Managers

[Taboo Tongue]

Managers have control over labor but their labor is controlled as well. While they may have 'day-to-day' control of the means of production, they do not own the means of production.

With the relation to the means of production being the defining decider in Marxist class analysis do managers belong to the petty bourgeois or to the proletariat often with petty bourgeois ideology?


Originally posted by Marxist Internet Archive Encyclopedia+--> (Marxist Internet Archive Encyclopedia)Petty-bourgeois
1) The class of small proprietors (for example, owners of small stores), and general handicrafts people of various types.
This group has been disappearing since the industrial revolution, as large factories or retail outlets can produce and distribute commodities faster, better, and for a cheaper price than the small proprietors. While this class is most abundant in the least industrialized regions of the world, only dwindling remnants remain in more industrialized areas.
These people are the foundation of the capitalist dream (aka “the American dream”): to start a small buisness and expand it into an empire. Much of capitalist growth and development comes from these people, while at the same time capitalism stamps out these people more and more with bigger and better industries that no small proprieter can compete against. Thus for the past few decades in the U.S., petty-bourgeois are given an enourmous variety of incentives, tax breaks, grants, loans, and ways to escape unscathed from a failed business.
2) Also refers to the growing group of workers whose function is management of the bourgeois apparatus. These workers do not produce commodities, but instead manage the production, distribution, and/or exchange of commodities and/or services owned by their bourgeois employers.
While these workers are a part of the working class because they receive a wage and their livelihood is dependent on that wage, they are seperated from working class consciousness because they have [i]day-to-day control, but not ownership, over the means of production, distribution, and exchange.[/b]

Communist League Basic Principles
Between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie stands a third class: the petty bourgeoisie. As capitalism has advanced, the petty bourgeoisie has been transformed to serve a more proper role. As many broad sections of the petty bourgeoisie were forced to join the ranks of the proletariat, their places were taken by "new" elements created by the bourgeoisie to better serve modern capitalist production. The petty bourgeoisie as a class found itself being simultaneously ruined and reborn as a managerial appendage serving the bourgeoisie, thus becoming a stable force in the service of capitalism.

I personally am going to have to go with MIA's explanation of where managers fall.
My father started out as a normal worker and eventually became a manager. There description fits him spot on, as he tip toed from new owner to new owner and being thrown back down to normal worker now and then (to where he is today) the mill was sold and he moved across the country to a cheaper place of living and is now on the road as a book keeper\peanut counter in the same industry. Other managers I know (at my work, girlfriends work etc.) go back and forth between controlling labor and most often laboring (a larger percent of the time).

[JazzRemington]

Depends.

There are managers that are hired for technical advising and there are managers that are employed by bourgeoisie to manage a firm.

The former would be a petty-bourgeoisie because they are generally self-employed (they hire their services out to people) and the latter are generally employed by a firm for a wage (like proletariats proper).

The difference is that the bourgeoisie does not own the labor power of the former, while of the latter he or she does.

[praxicoide]

Petty bourgeois are very unstable, with members often falling into the proletariat and back. They or their children also have a greater possibility of becoming bourgeois than workers.

[Kropotkin Has a Posse]

Managers don't own capital, but some of them sure act like it.

[rouchambeau]

They have to sell their labor, so they are--in relation to the means of production--proles. Aside from that, managers are pretty much class traitors. They defend property and ensure that the boss's orders are carried out.

[TC]

Proletarian only refers to people who produce value through labour not people who merely sell their 'labour', it must be productive to count because non-productive labour such as the type of "labour" that managers engage in (and oh, telling people what to do is such taxing labour i'm sure lol) produces no surplus-value by definition (it has no absolute material value); it is the deficit between surplus-value and wages that constitutes exploitation not the mere existence of wages. So managers are not proletarian nor are they exploited.

[Dimentio]

So, if workers are using machines, they have less surplus value?

[syndicat]

the petit bourgeoisie is the small business class. they are capitalists because they own a business, but they don't have enough capital to avoid having to manage workers themselves, unlike the plutocracy (the dominant capitalist elite).

