Sympathy for the petit-bourgeois

[Chimurenga.]

So, yesterday, I got in a conversation with a friend of my family about politics. He asked my position on certain things and I answered. More or less, it boiled down to the issue of property. To be more specific, the issue of corporation business owners. Now, I made the point that I am against the owning of private companies because of the quality of life it provides to the person who owns it but contributes nothing to the work. He agreed with me BUT kept saying "But how would the owner feel about this?" Keep in mind, this guy owns no property, he is the manager of a store in a mall. He, more or less, tried to go a moral route, I guess you could say, and I kept saying 'but shouldn't that quality of life be available for all the people who do the work and don't get rich off of someone elses labor?" Eventually, the conversation degenerated to him being apathetic, even though he agreed with what I'm saying.

I'm guessing that this isn't an uncommon occurrence when discussing the topic with non-leftists. So was there a better way to answer this or did I pretty much have this right? I'm asking because once again, I don't think this is uncommon and I realize that I may be faced with same topic sometime down the road.


Actually, the thread title should be changed to "Sympathy for the bourgeoisie".

[Gecko]

I think you did alright..
you were sincere and honest..people pick up on that and will think over what you're saying..so that's cool..
unfortunately too many on the left are petit bourgeoise goofs slumming it with the working class and poor of the world,whacked out anarchist lunatics or infantile ultra-leftists.
these people don't understand the working class and don't have a clue how to relate to or communicate with them.the working class looks upon such people as messianic type lunatics and fools with no idea or sense of what the working class is or needs to make a revolution.

[ContrarianLemming]

unfortunately too many on the left are petit bourgeoise goofs slumming it with the working class and poor of the world,whacked out anarchist lunatics or infantile ultra-leftists.
these people don't understand the working class and don't have a clue how to relate to or communicate with them.the working class looks upon such people as messianic type lunatics and fools with no idea or sense of what the working class is or needs to make a revolution.

Insulting comments like this will get you anarcho trot'ed
The student movement is largely made up of petit bourgeoisie, and it has been an instumental part of the revolutionary movement. Show some respect, even a rich kid can fight in a revolution, wasn't Che Guavara an middle class doctor?
Sectarian comments will get us no where

[this is an invasion]

these people don't understand the working class and don't have a clue how to relate to or communicate with them.the working class looks upon such people as messianic type lunatics and fools with no idea or sense of what the working class is or needs to make a revolution.

Goddamn, you are stupid.

[Animal Farm Pig]

"But how would the owner feel about this?"

"How did slave owners feel about the abolition of slavery?"

If only their feelings are hurt, they should count themselves as lucky and quit whining.

[Zapatas Guns]

unfortunately too many on the left are petit bourgeoise goofs slumming it with the working class and poor of the world,whacked out anarchist lunatics or infantile ultra-leftists.
these people don't understand the working class and don't have a clue how to relate to or communicate with them.the working class looks upon such people as messianic type lunatics and fools with no idea or sense of what the working class is or needs to make a revolution.

I may be an anarchist from a middle class back ground but that doesnt make me a petit bourgeoise whack job. I'm trying to fix shit. I do understand and that is why I am here. Attacking an anticapitalist socialist like that doesn't exactly endear anyone to your cause. Luckily I am a big picture guy and I don't offend easily. The overall struggle is what matters and personal bull shit is irrelevant.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'm guessing that this isn't an uncommon occurrence when discussing the topic with non-leftists. So was there a better way to answer this or did I pretty much have this right? I'm asking because once again, I don't think this is uncommon and I realize that I may be faced with same topic sometime down the road.

It sounds like you did a good job in trying to explain this.

You might try flipping it too. How do people feel when they are kicked out of their homes? Should workers have to be put out on the street because the chaotic nature of booms and busts in capitalism caused their employer to lay some workers off or the bank to refuse them a loan because the economy is down? What about all the people who got screwed and lost their homes because the banks wanted to make quick money during the up economy and sold them bad loans that are toxic in the bad economy? What about when an apartment owner decides to sell or makes bad business decisions and the tenants get evicted?

I think one of the ways that modern capitalism disorients people is by deliberately covering up systematic problems and presenting everyone as autonomous individuals. When bad things happen it because X marine was a bad apple, X cop was corrupt, X banker/Wall Street guy was greedy. Conversely, systems are personified as people - Microsoft is Bill Gates, the government is run not by the ruling class but by affable Obama with his cute family.

