the middle class - agree or disagree?

[iwwobblie]

There really is no middle class.Upper middle class people are part of the ruling class and lower middle class people are part of the working class.There are very few people who fit right in the middle."Middle class" is a construct of the ruling class to further divide the working class.

[Blibblob]

So my family is now part of the ruling class? I don't see the possibility of that one...

[Eastside Revolt]

Whatever

I'm upper middle class, and I'm still working class.

[Anonymous]

Strongly disagree.

[iwwobblie]

This wasn't meant as a put down of people who are upper middle class.It's just something I was thinking about.

[Sensitive]

Well, the most important factor is whether or not you exploit any wage laborers (proletarians). If you exploit a small number of them, then you are petty bourgeoisie, if you exploit hundreds or thousands then you are bourgeoisie.

While some proletarians get paid and treated better than others, they are still all part of the proletariat. They are all still exploited to produce capital for the ruling class. That is the most important distinction.

So I would agree that the term "middle class" only confuses people. That is a capitalist term that merely indicates how much money someone has (basically just enough not to be poor, but far less than being actually rich (so it is definitely not "middle")). It does not indicate how they got that money (whether it was by selling their labor to a bourgeoisie, or by being a petty bourgeoisie and exploiting only a small number of laborers - both could make someone have enough money to be "middle class" in capitalist terminology).

[Eastside Revolt]

thank you, That's sort what I was trying to say except it would have taken me half an hour to type what you just typed.

[Nobody]

I'm middle class and my dad expliots poor Filipinos!! Thats why I'm a commie, I want to unionize them.

[YKTMX]

LOL, yeh I heard someone say that we shouldn't support the firefighters in their attempts to get 30k a year.....because that would make them all middle class, haha. Genuis.

[Urban Rubble]

Try to put a label on my situation.

My dad is working class, always has been. He's an electrician and for about 15 years he worked for a fairly large company. Early in my childhood we were barely lower middle class, basically we were lower class. Throughout the years we rose to basically average middle class. My Dad opened a small electrical business about 5 years ago, he only employs 2 other people, at fair wages. He still goes out in the feild and works everyday like he used to, only now he owns the company. We've stayed middle class but now I'd say we're a little more upper middle class.

So how would you define me ? My dad is working class but he's also the business owner and upper middle class.

Labels suck.

[Pete]

I am a working class student who has been a part of the work force for 4-5 years. My parents income would put me in middle class, but personally I am very very working class with my ideals and my experience.

[YKTMX]

I'd say you were middle class. But that's fair enough.

[Pete]

*shrugs* middle class is a myth, which is what I think this thread is about. Or too many people claim to be in it, but the middle class is also a working class. My parents are both fulltime, and startin gin one week I will be a fulltime worker too, so I dunno. Take it as you will.

[Anonymous]

I think the problem with identity comes from the rise of tertiary industry, I mean in the 'olden times' (brings back nostalgia) it was simple, there were the factory/land owners and there was the work force. The Land owners were middle class and the work force were the lower class.
But now we have a lot less of a recognised working class with many people working in commercial industry and many people realating more to the ideals of the property owners and businessmen.

Id have to admit to being Middle Class. My dad is a contracting software designer, i live in a semi-detacthed house, im fairly well off.

Perhaps its time we abandoned these tags and thought up some more for the new millenium?

[sc4r]

The only meaningful distinction is between those who benefit from liberal/ capitalist property laws to a significant extent and those who do not.

This ceryainly does place most of what would be recognised as 'upper middle' in the category of either bourgeois or petit bourgesois. It also puts a fairly significant chunk of 'lower middle' and even 'working' in the same category.

It is very far from irrelevant to recognise this ot to also recognise that something far less objective also matters - Who would be prepared to forego those benefits? really prepared to do so. Anyone who would is a socialist supporter; anyone who would not is not.




(Edited by sc4r at 1:31 am on June 17, 2003)

[CienfuegosJnr]

-------- I AGREE WOBBLIE --------
Here in Australia-
THere is a great East (middle c.) / West (working) divide-
or White (east) / Ethnic (west) divise-
How can these Right wingers (East) in lefty drag,... (and future right wing voters) with there 'YOYOY ... look at the westies'- attitude bee anything but that----

[革命者]

agree--

there is a middle class....

they're the slimeballs-- getting money from the elite.

exploiting the poor.

