If you need to work to exist, you are working class. Owners make passive income with the wealth they already have. If getting fired from your job puts your basic necessities at risk, you are working class.
And relying on your parents to bail you out does not make you owner class.
I don’t disagree with you. These seem like entirely reasonable definitions. Yet… I still kind of question their utility. It’s just semantics and the delineation of classes depends entirely on the conversation you’re having.
Want to complain about capitalism? Sure… working class vs owning class, or 1%, or whatever you want.
For more or less any other conversation we don’t use terms like “lower class” or “middle class” but we divide cohorts into segments in order to make them easier to read about. It’s not a sinister plot by capitalists to confuse the plebs, it’s just practical.
Owners make passive income with the wealth they already have
And there’s different degrees. More than half the US population own stock. Is someone who makes $200 a year via investments “owning class”? What about $20,000? $2,000,000? You see how there’s vastly different scales? That’s what the definition of middle class is and why it’s important and meaningful
Your distinction is answered in the post you replied to.
If getting fired from your job puts your basic necessities at risk, you are working class.
Still not a great definition, because many working class people have emergency funds saved up. It’s normally advised for adults to have a 6-month emergency fund of savings to live on, and many of us responsible types do. My basic necessities could be met for a long time with no job but I would need to get one before the savings ran out of course.
6 months savings is still at risk tho.
If you don’t find a new job within 6 months, then what?
I have literally 3 years worth of minimum living savings, but that isn’t actually a lot of money and I only have it because I live well below my means because I’ve spent my whole life in poverty.
I’m not owner class even tho I can go 3 years without working. Because eventually I do need more income to survive. Owners don’t. They can use passive income and never ever have to work again. That’s the difference.
Now you are just typing to see your own words.
It’s not just about owning, it’s about living off what you own. You have to work to live? Working class. You live from passive income? Owner. As you can see, middle class definition is not meaningful in this conversation. In other contexts, sure it matters, but not here
So everyone who retires transitions from the working class to the owner class?
I’m not sure it’s that useful to say that a 70 year old retired engineer is owner class because they’re living off of the stock market returns of their 401k.
No, that’s just called retirement
So what about someone who retires in their 30s?
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This is kind of silly.
I’m definitely working class, like I couldn’t stop working and coast the rest of my life on what I have saved now without really cutting everything to the bone.
However, I max out my 401k and iras every year. We also put enough money aside that our two kids will probably need to take out little to no money for their college educations. We are contemplating how many hundreds of thousands of dollars we can afford for a house renovation, and we can still take two comfortable vacations per year.
I’m very comfortable and know I am very lucky.
Which is why it’s absurd to put me in the same category as the people who literally have cut everything to the bone and still worry about making ends meet at the end of the month. While we should still team up against the owning class, our financial situations are drastically different and shouldn’t be treated as the same because that would do a huge disservice to their actual relative situation.
Sure you can argue that your financial situation is a bit better, but the power dynamics between yourself and owners is still the same regardless if you make a lot or a little and more importantly, salaries change. When your job isn’t considered competitive anymore you’ll be in the same boat or if you get laid off or you get sick, etc.
Sure, which is why I think we should still team up. However, that doesn’t change the fact that we are in such ridiculously different positions that it’s nonsense to try and pretend these are “made up” just to keep people down. Like my tax rate is higher, and it should be. There are very obvious reason these have different terms, and “it’s just conspiracy by the man to keep us down!” without a shred of evidence to back it up is just, well, mindless conspiracy shit.
Sure there are differences - but it’s absolutely not a mindless conspiracy. They may have not invented the terms but the right uses them in a very effective divide and conquor strategy.
Just turn on conservative news for your evidence. Every single day they use ‘news’ about how the lower class is lazy, they don’t want to work, just want handouts, etc. etc. And it’s aimed at people like you who do have more in common with the lower class than the rich so you’ll vote for their tax cut. Even in this thread you’ll find people repeating these right-wing talking points.
I’ll add that it’s admirable that it hasn’t worked on you and you still have the empathy to see eye to eye with lower classes. Sadly though, it works on a lot of people.
I’m not so you were previously engaged with, and am fortunate enough to be in a similar boat to you.