So when we talk to people I think it's important to talk about capitalism as a system, not a bunch of individuals. As Animal Farm Pig said, how do you think slave-owners felt about all their slaves running away during the civil war and the end of the slave-system (the source of their social and economic power and rule)? It sounds silly, but even now (thankfully less-so since the civil rights movement) popular culture glorifies the concerns and troubles of slave owners. Read "Gone With the Wind" and you'll see that (not only does it glorify and justify the KKK) all the southern whites are hurt and confused that their slaves ran away. One of my favorite reconstruction-era annecdotes is that after the civil war, a guy from a slave-owning big plantation family ran into a former slave and even though they were the same age, the white southerner called the black man "Uncle". The freeman responded, "I'm not your uncle (you smarmy piece of shit [that's the part I like to imagine him saying])". The white guy was shocked and couldn't understand why he was so "mistreated".

Or think about how even now they make sympathetic movies and books about French royalty and the aristocracy on the eve of the French Revolution - Marie Antoinette anyone? Don't you think King Lou was a bit sad and confused that his subjects overthrew him and he was no longer able to do whatever he wanted? How many books or films do they make (with hip retro 80s soundtracks and cool costumes) about Danton or the Jacobins let alone the Sans Culottes or the Haitian revolutionaries? If you can name any, I bet these were originally made in the early 1800s.

[Gecko]

I may be an anarchist from a middle class back ground but that doesnt make me a petit bourgeoise whack job. I'm trying to fix shit. I do understand and that is why I am here. Attacking an anticapitalist socialist like that doesn't exactly endear anyone to your cause. Luckily I am a big picture guy and I don't offend easily. The overall struggle is what matters and personal bull shit is irrelevant.

since you brought it up...I will respond..
yeah,it's cool you're involved in fightin capitalism..I can respect that..and I hope you continue in the current struggle kicking capitalist ass,preparing the rope for the day when the working class hangs their criminal asses..
however,it is my view that at some point in the future anarchists will become saboteurs to the revolution by goin against a vanguard leninist party of the working class who are the guiding leadership of the workers.anarchists will at some point attempt to undermine the organizational strength of the working class thereby making them weak and vulnerable to attacks from the forces of capitalism and imperialism..
..anarchists sooner or later will just become another force of fascism that the working class will have to deal with.
anarchists=future fascists

[ContrarianLemming]

since you brought it up...I will respond..
yeah,it's cool you're involved in fightin capitalism..I can respect that..and I hope you continue in the current struggle kicking capitalist ass,preparing the rope for the day when the working class hangs their criminal asses..
however,it is my view that at some point in the future anarchists will become saboteurs to the revolution by goin against a vanguard leninist party of the working class who are the guiding leadership of the workers.anarchists will at some point attempt to undermine the organizational strength of the working class thereby making them weak and vulnerable to attacks from the forces of capitalism and imperialism..
..anarchists sooner or later will just become another force of fascism that the working class will have to deal with.
anarchists=future fascists

..




You can't be serious.

[blackwave]

since you brought it up...I will respond..
yeah,it's cool you're involved in fightin capitalism..I can respect that..and I hope you continue in the current struggle kicking capitalist ass,preparing the rope for the day when the working class hangs their criminal asses..
however,it is my view that at some point in the future anarchists will become saboteurs to the revolution by goin against a vanguard leninist party of the working class who are the guiding leadership of the workers.anarchists will at some point attempt to undermine the organizational strength of the working class thereby making them weak and vulnerable to attacks from the forces of capitalism and imperialism..
..anarchists sooner or later will just become another force of fascism that the working class will have to deal with.
anarchists=future fascists

Wow, that is some of the most sectarian nonsense I have ever read. I thought class domination was exactly what we were fighting against. As for fascism, you seem to think that everyone who is not 100% in agreement with your line is a 'fascist', perhaps you need to do a bit more studying before you start pimping your views. Oh, and I don't intend to murder any capitalists - if anyone needs to be executed, it will be reactionary authoritarian personalities like yourself (no threat intended).

[Kléber]

The petty-bourgeoisie are not the enemy. As Marx wrote in the Manifesto, the small bourgeois are being destroyed by the big bourgeois. If capitalist accumulation proceeds uninterrupted, the middle class will be destroyed by the ruling class; a few will get lucky and become big capitalists, but most will be ruined, lose their small business and end up as workers.

The essential distinction is that a small businessperson does not just profit from capital, they also exert their own labor to keep the business going. Small businesses often run at a loss, they don't exploit their workers as much, and since they actually know the workers face to face, they will think twice about mistreating them or laying them off. The pettiest bourgeois who don't have any employees, say a family that owns a farm, aren't necessarily exploiting anyone. Anyone who has worked for a small business versus say, a retail chain, knows there is a very real difference between a boss who works alongside you who you can talk to as an equal, versus a faceless corporation that doesn't even care who you are. Even a little bourgeois can be an asshole, but anyone who makes their own living deserves respect, not to be told "we're going to take your little shop because you bourgeois don't deserve it!"