Managers are neither proletarians nor capitalists. that's because their power in the economy isn't based on ownership (even if they own a bit of capital, a few stocks or whatever) but is based on their positions of authority in a hierarchy. managers are part of the same class as the elite professionals who advice management, like corporate lawyers, finance officers, top engineers. the basis of this class is relative monopolization of expertise and decision-making tasks in corporations and the state. even if they are consulants rather than direct employees, they're not part of the petit bourgeoisie because the value of their "firm" is not separable from the expertise, connections, etc. of the partners, so they have no separate physical capital they could sell, unlike capitalists.

Proletarians are that class who must sell their ability to work to employers and do not manage other workers, but are subject to the management hierarchy.

[cenv]

It doesn't matter what we call the class, but I don't see any problem with including managers, top professionals, and small capitalists in a single "middle class." Yes, small capitalists' class is based on ownership and managers' on power, but this distinction doesn't warrant putting them in separate classes any more than the "white-collar"/"blue-collar" dichotomy creates two working classes.

In the grand scheme of things, both small capitalists and "coordinators" (managers and top professionals) are in the same position: they have control over and more autonomy than workers but are still somewhat unstable and at the whim of the bourgeoisie.

Yes, there are differences between small capitalists and managers (just as there are differences between different workers), but to divide the "middle class" (whatever you want to call it) into multiple sections based on the differences is reverting to a definition of class based on abstract categorization rather than material differences. You can always find differences when you look hard enough. The important thing is seeing where people stand in terms of power and class interests.

[syndicat]

one reason to distinguish the class of managers and top professionals from the small business class is that the former can become the ruling class in a mode of production (as in the old USSR) but the petit bourgeoisie do not have this ability. that's because the basis of the class position of the small capitalists is the same as the large capitalists. it's just that they have less capital.

the problem with "middle class" is that it doesn't really say anything about what the basis of such a class is, and is a phrase that has been used in a variety of different ways so that it doesn't have a clear meaning.

[cenv]

one reason to distinguish the class of managers and top professionals from the small business class is that the former can become the ruling class in a mode of production (as in the old USSR) but the petit bourgeoisie do not have this ability. that's because the basis of the class position of the small capitalists is the same as the large capitalists. it's just that they have less capital.
Yeah, "coordinators" can become a ruling class, but practically speaking, I don't see how that necessarily puts them in a separate class under capitalist society than the small capitalists.

The difference between the bourgeoisie and the petty-bourgeoisie is not just quantitative. Members of the petty-bourgeoisie, unlike members of the ruling class, generally work alongside their employees. They also tend to be in much less stable positions than members of the bourgeoisie -- you can't deny that the market is stacked against small capitalists these days. These things combined put them in a very different position than the ruling class.

I still think that the distinctions you point out aren't fundamental enough to put them in two distinct classes, but I think that as long as we draw the same practical conclusions from our analyses, the rest is just semantics.


the problem with "middle class" is that it doesn't really say anything about what the basis of such a class is, and is a phrase that has been used in a variety of different ways so that it doesn't have a clear meaning.

That's why I put quotes around "middle class."

I'm not a big fan of the term either, and I usually try to stay away from it. I just wanted a term that didn't have the connotations of "petty-bourgeoisie" or whatever -- a term that would include both "coordinators" and small capitalists.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

In my experience managers do more than just bark orders. Whenever a new associate had some problems with machines or techniques, they were there showing the person what to do. They're also having to take orders, recieve phone calls -- again, not exactly the image of a lazy boss.

But I think it depends on the mananger.

[fabiansocialist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 31, 2007 02:28 am
one reason to distinguish the class of managers and top professionals from the small business class is that the former can become the ruling class in a mode of production (as in the old USSR) but the petit bourgeoisie do not have this ability.
Top managers usually become part of the bourgoisie, with their salaries and stock options. Jack Welck left with $500m and an $8m annual pension for life. The chairman of United Healthcare took home $1bn a couple of years ago. A former CEO of Coca-Cola also received $1bn in deferred stock options. The list goes on. The old division between owners and workers has become slightly more blurred.

[rouchambeau]

I hate to derail this thread but I really think this needs to be addressed.


Proletarian only refers to people who produce value through labour not people who merely sell their 'labour', it must be productive to count because non-productive labour such as the type of "labour" that managers engage in (and oh, telling people what to do is such taxing labour i'm sure lol) produces no surplus-value by definition (it has no absolute material value);
What about cashiers at grocery stores? They don't produce any value. The only thing cashiers do is facilitate exchange between the consumer and the store owner. In what class would you put them?

[which doctor]

Originally posted by [email protected] 31, 2007 09:53 am
I hate to derail this thread but I really think this needs to be addressed.


Proletarian only refers to people who produce value through labour not people who merely sell their 'labour', it must be productive to count because non-productive labour such as the type of "labour" that managers engage in (and oh, telling people what to do is such taxing labour i'm sure lol) produces no surplus-value by definition (it has no absolute material value);
What about cashiers at grocery stores? They don't produce any value. The only thing cashiers do is facilitate exchange between the consumer and the store owner. In what class would you put them?
Cashiers add a "convenience" value to the products as they pass through their hands, though some of them are being phased out with automation and "self-service" check outs. In many ways cashiers are the last part of the commodity's journey from factory to store to consumer.

[syndicat]

about managers and small business owners:

I still think that the distinctions you point out aren't fundamental enough to put them in two distinct classes, but I think that as long as we draw the same practical conclusions from our analyses, the rest is just semantics.

there are different practical conclusions. the capitalists, whether big or small, have their power from ownership. if this is the only class over the working class, that suggests all you have to do is change ownership. but then that leads to ideas about nationalization and having the state run things and such, it fails to look at the subordination of workers to bosses and the top professionals they work with. these people monopolize the positions of authority but also areas of expertise.

if you leave this hierarchy intact, workers' can't be in control. no one is going to have the time to learn enough to be an active factor in making decisions about how an industry should be run if they spend all their time on the job running a machine or cleaning toilets or some other routine physical work. workers need to be involved in the design and planning and so on so that they can learn about the big questions in that industry, and so you'd need to have a different educational system as well as different job definitions, to assist workers taking this on.

[cenv]

there are different practical conclusions. the capitalists, whether big or small, have their power from ownership. if this is the only class over the working class, that suggests all you have to do is change ownership. but then that leads to ideas about nationalization and having the state run things and such, it fails to look at the subordination of workers to bosses and the top professionals they work with. these people monopolize the positions of authority but also areas of expertise.

if you leave this hierarchy intact, workers' can't be in control. no one is going to have the time to learn enough to be an active factor in making decisions about how an industry should be run if they spend all their time on the job running a machine or cleaning toilets or some other routine physical work. workers need to be involved in the design and planning and so on so that they can learn about the big questions in that industry, and so you'd need to have a different educational system as well as different job definitions, to assist workers taking this on.

I wasn't arguing that workers aren't subordinated to the "coordinators." I agree with you on that. I was just arguing that the petty-bourgeoisie can include both small capitalists and coordinators. So what I said about drawing the same practical conclusions holds true.

[Rawthentic]

The petty-bourgeoisie are both the small capitalists and the "professionals", "managers", etc. Marx noticed this change in capitalist relations and even wrote it in the Manifesto:

"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."

[Raúl Duke]

The petty-bourgeoisie are both the small capitalists and the "professionals", "managers", etc. Marx noticed this change in capitalist relations and even wrote it in the Manifesto:

"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."

If my parents are managers...does that make me petit-bourgeoisie? 0.0"

[Rawthentic]

Well, where do they work and how did they become managers?

[Raúl Duke]

My father worked in a corporation's distribution center (I don't know the exact position...I think it was lower than manager) and later on took the position of regional manager because he was: 1)bilingual in Spanish-English 2)American who lived in Puerto Rico since 10 years old. Knows how to deal between Latin Americans and US North Americans. 3)fired (I think) the other regional manager

My mother works in a less paying job in the Puerto Rican government as a Director of Planification (in a housing agency of sorts) however she has more college education than my father. Don't know how she got there.

My father came from working class background. My mother's blackground is also working class however my great-grandfather was a hacendero (land owner) but all the land was lost/wasted by my grandparents.

