Professional Athletes - Can they be considered proletarians?

[Marxist in Nebraska]

I have a question that has been rattling around in my brain for a while, so I figured I would put it on a thread and see what people thought. To me, it seems like a question of theory. If I am wrong, I apologize in advance.

On to my question...
Are professional athletes, even the multi-millionaires among them, members of the proletariat?

Think about it... athletes do not own their team, or their league... they sell their athleticism as labor to the owners of the franchises. In the strictest sense of Marxism, they fall into the proletariat, right?

At the same time, of course, the men and women in the major professional leagues make millions of dollars a year. It is likely that most athletes will invest their money on a stock market, which is a bourgeois move...

But assume they do not put their money into stocks... can they be considered working class? If not, why? Because they have too much money? If so, what is the dividing line?

It is now your turn (Yes, YOU--who is reading this). What do you think?

[sc4r]

Yes. Which just goes to show how confused and to an extent outmoded the dogma about Bourgeois and Proletarian has become.

They are still useful distinctions for many purposes (especially communciation) of course, but not things to get too hung up on.

In my (maybe unconventional) view Socialism is designed to benefit anyone who will agree to accept both the contraints and the benefits and not anyone who will not. Whether they are now 'capitalists' makes not a dogs bollox of difference, it is how they are prepared to behave that matters.

The only reason it might mattter to decide which 'class' an individual currently inhabitted is that if one was discussing secrets one might be a litttle more sceptical about someone claiming to be an ardent supporter who also owned a sweatshop than someone who worked in it. But thats just about practical probability nothing else.

Technically if he owns stock he is bourgeois and if he does not he is not. But where does that leave people who have savings which are invested even in a bank.

Answer: they are mostly effectively proletarian but part bourgeois by definition.

Use the distinction carefully and with due regard to what it will result in not as a mantra.

(Edited by sc4r at 12:11 am on July 17, 2003)


(Edited by sc4r at 12:15 am on July 17, 2003)

[Sandanista]

Most of the bigger sports stars, e.g david beckham and michael jordan etc could actually be considered to be more exploited than say the henrik larssons of this world due to the fact they make multinationals such as nike, adidas, pepsi etc billions of dollars yet only see a tiny fraction of this capital, if u apply marxs theory of surplus labour value then u see that they are far more exploited than lesser sportspeople.

[Marxist in Nebraska]

Most of the bigger sports stars, e.g david beckham and michael jordan etc could actually be considered to be more exploited than say the henrik larssons of this world due to the fact they make multinationals such as nike, adidas, pepsi etc billions of dollars yet only see a tiny fraction of this capital, if u apply marxs theory of surplus labour value then u see that they are far more exploited than lesser sportspeople.
Good point, Comrade Sandanista. I had not thought very hard about the advertising part.

[redstar2000]

It is an "awkward" question. From a Marxist standpoint, entertainers (including, of course, professional athletes) sell "more" than just their labor power...they themselves are commodities.

At the "major league" level of professional sports, athletes are paid sufficiently that they require professional investment advice and do indeed become "minor league" capitalists in their own right...though it is rare for them to become personally involved in management or making investment decisions on their own.

Their "social attitudes" appear to reflect this class reality; most athletes are politically conservative. A few have gone on to political careers in the U.S. Republican Party.

In "minor league" sports, things are somewhat more "proletarian"--athletes are paid little more and sometimes not as much as a highly skilled industrial worker. But the atmosphere is still quite conservative; the ownership structure of professional sports is closer to a 19th century business than a 21st century corporation. That's changing...but slowly.

Finally, keep in mind that you are talking very small real numbers. There are fewer than 1,000 major league baseball players, for example...in a population closing in on 300,000,000, that's trivial.

Is a professional athlete a "capitalist" or a "worker"? In the last analysis, it really doesn't make any difference.

:cool:

[sc4r]

Nicely put, and 100% correct IMHO.

[Moskitto]

I don't see the need for professional athletes, sport is something to do because I enjoy it, I get grants for doing an amatuer sport and I see other people getting "funding" which is actually a pretty reasonable annual salery (yeah, you try to work that one out as well :confused:). No one really watches them compete so they aren't "entertainers" as Redstar puts it, except for people in the sport anyway, who are involved because they enjoy it. The closest thing to big sponsorship deals is Fosters approaching a couple of guys who compete in fancy dress while drinking Fosters for the sheer comedy value. But I don't see why people need to be paid $40 million a year or whatever Michael Jordan was being paid to do something which when he was 14 or 15 was a hobby. It should be something to keep you happy when your feeling down and keep you healthy, not worry about whether you've qualified for funding this year or not.