The poorest people in the world often have their own (very small) businesses going on, setting up makeshift stands to make extra money on their day off, which they work alone or with their family members. Surely we don't want the revolution to play the role of the Singaporean police, and go up and down the market streets, busting up these poor people's source of secondary income because they don't have a license to sell their wares.

In the imperialist countries where the self-described "middle class" makes up 50% of the population or more, ultraleftism will get the revolution nowhere, a more nuanced strategy is necessary for dealing with the small businesspeople, that splits them between the poor majority (who might work a regular low-paying gig in addition to owning a little store or working some white-collar job) and the rich minority (who don't work at all). A workers' revolution should help struggling petty bourgeois with subsidies for farmers and small businesses that pay and treat their workers decently. Otherwise, the middle class will have no interest in communism, and they will support fascism like they have in the past.

The German Revolution of 1919 only expropriated businesses that employed 50 workers or more. The Russian Revolution didn't expropriate the petty bourgeoisie, it expanded their ranks one hundredfold by distributing land to small holders. The plan was to slowly buy those small businesses out and incorporate them into the state, but instead, Stalin and Bukharin allowed them to "enrich themselves" throughout the 1920's, only to suddenly massacre them once they had gotten too powerful.. but that's another story.

[this is an invasion]

since you brought it up...I will respond..
yeah,it's cool you're involved in fightin capitalism..I can respect that..and I hope you continue in the current struggle kicking capitalist ass,preparing the rope for the day when the working class hangs their criminal asses..
however,it is my view that at some point in the future anarchists will become saboteurs to the revolution by goin against a vanguard leninist party of the working class who are the guiding leadership of the workers.anarchists will at some point attempt to undermine the organizational strength of the working class thereby making them weak and vulnerable to attacks from the forces of capitalism and imperialism..
..anarchists sooner or later will just become another force of fascism that the working class will have to deal with.
anarchists=future fascists

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

[Chimurenga.]

The petty-bourgeoisie are not the enemy. As Marx wrote in the Manifesto, the small bourgeois are being destroyed by the big bourgeois. If capitalist accumulation proceeds uninterrupted, the middle class will be destroyed by the ruling class; a few will get lucky and become big capitalists, but most will be ruined, lose their small business and end up as workers.

As I noted earlier, the title should be changed to "Sympathy for the bourgeoisie" because we're talking about a corporation owner and not a small shop keeper.

[x359594]

...the title should be changed to "Sympathy for the bourgeoisie" because we're talking about a corporation owner and not a small shop keeper.

The bourgeois of the 19th and 20th century as described by Marx and Engels has the following characteristics: (a) Preoccupied with exchange-value, with money which is featureless, he is alienated from all natural personal or social interests; this makes all the easier his ruthless career of accumulation, reinvestment, exploitation, and war. (b) On the other hand, he embodies a fierce lust, real even though manic, for wealth and power. The conditions of his role are given by the economy, but he plays the role with all his heart; he is an individual, if not quite a man. The spur of a falling rate of profit or of closed markets, therefore, drives him on to desperate adventures.

The individual super rich bourgeois like Bill Gates or Donald Trump is an anomaly today. The owners of big corporations are shareholders that depend on salaried managers to run the company for them, keeping in mind that these managers also are share holders and are often rewarded with stock options when they accumulate greater profits for the company.

Other factors seem to me important: (1) In absentee-ownership there is a weakening of the drive for maximum exploitation of the labor and the machine; the owner does not have the inspiration of his daily supervision; he is not approached by inventors and foremen, etc.; but his salaried manager is usually concerned with stability rather than change. (2) And even if the drive to improve the exploitation is strong, the individual capitalist is disheartened by the corporate structure in which most vast enterprises are now embedded. (Government regulation is the last stage of this corporative timidity.) (3) Not least, it now seems that even in peace-time there is a limit to the falling rate of profit; technical improvement alone guarantees an annual increment of more than 2%. By deficit spending the state can subsidize a low but stable rate of profit on all investment, and there is apparently no limit to the number of things that people can be made to want to buy on credit, mortgaging their future labor. And in fact a large proportion, almost a majority of the bourgeoisie, are even now ready to settle for plans that guarantee a low but stable profit. Shall we continue to call them bourgeois? They are rentiers.

People like the manager of the retail store mentioned above dream of entering the ranks of the big bourgeoisie. That's why books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad and How to Get Rich Selling Real Estate are best sellers. They deserve our sympathy.

