3 classes

[abbielives!]

instead of the traditional bourgeoisie and proletariat(where does the middle class fit in there?)

how about
1. owner
2. manager
3. wage slave


ranked according to decision making power rather than income or whatever criteria was used before

[which doctor]

The middle class doesn't fit into Marxian class divisions. They are a recent creation and are determined by how much money they have. Therefore, a member of the middle class could be a member of the proletariat, or a member of the bourgeoisie.

[CornetJoyce]

Marx's doctrine of class is just an attempt to fit the traditional understanding of the political struggle between the Few and the Many into his "laws of development." In conventional views, there have been 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 classes or more but when we begin to think of Revolution we begin to reduce it to a binary opposition- some version of the Few and the Many. When we begin to deny the very existence of classes, we imagine a classless society.

[Rawthentic]

And FoB, how do these "middle class" people make their money then? What is their relationship to the means of production?

[Pawn Power]

Originally posted by abbielives!@June 30, 2007 04:24 pm
instead of the traditional bourgeoisie and proletariat(where does the middle class fit in there?)

how about
1. owner
2. manager
3. wage slave


ranked according to decision making power rather than income or whatever criteria was used before
Well it appears that you do not understand the Marxist criteria for classes. It is not catagorized by income by by their relationship to the means of production, which does indeed relate to decision making power.

[apathy maybe]

Before the random nut job "Marxists" jump in and explain how managers are actually part of the petit-bourgeois, I'd like to disagree.

You see, Marx isn't a two class analysis. Sure there are two main classes (the proletariat and the bourgeoisie), but other classes do exist (even with in capitalism).

The petit-bourgeois is an example of this, these are the "small capitalists", who while owning some means of production, still have to work as well (rather then lazing about like the big capitalists.

Now, you get a type of "Marxist" who will claim that managers are actually part of this class (the petit-bourgeois)! This is a redefining of what is meant by the term of course.

To my mind (and I'm not the only one), it is obvious that from a strict Marxian analysis, most Managers are part of the proletariat! The reasoning is simple, they have to work for a living and do not subsist of capital (nor do they work on their own capital like the petit-bourgeois).

To further put forward my argument, I ask, what is the foreman? Is ve part of the petit-bourgeois? And of course this question is hypothetical, of course not! Ve is part of the proletariat, though a privileged part. And of course, foremen are managers too...


Anyway, abandoning this discussion for now, I'll go onto answer the first question posed, what is the middle class? Well again, on a strict Marxian analysis (which is the only wide spread and relativity understood one just now...), most of them would be in fact proletariat. That is, they work for a living and don't own capital (the means of production). Some of them would be part of the petit-bourgeois no doubt as well.

On to the main part of the topic..., a member here (who's name escapes me for the moment, I do hope he pops in for a bit), has raised the idea of a "controller class", ve isn't as far as I know a Marxist, and was widely criticised by Marxists when he discussed his ideas here. But regardless, his idea was that managers do represent a separate and identifiable class. I can't be fucked doing a search just now, but I'm sure someone will bring up some threads where ve mentioned the idea.


Finally, on the idea of separating the classes by "power". Apparently this is a "post-modern" idea! (And I understand now, which I didn't at the time, why I have been called "pomo".) It isn't a new idea, but that doesn't mean it isn't a good idea. If only there was a clear way to distinguish what sort of power you meant, a good place to draw a line and so on. I bring back the foreman, who only is above a few workers. Is ve part of this "managerial class"?

Anyway, (and this is really the final bit), I think there is more to power then just economics. What was that quote by that Marxist-Leninists about power and the barrel of a gun? To be useful to describe society, class needs to (in my opinion) extend beyond economics into politics and military spheres (perhaps others?). Of course, I could be wrong (and I fully expect people to tell me that, as they have in the past...), and I'm not sure whether I can be fucked even defending my points after this post.

[bezdomni]

Originally posted by abbielives!@June 30, 2007 09:24 pm
instead of the traditional bourgeoisie and proletariat(where does the middle class fit in there?)

how about
1. owner
2. manager
3. wage slave


ranked according to decision making power rather than income or whatever criteria was used before
:lol:

"income or whatever criteria was used before".

[CornetJoyce]

Originally posted by apathy [email protected] 30, 2007 09:49 pm


On to the main part of the topic..., a member here (who's name escapes me for the moment, I do hope he pops in for a bit), has raised the idea of a "controller class", ve isn't as far as I know a Marxist, and was widely criticised by Marxists when he discussed his ideas here. But regardless, his idea was that managers do represent a separate and identifiable class. I can't be fucked doing a search just now, but I'm sure someone will bring up some threads where ve mentioned the idea.




Anyway, (and this is really the final bit), I think there is more to power then just economics. What was that quote by that Marxist-Leninists about power and the barrel of a gun? To be useful to describe society, class needs to (in my opinion) extend beyond economics into politics and military spheres (perhaps others?).
For the managerial revolution thesis, read Berle and Means, who spoke of "splitting the property atom." It's dated liberal stuff but instructive.


"Economic" power is inseparable from Property, which is political, and military power serves the political in a seamless whole that also includes culture. The division of power into "spheres" is always accompanied by ruling class assurances that "real" power is in the sphere where an ersatz "democracy" prevails, while actual power is elsewhere and sealed off by taboos.

[Labor Shall Rule]

All three.

[Raúl Duke]

A question: Marx mention that in capitalism there are 2 main classes in conflict with each other; but why did he also use other terms (that seem to denote sub sections of these classes) like petit bourgeoisie and lumpenproletariat?

Maybe we could add the "middle class" as a new subsection class inside one of these classes (or, since its mentioned, on both; since some have petit bourgeoisie characteristics while others have proletariat characteristics)?

I found apathy maybe's post quite interestieng...but have no opinion on it yet.

I have heard of "class by power".....but what is meant by "power"?

Marxist class analysis seems to be based on "economic power"...why not extend to all spheres of life? (however, I'm not saying we should "lower the priority" of the economical class analysis; but to also consider others. I think we already do that anyway, since we do consider the other inequalities such as racism, ageism, and sexism as part of the struggle.)

[Rawthentic]

Classes are determined by your relationship to the means of production, at least social classes. If we talk about high school, its different I suppose. I would agree with Johnny's second paragraph, although "we" can't "add" a class.

[Luís Henrique]

Classes should not be understood as rigid abstractions.

A manager who owes his job to an indication of a group of stockholders, who shares the views of high management, who attends the same meetings, parties, etc., as the employers, is a bourgeois, even if his income takes the form of wages.

A manager who came from rank and file through merit, who shares the views of other workers, who attends workers' meetings, parties, etc., is a worker.

And evidently there are countless managers who oscilate between those polarities. But in the end, either they eat from the table of capital, or from the table of labour.

Also, the enormous social class we call "petty bourgeoisie" isn't composed of "small capitalists"; rather they are non-capitalist proprietaries of means of production. And the distinction is not whether they employ wage-slaves or not, but whether they are able to turn their means of productions into capital, ie, into self-agrandising wealth.

The petty-bourgeoisie has been traditionally thought of as a fading class, who would lose their means of production to the bourgeois, given the technical and financial advantages of those. But a different trend may be seen from the first half of the XX century, in which the petty bourgeoisie becomes increasingly subordinated to capital, without formally losing property over means of production.