[Socialsmo o Muerte]

According to the General Registrar Scale of Britain, professional athletes are members of the working class.

[Felicia]

hmmm, professional athletes can't be considered proletariats when they're raking in millions a year through team contracts and Nike deals...... what crock. :confused:

however, a struggling athlete who doesn't give into the bribes of the coorperations and who makes important decisions with the use of their earned money by donating to charities and NGO's, are in a completely different class than sh!t like kobe bryant and that f#cker michael jordan, what the hell does he need his own damn shoe for? Load of sh!t I say!

edit: holy mother, I've made a lot of typos in this one ;)

(Edited by felicia at 8:38 pm on July 19, 2003)

[Socialsmo o Muerte]

y do u have to be poor to be working class

[Felicia]

because there are monetary classifications to indicate classes. In canada I think it's something like this....

0$ - 19,000 = working class

19,500- 32,000 = dunno what this class is called, maybe I'm just making up figures here ;)

32,500- 60,000 = middle class

60,500 and up = upper class

these figures are largely off, I'll admit that. I'll see of I can find some proper figures for you :)
But you know what I mean...

(Edited by felicia at 8:34 pm on July 19, 2003)

[Felicia]

Social Inequality and Classes (http://www2.fmg.uva.nl/sociosite/TOPICS/inequality.html) I don't think that this link helps any :(

I can't find any figures, but I think you know what I mean. The classes are divided by yearly income

[Felicia]

Quote: from Socialsmo o Muerte on 8:14 pm on July 19, 2003
y do u have to be poor to be working class

I'm sorry, I read what you wrote, but I didn't really read it the way I should have. My apologies.

You don't have to be poor to be working class. You can make a working class wage, live by yourself (not supporting a family I mean) and have a lot of extra money to spend and not be broke all of the time eh ;)

But the idea of working class is that you make a subsistence living, you make just enough, or not enough, to live off of. Hence why it's hard to move up in "class" when you're stuck at the "bottom" of a capitalist system.

[Socialsmo o Muerte]

Well that depends on which scale you go by. The General Registrar scale here is the official socio-economic class structure. Class is defined by occupation.

[Felicia]

Quote: from Socialsmo o Muerte on 1:37 am on July 20, 2003
Well that depends on which scale you go by. The General Registrar scale here is the official socio-economic class structure. Class is defined by occupation.
really? ocupation? It goes by income here..... :confused:
where are you from?

[Sandanista]

This is all ok if you use the capitalist banding system, but let's get back to marxist basics, there are 2 classes which can hold power, the working (under) class and the upper (ruling) class, the middle classes posse no economic function, as one comrade put it, ull never hear accountants of the world unite, the modern middle class can serve the revolution, for example, teachers are likely to come out in support of the revolution by striking, but i suppose a general strike means all unionised and non-unionised workers...

[Urban Rubble]

I don't think class can be completely defined by your scale Felicia. There are ALOT of construction workers around here that make more than $20,000 a year, are they not still "working class" ? My Dad owns a small Electrical business, he makes a very good living, yet he is still out at construction sites busting his ass for 12 hours a day. If he isn't working class then I don't know what is, but he does make a pretty healthy amount of money.

Actually, I make about $20,000 a year, I know for sure that I am working class. Working class generally means someone who does physical labor for his job.

[Felicia]

I suppose that it all depends on what it is that you do to make your living. Don't blame me, blame the educational system. ;)

speaking of educational system, these people keep calling my house conducting a poll and they want to talk to people elegable to vote this year...... I just tell them that no one's home that's legal to vote...... meanwhile my mom, dad and me are all home AND eligable to vote ;)

I hate surveys, she kept pronouncing "Nova Scotian" as "Nova Sco-shee-ann".... haha :biggrin:

her: ".....we're doing a poll (I swear she spoke at 90 miles an hour, she spoke for 5 minutes and I didn't squeeze in a single word!) to see how politicians can make life better for nova sco-shee-anns, can I speak to someone eligable to vote?"

me: "uhh, no one's here right now...that....um....can vote"

her: "oh? when can I call back? when will they be home?"

me: "umm, I don't know"

her: "well, ok."

me: "heh"

:biggrin: I'm a terrible lier, that and I'm not much of a talker on the tele eh. Me and my friend joke because I had to call up a guy to ask him to come to the movies with a bunch of us and he doesn't say much on the phone either..... I got my friend to call him the next day and then she called me back saying "oh my gosh yes! He's worse than you on the phone!!". haha, it's bad when two people who don't talk very much on phones try to talk to each other on the phone :biggrin:

ok, too much information, I suppose that I tend to lose focus every once in a while ;)