialist]

By Engel's definition, a majority of Americans are petite-bourgeoisie or bourgeoisie:http://www.gallup.com/poll/147206/Stock-Market-Investments-Lowest-1999.aspx But does a retirement fund count?

I'd imagine that most don't have enough stock to derive significant rent. However, this might pose a problem, since many might have some stake in capitalism. Can a proletarian be one who owns stock? Might it be like a bank account, where only a higher level that yields dividends "counts"?

I know several working people who have significant pension systems set up as 401K plans.These plans fell by about half in the 2008 market crash. It was very scary there for a while. They realize that if the market crashes again the 401ks may very well disappear.

The workers seem to qualify as high wage workers, high wage management.

[John Nada]

I know several working people who have significant pension systems set up as 401K plans.These plans fell by about half in the 2008 market crash. It was very scary there for a while. They realize that if the market crashes again the 401ks may very well disappear.

The workers seem to qualify as high wage workers, high wage management.What did that lead too? Did they think that capitalism was a bunch of bullshit, a big scam. Or did they think that "real capitalism" need to be preserved, and looked for scapegoats?

[RedMaterialist]

What did that lead too? Did they think that capitalism was a bunch of bullshit, a big scam. Or did they think that "real capitalism" need to be preserved, and looked for scapegoats?

No, they don't think capitalism is a big scam, but it seems to me that workers are beginning to see that it is prone to disaster. They also don't approve of the Wall Street bailout which was the only thing that saved their 401ks.

And almost no one understands that when the banks fail the next time, it will be people's checking and savings accounts which will provide the money for the bailout.

[Decolonize The Left]

I think this is a valuable exercise. I'll give it a shot:
1. Working class

A term used to refer to a group of workers in relation to a group of non-workers contextualized by the economic industrial system of capitalism. This term indicates a common interest resulting from this shared experiential relationship (hence the use of the term class instead of just 'working people'). See definition of worker below.

2. Worker (same as working class or no?)

Individual people who are in a particular relationship to the means of production (the material and non-human stuff used to make things): this relationship is one of exploitation (specifically: the exploitation of labor power).

3. Proletariat (same as worker or no?)

Fancy word for working class.

4. Bourgeois

Fancy word for capitalist class (see below).

5. Capitalist (same as bourgeois or no?)

A term used to refer to those people in a particular relationship to the means of production whereby these people own the means of production and employ the working class (i.e. these people actualize the relationship known as 'capital'). This term indicates a common interest resulting from this shared experiential relationship (hence the use of the term class instead of just 'capitalist people').

6. Petty bourgeois

Fancy word for people on the fringe of both the capitalist and working class. In terms of the definitions above, they are capitalist class.

---
That was harder than it seemed.

[Sewer Socialist]

What, exactly, is the difference between petty-bourgeois and peasant?

I have a sort of I-know-it-when-I-see-it definition in my head, which isn't very good.

[Creative Destruction]

What, exactly, is the difference between petty-bourgeois and peasant?

I have a sort of I-know-it-when-I-see-it definition in my head, which isn't very good.

Peasant is kind of a catch-all for a backward agricultural worker and small-land farmer. In the western world, there aren't really peasants existing in the sense that they did before. Rural and agricultural communities in the west aren't really backward (as in lacking modern conveniences, lack of access to urban areas, etc.)

It's likely a peasant (as an ag worker in a country that lacks modernization of the countryside) can be a proletariat, as well as petty-bourgeoisie, if they're small land holders. Where it regards Marx, he didn't think they could have revolutionary potential, since they were trapped in the "idiotimus" (poorly translated to "idiocy") of rural life. During Marx's time, there were a substantial peasantry and they didn't seem like they'd be modernized a great deal. But, this is one of the substantial changes between his time and our time that renders the concern moot, I think, at least in the western world. Rural towns in the United States aren't isolated so much as they make up small little political islands outside the city that tend to be steeped in a certain traditionalist culture.