A good class analysis of a real capitalist society never reduces it to two classes, but takes into account the diversity of economic relations. Besides the bourgeosie, the proletariat, and the petty bourgeoisie, landed oligarchy and lumpenproletariat often play distinct political roles, irredutible to the other classes'. And real social classes are deeply internally divided, productive and improductive workers often playing different political cards, as the various sectors and layers of the bourgeoisie - commercial, industrial, agrarian, financial capital, monopolist and non monopolist capital, exporters, importers, producers of means of consumption or means of production, producers of luxuries and necessaries, and so on.

To pretend that marxist class analysis is the systematical reduction of social diversity to just two social classes only shows ignorance of marxist class analysis.

Luís Henrique

[Janus]

The model provided is simply too rigid and only encompasses a few jobs/sectors not to mention that some managers are also wage laborers.


ranked according to decision making power
Which of course is intimately connected with one's ownership (or lack thereof) of the means of production.


A manager who owes his job to an indication of a group of stockholders, who shares the views of high management, who attends the same meetings, parties, etc., as the employers, is a bourgeois, even if his income takes the form of wages.

A manager who came from rank and file through merit, who shares the views of other workers, who attends workers' meetings, parties, etc., is a worker.

And evidently there are countless managers who oscilate between those polarities. But in the end, either they eat from the table of capital, or from the table of labour.

I could've sworn that we just had a thread on managers though I was unable to find it. :wacko:

Back on topic: Management encompasses a broad categorization of various positions and thus in some instances it is primarily a title/label. As such those who have any form of responsibility for/over others is termed a manager including team leaders, foremen,etc. Thus, a distinction needs to be drawn between those who contribute actual work or positive labor and those who do not. The former can be classified as workers while the latter, who are generally composed of the senior or higher level management, can not be.

[abbielives!]

Originally posted by Pawn Power+June 30, 2007 09:48 pm--> (Pawn Power @ June 30, 2007 09:48 pm)
abbielives!@June 30, 2007 04:24 pm
instead of the traditional bourgeoisie and proletariat(where does the middle class fit in there?)

how about
1. owner
2. manager
3. wage slave


ranked according to decision making power rather than income or whatever criteria was used before
Well it appears that you do not understand the Marxist criteria for classes. [/b]

thus the 'whatever'

[abbielives!]

Originally posted by apathy [email protected] 30, 2007 09:49 pm
To my mind (and I'm not the only one), it is obvious that from a strict Marxian analysis, most Managers are part of the proletariat!

thats why i thought it might be determined by income or something

by i think that desions making power is at least as important as income

[abbielives!]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 02:37 am
The model provided is simply too rigid and only encompasses a few jobs/sectors not to mention that some managers are also wage laborers.


ranked according to decision making power
Which of course is intimately connected with one's ownership (or lack thereof) of the means of production.



i realize that the manager class (or coordinator class) could either be a wage slave or owner.

i would however argue that they are distinct in that they have more power than the wage slave but less than the owner.

[CornetJoyce]

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 01, 2007 02:16 am
Classes should not be understood as rigid abstractions.





A good class analysis of a real capitalist society never reduces it to two classes, but takes into account the diversity of economic relations. Besides the bourgeosie, the proletariat, and the petty bourgeoisie, landed oligarchy and lumpenproletariat often play distinct political roles, irredutible to the other classes'. And real social classes are deeply internally divided, productive and improductive workers often playing different political cards, as the various sectors and layers of the bourgeoisie - commercial, industrial, agrarian, financial capital, monopolist and non monopolist capital, exporters, importers, producers of means of consumption or means of production, producers of luxuries and necessaries, and so on.


And one must add that classes develop over time and have a collective history. This was certainly true of the bourgeoisie with its distinctly urban roots. The French business class was truly a middle class and in conflict with the aristocracy above it, over against which its consciousness and esprit were formed.

The English business class was not the same: they tended to be younger sons of landed
families. The two classes met at family affairs, and if the younger branches of the family were envious, they were not likely to rise to violence over it.

The American capitalist class, on the other hand, at least in New England, had no class above it and was always the upper class. This formed a very different worldview.

[Tommy-K]

Originally posted by abbielives!@June 30, 2007 09:24 pm
instead of the traditional bourgeoisie and proletariat(where does the middle class fit in there?)

how about
1. owner
2. manager
3. wage slave


ranked according to decision making power rather than income or whatever criteria was used before
I don't know about 'manager'.

In Britain especially there has been a 'managerial revolution' in the last few years. People are being given titles such as 'solutions manager' and 'IT manager' and they aspire to these.

However, I side with the traditional Marxist view that this is merely a con. These 'managers' have no more power than the workers they are 'managing'. Ultimately, they will always do what the owners want anyway, and if they don't, they will lose their 'managerial' position.

Look at British schools for example. Traditionally it was:

1. Headteacher
2. Teachers
3. Students

But now we have this:

1. Headteacher
2. Seniour management (deputy head, etc.)
3. Heads of year/Heads of faculty
4. Other teachers (i.e., those with no 'head of...' role)
5. Students

Now think about it. Are numbers 2 and 3 going to make their own decisions? Of course not! They will do what the headteacher wants/tells them to do!

This suggests that most of the 'middle class' are in fact members of the proletariat, just like you and me, who have been conned into believing they have some higher status than most others because the bourgeoisie owners have made them a 'manager'.

EDIT: For further information on this idea, look up and read work by John Scott. He is a Marxist professor of Sociology at Essex University.

[Raúl Duke]

However, I side with the traditional Marxist view that this is merely a con. These 'managers' have no more power than the workers they are 'managing'. Ultimately, they will always do what the owners want anyway, and if they don't, they will lose their 'managerial' position.


This suggests that most of the 'middle class' are in fact members of the proletariat, just like you and me, who have been conned into believing they have some higher status than most others because the bourgeoisie owners have made them a 'manager'

I agree, but...

Could the mere perception of higher status (specifically that of manager) create a different class conscious from the rest of the workers?


A manager who owes his job to an indication of a group of stockholders, who shares the views of high management, who attends the same meetings, parties, etc., as the employers, is a bourgeois, even if his income takes the form of wages.
A manager who came from rank and file through merit, who shares the views of other workers, who attends workers' meetings, parties, etc., is a worker.
And evidently there are countless managers who oscilate between those polarities. But in the end, either they eat from the table of capital, or from the table of labour.

I agree with this as well, but could a "managerial class" form its own distinctive class consciousness and interests?


And one must add that classes develop over time and have a collective history.

Lets say that managers could and did indeed developed into a class itself.

Would they be the enemies or allies of the proletariat (I bet on the 1st option; but I would like to hear other's analysis)?

[abbielives!]

the managers are of course subordinate to the owners, i still argue that they are seperate from the wage slaves because they have more power.

kind of like how in the south during slavery the would be the the guy who owned the slaves and from the slaves he would take a few and give them special privaleges in exchange for acting as an overseer, these are kind of compareable to the manager class

[Dr Mindbender]

We only need 2 classes, beourgiouse and proletariat, meaning the winners and losers of the status quo. It is ultimately unhelpful to have a division between 'middle' and 'working' class because ultimately, regardless of how badly the petit beourgiouse treat us now there needs to be an ultimate common objective, the overthrow of the beourgiouse class. For that reason it could be argued that the '3' class theory is just another instrument of divide and conquer.

[Rawthentic]

No, the petty-bourgeoisie are the lackeys and allies of the capitalist class.

[Janus]

i realize that the manager class (or coordinator class) could either be a wage slave or owner.
That just makes your model even more problematic in that it is both too narrow and confusing.


i would however argue that they are distinct in that they have more power than the wage slave but less than the owner.
They are higher up in the workplace echelons but that "power" does not translate into economic power and thus managers are a group rather than an actual economic class onto themselves.

