Which Position is more ideologically accurate?

[Wild_Fire]

I have an important point that needs some necessary clarification.

You see, Marx's view of the world as it is discussed in the Communist Manifesto explains that there are only two classes, Capitalist & Working class.

But is there another way of seeing things, perhaps, a specific ideology which represents the relationship of a three class structure... of Capitalists, Coordinators and Workers?

You see, I was listening to a debate the other day between a Marxist-Leninist and a non Marxist-Leninist (but one who is still Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Imperialist and a Revolutionary), as he put forth the idea of a relationship between three classes, which I thought was an end to the debate.

I can see from this point of view that the Capitalist owns his business; the management or Coordinator class runs the business(while making more than the workers below him and controlling most of the power for decisions within the business); and the Workers who have little or no say in how things are done and are paid the least.

This idea of three classes makes a lot of sense.

What are everybody's views to this?

[Charles Xavier]

Well not exactly. They are more so related in relations to the means of production.

The Proletariat, IE the working class, is the class that has nothing to sell but their labour power for a wage.

There is a sub-class to the Proletariat, which is the lumpen-proletariat ones who out of desperation due to lack of opportunities resort to earning an income by shaddy means, career criminals, beggars, pick-pockets and such.

The Petty-Bourgeoisie, is the artisan, the small shop keeper, the farmer, who are usually owning a family business or have a craft which they own things but are directly involved in the labour out of nessicity.

The bourgeoisie are the owners, the ones who own the factories, the banks, the land, the apartment building, these are the ones that run things.

Workers are not necessarily the lowest paid people in society, there are workers, such as Hockey Players, actors, foremen, highly skilled and in demand tradesmen who bring home a lot of money. The working class historically was much better off than the peasantry.

[manic expression]

If you're talking about "ideologically accurate" in relation to Marxism, the three-class position is extremely inaccurate. In my opinion, there is no room in Marxism for this view, and those who hold it are usually adherents to parecon (participatory economics). If you ask me, this idea is quite illogical when you look at how things actually work: CEO's, for instance, make most of their income off of investments and stock options IIRC. That, their relationship to the means of production, is what makes them bourgeois. Really, there is no concrete, scientific way to define the so-called "coordinator class", for it is the product of pure conjecure and lazy logic.

However, if you're still interested in this position, you should research parecon, because that's the ideology I find most associated with what you're describing. Other than that, I'm sure different anarchist camps use that analysis; perhaps an anarchist could expand on that.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I too would consider CEOs to be bourgeois. The "coordinator" class within a Marxist framework is limited to coordinators of labour (i.e., mid-level managers, administration managers of small businesses who aren't owners, etc.). Even with this coordinator class, there are way more than three classes: the underclasses, the proper small-business petit-bourgeois, and of course the class of cops, judges, lawyers, artisans, and other non-productive folks.

[Charles Xavier]

I too would consider CEOs to be bourgeois. The "coordinator" class within a Marxist framework is limited to coordinators of labour (i.e., mid-level managers, administration managers of small businesses who aren't owners, etc.). Even with this coordinator class, there are way more than three classes: the underclasses, the proper small-business petit-bourgeois, and of course the class of cops, judges, lawyers, artisans, and other non-productive folks.

Artisans aren't productive?

[Wild_Fire]

If you ask me, this idea is quite illogical when you look at how things actually work: CEO's, for instance, make most of their income off of investments and stock options IIRC. That, their relationship to the means of production, is what makes them bourgeois.

So, the position of parecon, is originally an anarchist concept?

How does that make a CEO bourgeois?

Is this concept of parecon flawed?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Artisans aren't productive?

I don't think so:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/simplification-class-relations-t73419/index.html

[davidasearles]

To me it it useful to cut through what I consider for the most part verbiage. Wage workers are not in collective control of the industrial means of production and distrbution. If there is one other classification or a hundred other classifications of human beings relative to this reatonship as we identify them to me has very little consequence over what we oght to be openly working toward.

[manic expression]

So, the position of parecon, is originally an anarchist concept?

How does that make a CEO bourgeois?

Is this concept of parecon flawed?

On parecon, I'm not really sure where this theoretical camp came from. Right now, they're quite close to other anarchist ideologies, namely anarcho-syndicalism IIRC. I've also heard that they have some influence in the American SDS (although with that organization it's impossible to know exactly how much), but that's all I really know about them. There used to be a parecon poster here, but he's not as active.