I would just like to point out that in the context of having a conversation with a 13 year old, starting with working class solidarity is a good idea. I think the next step in that conversation is (for people in situations like ours) to acknowledge the factors that have led to our success, and agree that our privileges don’t mean we should abandon our less fortunate peers to exploitation. We should still seek an equitable world.
I’m not opposed to the “working class” idea, I’m opposed to the attempt to make it into some kind of conspiracy to keep everyone down.
I think what they are trying to get at is, it’s important to instill in the younger generation that the big picture is that there are owners and there are workers. All the rest are just manufactured microcosms of the bigger picture that we can’t even begin to tackle without understanding why these microcosms exist in the first place and dismantalling the structure that keeps them in place.
This helps them understand our current class structure for what it is, fake. This can help kids feel not so alone in the daily struggle, they have lots of allies! This may even drive this youngster to start an ethical charity or run for office to help enact change. This bigger picture is often whats missing when kids learn these things in school or life and why so so many kids grow up thinking they can make it big only to burn out young when they are struggling to just get by even though they played by the rules, here we are teaching to not blame yourself you did your best! It’s not about dismissing the vast wealth differences we have as the working class so much as teaching that those differences are subject to change at the whim of the ownership class, teaching solidarity and empathy along the way. Imo it’s a good teaching moment and it’s the same one I got as a kid, I like to think I turned out okay if not a tad jaded a bit too young haha.
I absolutely agree. I just like to be honest with my kids and if I start feeding them stuff like “we’re basically in the same position as that homeless guy and the whole idea that we’re in different situations is just a conspiracy by the ultra wealthy to keep us down”… Well, they’re bright kids and will realize that I’m full of shit soon enough.
Also I think teaching them that we’re lucky to have what we have and to give (both monetarily and our time) helping out those less fortunate than us is going to do a whole lot more to create solidarity with the rest of the working class than feeding them be conspiracy theories.
It sounds like you don’t really believe in the class struggle because you can’t fathom that you have more in common with a homeless person than a billionaire.
How on earth did you get yourself to this conclusion? Lol
Yep. It’s almost like different words with different meanings are useful to express different thoughts on different contexts.
ouch that must’ve hurt…
I don’t think it’s about denying the difference between subsistence living and moderate wealth, so much as prioritizing a framing that identifies the systemic issue of capital rather than a comparative placement on an arbitrary scale.
It’s not that those comparisons don’t exist, it’s just less important than the shared relationship to capital, and happens to distract from what’s actually meaningful.
While it may not be explicitly denying it does infact, IMO tell a 13 year old to disregard the difference in the way this is written. So I think the comment still stands that this isn’t a great way to highlight the difference between our work to a 13yo
It tells a 13yo that comparative wealth isn’t what matters, capital ownership is.
It isn’t ‘silly’ to dismiss the former, it’s the entire point. Unless you disagree with capital being foundational to class relations…?
I think we agree more than you think. I am not asking that someone disregards the class separation and understanding it is very much a created system to separate that fine line.
My point is that this post is very literal and can come off as doing the opposite it can fill a person’s head at that age with, “you should also disregard it because it is made up and doesn’t exist.” Quite literally when the argument to be made is that while it is made up it very much is in active use and very much exists and disregarding where you stand in the world isn’t being realistic or self aware if you want to change it you have to work hard for it in most cases. The point is that it is also silly to disregard that while class is a social construct it is in use and ignoring it can put you at a disadvantage too. You could create the expectation that because it is a construct that not acting on it or against that construct is a problem as well.
My point is thirteen year olds are still very much developing kids that are very easy to manipulate and or they very much can misinterpret a point being made. I could see this being said to a kid that took it literal enough that they decide the best course of action is because it is made up it must not exist therefore it isn’t a problem and therefore they don’t need to do anything about it. That was my point. I don’t disagree with you but I think posts like this are meant to self justify other social constructs that already misconstrue ideas and we live in an age of information where straight forward statements like this are also not the bigger picture and could be equivalent to someone just flat out making a post that The Earth is flat and we have learned that young people are easily influenced.
Yes I understand that the earth being flat is an actual conspiracy but it was also established as a joke and someone took it quite literally and ran with it. The Internet is dangerous and as adults we should be explaining both sides of the fence to our youth.
“Hey classes are a construct to control it and separate so that way the wealthy have more say so and can control our rights as people. However, don’t treat that created system as fictional because it is very much in place and disregarding it is bad for you and others. If you want to change then be aware of it and make something of yourself so you can be that person with the ability to make those changes.” I don’t know about you but I would rather someone young interpret it this way rather than outright ignore it because regardless of what we think the truth is capital is absolutely relative to class relation and the culture and laws and people in power make sure that is the case. Teach young people to acknowledge that and encourage them to be aware and change that. Both can be taught but this image doesn’t express that. You and I are on the same side friend. I just took the image here more literally and if you and I can agree there are multiple ways to interpret this then imagine what a teenager would do with this single statement and developing brains.
EDIT: top that on top of things teens are already trying to understand and deal with. Their social life, understanding who they are, anxieties from their brain and developing bodies. Social fitting in, sex, education, forming their own opinions and selves and creating an identity. Then just coming out and saying, “disregard that dad is literally a working class member because the rich said so.” It isn’t how I would handle it. I would want my kid to know exactly where we stand and who has control over where we are life wise and ask them to be better or do better and change that.
I’m definitely working class
.
I’m very comfortable
These are not mutually exclusive. We can acknowledge our privilege but still recognise that we are in solidarity (or should be) with those who have fewer privileges.
No one is saying you’re the same, and certainly not the same in every way except class.
It’s like me saying that both myself and Sid Meier are both millennials does not mean we’re in every other category together.
These are not mutually exclusive.
Which is why I very explicitly said I was both.
but still recognise that we are in solidarity
I even explicitly said we should team up.
I would accuse you of responding to the wrong post, had you not explicitly quoted parts of mine.
I read your comment, but I disagree that pointing to a common working class is “kind of silly.” It does not erase anything else you said. It’s just one category.
The point is we all sell our labour for money, and we can never stop doing that - not how much money we get in exchange for our labour.
I guess I wasn’t clear with that statement. It’s claiming that the recognition of these differences is a conspiracy to keep us down that I think is silly.
I figured that would be obvious because that is what the tweet is about, but I guess I should have been more clear.
I don’t see any reason to bring conspiracies into it, it’s just the way people are socialised to think of poorer workers as inferior, or workers with the most perks as the “betters.” I’m not accusing you of this, but it’s a part of the same dividing principle outlined in the op.
Like I’m sitting at 6 figures fucking around on my phone while someone fixes my dishwasher downstairs, so I’m feeling the privilege intensely atm. I recognise there are real, material differences between individual workers.
However when talking about class specifically, I think it’s very important that we don’t muddy the waters between workers.
I think that’s what’s got people (myself included) riled up by your comment.
I don’t see any reason to bring conspiracies into it
This is my point. The submission is about this important recognition being a conspiracy to keep us down. I think that’s silly.
Well that’s where we disagree then
You must have heard of “None of us is free, until we’re all free!” before, right?
I’ll use the example used a lot during COVID: we’re all in the same storm, but we’re not all in the same boat.
I don’t follow.
During COVID Some of us were “essential workers” and others got to complain about being stuck at home. But that was a minor gripe of mine. I would argue that arguing that people belonging to different strata of working class is about as useful as separating people by race. For the most part any conversation that doesn’t specify the need for the separation there is only one human race, and there is only the working class against the owning class.
I think that’s the mythical middle class that some of us in the working class are lucky to be a part of. In my case, I’m not in a comfortable saving situation now because the Covid years fucked my finances with a cactus, but living in a cheap neighborhood and having a white collar job means I can see a way out.
This got me thinking about the use of “middle class” in politics. It’s like the carrot for reasonable people that know they are not temporarily embarrassed millionaires. You don’t work hard and save for yachts, you do it for actually retiring.
Oh yeah, I definitely do it for retirement and to give me kids the benefit of getting an education without being saddled with massive debt. Although, I think they should have some skin in the game for college as I hope it will make them take it seriously, unlike with me who partied way too much.