[MarcX]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30, 2007 09:28 pm
The middle class doesn't fit into Marxian class divisions. They are a recent creation and are determined by how much money they have. Therefore, a member of the middle class could be a member of the proletariat, or a member of the bourgeoisie.
What if the middle class represents the majority of the population does that still put them as bourgeoisie

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Now, you get a type of "Marxist" who will claim that managers are actually part of this class (the petit-bourgeois)! This is a redefining of what is meant by the term of course.

... of course not.

"In countries where modern civilisation has become fully developed, a new class of petty bourgeois has been formed, fluctuating between proletariat and bourgeoisie, and ever renewing itself as a supplementary part of bourgeois society. The individual members of this class, however, are being constantly hurled down into the proletariat by the action of competition, and, as modern industry develops, they even see the moment approaching when they will completely disappear as an independent section of modern society, to be replaced in manufactures, agriculture and commerce, by overlookers, bailiffs and shopmen." - The Communist Manifesto

[syndicat]

Class is about power, not only in social production, but in society as a whole since power in social production also shapes the rest of society. For Marx capital and labor were opposite sides of the capita/labor relationship. The dynamic conflict here is supposed to be what drives society in the bourgeois epoch.

The way capital works, the capital owner has power to hire workers, buy means of production, set up a structure to control workers in production, to ensure that their labor power is used to make commodities whose revenue from sale will be greater than what he put out in wages and means of production.

Initially the capitalists, who were often merchants, were dependent on the artisans they hired havng the technology in their heads. The technology was the know-how of the artisans passed down through craft tradition and the apprentice systems.

By the end of the 19th century, with the emergence of the big corporation, capitalists had the resources to break down the old artisanal system, redesigning jobs and methods of production. This was the era when "Taylorism" was widely applied for the first time, dividing off the conceptual and decision-making tasks, and taking those off the shop floor and putting them in the hands of a new hierarchy of professionals and managers. Engineers, increasingly based on scientific educations, grew in number, as did the managerial hierarchy, and the various other professions.

The third main class of capitalism, which grew to prominence in the early 20th century, is the coordinator class, defined not by ownership, but by a relative monpoly over tasks in social production that give power and control over production, such as the tasks managers do tracking people, hiring and firing, and the work of engineers in designing systems and jobs, lawyers in defending the legal interests of the firm as in breaking strikes, etc.

The capitalists had to cede a certain amount of power to this class because of the growing size of the state and because the corporations were too big for the owners to manage directly.

The "petit bourgeoisie" are also capital owners but they typically have to directly manage workers. The big capitalists have enough wealth that they don't have to do that, they have layers of managers between them and the workers.

Because ownership of capital and monopoly of power through things like position and expertise are a different basis of class power, the coordinator class are distinct from the capitalists. In extreme situations the coordinators can become the ruling class, as happened in the old Soviet Union and the other "Communist" countries.

in the USA at present the petit bourgoisie is down to only about 6% of the population, according to radical economist Howard Sherman.

Managers are 12% of the population and the high-end professionals in the coordinator class add some additional numbers to that class. the three dominating classes -- small business, big capitalists, coordinators -- are i think about a fourth of the population.

but not all "professional employees" are in the coordinator class since many are in sort of a worker-like subordination to management, and sometimes they unionize and strike (RNs, teachers, writers, application programmers, social workers, etc), even tho they may have more autonomy in their job than proletarians. I'd say they're in a fuzzy "contradictory" area between the coordinator class and the proletarian class. due to their subordinate position they are potential allies of the proletarian class.

[Luís Henrique]

Generally speaking, if anyone wants really bad to prove an author was wrong, it is highly commendable to actually read such author; if possible, even understand such writings.

That is especially relevant in the case the author is not a complete idiot (and, if anyone is in doubt about it, let me say - Marx was not a complete idiot).

Luís Henrique

[Tommy-K]

Originally posted by abbielives!@July 01, 2007 05:00 pm
the managers are of course subordinate to the owners, i still argue that they are seperate from the wage slaves because they have more power.
I disagree. They are percieved to have more power and actually believe themselves that they have more power. But seeing as they are being controlled by the bourgeoisie owners and their actions reflect the wishes of these bourgeoisie owners, they do not have more power at all. They believe they have more power, as do the workers that they are 'managing', but in reality they have no more power than these workers.

[p.m.a.]

Wow. None of the people envoking Marx even understood Marx's analysis of why the dialectic of proletariat and bourgeoisie exists. Class isn't about power -- it's the relation to the means of production. Production in capitalism is based on labor-power. Thus, the means of production is split into two groups: those who own nothing but their ability to sell their labor to others; and those who buy labor-power from others to create surplus-value. In other words, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, respectively. The middle-class doesn't exist - it is a bourgeois lie to comfort some workers into believing they are better because they get paid more for their labor. Because regardless of how much someone gets paid, they are either paid for their labor-power, or making money off of other's. In capitalism, you are either a worker, or you are an owner.

Managers aren't a class in the economic sense of the word. Instead, they are capital employing a power structure to reinforce its own dynamic. Managers rarely have ownership of the actual business, and instead are mere salaried workers given what we all as workers are denied in capitalism: power to organize the workplace. They are an illusory barrier between the workers and the owners, meant to both efficiently organize the workplace without the boss's efforts, and to distract the workers from the fact that the owner is their real enemy.

Capitalism is constantly in contradiction because of the dynamic between labor and capital, because capital's exploitation of labor is what creates the surplus-value that makes the system profitable. So there are other classes that exist, because they do not quite fit the labor-capital dialectic. One such class is the petty-bourgeoisie: the small-business owners whose own labor-power is entirely spent on the running of the business, and whose overall importance to the larger-scale system is basically irrelevant; some Marxist analysts such as Erik Olen Wright create models in which petty-bourgeois businesses are categorized such if they have less than ten waged employees. Another extraneous class is the lumpenproletariat, comprised of both the industrial-reserve-army (the group of workers kept unemployed by capital), and of those who exist by not creating value for the system, but rather only taking from it. This can range from green-anarchist dumpster divers to thieves and criminals and the like. Both of these classes, however, are significantly smaller than the proletariat, and are of relative interest to the bourgeoisie, as neither are particularly good at producing surplus-value. That's why they're extraneous to the labor-capital dialectic.

Seriously, some of the "Marxists" here should really try understanding the Marxist methodology, instead of just quoting passages of the Communist Manifesto zealously.

[syndicat]

Wow. None of the people envoking Marx even understood Marx's analysis of why the dialectic of proletariat and bourgeoisie exists. Class isn't about power -- it's the relation to the means of production. Production in capitalism is based on labor-power. Thus, the means of production is split into two groups: those who own nothing but their ability to sell their labor to others; and those who buy labor-power from others to create surplus-value.

Okay, so the capitalists "buy labor power", you say. Actually they sort of rent it, except in cases of slavery. And you don't think this is a power relationship? Why then do workers allow the capitalists to use their working abilities ("labor power")? They have power over us, right? Because we have no means of production, we are forced to work for the capitalists and under their system of control of production. being forced by somebody to do something is surely a power relationship between people.

so this is a conflict-ridden power relationship between captialists and proletarians.

Capitalists do buy means of production. That is a "relationship to the means of production" but it isn't only to the means of production since it also deprives the workers of control over the means of production. So even the capitalists' ownership of means of production is also a power relationship over the workers.

[CornetJoyce]

Originally posted by [email protected] 07, 2007 05:16 pm


Okay, so the capitalists "buy labor power", you say. Actually they sort of rent it, except in cases of slavery. And you don't think this is a power relationship? Why then do workers allow the capitalists to use their working abilities ("labor power")? They have power over us, right? Because we have no means of production, we are forced to work for the capitalists and under their system of control of production. being forced by somebody to do something is surely a power relationship between people.

so this is a conflict-ridden power relationship between captialists and proletarians.

Capitalists do buy means of production. That is a "relationship to the means of production" but it isn't only to the means of production since it also deprives the workers of control over the means of production. So even the capitalists' ownership of means of production is also a power relationship over the workers.

The means of production are not owned through magic but by entitlement, by the right of property; and property is secured through power; and power is a seamless whole and is not comprehended in the Victorian engineering metaphor of "base and superstructure" but rather in the relationship of master and servant, supervisor and supervised.

[Janus]

What if the middle class represents the majority of the population does that still put them as bourgeoisie
What constitutes the middle class is open to debate and extremely ambiguous as it is based around income and of course on how one identifies him/herself. In the US, the middle class is generally estimated to be around 45% and consists of "blue collar" and "white collar" positions. Obviously based on the name, the middle class is not part of the bourgeoisie which would be classified as the upper class in this income based class system.

[syndicat]

there is no consistency in how the term "middle class" is used in the USA. this is why Chomsky says it is "meanngless."

in his book "The Working Class Majority" Michael Zweig defines the "middle class" as those who are not part of the plutocracy -- the tiny wealthy capitalist elite -- or the proletarian class. the proletarian class are those who are closely controlled in work and do not control others, in addition to having to work for others due to not owning their own business. he estimates the working class at 62% of the population. The "middle class" consists of the small business class, professionals (both self-employed and employees), and managers and supervisors. On this definition, the middle class is 36% of the population in the USA. Zweig estimates the size of the plutocracy at 2%.

sometimes people in the USA use a phrase "working middle class" which i think refers to the better paid fraction of the working class, that is, those people whose incomes enable them to "live a middle class lifestyle." but this is a use of "class" that follows bourgeois sociology in defining it in terms of income.

[Glory to Bethune]

"Middle class" may have no clear definition, but "proletariat" does. The proletariat is the class of people that have to sell their labor-power because they have no other source of income. The proletariat is exploited because it is almost always paid less than the value of its labor.

In the united $tates, thanks to imperialism, EVERY citizen has access to value that comes from other sources, principally the superexploitation of the Third World. Therefore, the united $tates has NO proletariat at all. Although there may be some scattered U$ citizens who are exploited (mainly in prisons), they do not have the cohesion required to form a class.

Within U$ "borders," there is a sizable Mexican proletariat employed largely in agriculture. But the white oppressor nation has no proletariat. White "workers" in the U$ are petty-bourgeois if not outright bourgeois. Even the Black nation in the U$ is bourgeoisified and non-proletarian.

"Middle class" is an unscientific category. Every country has a "middle class"; even socialist China had a middle class. But where Amerikkkans stand relative to other Amerikkkans does not determine their class. They're all bourgeois. Even the Amerikkkan lumpenproletariat is bourgeoisified.

[syndicat]

"Middle class" may have no clear definition, but "proletariat" does. The proletariat is the class of people that have to sell their labor-power because they have no other source of income. The proletariat is exploited because it is almost always paid less than the value of its labor.

That is not sufficient to define the proletarian class. Managers, engineers, and other employees of corporations also sell their working abilities to employers. The proletarian class is made up of those who must rent their abilities to employers AND who do not participate in the management of the labor of others.

One of the reasons "middle class" is an inadequate term is that there are separate classes or layers within it. Class is about power, and there are different structures that give power in social production, not just ownership. The managers and top professionals -- the coordinator class -- have power over the proletarian class, not from ownership but from monopolizing the conceptual, design, decision-making tasks in social production.



In the united $tates, thanks to imperialism, EVERY citizen has access to value that comes from other sources, principally the superexploitation of the Third World. Therefore, the united $tates has NO proletariat at all. Although there may be some scattered U$ citizens who are exploited (mainly in prisons), they do not have the cohesion required to form a class.

Within U$ "borders," there is a sizable Mexican proletariat employed largely in agriculture. But the white oppressor nation has no proletariat. White "workers" in the U$ are petty-bourgeois if not outright bourgeois. Even the Black nation in the U$ is bourgeoisified and non-proletarian.

Sounds like the sort of nonsense that MIM spews. Your statements here are inconsistent with your earlier definition of proletariat. i would suggest taking a look at "The Working Class Majority: America's Best Kept Secret" by Michael Zweig. he shows that the proletarian class is 62% of the population in the USA.

now, as to your claim about super-exploitation of the third world, this exploitation takes place by corporations investing there to take advantage of cheap labor in repressive conditions, and through the "unequal exchange" of big companies that buy commodities from producers in the third world at unfavorable prices, and the debt trap being used by the high finance to suck up the earnings of the third world in debt payments, and the military/industrial complex of arms manutacturers and military bureaucrats and officers and other members of the coordinator class employed in the hierarchies of the banks and corporations ripping off the third world.

but the working class in the USA has no automatic access to that profit. the working class doesn't have foreign investments or own companies or banks.

and the American capitalists don't automatically share their spoils with the working class. on the contrary, they are using access to low wage third world areas as a battering ram to knock down the wages in the USA. the real wage rate in the USA has fallen by over 14% since 1973 due to the massive corporate offensive against the working class in the USA since the '70s. workers in the USA work the longest workweek of the developed world, and have the least access to health care of any developed country, the least time off from work.

you appear to be unaware of this. maybe you have an elite background and you're confused by your own guilt.

profits are used to improve productivity when they are invested in industry. but most profits of American companies and banks are not derived from foreign investment in the third world. First of all, about 30% of revenue of American firms is from foreign investments. But the vast majority of foreign investments by American companies are in other developed capitalist countries, only a small proportion are in the third world.

most profits are thus derived from the labor of workers in the USA and other developed capitalist countries.

and even if these investments go to improve productivity, that doesn't mean workers benefit from it. often the firms invest in more oppressive work organization. the fact is, workers can only gain a part of the increased productivity from investment in the economy in the USA through struggle, through exerting bargaining power against the bosses. and since the '70s workers in the USA have not been able to do this effectively. our bargaining power has declined, as shown by the disappearance of the unions.

that's why wages decline in the USA even tho productivity increases. so what this shows is that there is no automatic benefit to American workers from profits from the third world.

the majority of the historical increase in standard of living of the working classes in the developed capitalist countries came from re-investment in industry of profits derived from our labor.

this business about how the entire population of the USA is "bourgeois" is merely a pose, but a pose that has no positive lessons. it doesn't contribute to building the struggle against oppression here if it doesn't recognize the oppression of the masses here.

an alternative is to recognize the class commonality between workers in the third world and in the developed capitalist countries, and to build links and solidarity here with worker unions and other popular mass organizations in third world countries.

[Glory to Bethune]

As I said, proletarians get their income entirely (or almost entirely) from the sale of their labor-power. Managers, engineers, and other professionals whose "wages" are above proletarian levels get income from something other than the sale of their labor-power (such as the sale of their special skills), which means that they are petty-bourgeois or even outright bourgeois. I agree with you that we shouldn't count people as proletarian just because they have a job. Lots of phony "Marxists" get that wrong and accord "proletarian" status to football players and CEOs making $5 million a year--just because these people are employees.