// begin tangent

There's a lot about needing to "update" Marx, but the people who generally say this don't actually know what "updating" his ideas need, like RedMaterialist. They just kind of throw shit at the wall and see what sticks, which it rarely does. But there are a few things that should be legitimately reanalyzed. One is this rural issue, which leftists have treated like a third rail for the last century (and has been a sore spot for me, seeing that I consider myself a rural person... that is, mostly living in rural areas.) Maoists are, incidentally, on the forefront of these sorts of politics in the left, but they tend to get it all wrong. On the other hand, Trots, M-Ls, some leftcomms even, have a uncritical fidelity to Marx on this question and don't stop to realize the monumental changes that have happened in the countryside. You've got modern schools for many rural areas, electrification, telecom connection; some areas are being subsumed into larger metro areas; it's to a point right now that the rural-urban barrier is nothing but a forced cultural one rather than a practical one, because, really, they're greatly interdependent on one another. If ag areas didn't produce, cities would have no food -- if cities didn't produce, ag areas wouldn't be as connected or relatively modern as they are. The industrialization of agriculture, as a result of the Green Movement in the early-mid 1900s, has also transformed relationships that resembled old urban proletariatization. There is a solid rural proletariat that exists in western countries nowadays, who have taken over from people who might've been considered peasants before (sharecroppers, tenant farmers, small family farms and what not.) Hell, in some areas, like around the major cities in California, Florida and Texas, farm workers are much more likely these days -- than they were before -- to live in the city and work in the country.

In the late 1800s/early 1900s in the United States, the most active areas of socialist organization and membership were in the rural areas (at one point, I think the Oklahoma Socialist Party was the largest socialist party in the United States.) Since we got our asses handed to us then by railroad barons and other assorted haute capitalists, we just kind of let it all lay fallow out there. I think that's a huge mistake. There's a great revolutionary potential to tap into in the rural areas, but year by year, it's going to get harder and harder for any left movement to establish roots out there. Which is shit. I'm getting fed up with urban organizers not giving a thought to any areas, in the United States, that could be extremely helpful, like in Appalachia, the Black Belt, the Southwest and on.

But anyway

// end tangent

Yeah.

[Georg Lukacs]

Off the top of my head, a Marxist, who accepts the dialectical nature of all definitions, rather than their reduction to quantitatively definitive and unequivocal designations, a:

Worker--is someone who works for someone else
Working Class--Anyone who produces surplus value through their labour, which is accrued by the capitalist.
Proletariat--that class which is separated from the means of production (tools etc) and must sell their labour to reproduce their very existence (their labour is their only commodity)
Bourgeoisie--those who directly own the means of production and accrue surplus value from the workers employed in its use, and further employ capital to maintain competitiveness and accumulate capital as profit through financial speculation, technological innovation, investment.
Capitalist--Same as Bourgeoisie but rather than a class, the very embodiment and incarnation of capital.
Petty-Bourgeoisie--those who neither own large scale means of production, but whose interests align with the bourgeoisie through buying and selling commodities and speculation (they also have the means to accumulate more than the proletariat, against merely reproducing their existence), can either be self-employed (think modern sub-contractors), shop-owners, or run small-scale units with a small number of workers.

[Sewer Socialist]

In the late 1800s/early 1900s in the United States, the most active areas of socialist organization and membership were in the rural areas (at one point, I think the Oklahoma Socialist Party was the largest socialist party in the United States.) Since we got our asses handed to us then by railroad barons and other assorted haute capitalists, we just kind of let it all lay fallow out there. I think that's a huge mistake. There's a great revolutionary potential to tap into in the rural areas, but year by year, it's going to get harder and harder for any left movement to establish roots out there. Which is shit. I'm getting fed up with urban organizers not giving a thought to any areas, in the United States, that could be extremely helpful, like in Appalachia, the Black Belt, the Southwest and on.