But make no mistake, we can afford these things because we live frugally. We both drive used hondas, our grocery store is Aldi, we review our budget every month to keep things in check, we walk everywhere we can, we rarely eat out, etc…
Haha, 2012 mazda and 2013 Honda here for the foreseeable future.
I think I can see myself getting a fun fast electric car in several years, but I also really really like the idea of retiring a bit earlier, so we’ll see.
Get a fun fast electric bike and retire even earlier.
(sorry I know this is unrealistic for most north americans I just fucking hate car culture and can’t help myself. Have a nice day)
Yep, I like reading the “fuckcars” communities, but where I live was built to accommodate car culture only. And given the reddish tint (as in US Republican) of the area, I don’t expect it to change, especially to anything “European” looking. We do have traffic circles though!
The only big change I expect to see will be when robotaxies are ubiquitous. But even then it’s not like it will make the area more walkable. You just wouldn’t need to own a car to live in the suburbs and even some nearby rural areas. But I assume I’ll be using the car/bus-centric infrastructure my whole life.
Bless you. The more people who know and care about this stuff the better. I’m hopeful the tide will eventually turn and it will be political suicide to oppose urbanist design.
And yet, you are an accident or a cancer diagnosis away to lose everything and needing a divorce so you and your wife don’t lose your house.
Probably not, as we both have good insurance. This is another advantage my position has.
While there is a lot of sense on what you say, I prefer the class distinctions made by Karl Marx because it does not factor economic differences between workers. He defined classes in 3 groups, independently of their money. It only depends on their relation to the means of production. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxian_class_theory
What line of work are you and your spouse in, if you don’t mind me asking?
Tech and health care
Why is it absurd to you? Why do you need any more class distinction between the ruling and the working? To increase the granularity only serves to prove the post true.
I don’t need anything. I’m just pointing out the absurdity of pretending we are all in the same boat, and that it’s all some conspiracy by the guy in his mega yacht to divide us when people point out that my boat will weather much more intense storms.
You’re an idiot to think that money defines you. You might think you’re not a narcissistic asshole but you are. Regardless if that’s all projection from the “rich” class. You’re their narcissistic pet boy.
You might think you’re not a narcissistic asshole
I don’t know you well enough to make an actual determination, but I’d be willing to bet that this is quite the projection.
You’d lose. Just like you will when the investment into the printed worthless “paper” gets slammed like 9/11 as described in 3:71 & 3:73. Turns out it wasn’t a prediction but rather a plan to rob the working class. At least, those like you who were suckers to consider wealth to be valid when it was printed in paper of no true value but painted with the entirety of theft.
I’m of an entirely other direction path. Your blatant narcissist being conduct on behalf of the paper printers, the billionaires, is so blatantly obvious that only you can’t see it.
You think your stupid plans have value. Stupid not because you are but because you swallowed the bit of money wholly and have zero track now; when the theft is conducted right in front of your vision.
That theft is being done right now. But sure, it’s not theft the way your work isn’t slavery. That because you made the choice to work for result of their being rich because you’re not lower class…
…yet…
…sucker.
Maybe not narcissistic, maybe just delusional.
Yeah. Delusional. Because you think your money has any real value. You’ll remember this when it’s too late and I’d be like “I told you so” but everyone dies so I won’t be here either.
I could change that, but I won’t because no one listens and no one cares so I’m of the point to just let everyone die and move the fuck on. Why would I bother to bust my ass magically when everyone else shoves their head in a sandpile of literal garbage? I don’t even need real magick this time and yet my only disposition is to not do so when no one else does.
Go on sucker. Idgaf about your blatant insults defending yourself. You just can’t deal with the fact that that doesn’t do that ever.
Idgaf about your blatant insults defending yourself.
I’ve seen nothing to defend myself against. It’s just been a bunch of incoherent rambling coupled with empty insults. Although I have to say it’s hilarious to see someone so full of themselves accuse others of being narcissistic.
Again, insults ignoring everything. Although, I’ll give you you might just be thoroughly and blatantly stupid.
The difference: I’m not ignoring what you say as an excuse. I don’t need to in order to feel better.
And it’s not the owning class, it’s the Parasite Class.
A lot of people own capital without becoming parasitical, and therefore, obscenely wealthy. But becoming obscenely wealthy requires parasitism.