[Dhul Fiqar]

#Moderation Mode

Ehm, not really Chit Chat stuff...

Moved here (http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/topic.pl?forum=13&topic=904)

[redstar2000]

Labels suck.

Well, bad ones certainly do.

The test of a label's "utility" is the degree to which it actually tells you something valid and useful about the thing that it designates.

The reason modern scientists have stopped using the word "race" is that it turned out the concept didn't [/b]explain[/b] anything; "race" is a social construct, an "order" imposed on reality that turned out not to have any significant natural meaning.

The "great middle class" that supposedly includes the vast majority of people in the advanced capitalist countries is, in my view, just another "social construct"--a mythology that, in fact, explains nothing.

I think we should junk the term "middle class" (and its academic twin, "petty bourgeoisie"...) altogether; we can speak of particular sectors of the working class or of the capitalist class with as much precision as we desire without recourse to this muddled and fundamentally misleading term.

And I wish folks would worry less about what class they're "in" and more about what class they're for.

:cool:

[SlimJin]

Well, it seems that a lot of you have a hard time saying that you are middle class. You all claim that your parents are doing something that is against your ideals, could it be that you are merely looking for a cause to join? I am not sure, but I am sure that there are people who would agree with me. Not to say that my reason for turning to communism is better or more "legit" I would say it has more reason to it. This is what turned me to this great ideology. I live in Chicago Illinois USA and I live with my mother and my two other brothers. My mother is a hard working lower middle class woman, the job she was working at, a hospital where she did asthma research was giving her pay cuts almost every other 2 months which is ridiculous! I was to be attending a private school, I took the test with a kid I knew, who's mother was a multi-millionare by the way, The other kid did poorly on the same test I took and was a year older than me, I aced the test. When my mother was told that the yearly tuition had gone up she had no choice but to send me to the local high school which was the worst in Chicago, Meanwhile the rich dumbass was to receive a better education merely for having the money to afford it! That my friends is a spectre that is haunting! My mother was able to get me into a great public school though that was full of many ideals and this is where I found communism! If you read my story I greatly appreciate it it means a lot because at the time this was the most terrible thing that happened to me yet, when I saw the social injustices of the discrimination against lower classes! This is when I began to admire alternative thinking like that of the great Ernesto Guevara. I am lower middle class and thats all there is to it I am not ahamed to say it and this is why I fight for communism!

[Just Joe]

Upper, Lower and Middle classes are only economic classes based on earning.

Marxist definitions are based on your relation to the means of production. If you work for someone else, you are prolateriat. Even David Beckham is prolatariat. He is getting exploited because even though he earns £100,000 a week, the board at Man United (or now Real) are earning money from him by just sitting on there arses.

The 'middle class' are working class because they work for a living. hence the term, 'working' class. Everyone is really working class to an extent, except for a few at the top. Its just that most middle class people wouldn't dream of uniting with lower class people because they see things in terms of money and they think there are better than lower class people.

[YKTMX]

Plus, politicians (most who haven't left Islington in like a decade) love telling us that "we're all middle class" now. Haha, I'd like to see the the dumb fucks drive 20 minutes to Peckham and tell the people living there that everyones equal now.

(Edited by YouKnowTheyMurderedX at 12:14 am on June 24, 2003)

[praxis1966]

Upper, Lower and Middle classes are only economic classes based on earning.If this were the case my parents would definately be considered middle class. Between the two of them, the earn a little in excess of $100,000 a year. By this measurement alone, they should be considered middle class. The problem is that raising 4 children caused them a debt load that 20 years later they have not been able to shrug off.

They live in a house which, although measures roughly 1,800 square feet, has two mortgages, bad wiring, and a horrible plumbing system. I also think it worth mentioning that despite the fact that my mother holds a masters degree and my father holds two masters and a doctorate, my mother just got her first new car in her entire life. She's 50 years old. All this because they both decided when they were in college to become educators and help people instead of selecting a more financially lucrative occupation.