There's not much of a "working class" in the united $tates by any measure. As IRTR has proven, not even 20% of Amerikkkan "workers" are in the productive sector. Most of them are involved in sales or other parasitic jobs; security guards alone account for more than 1% of the entire "work"force. Factories are quite uncommon in the U$ today. In IRTR's terms, the U$ has a "mall economy"--the employees just shuffle goods around, as in a shopping mall, but those goods are PRODUCED elsewhere.

MIM and IRTR are 100% correct in their analysis of the class structure of the U$. Again, IRTR has demonstrated that the international value of labor-power is around $3/hr. But the minimum "wage" in the U$ is $5.15/hr. So EVERY Amerikkkan employee is paid ABOVE the value of his labor-power and almost certainly also above the value of his labor. Amerikkkan "workers" are therefore petty-bourgeois or even bourgeois, since they have another source of income (namely, a share of imperialist superprofits) than the sale of their labor-power.

Amerikkkans are what Lenin called a labor aristocracy. They've been bought off with a chunk of the superprofits that imperialism sucks out of the Third World through various means (not just investment but also such means as control over exchange rates, unequal trade facilitated by U$-friendly comprador regimes, shackles imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and of course military occupation). And THAT'S why unions have been disappearing in the U$: quite simply put, they're no longer needed, since the "workers" have entered into an informal pact with the imperialist bourgeoisie.

You say that my analysis of the U$ as a labor aristocracy offers "no positive lessons," then in the very next paragraph you prove my point with your opportunistic reference to "the class commonality between workers in the third world and in the developed capitalist countries." Do you REALLY believe that there's any "class commonality" between superexploited Third World proletarians and latte-drinking, SUV-driving First World labor aristocrats? Maybe you are indeed blind--or white-chauvinist--enough to believe that, but Amerikkkans' own behavior gives the lie to your opportunist belief. Close to 80% of Amerikkkans supported the U$ invasion of Iraq, and almost all of the opposition was based on utterly selfish reasons (not wanting to be sent to the front lines, not wanting to see one's taxes go up, believing that the U$ could control Iraq through less drastic means) rather than INTERNATIONALIST solidarity with the Iraqi people. Amerikkkans only started to oppose the war after a few thousand GIs had gone home in coffins and the eagerly anticipated drop in gas prices failed to materialize. Time and time again, Amerikkkans come out in support of imperialist attacks on Third World countries.

Beyond that, there's the simple fact that even "poor" Amerikkkans get so much in stolen superprofits that they could afford to hire Third World proletarians outright, and for that matter even some Third World petty-bourgeois professionals (an Indian computer programmer can be hired for just a few thousand dollars a year). How much "class commonality" is there between Third World workers and the First World labor aristocrats who could well be their bosses? None.

And this is a vital lesson to learn, because failure to recognize that Amerikkkans are the CLASS ENEMY of the international proletariat is at the heart of much of the rot that has infested the international communist movement. Encouraging the Third World proletariat to unite with the First World labor aristocracy is wrong and will only result in setbacks for Third World revolutions.

[syndicat]

There's not much of a "working class" in the united $tates by any measure. As IRTR has proven, not even 20% of Amerikkkan "workers" are in the productive sector. Most of them are involved in sales or other parasitic jobs; security guards alone account for more than 1% of the entire "work"force. Factories are quite uncommon in the U$ today. In IRTR's terms, the U$ has a "mall economy"--the employees just shuffle goods around, as in a shopping mall, but those goods are PRODUCED elsewhere.

What does "productive" mean and why is that relevant? Being proletarian only means that you are forced to work for wages due to not having your own means of production, and doing so under the thumb of the management hierarchy, not being youself a part of that hierarchy.

Consider health care. This produces social value in the sense that people benefit from it. Because providers charge fees for services, it is also possible to measure productivity, in terms of revenue per hour of work.

The capitalists can only realize a profit from manufacturing once the goods get to their consumers. Thus transport and distribution in stores is part of the process by which capitalists generate their profit. There is thus no reason to not treat workers in transportation and retail as also part of the proletarian class.

Also, construction is the making of things that are sold -- such as buildings. Here again, productivity can be measured by looking at the market value produced per worker hour. Capitalists have a motivation to change techniques here, as in retailing also, to increase productivity, just as they do in manufacturing. For example, the scheme of the single check out point, used in supermarkets and drug stores, was developed in the '30s/'40s period to increase the productivity of retail workers, and thus increase profits.

Moreover, there is still quite a bit of manufacturing in the USA, tho it has declined due to the capitalists moving a lot of production across the border to the maquila zone in Mexico or to south China. there are a million workers in the auto manufacturing and auto parts industry in the USA alone.

But manufacturing workers tend to be paid more than workers in retailing or services, so if it's a question of the oppression of the American working class, the decline of manufacturing and the spread of lower-wage service and retail jobs, increases the oppression of the working class in the USA.


MIM and IRTR are 100% correct in their analysis of the class structure of the U$. Again, IRTR has demonstrated that the international value of labor-power is around $3/hr.


Meaning what? Do you mean the average market revenue produced per worker hour throughout the world? What is the evidence for this?



But the minimum "wage" in the U$ is $5.15/hr. So EVERY Amerikkkan employee is paid ABOVE the value of his labor-power and almost certainly also above the value of his labor. Amerikkkan "workers" are therefore petty-bourgeois or even bourgeois, since they have another source of income (namely, a share of imperialist superprofits) than the sale of their labor-power.

This is a bad argument. If this were true, it would imply that American workers did not generate market revenue sufficient to cover their wages and benefits. Why would the capitalists employ them then?



Amerikkkans are what Lenin called a labor aristocracy. They've been bought off with a chunk of the superprofits that imperialism sucks out of the Third World through various means (not just investment but also such means as control over exchange rates, unequal trade facilitated by U$-friendly comprador regimes, shackles imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and of course military occupation). And THAT'S why unions have been disappearing in the U$: quite simply put, they're no longer needed, since the "workers" have entered into an informal pact with the imperialist bourgeoisie.


I've already refuted the claim you make here. Only 30% of the profit of American firms comes from outside the USA. The great majority of all investment by American firms outside the USA is in other developed capitalist countries -- Europe, Japan, Australia. This means that only a relatively small part of the profit of American captialists overall comes from exploitation of the third world. A large part of the capitalist class in the USA owns smaller firms that are not able to make use of the openings to exploit the third world that the 13,000 multinationals can do.

Plus, you've not explained WHY the capitalists would share their profits with the working class. are you supposing they're just naturally generous or what?

How do you explain the intransigence of American employers against unions? A majority of American workers in polls say they want a union, but they are unable to form one due to all sorts of illegal and repressive actions by employers.

Moreover, how do you explain the continuing decline of the real wage rate for over 30 years? the lengthening of the workweek? the disappearance of health coverage? the disappearance of welfare rights? the huge shift of the tax burden onto the working class and away from the capitalists over the past 30 years?

These things are an obvious increase in the rate of exploitation of the American working class. this is precisely why the capitalists were able turn around the profit situation. in the '60s/'70s period capital faced declining profits in the USA but they've reversed that by screwing up the rate of exploitation and oppressing the American working class to a higher degree.


You say that my analysis of the U$ as a labor aristocracy offers "no positive lessons," then in the very next paragraph you prove my point with your opportunistic reference to "the class commonality between workers in the third world and in the developed capitalist countries." Do you REALLY believe that there's any "class commonality" between superexploited Third World proletarians and latte-drinking, SUV-driving First World labor aristocrats? Maybe you are indeed blind--or white-chauvinist--enough to believe that, but Amerikkkans' own behavior gives the lie to your opportunist belief.