It’s basically three classes:
Working Class: the vast majority of humanity. Everyone whose basic necessities for survival and physical as well as mental health is controlled by others. Despite the name, this class DOES include those who are unable to work.
Lesser Owning Class: Anyone who controls said necessities but at least employs or otherwise benefits people of the working class. These aren’t necessarily bastards but there should be as few of them as possible.
Parasite Class: The ones whose main or sole source of income is gaining wealth by having wealth already. Examples include landlords, billionaires borrowing against their stock portfolio and others whose enrichment removes money from the general economy while adding only to their own dragon hoard and/or mostly closed systems like stock markets. That these exist at all is one of the greatest atrocities allowed by mankind.
Also known as the proletariat, petite bourgeoisie, and bourgeoisie, respectively
True, but over a century of anti-communist and anti-socialist propaganda has kinda soured most of the west on anything with even a whiff of either, so I figured I would spell it out without the “scary commie words” 😉
Petite bourgeoisie is what the proletariat are expected to aspire towards. And the way you break into that class is by showing obsequiousness towards the bourgeoisie while enjoying the privilege of unchecked abuse towards the proles.
The crabs in a bucket get a prize if they can climb to the top for long enough.
Owwww my bones! These commie snowflakes are hurting me with their scary words 😰
I think it’s nicer if there are more in the lesser owning class, so that anyone can reach there if they work hard, which is not the case today.
It’d be even nicer if there were no owners at all. No exploitation that way.
I mean, if you view them as owners, yes, and that’s also the reality. But I want to argue there need to be good leaders.
What does good leadership have to do with the owning class?
Are you suggesting that by virtue of owning things they are good leaders?
No.
Anyone who controls said necessities but at least employs or otherwise benefits people of the working class.
There are overlaps, but I’m tired of explaining nuances in this thread. I didn’t even write the owning class is good leaders. I instead mean that I wish what OP labeled as the owning class gets replaced with good leaders.
I don’t even think you need leaders at all, either. Decisions can be made by a collective, without necessitating a representative.
But, either way, how do you incentive “good” Capitalists? To become a Capitalist is to become an exploiter.
I’m out. Good luck with your view.
Edit: out because I don’t see a sign you’re ready to accept reality.
anyone can reach there if they work hard
The rewards tend not to be for hard work, but for clever exploitation and excess cruelty.
If you can successfully commit/facilitate a bunch of crimes (particularly, but not exclusively, white collar crimes) then you can break into the petite bourgeoisie. Florida’s Rick Scott, a guy who made a fortune scamming Medicare is a great example. The WWE’s Vince McMahon, a guy who encouraged his rooster of steroid abusing thugs by offering them the opportunity to rape his female staff members, is another.
If you can stomach the grisly work of denying dying children their insurance claims or evicting elderly residents illegally foreclosed on during the 2008 housing crash or overseeing the butchery in Iraq/Afghanistan during the Bush Era or the torture prison in Guantanamo Bay (another Florida favorite, Ron DeSantis, broke out as a conservative darling after his tenure writing legal briefs that justified waterboarding and sexual abuse of terrorism suspects), then you can get a leg up.
Plenty of these professions are functionally quite easy and the quality of the work is incidental to the reliability with which you adhere to the company/party line. The real pay out is in cultivating friends higher up the ladder and proving yourself a loyal little footsoldier, not in proving you can march the farthest or carry the heaviest loads.
If anything, jobs that consist of shitty drudge-work tend to be the worst paying and are the least reliable for promotion. The pimp makes far more than the prostitute and has to do none of the dirty work.
The parasite class includes the welfare class and the corporate welfare class. Not all of the poor people are working class and not all of the parasites are ultra rich.
The parasite class includes the welfare class
Not all of the poor people are working class
That’s what people who work for the parasite class keep saying to get us to fight each other in stead of them. Don’t fall for their tricks.
The real wealth is the comrades we made along the way
The correct term is ruling class.
The middle class are working class who can’t afford to go to school longer, but did so anyway because they were expected to.
In a lot of countries (Canada, Germany, etc.) they can afford to go to school longer because society realizes that it is in it’s best interest to make it affordable (free in some cases).