Conversely, my ex-girlfriends parents live in a house 2.5x's the size of my parents. He drives a brand new Lincoln Navigator (what I consider to be one of the symbols of flaunted wealth, a $45,000 gas-guzzling SUV) and she drives a brand new Mazda tribute. Throw in the cost of the Pontiac Grand Prix and the Volvo 740 Turbo they just bought their kids, and you could buy my parents house. Ironically, somehow they consider themselves to be middle class.

I suppose if you based class status on Marx's definition, however, her parents would be considered members of the bourgeoisie and mine the proletariat. Her father used to own a freight delivery service (for which he still receives a $25,000 a month royalty check) and my parents spend their time educating the masses at no expense to the student.

[187]

Lower class - low income, usually inner city
Middle class - moderate income, usually suburban
Upper class - high income, usually private estate

I definitley think there is something in between filthy and filthy rich.

[SlimJin]

I agree with it except for how you put where they usually live. In my city Middle Class Families that can't afford the "Private Estates" Are put into ghettos along with the Lower Class. Just forcing people out more and more til there are no more Middle Classes and Lower Classes to be in their way while they have to be sure they're in the Best neighborhood to protect all they have stolen from the People! Power to the Middle and Lower Classes! And a friendly, FUCK YOU to the Upper Classes who steal from the poor and give to the Assholes!!!

[The Feral Underclass]

I suppose it is good to make these distinctions, especially when tryin to politicise people and organize a revolutionary movement. But if you look at it in the case of a revolutionary situation, then it dosnt matter whether your lower, middle or upper class. If you want to fight the workers your an enemy, and if you want to emancipate them into a communist society, your a friend.

In the UK the Socialist Workers Party is ridiculed because a lot of them work in professinol jobs, ie probation officers, social workers, journalists and teachers. These could be classed as lower middle class, and in some areas of those professions, upper middle class. But they are politicised and the are conscious and mean to fight for a revolution. So they are revolutionaries and fighters for the working class. (although I am sure there are some people who would dispute that)

[FabFabian]

Middle class culture is all about keeping up with the Joneses. They have to have the latest car, go on vacation every year, indulge their children in the stuff they didn't have as a kid. They tend to be the snottest people in society who would rather send their kids to private schools rather than fight budget cuts to public schools.

The middle class make me sick, because they are usually the tipping point when it comes to the changes in policy; the "I'm alright Jack" attitude. As long as I am doing well I couldn't give a shit about anyone else. If they aren't doing well, it is their fault they are not trying hard enough. Me? I'm a self made man tripe. They are so comfortable and content that they don't want to rock the boat.

[Vinny Rafarino]

Originally posted by Urban [email protected] 16 2003, 02:31 AM
Try to put a label on my situation.

My dad is working class, always has been. He's an electrician and for about 15 years he worked for a fairly large company. Early in my childhood we were barely lower middle class, basically we were lower class. Throughout the years we rose to basically average middle class. My Dad opened a small electrical business about 5 years ago, he only employs 2 other people, at fair wages. He still goes out in the feild and works everyday like he used to, only now he owns the company. We've stayed middle class but now I'd say we're a little more upper middle class.

So how would you define me ? My dad is working class but he's also the business owner and upper middle class.

Labels suck.
I would say you pop is making the best of his situation and cares about providing a decent way of life for his family. There is nothing wrong with what you pop does. We must all understand we all live in a capitalist society. It's easy for men like me to rebel against capitalism. I am 35, not married with no children. I made my choice long ago. Your father made the choice to raise a family. Providing for that family is not a crime.

[Eastside Revolt]

"middle class" is 100% BULLSHIT.

I personally can't find a definition for it especially when I look at my own city. In my Political Studies Class, my teacher pulled-out a graph which showed in apparent terms that 10% of tha world's population owned 88% or something like that of the current wealth.

Now in this 10% area of the graph there were three so-called statistical class listings (lower middle class, middle class, and upper middle class). According to the so called statistics everyone in Canada falls into the "middle and upper middle class".

If this is so then apparently a poor native 12 year old hooker with no teeth in some ally in East Vancouver, is part of the class grouping which owns 88% of the wealth.


Bull shit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :rolleyes: :rolleyes: