Exploited petit-bourgeois?

[Bala Perdida]

How would one view someone in the service industry that owns the supplies to do the service and hires workers to help them do it, but still has to work and keeps most of the profit?
On my mind is basically gardeners/landscapers and house cleaners/maids. Those who operate individually usually own a truck with all the supplies and hire people to help them do the job. The owners also work as much as their workers, but keep more of the profit.
So are the owners still exploited? Or is it impossible to exploit and be exploited? Is calling the owner petit-bourgeois appropriate? After all they still own the factors of... service?

[Slavic]

How would one view someone in the service industry that owns the supplies to do the service and hires workers to help them do it, but still has to work and keeps most of the profit?
On my mind is basically gardeners/landscapers and house cleaners/maids. Those who operate individually usually own a truck with all the supplies and hire people to help them do the job. The owners also work as much as their workers, but keep more of the profit.
So are the owners still exploited? Or is it impossible to exploit and be exploited? Is calling the owner petit-bourgeois appropriate? After all they still own the factors of... service?

The owners of this business are petit-bourgeois. They own a buisness, employ workers, and own the tools utilized in the business.

They are small business owners. Small business owners typically labor in their business until they extract enough surplus value that they don't have to labor.

[tuwix]

How would one view someone in the service industry that owns the supplies to do the service and hires workers to help them do it, but still has to work and keeps most of the profit?
On my mind is basically gardeners/landscapers and house cleaners/maids. Those who operate individually usually own a truck with all the supplies and hire people to help them do the job. The owners also work as much as their workers, but keep more of the profit.
So are the owners still exploited? Or is it impossible to exploit and be exploited? Is calling the owner petit-bourgeois appropriate? After all they still own the factors of... service?

Self employed people are frequently just wage labour deprived form workers rights. Great bourgeoisie enforces this form of employment. However, there whole food chain in terms of bourgeoisie. One can exploit another from top to bottom...

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think there's a bit of a grey area with some things. There are different kinds of arrangements that either actually blur some lines or make it appear as if workers have a sort of p. Bourg interest when they might only in the narrowest or surface way.

The relations that define capitalism are broad tendencies but how they play out can be shades of differences.

I think in general you might say that a landscaper who is independent, who maybe doesn't hire anyone else but does their own networking, develops their own clients (and owns tools and a truck etc) is p. Bourgeois. On the other hand a landscaper who works for a subcontractor (who has their own list of clients, contracts, etc) but must transport her/himself and their own equipment is still a worker. They are selling their labor to a contractor who then sells a service. The independent landscaper is selling their labor as a service; the contracted worker is an interchangeable, as an induvidual, part of the service sold by the contractor.

In everyday life there might be overlap, a contracted worker might do independent work on the side, a small landscaping businessperson might be a very small holder of capital (a truck, business cards, tools).

But the independent landscaper or the small contractor are not exploited in the sense of workers. Working hard or not doesn't define exploitation, not making much money dosn't define exploitation... An asshole on Wall Street might work very hard, a shop owner might be in debt or barely scraping by. When a contractor sells their service, the are paid according to what they can get in a competitive market, but they are more or less being paid the value of the service they provide. If the contractor makes a bad contract, then they might be underselling or getting "ripped off" but they are not being exploited.

The worker for the contractor is not selling their service or their labor, but their labor power - their potential to labor. To pay for labor power, the contractor only needs to pay enough so that workers can come back and work again, but the actual labor done is worth more.

[Jimmie Higgins]

However, there whole food chain in terms of bourgeoisie. One can exploit another from top to bottom...

buying low or selling high on the market is not exploitation in the sense that marxists use the term or in the sense of direct exploitation of peasants and slaves. The systematic and coercive taking of the product of labor is the exploitation thread that runs from slave to peasant to modern prol.

Loosing in gambling or making a bad purchase or sell at a loss are not being exploited.

[tuwix]

buying low or selling high on the market is not exploitation in the sense that marxists use the term or in the sense of direct exploitation of peasants and slaves. The systematic and coercive taking of the product of labor is the exploitation thread that runs from slave to peasant to modern prol.

Loosing in gambling or making a bad purchase or sell at a loss are not being exploited.

I don't use a word of exploitation in exact Marxist meaning. However, frequently petit bourgeoisie is reduced to a worker giving only a job for a bigger one. And the bigger one can be deprived of his profit by someone bigger and so on as in food chain.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I don't use a word of exploitation in exact Marxist meaning. However, frequently petit bourgeoisie is reduced to a worker giving only a job for a bigger one. And the bigger one can be deprived of his profit by someone bigger and so on as in food chain.

yes, but this is market competition which smaller owners are in a worse position. The small owner can work her way up to being a big owner (or not) and position themselves better. Whereas a more successful worker - as a worker - does not beat the capitalist at their own game and exploit capitalists. Individually a worker can try and escape their exploited position and become a owner or professional, but they are no longer workers in doing so... They have changed their subjective and induvidual relationship, but not the relationship of workers.

Small owners may be taken advantage of by bigger capitalists, but this is circumstantial... The factors of the deal favor one party over another. Exploitation of workers, however, is systemic... Profits can not be made without this, the system can not function without this, the pressures of the system make this more or less imperative.

[Ravn]

yes, but this is market competition which smaller owners are in a worse position. The small owner can work her way up to being a big owner (or not) and position themselves better. Whereas a more successful worker - as a worker - does not beat the capitalist at their own game and exploit capitalists. Individually a worker can try and escape their exploited position and become a owner or professional, but they are no longer workers in doing so... They have changed their subjective and induvidual relationship, but not the relationship of workers.

Small owners may be taken advantage of by bigger capitalists, but this is circumstantial... The factors of the deal favor one party over another. Exploitation of workers, however, is systemic... Profits can not be made without this, the system can not function without this, the pressures of the system make this more or less imperative.

Small businesses are systematically taken advantage of just like workers are systematically taken advantage of. Big fish always eat the little fish. This whole system functions by crushing your competitors and squeezing your workers as hard as you can.