If you believe the US’s way is the only way to have a democracy and freedom, you need to learn about other democraties.
Not Canada. Tuition in Canada is as expensive as comparable schools in the US. We just don’t really have the ultra expensive tier like Harvard.
Tuition in Canada is subsidised by the provincial government for citizens. The cost is also regulated by the provincial government. Those two amounts differ from province to province. For instance, in Alberta when UCP clawed it’s way back into power, they decided to cut funding to post secondary, and imposed tuition caps that prevented cost recovery. Our university had to lay off hundreds of people, and we’re still not operating within 80% full staff.
A student at full course load can expect to pay about $10K per year, depending on the university, if they are a citizen. Otherwise, foreign students on a visa will be in the $25k-35k bracket. UofA specifically quotes about $33k. I can’t speak on what tuition in the states looks like, but I’ve heard numbers much closer to the latter example with more frequency.
True for university but colleges have pretty good incentives and reasonable costs, also we have high quality colleges imo
Tbf to Harvard and the other ivy leagues, as of when I applied a couple years ago (did not get in lmao), my tuition would’ve been $0. I don’t know how much they actually charge, but they do have an above average scholarship program, at least for those coming from the “lower” class.
I’m not saying it’s a good school or anything, I really have no idea. That just kinda stuck with me, it seemed really cool.
It was pretty cheap when I was paying it.
With the way the political landscape is currently looks: I don’t think that european democracies shouldn’t get too high on their horses with their fascist disasters? Netherlands, anyone? Italy?
The Professional Managerial Class, or Labour Aristocracy, is a broadly recognized sub-class that functions as agents of the bourgeois within the working class. In the same way that an Overseer and a Serf are both “working class” but one holds a clearly demarcated position relative to the other, PMCs and service/factory workers are well defined sub-components structured against one another.
Were u got that theory from? Asking for a comrade.
Its definitely neo-marxist.
You’ll get it from folks like Richard Wolff (on the more academic end) and Amber Lee-Frost / November Caldwell Kelly (on the podcasty end). Piketty’s “Capitalism in the 21st Century” also takes a deep dive into Managerial Capitalism and the modern method of corporate administration.
More orthodox Marxists tend to dismiss it as a distraction, but I tend to think there’s real value in understanding the class elements of the administrative state as distinct from both proletariat labor and bourgeoisie owners.
Well, AFAIK, the orthodox marxists tend to be Marxist-Leninists, who kind of want to overlook all that administrative class business, Bakunin warned us all about way before Lenin. Or is that a different bunch alltogether again?
Bakunin never had to be in charge of anything as vast as a Soviet Union. Marxist-Leninists can be the victims of their own success in that regard. But I think Bakunin was more speaking of bureaucrats broadly, while your more modern Marxists are concerned specifically with how the organs of capitalist states function in the era of industrial finance.
That’s not really a class, it’s not a social relation to the Means of Production, that’s more of a group of people. A class is more specific, like a Worker, or an owner.
Indeed, point being there’s no real class distinction.
The class distinction is owner vs worker. Do you have to work? You are working class. Do you collect money from people because you and your family “own” an essential pillar of society? You are owner class.
Yeh, but there’s no class distinction between blue and white collar. That’s the joke.jpeg
Whatever happened to Marx’ “ownership of the means of production” definition? Also, even beyond that, it makes sense to have an understanding that the precarity felt by an upper middle class person is not remotely the same kind of daily struggle faced by a lower middle class person. Not being able to afford property vs. not being able to afford food.
Ultimately it is important to recognize that all humans in the capitalist system are recruited to participate in an extractive, antihumanist global process.
By what definition is somebody who can’t afford property “upper middle class”?
Americans seem to feel that middle class means having your own “home”, meaning a small plot of land with a house. The number of such homes, within a certain distance of workplaces, schools, and various urban amenities, is limited. There’s nothing any economic system can do about that. At some point, people have to accept smaller plots of land and/or stacking the dwellings (ie living in apartments).
Yes but apartments can be owned. I’m German and I also think middle class means the family either owns or is currently paying off a house/apartment
Germany is not traditionally a property-owning nation. The proportion of renters is far higher. Does that mean that Germany has fewer middle class people than its neighbors? That doesn’t make sense to me.
