Problem in Marxist economics

[Amusing Scrotum]

This has been something that has been rumbling around for a while in the empty space I have where others have a functioning organ....basically, it's to do with how you define the class of someone who works as wage-slave but also owns the means of production.

The general consensus seems to be that a worker who have X amount of shares in company Y, is still a worker....a sensible position in my opinion.

But what of someone like a plumber who owns a full set of tools and his own van but who also works for a boss and sells his labour power to survive?

Basically Joe the plumber does own the means of production in the traditional sense....yet I'd still consider Joe working class because the only way he can survive is through the sale of his labour power.

Extending this, if you think Joe is not working class, what about Phil the apprentice....he'll be earning, by British standards, around £60 a week, he'll be selling his labour power to survive, but he'll also likely own close to a full set of tools.

So what is Phil's class?

Again, I'd say working class....but this, in a way, does contradict Marxist economics, based on my knowledge of the subject anyway.

The next example is Jeff the plumber (another plumber! :o ). Jeff "on paper" works for himself, he is registered as a sole trader and has a one man band. He also owns all the equipment required to his job, like Joe, but being self-employed would, as far as I know, make Jeff a petty-capitalist.

But what if, in the real world, Jeff spends all his working hours working for one company as a sub-contractor. Bearing in mind here that Jeff has no employees whose surplus value he can appropriate, he just has his van and his tools.

So, if Jeff was working for one firm all the time and lets just say that that firm is the same firm that Joe works for. Now, both Jeff and Joe own the means of production (plumbing tools) and both men survive solely by selling their labour power to a capitalist.

The real world relations involved with both these men are exactly the same....the only difference is that on paper Jeff is self-employed.

Would Jeff's "on paper status" count more here than the real world scenario where he is in the same boat as Joe?

I really don't know! :(

Anyway, with regards Joe and Phil, I'd consider them both to be working class and in a sense, that shows there's a slight hole in Marxist economics....perhaps it needs updating?

But Jeff????

I've heard the term labour aristocrat applied to people who drift from being a worker to being self-employed....often people with a trade. This is, in my opinion, a decent assessment of their class position.

Basically it says that they are working class, but they're a privileged section of the working class....a pretty fair assessment in my opinion.

Anyway, what's everyone else think?

[anomaly]

Well, I recently had to ask what 'petty-bourgeois' was. My understanding was that petty-bourgeois is simply one who 'bounces between' working class and bourgeois class. However, apparently a professor is petty-bourgeois. Now, there are plenty of professors who own no capital. But they are petty-bourgeois anyway :o

As far as your situations go, AS, I'd consider all three of them working class. Can tools really be considered capital? And a van for work? If that's capital, then we have a whole lot of poor bourgeoisie out there. :lol:

I don't think we can easily classify everyone. There are a lot of unique situations out there. Myself, I would say that if a person owns no capital, they are proletarian.

But then what all constitutes capital? :blink:

This is a sticky issue indeed.

I'm not especially skilled in Marxist economics, but it seems to me that the disctinctions between classes either need to be simpler (as I suggested up there ^) or there needs to be more classes.

[redstar2000]

Well, Marx was trying to simplify the structure of capitalist society in order to grasp its fundamental dynamics. The details are clearly more "complicated" and sometimes difficult to puzzle out.

People in the skilled trades may sometimes "enjoy" a kind of "twilight zone" existence between big capital and ordinary workers...and the effects of this on their own perceived class identity can vary widely.

Professors were, in the beginning, independent petty-bourgeois...they gathered students on their own and sold them their knowledge. These days, they are more and more glorified temp workers...hired and fired as the "market" for their knowledge expands and contracts. The idea of the "tenured professor" with "lifetime job security" seems to be "on the way out"...except, perhaps, for a few "celebrity professors".

A "tight focus" on a modern capitalist economy reveals lots of "nooks and crannies" that you'll rarely find much mention of in Marx; he was mostly interested in the "big picture".