[manic expression]

"Manager" is a very general term that can mean many different things. A low-ranking manager can basically be a worker who gets a marginally better salary while being held accountable for what happens in day-to-day activities. IMO, they don't own any capital or means of production, they are employed wage laborers who get paid a bit better (usually for a lot more work). If a manager happens to own a store, however, that is a different relationship to the means of production, and is therefore petty-bourgeois.

[CornetJoyce]

Originally posted by [email protected] 31, 2007 02:20 pm
Jack Welck left with $500m and an $8m annual pension for life. The chairman of United Healthcare took home $1bn a couple of years ago. A former CEO of Coca-Cola also received $1bn in deferred stock options. The list goes on. The old division between owners and workers has become slightly more blurred.
For the old working class, the line was between workers and managers. The owners were far away.
Berle and Means expounded on the "managerial revolution" in the 1930s. In their view, capitalism had "split the property atom," divorcing ownership from control. No doubt they would regard the present dominance of the corporate "chief executive" as the evolved result of that fission.

[Rawthentic]

Johnny, I would say that you are a member of the petty-bourgeoisie, but there are maybe others that would differ.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente T[email protected] 31, 2007 07:28 pm
Johnny, I would say that you are a member of the petty-bourgeoisie, but there are maybe others that would differ.
Does Johnny work a petty-bourgeois job? If not, there is no way you can catagorize him as petty-bourgeois. He may come from a petty-bourgeois family, but that is a wholly different matter (and is something that he had no choice over). If you ask me, there is no reason to catagorize people in such a manner if they don't work a job.

[Rawthentic]

There are many bourgeois families with kids that work jobs here and there to make money for themselves. Does this make them proletarian? Uhh, no it does not.

[manic expression]

I wouldn't call them proletarian, obviously, just like I wouldn't call them individually bourgeois. Class, especially in capitalism, is not inherited. Furthermore, class is determined by the individual's relationship to the means of production. Being born into a bourgeois family does not make one bourgeois. In my estimation, it is reasonable to wait until someone starts a career and enters the workplace before classifying them.

[rouchambeau]

Cashiers add a "convenience" value to the products as they pass through their hands, though some of them are being phased out with automation and "self-service" check outs. In many ways cashiers are the last part of the commodity's journey from factory to store to consumer.

What? No. There's nothing convienent about taking a person's money. As someone who is a cashier I know it would be way easier for the customer and me to not have any sort of relations. Besides, that doesn't really address my question about the relationship between an employee's wage and labor and their status as proles.

[which doctor]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 31, 2007 02:41 pm
There are many bourgeois families with kids that work jobs here and there to make money for themselves. Does this make them proletarian? Uhh, no it does not.
What's your reasoning behind such an assumption?

I'm really just curious.

These "young proletarians" are after all selling their time for a wage, adding value to commodities, and producing surplus labor.

[CornetJoyce]

Originally posted by FoB+July 31, 2007 08:12 pm--> (FoB @ July 31, 2007 08:12 pm)
Voz de la Gente [email protected] 31, 2007 02:41 pm
There are many bourgeois families with kids that work jobs here and there to make money for themselves. Does this make them proletarian? Uhh, no it does not.
What's your reasoning behind such an assumption?

I'm really just curious.

These "young proletarians" are after all selling their time for a wage, adding value to commodities, and producing surplus labor.[/b]
Scions of the ruling class run around naked in the woods at Bohemian Grove gatherings but it doesn't make them hunter-gatherers.

[Raúl Duke]

What happens to the self-employed?

Petit B or Prole?

[which doctor]

Originally posted by [email protected] 31, 2007 03:41 pm
What happens to the self-employed?

Petit B or Prole?
The self-employed are members of the petty-bourgeoisie, though their interests may lie with the greater proletariat.

[Floyce White]

Taboo Tongue: "...the relation to the means of production [defines]...class..."

Which relation?

Taboo Tongue (quoting Marxist Internet Archive Encyclopedia): "...ownership..."

(As an aside, you gotta love these unsigned "authoritative expert opinions.")