They clearly do have a commonality of interest. First, the decline in living standards for the American working class (and you must live in some white middle class suburb from your description) has been driven in part by globalization. This is especially clear in the manufacturing sector. Wages have dropped because workers are threatened with their plant moving overseas if they don't go along with cuts, which can often be quite draconian...like the huge wage cuts at Delphi.

Secondly, they have a common interest in their class liberation, in gaining control over the economy and eliminating the domination and exploitation of the capitalist and coordinator classes. and not only their class liberation since the liberation from all the allied structures of oppression like racism, sexual oppression, and imperialism can't happen without eliminaton of the class system. the problem may be that you conceive of socialism as some sort of statist welfare regime that "does good for the people" (an elitist conception) and not the actual power of the working class to control their own lives and make the decisions themselves. this is why you talk only about things like income and not alienation, oppression, and lack of control over one's life.



Close to 80% of Amerikkkans supported the U$ invasion of Iraq, and almost all of the opposition was based on utterly selfish reasons (not wanting to be sent to the front lines, not wanting to see one's taxes go up, believing that the U$ could control Iraq through less drastic means) rather than INTERNATIONALIST solidarity with the Iraqi people. Amerikkkans only started to oppose the war after a few thousand GIs had gone home in coffins and the eagerly anticipated drop in gas prices failed to materialize. Time and time again, Amerikkkans come out in support of imperialist attacks on Third World countries.

There is very little real information about the realities of imperialism in the USA. and the fact is, there were huge demonstrations against the war before the invasion. and fear of going to the front lines obviously motivated very few people given that the USA has no draft. there is also not a very high level of revolutionary consciousness at the present time in the USA. this is because class struggle only takes place in an episodic way, and it is class struggle that generates revolutionary consciousness.

none of this supports your claim that there isn't a proletarian class in the USA.



Beyond that, there's the simple fact that even "poor" Amerikkkans get so much in stolen superprofits that they could afford to hire Third World proletarians outright, and for that matter even some Third World petty-bourgeois professionals (an Indian computer programmer can be hired for just a few thousand dollars a year). How much "class commonality" is there between Third World workers and the First World labor aristocrats who could well be their bosses? None.

And this is a vital lesson to learn, because failure to recognize that Amerikkkans are the CLASS ENEMY of the international proletariat is at the heart of much of the rot that has infested the international communist movement. Encouraging the Third World proletariat to unite with the First World labor aristocracy is wrong and will only result in setbacks for Third World revolutions.

you've not made your case. first, only a small fraction of the profit of the American capitalists is derived from the third world. second, there is no reason for the American capitalists to give any of that to workers here in the USA. third, it's been obvious for three decades the capitalists are on the warpath upping the expoitation of workers here in the USA.

the conclusions that flow from your kind of bogus analysis can only lead to nihilism and authoritarian disregard for the welfare and freedom of the working class majority in the developed countries.

take a look at Charlie Post, "The Myth of the Labor Aristocracy":

http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/128

[Glory to Bethune]

What does "productive" mean and why is that relevant?

I don't have time to give you a private course in Marxism 101. You sorely need to read some Marxist literature, including "Capital."

Productive means productive of value. Manufacturing, agriculture, and extraction (mining, forestry, etc.) account for the bulk of the productive sector. It's relevant because the unproductive sector depends on the productive sector for its very existence. The U$ economy, being overwhelmingly (well over 80%) in the unproductive sector, could not possibly survive without a massive influx of value stolen from the Third World (which is overwhelmingly in the productive sector). That means that the U$ is a PARASITE.


Being proletarian only means that you are forced to work for wages due to not having your own means of production, and doing so under the thumb of the management hierarchy, not being youself a part of that hierarchy.

Even many bourgeois are "under the thumb of the management hierarchy." So what? That has nothing to do with exploitation. Are you going to tell me that a CEO getting paid $5 million a year is "proletarian," because he has a job and is "under the thumb" of the board of directors and the shareholders, while a starving Indian rag-picker is "petty-bourgeois" just because she is self-employed?

Marx defined "proletarian" just as I did. If you don't know the meanings of basic terms, you need to do less talking and more studying.


Consider health care. This produces social value in the sense that people benefit from it. Because providers charge fees for services, it is also possible to measure productivity, in terms of revenue per hour of work.

You are using "value" in a lay sense. It has a specific meaning in Marxism, which I invite you to look up. (I'm not going to do everything for you.)

Health care is in the unproductive sector. It is of "value" to society in some sense, but it creates no economic value.


The capitalists can only realize a profit from manufacturing once the goods get to their consumers.

Actually, most capitalists don't sell directly to the public.


Thus transport and distribution in stores is part of the process by which capitalists generate their profit. There is thus no reason to not treat workers in transportation and retail as also part of the proletarian class.

Then there's no reason not to treat CEOs as "proletarian," since they too are involved in realizing profit. So are all those foremen and managers that you despise.

REALIZING profit and CREATING value are not the same thing. Retail workers don't create a bit of value. They are a drain on value; their wages are charged against profits. As for transport workers, some of them may create some value. That depends on their role in the production process.

[Glory to Bethune]

(continued)


Also, construction is the making of things that are sold -- such as buildings.

Construction is in the productive sector.


Here again, productivity can be measured by looking at the market value produced per worker hour.

Marxists don't measure much of anything in terms of market value. We measure productivity in terms of value per hour of labor--and value here is only indirectly related to market value.


Moreover, there is still quite a bit of manufacturing in the USA, tho it has declined due to the capitalists moving a lot of production across the border to the maquila zone in Mexico or to south China. there are a million workers in the auto manufacturing and auto parts industry in the USA alone.

There is very little manufacturing in the U$A. According to the U$ Department of "Labor," "Food Preparation and Serving" (i.e., cooks, waiters, busboys) accounts for more employees than "Production" (manufacturing) in the united $tates: 11,029,280 compared to 10,268,510 in May 2006 (source: http://www.bls.gov/oes/home.htm#overview).


But manufacturing workers tend to be paid more than workers in retailing or services, so if it's a question of the oppression of the American working class, the decline of manufacturing and the spread of lower-wage service and retail jobs, increases the oppression of the working class in the USA.

No, it's a sign of parasitism. Amerikkkans in "low"-wage unproductive-sector jobs are still paid far more than the Mexicans who do production in maquilas. The real oppression lies in reserving high-wage jobs for the Amerikkkan "working" class and not allowing Third World workers to get them. Notice how the fascist Amerikkkan "working" class, despite its alleged "class commonality" with the Third World proletariat, defends "our jobs" and wants to militarize the U$'s artificial and incorrect "borders" so that Mexicans and other exploited workers from the Third World won't be able to work in the united $tates.



MIM and IRTR are 100% correct in their analysis of the class structure of the U$. Again, IRTR has demonstrated that the international value of labor-power is around $3/hr.


Meaning what? Do you mean the average market revenue produced per worker hour throughout the world? What is the evidence for this?

Go and look it up at IRTR's Web site. I don't have time to teach basic Marxism on a one-on-one basis.


If this were true, it would imply that American workers did not generate market revenue sufficient to cover their wages and benefits.

That's right. They are parasites. They suck the blood of the Third World.


Why would the capitalists employ them then?

Question answered here: http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/contemp/...yths/index.html (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/contemp/whitemyths/index.html)

[Glory to Bethune]

(continued)



Only 30% of the profit of American firms comes from outside the USA. The great majority of all investment by American firms outside the USA is in other developed capitalist countries -- Europe, Japan, Australia. This means that only a relatively small part of the profit of American captialists overall comes from exploitation of the third world.