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[barista.marxista]

Armchair: I'd recommend Erik Olen Wright's analytical book Class Counts (available for free here (http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/selected-published-writings.htm), about two-thirds down the page). Wright is a Marxist who preformed a study of class relations in five major countries (including the US, Canada, Sweden, Norway, and Japan) over a period of about 30 years. His goal was to try to reconcile the increasingly complex system of class in the industrialized world with Marx's dichomatic system. He does a fantastic job, and it's highly recommended from me.

[ComradeOm]

Correct me if I'm wrong Armchair, but aren't you studying to be a plumber? :)


I've heard the term labour aristocrat applied to people who drift from being a worker to being self-employed....often people with a trade. This is, in my opinion, a decent assessment of their class position.
That term tends to be fairly vague, something that is reflected in its various uses. I'm not aware of Marx ever hammering out a definition or even using the term himself. Traditionally its been used to describe the white collar workers, those who had more in common with the capitalists than the rest of the proletariat.

Personally I feel that those cases above would fit into the petit-bourgeois "hole" but, as has been noted, class distinctions tend to "blur at the edges".

[Jimmie Higgins]

A self-employed plumer or contracter (even if he does not have employees under him) is the low level of 'petty-bourgeois' in my opinion. A self-employed person who owns his/her own means of production, probably would like to build up a clientele and hire other people to work under him/her - so the class intrests are with the capitalists.

However, because they are on the bottom of the ladder, this person might side either with the capitalists or with the workers depending on the situation... this small-businessman would be adversly effected by the ups and downs of capitalism and the ferocity of capitalist competition. So he/she also has an intrest in seeing capitalism done away with.

It used to be that theachers were considered professionals, but I think this situation had changed and the situation for many doctors who work for HMOs is changing and they might engage in organized struggles against their employers.

As for "Labor aristocracy" - I have heard people use this term, but I don't know much about it or where it comes from. I always thought it was like union burocrats or other workers who somehow might benifit from the staus quo and so have no intrest in changing it.

[Janus]

A self-employed plumer or contracter (even if he does not have employees under him) is the low level of 'petty-bourgeois' in my opinion. A self-employed person who owns his/her own means of production, probably would like to build up a clientele and hire other people to work under him/her
I agree since that's how I've always thought of it as. Usually, petit bourgeois have more control over their lives than that of the aberage worker. The best example that I can think of is that of a storeowner who can hire employees but does not actually own the means of production. Of course, class distinctions have been somewhat blurred since Marx's day so those definitions are a bit obsolete as of right now.

[KC]

The best example that I can think of is that of a storeowner who can hire employees but does not actually own the means of production.

A store owner does own the means of production. That is why he is a store owner.

[Janus]

A store owner does own the means of production. That is why he is a store owner.
But stores don't produce anything, they simply sell products. Therefore, how do small store owners or shop keepers own the means of production?

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by anomaly+--> (anomaly)However, apparently a professor is petty-bourgeois.[/b]

My understanding is that the term petty-bourgeois applies to petty-capitalists (newspaper shop owners and so on) and people who are in the professions....people like University Professors, Architects (though technicians in a Architects Office are workers in my opinion), and so on.

Basically, if you've got letters after your name, you're probably petty-bourgeois.


Originally posted by anomaly+--> (anomaly)Can tools really be considered capital?[/b]

There's a quote from Marx where he basically outlines what is capital....it's something like stuff that is reinvested in order to make a profit, though don't quote me on that.

Under a Marxist definition, if you do a hobble, the stuff you own that you use to do that job could be considered capital....but it's a grey area, in my opinion anyway.


Originally posted by redstar2000
Well, Marx was trying to simplify the structure of capitalist society in order to grasp its fundamental dynamics. The details are clearly more "complicated" and sometimes difficult to puzzle out.

True, but then this likely presents a big problem when someone is trying to gauge whether a groups membership is working class or not, or when a group is aiming to only admit working class people.


Originally posted by barista.marxista
I'd recommend Erik Olen Wright's analytical book Class Counts....