Housing, food, medicine, education, communication, transportation, recreation, and other means of reproduction of labor are also "means of production." Workers often own the houses where they live. Workers often own the cars they drive. Workers often have food gardens at their homes. For that matter, workers often own the tools that they use. Are these workers no longer part of the lower class when they own housing or tools? No. Why is that? Because a person does not threaten or commit violence against himself to enforce a claim of ownership. Property is not a physical thing. It is a claim made upon the things that others use. It is a relation of violence between people.

manic expression: "Class, especially in capitalism, is not inherited. Furthermore, class is determined by the individual's relationship to the means of production. Being born into a bourgeois family does not make one bourgeois."

No. The violence of ownership does not go away when an owner dies. The family members inherit the properties and continue to threaten and use violence to enforce conditions of use. That is how society is divided into permanent classes of owner families and non-owner families. The owner families perpetually own what others use, and the non-owner families perpetually do not. The non-owner families are in a position of ongoing social disadvantage because many of the things they use are the properties of the owner families. Class is inherent because property is inherent.

Violence over a whole community cannot be conducted by scattered individuals. The many dispossessed could easily unite and overpower the proprietors. I suspect that this happened over and over again for thousands of years. Then someone invented the idea of an organized body of armed men who defend the property claims of the proprietor families. That is the state. Proprietor families create a state to defend their claims.

So we can dump the misleading "Marx-ist" dogma that "class is a relation to the means of production." We can dump its only slightly more-refined version "class is ownership of the means of production."

The upper class consists of those families who claim to own things that others use. The lower class consists of those families who do not.

It's a simple yes/no question. It becomes even simpler when we dump the loopholes of "Marx-ist" opportunism. Truly, there's something wrong with a theory when an exception has to be made for something as common as workers' tools.

There is no "third class" with a "third way." Small-scale exploitation isn't "a different class" of exploitation. Violence is violence. It makes no difference whether the sheriff who evicts you was called by a landlord who rents only one room, or by the hired manager of a landlord who owns thousands of apartments. Only from the point of view of the petty landlord is his calling the sheriff "different" from the big landlord calling the sheriff. In the eyes of the petty landlord, the evicted tenant is a "bad person" who deserved what he got. Tenants who pay on time and don't break things are "good persons." And "good persons" can be friendly to each other. The landlord can say "the tenant is my friend," and the tenant can say "the landlord is my friend." Right?

Ideas about a "middle class" are just that subjective and self-centered and phoney. The man who holds a gun on you is not your friend. Neither is the man who pays the gunman to hold a gun on you.

In fact, about 99% of capitalists conduct business on a very small scale. It is ridiculous to say that 99% of the employers, landlords, merchants, and investors are "potential allies" when it is clear as the nose on your face that they are the daily oppressors. They're "potential allies" all right--of each other!

"Just a little exploitation" is definitely not "all right." "Just a little violence" is definitely not the same as "no violence." There does not exist a social classification of people who do "just a little exploitation." There is no such thing as a "little-exploiter class." There is no such thing as a "petty-bourgeois class." To say that there is such a thing--is to annihilate the meaning of the word "class." It is nihilism. Nihilism is a false method of argumentation. False arguments create false conclusions. Manager is an occupation. Occupation does not describe asset ownership. Class cannot be determined by the job tasks any individual temporarily performs.

There is no "petty-capitalist class" for managers or anyone else to belong to. Knowing that someone is a manager is not relevant to determine his or her class.

manic expression: "IMO, they don't own any capital or means of production, they are employed wage laborers who get paid a bit better (usually for a lot more work). If a manager happens to own a store, however, that is a different relationship to the means of production, and is therefore petty-bourgeois."

Over the decades, capitalists cut back on management costs by putting more and more management tasks in every job. Cash counting, inventory, timekeeping and personnel paperwork, record keeping, and many more strictly management functions are now performed by lowly employees. Capitalists also divide and conquer by labeling employees not by their main job tasks, but by rank in an arbitrary hierarchy of "manager," "assistant manager," "shift leader," and "associate" (as GeneCosta alluded to). The word "manager" does not always mean "controller" as it once did.

