Middle Class is now minority in U.S.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

So yeah, that thing Marx said about the petite-bourgeois continually shrinking to a negligible number under capitalism?

Well, in the U.S., it looks like that's now much closer to being the reality. (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/middle-class-americans-no-longer-123207315.html)

[Rafiq]

It would have never been appropriate to qualify the "middle class" as petty bourgeois. A great proportion of this "middle class" were in fact working class Americans whose income, and standards of living (relative to their respective time period) were greatly increased beyond what would be 'natural' for their social position, for purely political reasons - those surrounding the cold war, that is.

This class is disappearing for the sole reason that the state has minimized its political responsibility in accommodating to their wants for the sole purpose of detracting them from seeking alternatives. So confident is the arrogant bourgeoisie of our epoch, that they themselves no longer believe alternatives to capitalism are possible.

[Mr. Piccolo]

It would have never been appropriate to qualify the "middle class" as petty bourgeois. A great proportion of this "middle class" were in fact working class Americans whose income, and standards of living (relative to their respective time period) were greatly increased beyond what would be 'natural' for their social position, for purely political reasons - those surrounding the cold war, that is.

This class is disappearing for the sole reason that the state has minimized its political responsibility in accommodating to their wants for the sole purpose of detracting them from seeking alternatives. So confident is the arrogant bourgeoisie of our epoch, that they themselves no longer believe alternatives to capitalism are possible.

Good points. It will be interesting to see if this situation leads to a rebound in worker solidarity and class consciousness in the United States. The Cold War period and the few decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union were marked by the development of an individualistic "I've got mine Jack" attitude among American workers. American workers abandoned collective action and solidarity for aspirationalism and the Horatio Alger myth.

Right now, just by what I see everyday, I don't see much evidence of solidarity and class consciousness making a comeback but I could be wrong. Just talking to many people I know there is a sense that they are getting screwed over by their employers and the political system. The key is to try to get people to see that this is not just a problem of this-or-that bad employer or this-or-that bad politician or political party, but a systemic problem of capitalism.

Another hurdle is the way that American workers seem to view themselves. In my experience most people see themselves as teachers, plumbers, nurses or whatever, not as "workers." This means that they don't often see how their problems are similar to those of others in different fields. This is especially problematic when dealing with the issue of higher-income workers and lower-income workers. Higher-income workers still seem to look down on poorer workers, and try to distance themselves from their struggles. The many negative reactions to attempts by fast food workers to increase their wages is a good example of this. I know plenty of folks who felt that the fast food workers didn't deserve better wages because "they should have gotten an education" or "they don't have any skills so why should they make more." I am sure most of you have heard these arguments.

Just some of my anecdotal observations, but I think they are probably pretty characteristic of the way most American workers think.

[Sibotic]

Another minority discriminated against by Karl Marx, this time systematically and in Das Kapital instead of letters about Lassalle.

As Rafiq said, you wouldn't equate this to the 'petit bourgeoisie,' who were at least treated seriously as a real class, although on an overall level only a nominal one. That this was no class which had an objective existence does likely imply that it was mostly fictionalised as a stable entity, on a social scale, as there was of course no niche within the social system which would accommodate this lifestyle as a strata of society. It was mostly associated with images or things such as 'a stable marriage,' but at the same time its basic appeal to people was merely appetitive, in which sense that kind of thing would appear objectively as only a barrier or restriction artificially imposed, suggesting that the whole concept was merely centred around reputation and this is what people left it there for. When, say, someone was to be praised by their boss (or in other words, 'acclaimed,' 'promoted,' 'desired to continue'), and they found this particularly invigorating, that was probably what the fictionalised class, with no real economic meaning, was generally aimed at suggesting to people.

[Rafiq]

What constitutes the petite-bourgeoisie is 'seemingly' different today. People talk about small businesses growing, rather than shrinking as Marx claimed. But in the context of Marx's time, a small business constituted around five employees. This class is dead and has long been dead.

Conversely in the U.S., various media outlets like to designate business with hundreds of employees as "small business". Thus we arrive at the stunning conclusion that 50% of US workers are employed in "Small businesses", disproving Marx all along. Little is it known, however, that so deeply entrenched in monopoly capitalism is our epoch that anything which isn't organized into a massive corporate conglomerate is now a "small business". In some industries, businesses which employ 750-1500 employees are counted as "small businesses".

[Emmett Till]

Another minority discriminated against by Karl Marx, this time systematically and in Das Kapital instead of letters about Lassalle.