Wrong. I've already told you that the First World robs the Third World through means other than investment. Control of currency results in a transfer of some $2 TRILLION a year from the Third World to the First.

The kind of "investment" that you're talking about is mostly financial--when the U$ buys European real estate or Japan buys U$ T-bills. It looks big on paper because of the sums involved, but in reality the imperialist countries don't invest much in production in other imperialist countries. Again, you are guilty of what Marx called commodity fetishism--looking at dollars rather than at production.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Glory to [email protected] 09, 2007 08:16 am
You sorely need to read some Marxist literature, including "Capital."
Perhaps you should read it too? Because it seems to me that you don't have a clear comprehension of the concept of surplus value.

If American workers aren't exploited for surplus value, why on earth do the American bourgeois employ them?

Also, I have read The Capital, and I am quite sure that what Marx has to say about qualified work is pretty different from your idea that


Managers, engineers, and other professionals whose "wages" are above proletarian levels get income from something other than the sale of their labor-power (such as the sale of their special skills), which means that they are petty-bourgeois or even outright bourgeois.

Luís Henrique

[syndicat]

me: "Here again, productivity can be measured by looking at the market value produced per worker hour. "

bethune:

Marxists don't measure much of anything in terms of market value. We measure productivity in terms of value per hour of labor--and value here is only indirectly related to market value.

You need to break out of your Marxist metaphysics if you want to have a rational debate. Rational debate isn't based on dogma or alluding to Holy Writ.

Market value is what Marx called "exchange value." It's actually controversial among Marxists whether "Value" (with a capital "V") is anything other than exchange value. Personally, I don't care as I'm not a Marxist.

me: "Only 30% of the profit of American firms comes from outside the USA. The great majority of all investment by American firms outside the USA is in other developed capitalist countries -- Europe, Japan, Australia. This means that only a relatively small part of the profit of American captialists overall comes from exploitation of the third world."



Wrong. I've already told you that the First World robs the Third World through means other than investment. Control of currency results in a transfer of some $2 TRILLION a year from the Third World to the First.

The kind of "investment" that you're talking about is mostly financial--when the U$ buys European real estate or Japan buys U$ T-bills. It looks big on paper because of the sums involved, but in reality the imperialist countries don't invest much in production in other imperialist countries. Again, you are guilty of what Marx called commodity fetishism--looking at dollars rather than at production.

Your claim was about the source of profits. As Charlie Post shows in the article I cited, only a small fraction of profits of capitalists in the USA are derived from third world investment.

Much of the investment in the third world is also "financial" such as loans, currency speculation, purchase of existing assets. After the east Asian crash, investors from the USA and other developed countries were able to buy up all kinds of assets at bargain basement prices in Thailand, including things like hotels, companies of all sorts. this wasn't all investment in basic production capacity.

me: "Also, construction is the making of things that are sold -- such as buildings. "



Construction is in the productive sector.

and it is an important part of the economy in the USA.


There is very little manufacturing in the U$A. According to the U$ Department of "Labor," "Food Preparation and Serving" (i.e., cooks, waiters, busboys) accounts for more employees than "Production" (manufacturing) in the united $tates: 11,029,280 compared to 10,268,510 in May 2006

Your argument is fallacious. That's because your claim is about profit, not where people are working. A reason for the decline of manufacturing as a percentage of the workforce over time is that manufacturing is more amenable than other sectors to increases in productivity through investment in new techniques. It's harder to figure out ways to increase labor productivity in services.

Your comments about the political consciousness of working people in the USA is not relevant to the question of their class position or their level of oppression. And it merely is more evidence suggesting your own elite origin.

me: "Being proletarian only means that you are forced to work for wages due to not having your own means of production, and doing so under the thumb of the management hierarchy, not being youself a part of that hierarchy. "


Even many bourgeois are "under the thumb of the management hierarchy." So what? That has nothing to do with exploitation. Are you going to tell me that a CEO getting paid $5 million a year is "proletarian," because he has a job and is "under the thumb" of the board of directors and the shareholders, while a starving Indian rag-picker is "petty-bourgeois" just because she is self-employed?

You apparently can't read. I didn't say that anyone who has a job or is under the thumb of the management hierarchy is a proletarian. I said they are proletarians if they are also "not a part of the management hierarchy" over labor. Obviously a CEO and even middle managers are part of the management hierarchy. If you want to intervene in a thread, it would be good to actually take a look at what people have written. I have an explanation in this thread of the coordinator class -- the class of managers and top professionals who are under the capitalists but are bosses over the workers.


Health care is in the unproductive sector. It is of "value" to society in some sense, but it creates no economic value.

this is bullshit. if it had no economic value, why would the capitalists invest in it?

me: "The capitalists can only realize a profit from manufacturing once the goods get to their consumers."



Actually, most capitalists don't sell directly to the public.

actually most capitalists are small mercantile businesses that do sell to the public, but my statement, in any case, said "consumers" not the general public. whoever buys anything is a consumer. if a company buys machine tools they are a "consumer" of machine tools.

you're desperate if the best you can do is this nitpicking.

me: "Thus transport and distribution in stores is part of the process by which capitalists generate their profit. There is thus no reason to not treat workers in transportation and retail as also part of the proletarian class. "



Then there's no reason not to treat CEOs as "proletarian," since they too are involved in realizing profit. So are all those foremen and managers that you despise.

This doesn't follow. The coordinator class includes the non-owners who are managers, top professionals, army officers etc. Their class situation is based on their relative monopolization of the control positions in the economy, not ownership.


REALIZING profit and CREATING value are not the same thing. Retail workers don't create a bit of value. They are a drain on value; their wages are charged against profits. As for transport workers, some of them may create some value. That depends on their role in the production process.

A computer made in China isn't of value to its consumers til it gets to them. The transport work of moving a load of TVs from China to the USA or wherever is part of making the TV have the use value for the consumers, as much as putting on the knobs in the front or testing the TV at the end of the line or whatever. Similarly with the work of stocking and maintaining the stores so that the TVs can be sold to the consumers. The use value that is created isn't just the physical thing, the TV, but also depends on its location. if there was a TV factory on an isolated island in the Pacific, the TVs would have no value if they couldn't be transported to the people who will use them.

I will also notice here that you do not respond to my argument about the attack on the working class by the capitalists over the past 30 years, and the decline in wages, health provision, longer workweeks, and so on. if the capitalists so generously share their plunder with workers here -- as you seem to assume -- why this attack on the working class in the USA?

also, you've not explained why the capitalists in the USA would share their plunder with the working class.

and when i challenge your dodgy claim about the alledged average market value per worker hour worldwide, you refuse to back it up, referring me to some obscure website.

and when i point out the common class interests between workers in the USA and the third world, your only response is to cherry pick some examples that talk about the current level of consciousness. but class interests are not necessarily reflected in immediate class consciousness at a given point in time. you're ignoring the concept of class formation -- the process by which a class goes from being a class "in itself" -- objectively oppressed and exploited -- to a class "for itself", that has some undersatanding of its situation and some commitment to fight for change, for liberation.

capitalism is a world system, and for this reason it requires an international workers movement to be able to root it out.

in my experience people in the USA who talk the "working class is hopelessly bought off" line are usually from an elite background. this sort of politics can only lead to nihilism and despair. it can make no positive contribution to social change.