Also, many small-business owners label themselves as "managers" instead of "owners" because they perceive themselves to be mere paper pushers at the behest of their business partners, bankers, and customers. They prefer to ignore that their claims of ownership of things used by others makes them willingly complicit in violence. This phoney perception is further distorted by tax law, where the net profit from small business is treated as the "income" of the owner, who is supposedly an "employee" of his own business.

CornetJoyce: "Scions of the ruling class run around naked in the woods at Bohemian Grove gatherings but it doesn't make them hunter-gatherers."

And plenty of the sons of factory owners work summers between school semesters on the plant floor. Merely doing work doesn't make them "proletarians."

rouchambeau: "What about cashiers at grocery stores?"

I personally know a grocery-store manager who walked the picket line during the 2003 strike in Southern California. However, many managers did not. Some of the employees called "managers" actually do all-day management tasks.

rouchambeau: "They don't produce any value."

They are essential to circulation, but soon may be replaced by "fast pass" chips inside packages and debit cards. The work of making and maintaining the equipment will replace that of cashiers.

TragicClown: "Proletarian only refers to people who produce value through labour..."

That's not a useful definition. Employers who do labor in their own businesses would be called "proletarians."

syndicat: "There are different practical conclusions. The capitalists, whether big or small, have their power from ownership. If this is the only class over the working class, that suggests all you have to do is change ownership."

No. ABOLISH ownership. I explained this in detail in my Antiproperty (http://www.geocities.com/antiproperty/index.html) series.

FoB: "The self-employed are members of the petty-bourgeoisie..."

False. In many industries, the workers are wholly atomized into self-employed who must go around begging for work. Maids are not "bourgeoisie." Many house painters go back and forth between hustling for houses to paint, getting a job in another industry, and then looking for houses to paint after their day jobs. The house-maintenance industry (lawn mowing, repairs, etc.) is mostly atomized into very-small-scale capitalism that takes advantage of the presence of masses of underemployed workers with few tools and few skills.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by Floyce [email protected] 01, 2007 01:54 am
manic expression: "Class, especially in capitalism, is not inherited. Furthermore, class is determined by the individual's relationship to the means of production. Being born into a bourgeois family does not make one bourgeois."

No. The violence of ownership does not go away when an owner dies. The family members inherit the properties and continue to threaten and use violence to enforce conditions of use. That is how society is divided into permanent classes of owner families and non-owner families. The owner families perpetually own what others use, and the non-owner families perpetually do not. The non-owner families are in a position of ongoing social disadvantage because many of the things they use are the properties of the owner families. Class is inherent because property is inherent.

Violence over a whole community cannot be conducted by scattered individuals. The many dispossessed could easily unite and overpower the proprietors. I suspect that this happened over and over again for thousands of years. Then someone invented the idea of an organized body of armed men who defend the property claims of the proprietor families. That is the state. Proprietor families create a state to defend their claims.

So we can dump the misleading "Marx-ist" dogma that "class is a relation to the means of production." We can dump its only slightly more-refined version "class is ownership of the means of production."

The upper class consists of those families who claim to own things that others use. The lower class consists of those families who do not.

It's a simple yes/no question. It becomes even simpler when we dump the loopholes of "Marx-ist" opportunism. Truly, there's something wrong with a theory when an exception has to be made for something as common as workers' tools.

There is no "third class" with a "third way." Small-scale exploitation isn't "a different class" of exploitation. Violence is violence. It makes no difference whether the sheriff who evicts you was called by a landlord who rents only one room, or by the hired manager of a landlord who owns thousands of apartments. Only from the point of view of the petty landlord is his calling the sheriff "different" from the big landlord calling the sheriff. In the eyes of the petty landlord, the evicted tenant is a "bad person" who deserved what he got. Tenants who pay on time and don't break things are "good persons." And "good persons" can be friendly to each other. The landlord can say "the tenant is my friend," and the tenant can say "the landlord is my friend." Right?

Ideas about a "middle class" are just that subjective and self-centered and phoney. The man who holds a gun on you is not your friend. Neither is the man who pays the gunman to hold a gun on you.