[Zapatas Guns]

since you brought it up...I will respond..
yeah,it's cool you're involved in fightin capitalism..I can respect that..and I hope you continue in the current struggle kicking capitalist ass,preparing the rope for the day when the working class hangs their criminal asses..
however,it is my view that at some point in the future anarchists will become saboteurs to the revolution by goin against a vanguard leninist party of the working class who are the guiding leadership of the workers.anarchists will at some point attempt to undermine the organizational strength of the working class thereby making them weak and vulnerable to attacks from the forces of capitalism and imperialism..
..anarchists sooner or later will just become another force of fascism that the working class will have to deal with.
anarchists=future fascists

I am not going to laugh at you like others on here have. I will however point out all the things you wrote about in regards to a vangaurd leninist party is exactly why I am an anarchist. A small group of leaders will inevitably lead to elitism and I don't like that very much. I have no plans of ever beoming a fascist and it is insulting to insinuate it. For whatever reason you just don't get that we are on the same side.

[AK]

Hey look. It's that creepy third-worldist guilt tripper.

I think you did alright..
you were sincere and honest..people pick up on that and will think over what you're saying..so that's cool..
unfortunately too many on the left are petit bourgeoise goofs slumming it with the working class and poor of the world,whacked out anarchist lunatics or infantile ultra-leftists.
these people don't understand the working class and don't have a clue how to relate to or communicate with them.the working class looks upon such people as messianic type lunatics and fools with no idea or sense of what the working class is or needs to make a revolution.

Hmmm... we don't understand the working class? In the early 20th century, anarcists were one of the most dominant sections of the labour movement. And, today, anarchists in Greece are one of the two main resistance groups against the government and the austerity measures.

since you brought it up...I will respond..
yeah,it's cool you're involved in fightin capitalism..I can respect that..and I hope you continue in the current struggle kicking capitalist ass,preparing the rope for the day when the working class hangs their criminal asses..
however,it is my view that at some point in the future anarchists will become saboteurs to the revolution by goin against a vanguard leninist party of the working class who are the guiding leadership of the workers.anarchists will at some point attempt to undermine the organizational strength of the working class thereby making them weak and vulnerable to attacks from the forces of capitalism and imperialism..
..anarchists sooner or later will just become another force of fascism that the working class will have to deal with.
anarchists=future fascists

You do realise, right, that anarchism is just about the most anti-state, anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist ideology you can get?

This guy's good for a laugh, read some of his wise words from other threads...

the workers love good leaders and they will trust and support them to do the right thing..

anarchists are confused people
who do not understand Marxism-Leninism-Maoism

You are the one who is fucking out of touch with the working class.

[tracher999]

Hey look. It's that creepy

Hmmm... we don't understand the working class? In the early 20th century, anarcists were one of the most dominant sections of the labour movement.

You do realise, right, that anarchism is just about the most anti-state, anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist ideology you can get?

This guy's good for a laugh, read some of his wise words from other threads...

yeah idd that gecko is fucking crazy wtf is he doing here

[blackwave]

In the imperialist countries where the self-described "middle class" makes up 50% of the population or more, ultraleftism will get the revolution nowhere, a more nuanced strategy is necessary for dealing with the small businesspeople, that splits them between the poor majority (who might work a regular low-paying gig in addition to owning a little store or working some white-collar job) and the rich minority (who don't work at all). A workers' revolution should help struggling petty bourgeois with subsidies for farmers and small businesses that pay and treat their workers decently. Otherwise, the middle class will have no interest in communism, and they will support fascism like they have in the past.

I am fine with people having businesses so long as they put their workers on an equal pegging with themselves. If they continue to economically exploit others, then they are the enemy, however we may categorise them. Certainly, lesser exploitation would be a gain, but it is not, in my estimation, acceptable as a final goal.

[blackwave]

I am not going to laugh at you like others on here have. I will however point out all the things you wrote about in regards to a vangaurd leninist party is exactly why I am an anarchist. A small group of leaders will inevitably lead to elitism and I don't like that very much. I have no plans of ever beoming a fascist and it is insulting to insinuate it. For whatever reason you just don't get that we are on the same side.

Indeed, I was thinking that this guy's words completely validated the primary anarchist criticism of Leninism, the idea that the Leninist vanguard will seek an absolute monopoly on power and ultimately become authoritarian, suppressing any dissent from those who are ultimately on their side.

[AK]

I am fine with people having businesses so long as they put their workers on an equal pegging with themselves. If they continue to economically exploit others, then they are the enemy, however we may categorise them. Certainly, lesser exploitation would be a gain, but it is not, in my estimation, acceptable as a final goal.

This. I mean, I'm opposed to private property as we all are, but many of the petit-bourgeoisie either don't employ workers or aren't even very exploitative at all. What I question, though, is the role of the petit-bourgeoisie in a revolution - if the petit-bourgeoisie would side with us at all. But enough of that class collaboration.