Yeah, I agree that these areas seem left out of the leftist sphere, despite plenty of exploitation going on there. At the same time, that sort of perpetuates itself. I think I'd have a tough time heading out to Appalachia and trying to build a rapport and trying to organize people I had many cultural differences with; me being a urban Midwesterner by birth, and living on the West Coast now.

To get us back on topic, what is the class of a homemaker, who is not employed outside the home, and thus is not paid a wage? Proletarians must be paid, right? Is it slavery, or serfdom? That doesn't seem right.

Or is the labor of a homemaker part of the labor of their spouse, reproducing their ability to fulfill whatever class their spouse belongs to, and thus the same class as them? That doesn't seem right, either. The homemaker's relationship to other classes is not really the same as their spouse's, though the homemaker usually enjoys the spouses' wealth.

Is it a class in itself?

[Alain]

i want to get back to the doctor/lawyer/professor & other professions discussion.
I think a distinction should be made here.
For example, there is no reason at all to place professors in the bourgeoisie, as they are employees, dependent on being employed and, as far as their profession goes, don't own capital.
Lawyers are a different issue. I would place them in the petty-bourgeoisie. It is clear that they have to work to make a living, but also, it is clear that they own the "means of production". Whatever "means of production" is in their case, beats me. The main idea is that they can practice their profession independently, without any need to be employed, as opposed to professors for example, or any other kind of teachers/researchers, etc.
Doctors(medics) can be bourgeois or not. A hospital employee is not. A physician with a private clinic, is.

Generally, the professions should be viewed individually and relative to the exact circumstances.

As for homemakers, the general view is that class for dependents is determined by the primary income earner, which would include homemakers. Now this supposition might pose some problems, but, generally, it is more of a problem solver and, it seems to me, is actually very practical(determining, for example, the class of the son of a rich industrialist-himself not involved in owning or controlling capital).
A more feminist view could be that homemakers are somewhat exploited by their spouse, and thus always working class, but I think that this does not represent the reality of the way these things work.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

What about the lumpen prole, what about peasants, what about slaves (slavery still exists you know, why this is never figured into class theory is infuriating)

[Alan OldStudent]

There is often some presumption that working class, capitalist class, proletariat, bourgeois, refer to sets of people in the world and when leftists use these terms they are using them to refer to the same sets of people.

But is this the case?


Hello TC,

To understand class, we need to understand what labor is.

We need to begin by saying that the human race exists only because humans apply brain and/or muscle power to a raw material to produce the necessities of human existence. We call that application of human effort "labor." Labor produces the goods and services that make life possible and even bearable. By means of labor, we literally dig our living out of the earth, harvest it from earth, and then process those raw materials into the basic necessities of our civilization. Other than nature itself, most everything we need to live, we create with labor. Human existence is possible only because humans perform labor.

Moreover, labor is always a social, not an individual, effort. Various groups of people play various socioeconomic roles in this labor process. If a group of people play an essential socioecomic role in the functioning of the way the economy is organized, that social layer constitutes a class in Marxist terms.

An easy example to illustrate this is to consider a slave-based economy. Without slaves or slave-owners, the socioeconomic organization of the society cannot be. Hence, slaves and slave-owners are what Marxists consider to be classes in a slave society, because slavery is impossible without these socioeconomic roles being played.

Classes can sometimes be a bit fuzzy around the edges, and it is possible for a few individuals to not fit precisely into one or another class. For example, a few ancient Roman slaves owned slaves themselves. But Marxists focus more on an entire socioeconomic layer's role in the economy than the sometimes contradictory socioeconomic role any particular individual may play.

Keep this in mind: For Marxists, class defines a group of people whose specific socioeconomic relationship to the economy is essential to the way that economic system is organized.

It's easy to lose sight of this when discussing class because bourgeois commentators define class as any group of people having a common social characteristic. Such bourgeois commentators may consider an income bracket, a race, or even a gender to be a class. They look at class as a collection of individuals with a common characteristic. But for Marxists, class is a much more restrictive and precise term that deals with a group’s role, an essential socioeconomic relationship that a socioeconomic layer has to the current economic organization. Marxists consider class as an aggregate, not as an arbitrary collection of individuals based on some arbitrary classification system.