If a CEO is making all of his money off of investments and stocks, he is essentially no different than those on the board of directors (or the people who directly own the company). Someone is bourgeois if they own the means of production, and I think CEO's fall very comfortably within that definition.

If you ask me (and remember I'm a Marxist-Leninist), parecon is flawed because it goes against the scientific and concrete definitions set forth by Marxism. If you just look at history, the struggle in capitalist society has ever been between workers and owners; the so-called "coordinator class" has absolutely nothing to do with this. Any serious empirical study of class society reveals that capitalism simplifies class conflict along the lines Marx laid out, whereas parecon tries to fit everything into their lazy and mistaken model. The only advantage to parecon is that it gives people the ability to explain the Soviet Union, saying it was the rule of the coordinator class, but this blatantly ignores the class character of the revolution and that which followed.

[fabiansocialist]

How does that make a CEO bourgeois?

CEOs, and even senior managers one rung down, who play their cards right, amass and exercise stock options, and don't blow their 7- and 8-figure bonuses, join the class of the bourgeoisie and no longer depend on a wage or pension to keep body and soul together. This describes the likes of Michael Eisner, Alfred Sloan, and Jack Welch.

Forget this hair-splitting trichotomy of workers, owners and corrdinators: just concentrate on workers and owners.

[communard resolution]

How about petty managers, supervisors, and assorted slave drivers who are privileged in terms of income, in how they hold positions of authority and will probably side with their bosses when it comes to the crunch, but do not own the means of production? Proletariat?

[manic expression]

How about petty managers, supervisors, and assorted slave drivers who are privileged in terms of income, in how they hold positions of authority and will probably side with their bosses when it comes to the crunch, but do not own the means of production? Proletariat?

You raise an important point. We need to remember that managers and supervisors aren't always devoutly pro-boss...many times a pro-union worker will be promoted in order to bust the union and take the wind out of their sails. Nevertheless, while the vast majority of managers side with the ownership, they still usually fall within the working class: they are simply a small and privileged minority within that class. Just because one rejects the idea of a "coordinator class" doesn't mean there is no labor aristocracy (made even more influential by imperialism) or counterrevolutionary workers. Trying to cram such exceptions into an invented third class instead of pinpointing their material conditions smacks of laziness IMO.

[fabiansocialist]

How about petty managers, supervisors, and assorted slave drivers who are privileged in terms of income, in how they hold positions of authority and will probably side with their bosses when it comes to the crunch, but do not own the means of production? Proletariat?

Yep. No-one said the proletariat is one undistinguished mass. If the manager or slave-driver has any sense, he will know he is a worker. If he's not clever, he'll allow himself to be fooled into thinking he's "management" and not know where his true loyalties lie. The owners are past masters at playing divide-and-rule.

[communard resolution]

Yep. No-one said the proletariat is one undistinguished mass. If the manager or slave-driver has any sense, he will know he is a worker. If he's not clever, he'll allow himself to be fooled into thinking he's "management" and not know where his true loyalties lie.

His true loyalties may or may not show when it comes to a revolutionary situation - if it does come to that situation in his lifetime. Until then, he'll happily play the role of a henchman - someone who keeps his fellow proletarians in check in exchange for money and a notion of power, same as a cop.

I can see why it may be pointless to create a distinct class for every exception. But Marx considered the proletariat to be the one class with the greatest revolutionary potential. This is what distinguishes the proletariat from, say the petty bourgeoisie.
Would you grant this relatively large group of 'slavedriver proletarians' a great revolutionary potential? If my personal experience is anything to go by, I would be tempted to say: on the contrary. These people tend to be straw dogs who will rat on other proles without batting an eyelid.

If we take into account such power relations rather than just one's relationship to the means of production, maybe it does make somse sense to create a distinct category after all?

[Die Neue Zeit]

If you ask me (and remember I'm a Marxist-Leninist), parecon is flawed because it goes against the scientific and concrete definitions set forth by Marxism. If you just look at history, the struggle in capitalist society has ever been between workers and owners; the so-called "coordinator class" has absolutely nothing to do with this. Any serious empirical study of class society reveals that capitalism simplifies class conflict along the lines Marx laid out, whereas parecon tries to fit everything into their lazy and mistaken model. The only advantage to parecon is that it gives people the ability to explain the Soviet Union, saying it was the rule of the coordinator class, but this blatantly ignores the class character of the revolution and that which followed.