Just started it and it looks pretty good.

Cheers. :)


Originally posted by ComradeOm
Correct me if I'm wrong Armchair, but aren't you studying to be a plumber?

You're wrong....but I was "studying to be a plumber". However, unlike Phil, I couldn't find someone to take me on as an apprentice which meant I couldn't really go on to do Gas.

And a plumber who can&#39;t put in a boiler is, well....not really a proper plumber. <_<


Originally posted by ComradeOm
That term tends to be fairly vague, something that is reflected in its various uses. I&#39;m not aware of Marx ever hammering out a definition or even using the term himself.

I thought Lenin "invented" the phrase labour aristocrat to refer to First International Social-Democracy types and the leadership of Trade Unions?

Anyway, I think Vlad invented a good term here....though as a class, I think most labour aristocrats are a section of the petty-bourgeois, though when MIM uses the term it generally means working class.


[email protected]
A self-employed plumer or contracter (even if he does not have employees under him) is the low level of &#39;petty-bourgeois&#39; in my opinion.

Generally I would agree with you here....but what about my example of Jeff who is self-employed on paper, but works for one company all the time and is therefore a de facto employee of this company?

Strangely enough, a real life example of this came up yesterday. I was talking to a friend who works for a large Construction company and yet he is the only employee on the books.

I was asking him whether they will be hiring labours any time soon, and he told he they were but that if I worked for them as a labourer, I&#39;d be a self-employed sub-contractor&#33; :blink:

I&#39;d be using their equipment, tools, and so on, they&#39;d treat me like any other worker, but if I worked for them my official status would be self employed and petty-bourgeois. :o

I don&#39;t think this is a very common thing in the Construction Industry at the moment, but if it does become the common way that Construction companies operate, then every Construction worker will be petty-bourgeois. :huh:

John Prescott will be validated unless real world and not "on paper" working relations are looked at.


Lazar
A store owner does own the means of production. That is why he is a store owner.

Sometimes....but franchise stores work differently as far as I know.

The "store owner" in a franchise often doesn&#39;t own any capital, they just manage the store....which still makes them petty-bourgeois, just not owners of capital.

[ComradeOm]

Originally posted by Armchair [email protected] 13 2006, 09:40 AM
I thought Lenin "invented" the phrase labour aristocrat to refer to First International Social-Democracy types and the leadership of Trade Unions?
The first use of the term that I&#39;m aware of was by Engels in a letter to Marx describing the English working class and their willingness to co-operate with the bourgeoisie. Lenin continued to use the term in that context.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by ComradeOm+Apr 13 2006, 11:01 AM--> (ComradeOm @ Apr 13 2006, 11:01 AM)
Originally posted by Armchair [email protected] 13 2006, 09:40 AM
I thought Lenin "invented" the phrase labour aristocrat to refer to First International Social-Democracy types and the leadership of Trade Unions?
The first use of the term that I&#39;m aware of was by Engels in a letter to Marx describing the English working class and their willingness to co-operate with the bourgeoisie. Lenin continued to use the term in that context. [/b]

I can&#39;t find any reference to the term "labour aristocrat" in the Marxists Internet Archive when searching through Marx and Engels work....

http://www.google.com/search?as_sitesearch...oq=&select1=%23 (http://www.google.com/search?as_sitesearch=www.marxists.org%2Farchive%2F marx%2F&hl=en&ie=8859-1&oe=8859-1&as_occt=body&num=30&btnG=Google+Search%21&as_epq=labour+aristocrat&as_oq=&select1=%23)

And the same applies when I search for "labor aristocrat".

So unless you&#39;re referring to this letter....