So with that long preamble in mind, let's look at these terms:


Working class, proletariat:
These are basically the same. This refers to that socioeconomic group of people who must sell their labor power to earn their living. These are the wage earners.
Bourgeoisie or capitalist class:
This refers to that socioeconomic group who owns or controls the major means of production and distribution. This does not include some libertarian who says, "I'm a capitalist" because he supports the free market. Remember, class is an essential socioeconomic concept, not an ideological grouping.


The capitalist class and the wage-earning class are the two most essential socioeconomic classes. Without them, capitalism is impossible. Our present capitalist system, our currently-existing economic organization, cannot exist without these two classes.

Now let's look at the so-called petite bourgeoisie. These are individuals who own small businesses or derive their existence from selling services, such as independent self-employed craftsmen, small-business owners, self-employed plumbers, shopkeepers, etc. They really have their origins in the tradesmen and artisans of previous economic eras. But they still exist today. Although their role is important in today's economy, they are not an essential component for the capitalist system to survive.

Now let's look at the terms from the point of view of classifying specific individual’s social roles: worker, capitalist, and so on. These are individuals some of whom may not fit neatly into one or another economic class. A person may have a small business and earn part of her living from it but also be an employee. A medical doctor may work for a large medical center, draw a salary, and also be a consultant for a pharmaceutical firm. She may also have a few private patients. An artist may sell 10 works of art a year and make several thousand dollars but also work in a McDonald's in order to pay the rent. Many other people don't take direct part in economic activity but depend on others to support them. Such individuals may be children, retired, or unable to find a job or incapable of being employed. If a wage earner supports such an individual (a child or spouse for example), one might broadly consider them as “working class,” even if that’s not precisely accurate.

The key to understanding capitalism is to look at the classes as social layers whose relationship to society's economic organization is essential to the existence of the capitalist system, not so much the role a specific individual may play. The capitalist system requires private ownership of the major means of production and distribution, commodity production, use of money as the major means of distributing the products of labor, and a large body of people who must sell their labor power in order to survive. Without these, capitalism as we know it cannot exist.

I hope this clarifies a few points.

Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living—Socrates
Gracias a la vida, que me ha dado tanto—Violeta Parra

[Forward Union]

1. Working class/Worker/Proletariat

I think this is very, very simple. The working class comprises of anyone who works for a wage. As opposed to bosses, who PAY wages. This is, necessarily, because they do not own and manage the means of production and must sell their labour time/body etc in order to survive. You gave politicians as an example of a group which problematize this position, but it doesn't, not only are most politicians also business people, but they also do have some control over the means of production by definition.


Bourgeois/Capitalist

Individuals who own the means of production and employ people.


Petty bourgeois

I'd say this is where the confusion comes in. This term is used a lot more loosely, people can act in line with the historical interests of the "petty bourgeoisie" who are not part of that class. It'd say it refers to self-employed people, who do not employ others, taxi drivers, independent tradespeople and so on. May also refer to workers who are so well paid, they feel a common interest with the managing class.

[Luís Henrique]

There is often some presumption that working class, capitalist class, proletariat, bourgeois, refer to sets of people in the world and when leftists use these terms they are using them to refer to the same sets of people.

I think this is rarely the case. Most often I see sundry and mutually incompatible definitions being used, sometimes by the same person within a short lapse of time.


I would like to invite people here to state their *precise* definitions of the following terms, noting the *elements* by which it could be determined if a given person fits into a given class.

I would have worse ways of spending my time, so why not?


1. Working class

2. Worker (same as working class or no?)

A worker is a member of a working class, though not all members of the working class are necessarily workers (children, the disabled, the mentally ill, the elderly, may be members of the working class, even if they are not technically "workers").