"Lazy" and "mistaken"? Forgive me for offering another Marxist view here. While the parecon conceptualists wanted to tie the coordinator class specifically to the Soviet Union (and in so doing they jumbled together the proper coordinators - of labour - and the "coordinators" of capital, the "functioning capitalists"), I look to the emergence of Taylor's "scientific management" as the infant baptism of that then-young class. Also, the pareconists forget the social function of, say, fund managers (ordinary mutual funds, 401Ks, and so on), who themselves "coordinate" capital as functioning capitalists.

[manic expression]

"Lazy" and "mistaken"? Forgive me for offering another Marxist view here. While the parecon conceptualists wanted to tie the coordinator class specifically to the Soviet Union (and in so doing they jumbled together the proper coordinators - of labour - and the "coordinators" of capital, the "functioning capitalists"), I look to the emergence of Taylor's "scientific management" as the infant baptism of that then-young class. Also, the pareconists forget the social function of, say, fund managers (ordinary mutual funds, 401Ks, and so on), who themselves "coordinate" capital as functioning capitalists.

Well, when I said "lazy" I was specifically referring to the parecon conception of the USSR, which is acually lazy as you illustrated. However, parecon aside, I still think the whole idea is problematic in and of itself.

The existence of coordinators was not alien to Marx's time. Rich people hired others to manage their assets while they went off to have fun being rich with other rich people. I don't think this has really changed at all. These coordinators are, in reality, a mix of different classes, different interests and different circumstances; in my view, hoarding them under one label hurts a class analysis instead of enhancing it. Due to this, I simply don't find it very useful, but as I've said that's my opinion.

[Wild_Fire]

So... Based on Social relationships, are there two classes only?

Or

Is there an valid argument for a third class?

And should we use a perspective of relationships in viewing Capitalist economics or only a property-only view?

Which is right?

[fabiansocialist]

His true loyalties may or may not show when it comes to a revolutionary situation - if it does come to that situation in his lifetime. Until then, he'll happily play the role of a henchman - someone who keeps his fellow proletarians in check in exchange for money and a notion of power, same as a cop.

Would you grant this relatively large group of 'slavedriver proletarians' a great revolutionary potential? If my personal experience is anything to go by, I would be tempted to say: on the contrary. These people tend to be straw dogs who will rat on other proles without batting an eyelid.

I agree to an extent. And the kind of people who end up in these roles tend to be of a certain kind: conformist, docile, unquestioning, backstabbing, and ratting on others. But this portion of the working-class has been suffering just like the others: white-collar work has decreased as the work has been outsourced, the work is paid less (except for a relative handful at the very pinnacle), and when these people lose their jobs, they also have no means of sustenance. In short, they are wage-slaves, but in a more comfortable position while they have jobs: that's all. But I also don't see this group as the vanguard of a revolutionary movement: they probably just send out more resumes in a feverish search for a niche in a disintegrating social and economic order.

These people are workers. The ones who aren't are maybe five or ten thousand senior executives who exist in the murky area between worker and bourgeoisie. You can call them a third class, if you insist, but I don't see what benefits it brings to theory....

[Guerrilla22]

See Weber for arguments that there are more than two classes.

[La Comédie Noire]

From my experience in the work force "members of the coordinator class" are just workers who have limited decision making power, all the important stuff is still decided upstairs.

Usually they come across this promotion because:

A) They have shown a loyalty to the company that includes a willingness to snitch on other employees.

Or

B) They are an "old hand" who knows what they are doing and knows what the score is, but is far too entrenched in the system (kids going off to college, mortgage, car loan ect.) to rebel in any meaningful sense.

As for the USSR, I defer to others' informed opinions.

[S. Zetor]

A good source on the question is Hal Draper's 'Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution vol II: The Politics of Social Classes'. If I recall right, the point was not whether there are two or more classes in capitalist society, according to Marx. Marx used "class" not in some unitary, fixed and precise sense, but actually quite liberally in various meanings here and there, so every occasion should be taken with a grain of salt and read in the proper context.