Engels to Marx
The Jones business is most distasteful. He held a meeting here and the speech he made was entirely in the spirit of the new alliance. After that affair one might almost believe that the English proletarian movement in its old traditional Chartist form must perish utterly before it can evolve in a new and viable form. And yet it is not possible to foresee what the new form will look like. It seems to me, by the way, that there is in fact a connection between Jones’ new move, seen in conjunction with previous more or less successful attempts at such an alliance, and the fact that the English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that the ultimate aim of this most bourgeois of all nations would appear to be the possession, alongside the bourgeoisie, of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat. In the case of a nation which exploits the entire world this is, of course, justified to some extent. Only a couple of thoroughly bad years might help here, but after the discoveries of gold these are no longer so easy to engineer. For the rest it is a complete mystery to me how the massive overproduction which caused the crisis has been absorbed; never before has such heavy flooding drained away so rapidly.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...rs/58_10_07.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1858/letters/58_10_07.htm)

I don&#39;t know what you are referring too.

This letter, according to MIA, was first published in 1913....and the term "labour aristocracy" appears in Debates in Britain on Liberal Labour Policy (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1912/oct/00b.htm) by Lenin from 1912, and from Learn From the Enemy (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/nov/18c.htm) by Lenin in 1905.

Though back checking, I have found the term "labour aristocracy" in the work of Marx and Engels....

http://www.google.com/search?as_sitesearch...oq=&select1=%23 (http://www.google.com/search?as_sitesearch=www.marxists.org%2Farchive%2F marx%2F&hl=en&ie=8859-1&oe=8859-1&as_occt=body&num=30&btnG=Google+Search%21&as_epq=labour+aristocracy&as_oq=&select1=%23)

Though, bar The Condition of the Working Class in England by Engels, these pieces as seem rather obscure pieces....which like most of the letters, were only published in the 30&#39;s and 40&#39;s. Indeed The German Ideology, if I remember correctly, remained unpublished until around 1935.

Therefore, I think it&#39;s very likely that Lenin didn&#39;t find the term in the works of Marx and Engels and "invented" it.

It&#39;s sort of like when people who like "Decadence Theory" point to one letter from Marx where he mentions the "decadence of capitalism" or something like that....the probability that the original "decadence theorists" got the phrase from that letter, is very low.

Marx, Engels and Lenin all seem to have used the phrase, but I think it&#39;s unlikely that Lenin got the phrase from Marx and Engels. The more plausible scenario is that he first heard it from some of the "left-communists" involved in social-democracy....did anyone ever call Bernstein a labour aristocrat? :lol:

[ComradeOm]

I have the source at home so I&#39;ll get back to you this evening. I had thought that I&#39;d shown you the quote before though that quote that you posted does seem familiar, its possible that I have another translation of that. Either way I&#39;ll find out this evening.

It is possible that Lenin came up with the term himself but given the breath of his knowledge of Marx&#39;s works, and his tendency to draw from them, I find that unlikely.

[KC]

But stores don&#39;t produce anything, they simply sell products.

Yes, but means of production doesn&#39;t mean production in the strict sense anymore. They still work just like any other business.


Therefore, how do small store owners or shop keepers own the means of production?

The store can be considered a means, as can whatever tools necessary to get the products ready for sale.



Basically, if you&#39;ve got letters after your name, you&#39;re probably petty-bourgeois.


Why do you consider these people to be petty bourgeois? Are you basing this on their relationship to the means of production or how much money they earn?



Sometimes....but franchise stores work differently as far as I know.

The "store owner" in a franchise often doesn&#39;t own any capital, they just manage the store....which still makes them petty-bourgeois, just not owners of capital.


I thought someone would bring this up. Anyways, basically how a franchise works is that they adhere to a certain set of rules and give a chunk of the profits to the parent company, and they are allowed to use that company&#39;s logo/info. The company also provides numerous services. McDonald&#39;s, for example, would hook you up with catalogs that you could buy equipment/uniforms/etc... from.

So is the store owner petty bourgeois in this case? Yes. While they are giving away a certain percentage of their profit to the parent company, they are still living off of the profit of the business.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by ComradeOm+--> (ComradeOm)I had thought that I&#39;d shown you the quote before though that quote that you posted does seem familiar....[/b]

I think the quote I posted is the quote you showed me before....the other quote did contain the term "bourgeois proletariat" and that&#39;s what I searched for and it only came up in that letter from Engels to Marx.