As already noticed, "working class" is vague and could refer to many different classes both diachronically (ancient slaves, medieval serfs, modern proletarians) and synchronically (modern proletarians, modern independent peasants), that being the reason why we sometimes find the phrase, "working classes".


3. Proletariat (same as worker or no?)

The proletariat is the typical modern working class, people whose basic income comes from the selling of labour power; its members are called proletarians, and, as per above, are not necessarily "workers" in the strictest sence. Medieval serfs constituted a working class, but were by no means proletarians. Modern peasants are workers, in that they, well, work, and as such the modern peasantry may be called "a" working class, but peasants are not proletarians, and the peasantry is not the proletariat, or part of it.


4. Bourgeois

Bourgeois are modern capitalists, ie, people,


whose basic income comes from surplus value, ie, from buying labour power and selling the products of labour;
who, to be able to do the above, are owners of means of production;
whose means of production constitute capital, ie, self-aggrandising money.



5. Capitalist (same as bourgeois or no?)

In practice, yes, pretty much the same; but there were "capitalists" in pre-capitalist societies too, which were only "bourgeois" in a historic sence, but did not constitute a bourgeosie in the capitalist sence of the word.


6. Petty bourgeois

Petty bourgeois are basically those who aren't either bourgeois or proletarians. They are those who own means of production, but not capital (ie, the means of production that they own do not reproduce in a sistematically amplified scale); typically, the shop-around-the-corner owner; historically, the independent artisan.


When offering definitions please offer definitions that could be used to actually distinguish between people in classes given their contemporary realities - so "the class that will liberate itself through the revolution" is not such a definition, "people who earn 79% or more of their income through investment" is such a definition.

I fear there is a problem with such demand. Classes are not collections of individuals, they are collectives, social struggle actors.


After definitions are offered, we can consider hard cases that do not clearly fit into a given category or where the precise formulation of a category yields unexpected results that would give us cause to reformulate the category.

I wonder what the use of this would be. Is it really important to define what the class belonging of individuals is (to decide whether Jane Doe is a proletarian or a lumpen or a petty-bourgeois?) What would this importance be, would we deny membership in our organisation to Jane Doe if she is a lumpen, or would we label a mass movement petty-bourgeois if 10%, or 90%, of its adherents happen to be petty bourgeois?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

What about the lawyers, scientists, professors, and other professionals? Surely they are not workers, they have more than their own labor and they ultimately retain their privileged positions through existing conditions, yet they are not necessarily the masters of these conditions.Why are they "surely" not workers? If they don't own the means of production, then, yes, all they have is their labor to sell. I do not know what you mean by "their privileged positions" here.

I think the discussion here is whether a post-doctorate degree is or is not "more than their labour". Some (Bourdieu?) would call it "cultural capital", I guess. The classic Marxist position is that this is an improved, or qualified labour (power). Just like a varnished table is still a table, perhaps.

The "privileged positions" I think are not difficult to assess. Higher wages, lower labour intensity, shorter labour duration, etc., which often (most certainly, for instance, in Brazil) lead to strong differences in prestige and consequently to access to consumption (living in "good" neighbourhoods with good transportation facilities, access to good schools, etc.)

In any case, those "privileges" surely make it way more difficult for some people to identify as workers, stand in solidarity with other workers, participate in working class movements, and so on.

[Luís Henrique]

So, if President Obama or the NYPD police chief sold all their investment instruments, they'd be workers/laborers?

I am not sure that the NYPD police chief has any investment instruments to sell... but money is still a means of production, so, unless they had a non-hypocritical-Christian epiphany and sold their stuff to distribute the money to the poor, they would just be moving from one sector of the bourgeoisie to another.


If a protestor with a megaphone exercises *some* power, does that break the monopoly (therefore rendering no class the ruling class) or does that protestor become part of the ruling class?

It seems clear that "monopoly of power" is a quite meaningless phrase. The ruling class has a monopoly of the means of production, if we consider "monopoly" in a lax sence (that they own most of them, or the key ones, not that they own precisely 100% of it), and (via the State) a monopoly of legitimate violence, but not a "monopoly of power" (in which case class struggle would be impossible).