In fact, about 99% of capitalists conduct business on a very small scale. It is ridiculous to say that 99% of the employers, landlords, merchants, and investors are "potential allies" when it is clear as the nose on your face that they are the daily oppressors. They're "potential allies" all right--of each other!

"Just a little exploitation" is definitely not "all right." "Just a little violence" is definitely not the same as "no violence." There does not exist a social classification of people who do "just a little exploitation." There is no such thing as a "little-exploiter class." There is no such thing as a "petty-bourgeois class." To say that there is such a thing--is to annihilate the meaning of the word "class." It is nihilism. Nihilism is a false method of argumentation. False arguments create false conclusions. Manager is an occupation. Occupation does not describe asset ownership. Class cannot be determined by the job tasks any individual temporarily performs.

There is no "petty-capitalist class" for managers or anyone else to belong to. Knowing that someone is a manager is not relevant to determine his or her class.
On your first point, the essential factor here is that each family member must inherit said property and continue to benefit from that capital. If they do not, which is possible, then your point is inapplicable. My point is that premature catagorization of class is unhelpful. For instance, a child of the bourgeoisie could lose his or her rights of inheritance and eventually be forced to sell his or her labor to survive. A member of a family protected by the state could quickly become an individual exploited by those same very institutions. Are they bourgeois when this happens? Of course not.

More importantly, you seem to be broadening definitions and dealing with tertiary issues while the real machinations of capitalism are completely ignored. The primary source of exploitation is the capitalist, who owns the means of production and reaps the surplus value produced by the workers. His or her family is a recipient of this process, yes, but the capitalist's relationship to the means of production is BY FAR the most important factor in the equation. Without that, the family has no way to benefit from this exploitation, and your argument neglects this.

Lastly, I did not say that "a little exploitation is 'all right'" or anything of the sort. I do believe that you mistook what I was saying, because by the end of your post, you're responding to arguments that I NEVER made.


Over the decades, capitalists cut back on management costs by putting more and more management tasks in every job. Cash counting, inventory, timekeeping and personnel paperwork, record keeping, and many more strictly management functions are now performed by lowly employees. Capitalists also divide and conquer by labeling employees not by their main job tasks, but by rank in an arbitrary hierarchy of "manager," "assistant manager," "shift leader," and "associate" (as GeneCosta alluded to). The word "manager" does not always mean "controller" as it once did.

Also, many small-business owners label themselves as "managers" instead of "owners" because they perceive themselves to be mere paper pushers at the behest of their business partners, bankers, and customers. They prefer to ignore that their claims of ownership of things used by others makes them willingly complicit in violence. This phoney perception is further distorted by tax law, where the net profit from small business is treated as the "income" of the owner, who is supposedly an "employee" of his own business.

I completely agree, very well said on your part.

[fabiansocialist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 31, 2007 08:41 pm
What happens to the self-employed?

Petit B or Prole?
Not so easy to say today. A shopkeeper will be petit b. But many of the so-called "self-employed" today are effectively the unemployed or at best underemployed. Thus many a laid-off middle manager has become a "consultant" regardless of whether he or she actually gets any free-lance work. Further down the ladder there may be free-lance construction workers, "electricians," and "plumbers" who are effectively unemployed, part of the lumpen proletariat. In the growing temp industry, many temps -- unskilled, legal, computing, accounting, etc. -- are contractors, and "self-employed," though many are sporadically employed at best.

Not saying the old classifications aren't handy, but things are a bit more fluid today, life has moved on. Western societies are not based so much on smokestack industries with steady work and wages, and have become more based on services, mostly ill-paid, and offering sporadic work.

[Floyce White]

manic expression: "On your first point, the essential factor here is that each family member must inherit said property and continue to benefit from that capital."

I've known too many socialists with money to believe that radical talking ever really gets any rich brat disowned. Besides, a pig knows its way back to the trough.

manic expression: "...the capitalist's relationship to the means of production is BY FAR the most important factor in the equation. Without that, the family has no way to benefit from this exploitation..."