Originally posted by [email protected]
It is possible that Lenin came up with the term himself but given the breath of his knowledge of Marx&#39;s works, and his tendency to draw from them, I find that unlikely.

Well, there are numerous factors we must consider....and that was my point.

Firstly, whilst Lenin was undoubtedly read most, if not all, of the works of Marx....many of Marx&#39;s works weren&#39;t published during Lenin&#39;s lifetime.

Capital was widely available, as was The Communist Manifesto and a few other famous works by Marx....but most of his letters, articles, and minor works were unpublished, and even some of his major works remained obscure. Like for instance, The German Ideology, which I mentioned in my last post.

Additionally, most Marxists in that era got their Marxism from the work by Engels after Marx had died, and from Plekhanov. And whilst that Marxism wasn&#39;t fundamentally different, Engels and Plekhanov did have some differences with regards how they looked at the world when compared with Marx....the theoretical method they used is one of the "biggies".

So whilst Lenin probably read all of the works of Marx that were available, that doesn&#39;t mean he read all of Marx&#39;s work....if you get what I mean.

If Marx and/or Engels discussed something in a letter or an article, it&#39;s likely that someone pre-1930 hadn&#39;t seen this piece....where as today, someone probably will have seen this place.

The wonders of modern technology. :D

So really, I think Lenin should get the credit for creating the concept of a labour aristocracy and adding it to the Marxist paradigm....1 point to Vlad&#33; <_<


Lazar
Why do you consider these people to be petty bourgeois? Are you basing this on their relationship to the means of production or how much money they earn?

Well most lawyers, for instance, don&#39;t own the means of production in any sense....yet lawyers are generally considered petty-bourgeois.

As Marx pointed out, a lawyer is an ideologue of private property....which means they are part of the ideological arsenal of the bourgeois. Therefore, their function in life makes them likely to oppose proletarian revolution, which means they are class enemies.

And class enemies suggests that people ain&#39;t in the working class....so lawyers are either petty-bourgeois or bourgeois.

I think that most professions that require a person to have letters after their name have a similar function to the job of a lwayer....an ideologue of the bourgeois. Therefore, I&#39;d consider most of the professions as part of the petty-bourgeois.

Though that, obviously, is not a water tight definition, it&#39;s just a quick definition....sort of like if you tried to work out whether job X is a working class job or not, you could see whether that type of job was unionised or not.

That would hint at whether job X was a working class job....though it wouldn&#39;t be a "water tight" definition.

Alternatively, lawyers, like Policemen, could be considered unproductive workers....that way of defining people who work in the Police is, in my opinion, the most accurate way of defining them.

Basically, unproductive work is only around because of capitalism....and therefore, unproductive workers (security guards, policemen, soldiers and so on) will, generally, oppose proletarian revolution because a workers&#39; state would put an end to their particular occupation which is epoch specific.

Basically, the point of this thread is that Marxist economics has some holes....and therefore, when you&#39;re trying to fill in those holes, your hypothesis is only as good as your results.

If you conclude that job Y is working class, and then the evidence shows that people who do job Y outright oppose the working class, then your conclusion is wrong.

And, in my opinion, people with letters after their name will probably oppose proletarian revolution....making them class enemies and therefore of a class alien to the working class.

[anomaly]

The only time this issue comes into play is, as AS pointed out, when an organization decides that only &#39;proletarians&#39; can become &#39;members&#39;.

So, Lazar or Janus, you&#39;re both in Communist League, no? Well, how is the &#39;proletarian only&#39; rule enforced, and how strictly is it enforced?

And if you two don&#39;t know, perhaps Miles could be of service here.