If someone has 100 dollars to spend then they quiet literally have some economic power.

Well, yes, if we use "economic power" in a very lax sence, too. More strictly, however, it is quite probable that their 100 dollars are to be mandatorily spent in buying food or shelter, so that they will immediately go back to the owners of means of production.

(Money is not a "thing", but a flow; 100 dollars only mean anything as an instrument to buy commodities, and they mean quite different things whether they are buying food or labour power.)


Under such a definition you've offered, a police chief (who owns no capital), an unemployed child, a capital-less president, etc. are all laborers but someone who owns a few shares of McDonalds stock or manages one other McDonalds fry cook is not a laborer?

A person is a "labourer" (in the sence you apparently mean it here) if her life is determined by wages, not profits. If someone owns a few shares of McDonalds stock, but his life still depends basically on selling his labour power, then he is a labourer.

An unemployed child is certainly a member of the proletariat (if she was bourgeois, she wouldn't be "unemployed" first place), though not technically a "labourer". A police officer or a capital-less president would be labourers if we could agree in a definition of "labour" that includes policing and whatever presidents do; certainly a CEO of a capitalist company isn't a labourer by any sane definition of the word, even if she doesn't own capital personally. Then the discussion necessarily is, is policing "labour"?

In any case, such exceptional positions, such as politicians, police officers, army officers, senior civil service officers, diplomats, etc., tend to erase class boundaries. Those people lives aren't determined by wages or profits (or indeed, by money in general) but by prestige; together, they make an "estament" rather than a class.


And what if McDonalds fry cooks rotate management of each other according to shifts, are none of them laborers then?

Shop management seems to me to be labour, albeit qualified labour (I doubt that capitalist companies think it a good idea to rotate management among their employees); but higher management is a different thing, and is usually not selected among common workers (though there are certainly exceptions; the bourgeoisie does recruit and coopt new members among smart or ambitious employees).


Just that: that the definition of capitalist offered is grossly over-inclusive because a huge number of people own and control capital who leftists would not typically consider 'capitalists'.

For instance?


So whats your dollar threshold for "meaningful" control of capital? Is a 200k savings account meaningful then? You could live on that if structured well, but you couldn't live the lifestyle many would think of as rich. What if the 20 dollars in savings was actually this kids only source of income - he was unemployed - would that make him a capitalist?

I think that would make the kid dead - of starvation.

The minimal life standard, that determines wages, is not a biological minimum, but a socially accepted standard (result of the complex process of class struggle). No sane person would choose to live below this socially accepted minimum just to avoid work, even if they had the means to do it. So, for instance, if the socially accepted minimum income is, say, $ 1,000, and a person owns an apartment she can rent for $ 400, in all likeness she will, unless disabled, work to complement a "decent" income.

Attempts to live under the accepted standards, moreover, undermine proletarian class struggle: if a worker owns the social acceptable minimum of $ 1,000, and tries to "cheat" by living on $ 900 and saving $ 100 to become a capitalist, what he does is to push the socially accepted minimum down (if all workers did that, the socially acceptable minimum would immediatelly fall to $ 900).

Conversely, there is a socially determined minimum at which money can actually turn into capital. $ 1,000 won't buy anyone the means to exploit the labour of others and pay for a living standard above that of common proletarians. Nor will $ 10,000. Perhaps $ 100,000 can do the trick, or more likely $ 1,000,000. This, of course, changes with time, with concentration of capital, etc. As of today, in Brazil, you can invest R$ 150,000 in a sharing fund and live the life of a proletarian out of it, but it is unlikely that investing R$ 150,000 in an actual business of your own would result in anything else but untimely bankrupcy and being forced back into the work force without the R$ 150,000 you used to own.


...and many lower level employees in some companies are compensated in stock (even retail level employees can be).

They sure are, but they certainly cannot base their livelihood out of that.

Luís Henrique