Apparently you are unfamiliar with the FIRE sector (finance, insurance, and real estate). Apparently you do not know that banking and industrial capital intermingled and ceased to be separate entities after Karl Marx wrote Capital.

manic expression: "...you're responding to arguments that I NEVER made."

Partly that, and partly continuing my train of thought.

[which doctor]

Originally posted by CornetJoyce+July 31, 2007 03:20 pm--> (CornetJoyce @ July 31, 2007 03:20 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 31, 2007 08:12 pm

Voz de la Gente [email protected] 31, 2007 02:41 pm
There are many bourgeois families with kids that work jobs here and there to make money for themselves. Does this make them proletarian? Uhh, no it does not.
What's your reasoning behind such an assumption?

I'm really just curious.

These "young proletarians" are after all selling their time for a wage, adding value to commodities, and producing surplus labor.
Scions of the ruling class run around naked in the woods at Bohemian Grove gatherings but it doesn't make them hunter-gatherers. [/b]
There are so many flaws in that comparison.

[sp468732]

It really depends on the situation. At the place where I work (an ice cream shop) the managers do all the same work that the minimum wage employees, such as myself, do, except more. The only real difference is at the end of the night, they count the money in the registers and lock the door on the way out. Besides that, they do everything we do. In this situation, I would not consider them bourgeoisie at all.

[Refuse]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30, 2007 03:26 pm
Petty bourgeois are very unstable, with members often falling into the proletariat and back. They or their children also have a greater possibility of becoming bourgeois than workers.
what about those managers that are also workers?

when i used to work fast food the manager was also on the schedule and would recieve paychecks like us. he'd come in at a certain time, and would run register or flip whoppers just like the workers would. but on the other hand, he had control over us - our labour, income, hours, etc. and he also had the ability to fire us without reason and hire more workers.

now, at my new job, the manager does nothing but sit on his ass and chain smoke cigarettes in his office. he doesn't even get up to find one of his workers if he needs to talk to them, he just yells out their names from his wheely computer chair, usually followed by a coughing fit.

[cenv]

Originally posted by Refuse+August 04, 2007 04:43 pm--> (Refuse @ August 04, 2007 04:43 pm)
[email protected] 30, 2007 03:26 pm
Petty bourgeois are very unstable, with members often falling into the proletariat and back. They or their children also have a greater possibility of becoming bourgeois than workers.
what about those managers that are also workers?

when i used to work fast food the manager was also on the schedule and would recieve paychecks like us. he'd come in at a certain time, and would run register or flip whoppers just like the workers would. but on the other hand, he had control over us - our labour, income, hours, etc. and he also had the ability to fire us without reason and hire more workers.

now, at my new job, the manager does nothing but sit on his ass and chain smoke cigarettes in his office. he doesn't even get up to find one of his workers if he needs to talk to them, he just yells out their names from his wheely computer chair, usually followed by a coughing fit. [/b]
It doesn't make them working-class. Many small business owners work alongside their workers too, but they're still petty-bourgeois because they own means of production.

[Axel1917]

The MIA seems to have a pretty good definition.

[Taboo Tongue]

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 10:33 pm
The MIA seems to have a pretty good definition.
After studying over these past two pages I still agree with that statement 100%.

While many managers want to believe they have the same interest as the small business owner. In the end... They are not a business owner, and have to get up and sell their time just like the rest of us. A dog can want to be a cat and get on the furniture, but the real life fact is he is still a dog and still remains on his rug (which is sorta like furniture right?).
The fact that the real owners need to slice up the workers by setting them against themselves (regular worker vs managerial worker), relieving pressure against the real asshole (the Owner), is a tool of capitalism as Corporatized Media is.

:engles: Thanks for everyones responses, it finally put me at a point (whether right or wrong), that many managers are blind workers because their heads' up their ass.

[Xiao Banfa]

Managers are part of the techno-managerial class. This side can be brought around to either revolutionary or counter-revolutionary politics.

In the period of socialist construction technical and managerial personnel exist out of necessity. It takes time for that division of labour to broken down.

I see no reason why these sections of the workforce should be barred from progressive organizations.

[Janus]

This was discussed here: Managers? (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=68213&hl=manager*)