[ComradeOm]

Originally posted by Armchair Socialism+Apr 13 2006, 01:34 PM--> (Armchair Socialism &#064; Apr 13 2006, 01:34 PM)I think the quote I posted is the quote you showed me before....the other quote did contain the term "bourgeois proletariat" and that&#39;s what I searched for and it only came up in that letter from Engels to Marx.[/b]
My mistake here. That quote is the one I was thinking of and it obviously doesn&#39;t have the term "labour aristocracy". It was merely labeled in meine book as being relevant to that.

Luckily though I have another quote from Engels that refers to the "aristocracy among the working class" and that a Lenin quote in which he references it.


Originally posted by [email protected]
That the condition [of the English trade unions] has remarkably improved since 1848 there can be no doubt, and the best proof of this is in the fact, that for more than fifteen years not only have their employers been with them, but they with their employers, upon exceedingly good terms. They form an aristocracy among the working-class; they have succeeded in enforcing for themselves a relatively comfortable position, and they accept it as final… They are very nice people nowadays to deal with, for any sensible capitalist in particular and for the whole capitalist class in general
From the preface to the Second Edition (1892) of “The Condition of the Working Class in England”. Emphasis is mine.


Lenin
That these ideas, which were repeated by Engels over the course of decades, were so expressed by him publicly, in the press, is proved by his preface to the second edition of The Condition of the Working Class in England, 1892. Here he speaks of an "aristocracy among the working class", of a "privileged minority of the workers", in contradistinction to the "great mass of working people".
That&#39;s from Imperialism and the Split in Socialism

The first quote was typed out by hand, the second I found at http://www.marxmail.org/quotes/vladimir_lenin.htm

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by anomaly+--> (anomaly)Well, how is the &#39;proletarian only&#39; rule enforced, and how strictly is it enforced?[/b]

This is the definition from the IWPA&#39;s website....


Originally posted by [email protected]
[1] Because there is so much confusion created around what defines a class, because the exploiting classes have deliberately confused the definition of class, we need to be particularly clear here. We define working people, the modern proletariat, as those who have to sell their ability to work (labor-power) to survive. Whether you work in industry, in the “service sector” or in agriculture, whether or not you are employed or unemployed, if your survival is based solely on the need to sell your labor to other people, and you do not have control over other people’s labor, you are one of us — a working person, a proletarian.

http://www.iwpa-aigt.org/open-letter.html#Note

It wouldn&#39;t surprise me if the CL and the IWPA had longer definitions and this was just, as it says, a note.

Because, theoretically, this definition is slightly confusing....all or none of my fictitious characters could fit under this, but I suspect only the two characters who do officially work for a company would be admitted to the IWPA.

Though this does really emphasise the problems I was on about....I mean, all the plumbers in my example had capital (tools), which means on a theoretical level their survival isn&#39;t "based solely on the need to sell [their] labor to other people".

And in the case of Joe, he would likely "have control over other people’s labor"....depending on how that was defined of course.

Because basically, anyone above the level of tea-boy or labourer in the Construction Industry, has a degree of control over someones labour....in other words, they have some authority over other workers.

The apprentice is under the plumber, the plumber is under the head plumber (on a big project), the head plumber is under the foreman, the foreman is under the Site Manager and so on.

I&#39;d say that the head plumber is the last person in that line who could be considered working class....but in some circumstances that could be controversial.

Additionally, I&#39;d consider some people higher up in the Construction hierarchy working class....some Engineers, some Estimators, some Health and Safety Officers, and so on.

These guys, whilst being above a lot of people, don&#39;t actually have any control over other workers and do survive by selling their labour power....an Engineer earning say £50,000 a year, doesn&#39;t necessarily have any control, and certainly less authority than a plumber earning £25,000 a year.

And additionally, the Engineer, unlike the Plumber, won&#39;t have any capital....at least it less likely he&#39;ll have any capital.

See what I mean....this shit is tricky&#33; <_<


ComradeOm
Luckily though I have another quote from Engels that refers to the "aristocracy among the working class" and that a Lenin quote in which he references it.