Draper's first volume of the same series ('State and Bureaucracy') starts off by looking at several of the core concepts the way Marx used them. One of them, obviously, is class. Here's how Draper summarises it:

1. "In popular usage, a class is merely any group of people sharing some common characteristic(s). [..] Contrary to a widespread misapprehensions, Marx himself not infrequently used class in similar loose or broad ways when convenient." (Draper vol I, p. 14.)

2. "In any case, in the context of Marx's theory a socioeconomic class is a class of people playing a common role as a structural component of a given society." (Draper vol I, p. 14.)

3. "Historically, in Marx's view, class differentiation begins only with the appearance [..] of a surplus product. [Classes] must be defined in realtion to surplus production, and specifically in relation to control over the appropriation of the surplus product. Look at any given society through this lens, and two basic classes appear. One is the class of direct producers [..] The other is the class that controls the appropriation of the surplus product. [..] Around this central relationship the rest of the class structure takes shape, including elements left over from obsolete social forms." (Draper vol I, p. 14-15.)

4. "There is no rule-of-thumb definition which decides whether the chief of an armed band who resides in a stronghold and lives off the surplus labor of unfree producers, etc. is or is not a member of a feudal class. The point can be settled not by a glossary but only by a concrete examination of the overall social relations of the society." (Draper vol I, p. 15.)

5. "Many marxologists have reproached Marx for failing to give a dictionary definition of class, which they can recognise as such, because they look for something which is alien to Marx's method." (Draper vol I, p. 15.)

6. "Classes cannot be defined simply in terms of the process of production [..] It would exclude the early class of merchant capitalists, which was notable precisely because it played no role in the production process[.] The Bukharin type formula would alse decree that the petty-bourgeoisie - or a large sector of it, like shopkeepers - do not form a class, simply because it does not have quality of a polar class." (Draper vol I, p. 16.)

So, in Marx, class is a group of people within a given society whose conditions tend to be similar and who are organic to the mode of production of that society. Proletarians and big capitalists are just as organic to capitalist society as peasants and petty-bourgeois, but the thing with the two classes is about which (two) classes are the main antagonists whose struggle, in a given social formation, pertains to the whole society in a way that other classes' struggle doesn't.

As to lumpenproletariat, DimitrovII's definition ("sub-class to the Proletariat, which is the lumpen-proletariat ones who out of desperation due to lack of opportunities resort to earning an income by shaddy means, career criminals, beggars, pick-pockets and such.") is pretty good, though it's worth mentioning that Marx considered also parasitical offshoots of the bourgeoisie as lumpen elements - decadent poets, wandering artists looking for wealthy supporters and other bohemian types. In 1850-52 Marx used the frech word 'la bohême' as an approximation of lumpenproletariat.

"Marx refers to 'the exodus from Paris [to Versailles] of the high Bonapartist and capitalist bohême,' and later remarks that Versaillese Paris after the fall of the Commune is 'the Paris of the Boulevards, male and female - the rich, the capitalist, the gilded, the idle Paris, now thronging with its lackeys, its blacklegs, its literary bohême, and its concottes...'

"These are upper-class elements: not detritus from the poor lower strata of society, but hangers-on of the rich and powerful. What they have in common with the poor lumpen-class is that they are functionally outside the social structure." (Draper, p. 472.)

Lumpenproletariat is not organic to capitalism in the sense that it doesn't form a precondition of capitalism, even though it is a product of capitalist society. The same, as far as I've understood it, applies to several other social classes too. (See Draper, pp. 453-478 which deals with the lumpen question in lenght.)

In short, Marx most likely got the idea for lumpenproletariat from Max Stirner, who used the word 'lump' (rag) as a prefix to make up all kinds of derogatory words, one of which was lumpenproletariat.

I think the more important question is the political orientation of a class of people, rather than the technical definition of, say, CEOs, into workers or the bourgeoisie. A worker who is a part of a pension scheme where part of the money is derived out of pension fund investments into stocks is technically speaking partly capitalist. But politically such a definition makes little sense to me. The same passes for CEOs who technically can be merely salaried workers. But politically they are in the pocket of the capitalist, and that is unlikely to change.

So, to answer the comrade's question explicitly: I would go along with the "two polar classes" line, around which you can group several other classes, some of which are organic to the whole system and some of which are not. So I wouldn't go with the three classes line in the sense you present the question.

[Charles Xavier]

There are only two significant classes. The others will side with one side or the other.