[Joseph Ball]

I'm going to annoy Glory to Bethune by giving partial backing to his argument. OK, I do think trying to argue all 'non-productive' labour is non-proletarian is a bit misleading. The child chimney sweepers in nineteenth century Britain, no less than the child rickshaw pullers in Nepal, are part of the proletariat, though neither of them are 'producing' anything. I think Glory to Bethune may be getting more at the truth when he argues that most of the hard physical labour in western societies has shifted East-mining and manufacturing. In the UK much of the building labouring now seems to be done by (underpaid) foreign workers and there's not a lot of hard, physical labour done by the ordinary people. The 3rd world proletariat produces low-cost goods for us and do the hard work, while we take the benefit and do our work sitting on our backsides.

Of course, the eastern proletariat is grossly underpaid for its labour. For example, Chinese capitalists and workers combined get between 3-20% of the price that the consumer goods they produce are sold for in the west (other studies I am aware of seem to show that shipping doesn't make up more than 10% of the rest of the cost). Yank unions have been high-lighting this for years. A very interesting article has just been published in the Atlantic called 'China Makes, the World Takes' apparently arguing against Chinese-US economic rivalry. It takes the line that those generous Chinese workers are making such sacrifices to keep westerners in their disgusting state of luxury, that we should all be grateful to them, rather than feeling threatened. Looked at from one point of view, the bourgeois author of this article should get the Order of Lenin.

So what is the class division in the world? Does the Chinese worker and Yank worker have a common cause against their bosses, to use the left-wing cliche? Is there a 3 class division within the imperialist countries or a divisions between imperialist workers and capitalists on the one hand and people of oppressed nations (excluding comprador capitalists?-I don't know Glory to Bethune's line on this one) on the other.

We need to do more investigation. I don't think MIM and IRTR ever fully clinched the argument, although there ideas need to be followed up. (I give the usual health warning here, I don't think their vicious attacks on maoist leaders are at all justified, but I don't believe in 'boycotting' people because they make mistakes like this-struggle to unite.)

One thing socialists who put their faith in the 1st world worker need to consider is the following. Imagine complete equality had been established across the world in 2005. The per capita income of everyone would be $8229 (at purchasing power parity) according to statisics quoted in the UN Human development report. However, the median income of the a four person family US family was $53690 in 2005. This implies that even modest earners in the US would lose out fairly substantially from socialism (though those at the very bottom might gain something). And don't forget the $8229 implicitly includes all the benefits in cash and kind that low income families might receive in the US such as Medicare, subsidised housing (which I think the yanks call 'Housing Projects'), in-work benefits etc.

Doesn't this create a conundrum for those arguing we should fight the class struggle in the west-whether its a 3 class struggle or 2?

[syndicat]

One thing socialists who put their faith in the 1st world worker need to consider is the following. Imagine complete equality had been established across the world in 2005. The per capita income of everyone would be $8229 (at purchasing power parity) according to statisics quoted in the UN Human development report. However, the median income of the a four person family US family was $53690 in 2005. This implies that even modest earners in the US would lose out fairly substantially from socialism (though those at the very bottom might gain something). And don't forget the $8229 implicitly includes all the benefits in cash and kind that low income families might receive in the US such as Medicare, subsidised housing (which I think the yanks call 'Housing Projects'), in-work benefits etc.

The statistic you quote of the median family of four in the USA, if divided by four, gives us a per capita income of $13,423. That's about 60% higher than the statistic you quote as the world average. But these statistics are fairly useless because they average the capitalist and coordinator class incomes in with the working class. But it's well known that the USA has by far the worst inequality of any "first world" country, more akin to Latin America that Europe. Worker wage levels are generally higher in many European countries than in the USA.

Money income is also not always an accurate measure of standard of living. That's because there may be things that are free or at low cost available in some countries to the working class which can only be bought in other countries. Maybe the $8,229 figure tries to account for this, but I'd be skeptical of how well they can do this.

Your use of the British term "yank" suggests you're not in the USA. anyway, you seem pretty ignorant of conditions in the USA. the social wage is far less in USA than in other developed capitalist countries. the "housing projects" you refer to are only for poor people, and the ones in my city are dilapidated, with serious security problems (drug gangs, murders).

there's a very basic fallacy in your argument. you assume that benefit from social production is static. but a social transformation, a revolution, in which a labor-managed, socially-owned economy replaces capitalism changes everything. that's because it would bring with it huge efficiency gains. capitalism is in many ways a highly inefficient system of production. for one thing it systematically under-develops the potential of the working class, losing the production that could come from fuller personal development, and the enthusiasm of workers being in control versus in servitude. there are huge areas of overhead in the capitalist system that burden it with inefficiencies, the entire professional/managerial bureaucracy, the duplication between the corporate hierarchies and the regulatory agencies of the state, the destructive pollution.


Doesn't this create a conundrum for those arguing we should fight the class struggle in the west

this might be a "conundrum" for some elite maybe, who have the luxury of choosing where to touch down, but the working classes of the first world countries have no choice but to fight the class struggle in the countries where they are. the question of revolution is about their own liberation. "the liberation of the working class can only be the work of the workers themselves."

[Joseph Ball]

Sorry syndicat, median does not equal average, that's why I used this measure, not average. Median means 'situated in the middle'. Therefore if you have 100 people and you put them in ascending order of income size, then the 50th would be the median income earner. Therefore median income is a fairly good way of looking at the income of the typical worker in any country. Also the figure of $8229 is at purchasing power parity, so its meant to take account of the fact that many things tend to be cheaper to buy in dollar terms in poor countries than in rich countries.

If our world socialist revolution (which is only a thought experiment) achieved great gains in efficiency everwhere, then wouldn't this be the case in the West as well as the developing world, thus perpetuating inequality?

I'm not sure I would go as far as 'Glory to Bethune' down this line, as I think we need to do more investigation. Maybe a sober look at this question is required.

Maybe the people in your dilapidated Housing Projects would benefit from world socialism in our thought experiment. Ever tried recruiting there?

[syndicat]

Sorry syndicat, median does not equal average, that's why I used this measure, not average. Median means 'situated in the middle'. Therefore if you have 100 people and you put them in ascending order of income size, then the 50th would be the median income earner. Therefore median income is a fairly good way of looking at the income of the typical worker in any country.

Nope, that's a bad argument. The working class is 62% of the population in the USA. so that means the median is at the highest paid level, of the more skilled workers, not typical of the working class. 80% of the working class have incomes below the median.


If our world socialist revolution (which is only a thought experiment) achieved great gains in efficiency everwhere, then wouldn't this be the case in the West as well as the developing world, thus perpetuating inequality?

Not if it doesn't perpetuate unequal exchange. Unequal exchange is an imperialist relationship rooted in the class power structure. and these things would be gone if it's a classless system. Moreover, with increased efficiency it would be possible to provide transition or development funds for the less well off countries, to further reduce inequality.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 09, 2007 03:09 pm
Because it seems to me that you don't have a clear comprehension of the concept of surplus value.

If American workers aren't exploited for surplus value, why on earth do the American bourgeois employ them?
Just repeating the question.

What is surplus value, GtB?

Luís Henrique

[Dimentio]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30, 2007 09:28 pm
The middle class doesn't fit into Marxian class divisions. They are a recent creation and are determined by how much money they have. Therefore, a member of the middle class could be a member of the proletariat, or a member of the bourgeoisie.
That is a weberian definition, not a marxian. Weber determined classes after their income level, as do most liberal states.

Aztecs determined classes on how many people you decapitated.

[RedHal]

Why is there still such importance in determining if someone is proletariate or not? The fundamental question should be if they have revolutionary potential or not. Managers/professionals/owners benefit too much from capitalism to want it destroyed.
Just because they both sell their labour, you can't group a programmer who makes 100k and a fruit picker together.