As Rafiq said, you wouldn't equate this to the 'petit bourgeoisie,' who were at least treated seriously as a real class, although on an overall level only a nominal one. That this was no class which had an objective existence does likely imply that it was mostly fictionalised as a stable entity, on a social scale, as there was of course no niche within the social system which would accommodate this lifestyle as a strata of society. It was mostly associated with images or things such as 'a stable marriage,' but at the same time its basic appeal to people was merely appetitive, in which sense that kind of thing would appear objectively as only a barrier or restriction artificially imposed, suggesting that the whole concept was merely centred around reputation and this is what people left it there for. When, say, someone was to be praised by their boss (or in other words, 'acclaimed,' 'promoted,' 'desired to continue'), and they found this particularly invigorating, that was probably what the fictionalised class, with no real economic meaning, was generally aimed at suggesting to people.

Even more ahistorical than the absurd idea that Marx, himself Jewish, was an "anti-Semite" based on some nasty but thoroughly deserved cracks against that scumbag Lassalle in private letters (Is every black person who ever used the N word a white racist?)

The idea that the "middle class" is a cultural thing, not based on relationship to the means of production but on lifestyle is essentially post-WWII with US imperialism on top of the world and the whole white working class, back then due to the CIO labor revolt and temporary great US prosperity after WWII, still able to afford niceish homes in suburbia and able to go to a good college and escape the working class on the GI bill if honorably discharged, told they were now in the "middle class."

Before then the general concept of the middle class was no different from that of Karl Marx. It meant doctors, lawyers, small businessmen, lower level corporate managers, etc.

[Sibotic]

Even more ahistorical than the absurd idea that Marx, himself Jewish, was an "anti-Semite" based on some nasty but thoroughly deserved cracks against that scumbag Lassalle in private letters (Is every black person who ever used the N word a white racist?)
So did or did not Karl Marx characterise the 'middle class,' as the term is being used, as a class. A 'class' in this context refers to a stable social strata which is a part of a system, regardless of the context, so the fictionalisation of such a thing requires more than occasional contingency and a modus operandi that completely contradicts such a characterisation as soon as it is proposed. In any case it's a weird context to mention the 'n word,' when after all Marx was not a black person, but still used that in reference to Lassalle, this multiplication of epithets (in which, perhaps, the 'n word' as you call it did follow the 'Jewish' characterisation historically, although they were a unit which they used to characterise 'Lassalle') being part of what was referred to, but in any case Marx's neglect of the 'middle class' which is being referred to, which is not a real class, was not being criticised.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

A 'class' in this context refers to a stable social strata which is a part of a system, regardless of the context, so the fictionalisation of such a thing requires more than occasional contingency and a modus operandi that completely contradicts such a characterisation as soon as it is proposed.

Obviously.

[Emmett Till]

So did or did not Karl Marx characterise the 'middle class,' as the term is being used, as a class. A 'class' in this context refers to a stable social strata which is a part of a system, regardless of the context, so the fictionalisation of such a thing requires more than occasional contingency and a modus operandi that completely contradicts such a characterisation as soon as it is proposed. In any case it's a weird context to mention the 'n word,' when after all Marx was not a black person, but still used that in reference to Lassalle, this multiplication of epithets (in which, perhaps, the 'n word' as you call it did follow the 'Jewish' characterisation historically, although they were a unit which they used to characterise 'Lassalle') being part of what was referred to, but in any case Marx's neglect of the 'middle class' which is being referred to, which is not a real class, was not being criticised.

Marx talked about the petty bourgeoisie, a class with a fairly clear relationship to the mode of production. Sometimes he used the then-equivalent term "middle class." Very little relationship to the way "middle class" is used nowadays.

As for Marx, yes Marx occasionally made remarks that to a 21st century perspective look anti-Semitic, which is utterly ahistorical. Hal Draper wrote the definitive piece on this many many years ago. Here's a link:

http://www.marxists.de/religion/draper/marxjewq.htm

As for the N word, I was not referring here to that allegedly infamous letter about Lassalle, but to more serious charges against him.

It was written *before* the emancipation of the slaves, in response to some truly infamous actual behavior by Lassalle, him suggesting to Marx's face that Marx's daughters could be hired as domestic servants by lady friends of the German countess for whom Lassalle was a boy toy.

The reason the N word is so objectionable nowadays is because black chattel slavery has been abolished. Before that, it was simply the usual popular term for black slaves, the vast majority of black people outside Africa then being slaves. After the end of the Civil War, with slavery abolished, for a white mouth to use the N word invariably and always implies that blacks *should be* slaves. Not true then.

The only other time I've ever heard of Marx using the N word was in another letter to Engels during the Civil War, in which he wrote that the Confederates would flee in terror if Lincoln were to send "a single N regiment" against the Confederates. Not what one would expect from a white racist!

And of course you have the ultimate proof by American standards, that he raised no objection when one of the daughters that Lassalle thought would make a fine housemaid married a black man. (And the two of them both went on to be prominent French socialists).