[Kibbutznik]

To ignore the very important role that coordinators play in the modern state capitalist system is a grievous error, and a vast over simplification of the dynamics of society. According to Michael Albert's definition of the coordinator class, coordinators encompass not just the middle managers and experts of the capitalist firm, but also the various professionals that Marx traditionally included with the ranks of the petty-bourgeoisie--doctors, lawyers, teachers, bureaucrats etc.

Coordinators are defined by their control over empowering labour. They tend to have institutional control over other workers, and their control of information and other bureaucratic tasks give them tremendous influence over other citizens.

There are a number of factors which make this category useful for understanding the dynamics of class society in the modern West. First of all, their class loyalty is in flux. Materially, they may not be much better off on average than other workers, coordinators are more directly beholden to the bourgeoisie for their position.

This is important because their managerial positions make them the target off working class anger. The average modern worker has probably never even seen the CEO of his firm, and probably has no clue who the majority shareholders in the corporation. It's much harder for the worker to despise his subjection to the corporate leaders because the orders all come channeled through coordinators.

Compare this to the traditional colonial tactic employed by the British Empire in its colonies. Rather than directly manage the affairs of the colonised nation, the British officials would appoint officials from the local population to manage the colonial affairs to direct resentment inwards within different groups of the colonised nation rather than at the occupying power.

Simultaneously, coordinators do not empathise with other workers. They have very little solidarity with them because of their institutional position. The management structure gives them great incentives to be more beholden to the bourgeoisie, and to hold bourgeois social values.

Like it or not, the nature of class struggle has changed since the days of Marx and Lenin. The development of a third class within the structure of capitalism is a natural dialectical development driven by the class struggle within the system. Ignore it at your own peril.

[S. Zetor]

Coordinators are defined by their control over empowering labour. They tend to have institutional control over other workers, and their control of information and other bureaucratic tasks give them tremendous influence over other citizens. [..]

There are a number of factors which make this category useful for understanding the dynamics of class society in the modern West. First of all, their class loyalty is in flux. Materially, they may not be much better off on average than other workers, coordinators are more directly beholden to the bourgeoisie for their position.

This is important because their managerial positions make them the target off working class anger. The average modern worker has probably never even seen the CEO of his firm [..]

Like it or not, the nature of class struggle has changed since the days of Marx and Lenin. The development of a third class within the structure of capitalism is a natural dialectical development driven by the class struggle within the system. Ignore it at your own peril.

What is the political conclusion that follows from this change, in your opinion? What do you do differently than in the past, when you say it was different? After all, it's no use considering theoretical changes unless you also specify what their implication for practice is.

To me it's completely ok to talk about a coordinating class, and even though I personally go by the "two class" approach, someone advocating a "three class" approach (or theory) becomes an acute political question only if someone tries to inscribe "three classes" theory into some programmatic paper. (That I would consider sectarian, and I myself would never demand that a "two classes" theory should be inscribed into a group's program papers.)

[Kibbutznik]

What is the political conclusion that follows from this change, in your opinion? What do you do differently than in the past, when you say it was different? After all, it's no use considering theoretical changes unless you also specify what their implication for practice is.

To me it's completely ok to talk about a coordinating class, and even though I personally go by the "two class" approach, someone advocating a "three class" approach (or theory) becomes an acute political question only if someone tries to inscribe "three classes" theory into some programmatic paper. (That I would consider sectarian, and I myself would never demand that a "two classes" theory should be inscribed into a group's program papers.)

That is the great burning question of our time, comrade. For one thing, the changes in our modern era have largely divorced ownership and control of the means of production. Most ownership is largely absentee ownership, and it's the management hierarchy that largely controls the power in the firm.

I really had no real reason to hate the owner of the factory that I worked in. I never met these people, they were just faceless theoretical constructs. I had every reason, however, to hate managers that they had appointed to do their dirty work.

What this three class model means for the movement I am still working on myself. But I am convinced that it will, if nothing else, give us a chance to learn how to better subvert the capitalist system.

At the very least, perhaps our rhetoric should change a bit to reflect this new reality. We should focus on agitating to give worker's more control over their workplaces.

Unions fighting for better wages for workers is important, but it won't bring down the system. A strike shows workers just how much power they have to stop production. We should give an effort to show workers just how much power they can exert to control production.