That 1 point I gave Vald....has been taken away&#33; :(

Indeed, after all our long debates I finally was about to give praise to Lenin for something I think is useful....and you point out it was old fart no. 2 who said it first. :o :lol:

[LoneRed]

the store owner does not sell his labor to survive, hes makes a quite nice check, as well as benefits, stocks, what have you, he lives a cushy life

[Janus]

The store can be considered a means, as can whatever tools necessary to get the products ready for sale.
I suppose that classes can&#39;t be defined as strictly anymore but I still don&#39;t see how store owners and keepers aren&#39;t petit bourgeois.

Tools necessary to get the products for sale? You mean like a price gun or something. Many store owners don&#39;t work much at all. Besides, I had always considered the means of production to be factory machines and whatnot, what products do stores actually produce? They simply market it out.


Well, how is the &#39;proletarian only&#39; rule enforced, and how strictly is it enforced?
Well, in order to join, one has to be a worker. However, students are allowed in if they come from proletariat backgrounds. Just like the IWW, the CL prohibits the bourgeois and anyone else who exploit the workers from joining. There is pretty strict enforcement of this particularly in areas that actually have branches eastablished.

[KC]

what products do stores actually produce?

What grocery stores do is sell groceries. Their product is groceries. Do they receive the food they sell from distributors? Yes. But they also prepare the products for sale, and in this way we can consider all of the tools used in making this happen as means of production, as producing groceries from food.

[anomaly]

I really don&#39;t think there is any &#39;line&#39; that can be drawn between the so-called &#39;proletariat&#39;, &#39;petty-bourgeois&#39;, and &#39;bourgeoisie&#39;.

As RS2K mentioned awhile back, these classifications by Marx were based on a general observation of the capitalist system. So specific classifications do get pretty tricky.

The note from IWPA is not &#39;precise&#39; in any sense. I think AS demonstrated this pretty well.

Although, if we are talking about a horizontal, rather than a vertical, organization, this problem of specific classification is no problem at all. Perhaps another reason to use horizontal organizations instead of the old &#39;top-down&#39; organizations.

I think CL is probably doing the best they can with this issue, although it would probably prove interesting to look at the circumstances of every member in that organization. I&#39;m sure some &#39;if-y&#39; cases will turn up. However, I just don&#39;t care enough to do that. :P

Does NEFAC have this type of rule, a &#39;proletarian-only&#39; rule?

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Janus
Just like the IWW....

The IWW&#39;s policy of workers&#39; only, is, in my opinion, dubious.

For instance, Noam Chomsky, who&#39;s a College Professor, is a member of the IWW....at least the last time I checked he was. So really, whilst the vast majority of the IWW are probably working class, I don&#39;t think you could call them a worker only organisation.

[Janus]

The IWW&#39;s policy of workers&#39; only, is, in my opinion, dubious.
I said that the IWW strictly prohibits any bourgeois from joining its organization like the CL. As far as I know, the IWW isn&#39;t just for workers, students can join as well. I&#39;m not sure what exception Chomsky falls under, but I know that he&#39;s not one of the bourgeois. I never said that the IWW was a worker&#39;s only organization.

[nickdlc]

This "problem" fits my situation so perfectly i just had to reply, even though the topic is a month old.

My dad has a business where he does many types of jobs (electical, heating, plumbing, renovation, fixing appliances, painting and others) and I work with him as an apprentice and the only employee and am expecting to take over the business once he is too old to do it.

I am a wage labourer but with a lot of perks. If I don&#39;t feel like going to work i don&#39;t have to (which happens alot since im in universtiy), I get free food, and i will one day be the boss&#33; It is a very wierd situation indeed since i do not like the thought of one day becomming boss and having to decide if i will just end the business and do something else or stick with it and turn it into some sort of co-operative.

I think my dad actually considers himself a worker with perks also because he is a sub-contracter to a bigger company which he has to pay priority to before he does his own work. Also the revenue our family makes isnt enough to buy a fancy house or give us the illusion of being up and comming capitalists.

Would my situation be considered petit burgeois?