I think this is a toxic view. It means that there is a limited supply of middle class status. People who already own property, have a strong financial incentive for NIMBYism. You also have a financial incentive to make property more scarce and thus more expensive. It incentivizes a fuck you, I got mine attitude. When your dwelling is not just a place to stay, but a source of status and identity, this is made all the much worse.
Maybe you’re thinking, we should just sell off all the property owned by corporations or the state, so that more individuals can get their middle class badge. Well, that’s what Margret Thatcher did. It’s exactly the kind of neoliberal thinking that got us the society we have today.
Middle class isn’t a thing, it’s a made-up bourgeois tool to give the working class an idea of what’s “enough” with no respect to actual labor output, nor is it a Social relation to the Means of Production.
The popularization of the stock market make the “means of production” definition fuzzy. If you own .001% of Tesla, do you own the means of production? What about 1%? What about 20%? Is it 51%? Elon Musk is obviously in the owner class, but he only controls 20% of Tesla. But if it’s 20%, then does going in with 4 buddies to buy a $500,000 surface parking lot make you an owner? You only need $100k for that and you might not even be employing anyone, and you’re not producing anything except parking. You’re not like set for life at $100k.
I assume this is solved by using money as the “means of production” instead of thinking of it as ownership of a business or machine, but that still doesn’t solve the fuzzy nature of it, you need to set a border at an amount of money.
It’s really not fuzzy. The stock market existed during Marx’s time. If you own enough to live off of without labor, you’re Bourgeoisie. If you own a small business but also must labor to run it, you’re petite bourgeoisie. If you do not own enough to live off of and do not make your primary income via ownership, you’re Proletariat.
The fuzzy part is picking an amount to consider “enough to live off of.” Elon Musk still works, it’s not a question of if you are currently working but a question of whether you need to. But some people “leanfire” retire with $300k in stocks. So is everyone with a net worth of $300k or more part of the Bourgeoisie?
And apologies to the true theorists because I’m sure Marx covered this somewhere but this makes me wonder about the elderly or unfortunate living off of government payments like Social Security with zero net worth…they don’t work to survive, but they don’t have any money.
Choosing to take an active managerial role, and needing to, is what separates bourgeoisie from petite bourgeoisie. Musk is firmly, firmly bourgeoisie. The most bourgeois bourgeoisie, one could say.
Leanfire is bourgeoisie. Being able to live off of your investments and choosing to makes one bourgeoisie.
You’re trying to tie net worth to class interests, which defeats the purpose of class analysis in the first place. What connects class is not material conditions, but shared interests.
I see what you’re saying but I don’t think you’ve closed any gaps. If leanfire is bourgeoisie at $300k, then people with the same amount of money who are working instead of retiring are choosing to work, just like Musk.
I get that it shouldn’t be a net worth calculation, but that’s really a stand-in for the conundrum that occurs when someone could retire but isn’t, and who gets to define what “could retire” means. Is someone staying one extra year in the coal mines to pay for their granddaughter’s college in the bourgeoisie for that year? Does it matter what the goal is? What about staying multiple years? What if the goal is making enough money to launch a mission to Mars? I’m back on Musk.
You’re either setting the definition at literal need, in which case you’re making a pretty huge bourgeoisie of whom a large percentage work for a living, or it’s just fuzzy because you need to know interests and intentions and internal thoughts and feelings.
Leanfire requires setting up and actively living in a manner that has you living off the labor of others by virtue of your own ownership.
Being able to retire, yet getting your money via labor does not make one bourgeois.
Again, think in shared class interests. What does the coal miner do to get their money? At most, they would be petite bourgeoisie.
Have you read Marx? I do think Marxism can help you out a bit. Classes are described as aggregates, it isn’t fuzzy but it also isn’t binary, and most of all relying on net worth defeats the purpose of class analysis as they share no class interests.
Whatever happened to Marx’ “ownership of the means of production”
The knowledge economy and non-physical services economies make that definition worthless.
Those existed during Marx’s time.
No they didn’t, not in any way that’s recognizable when compared with today’s global economy.
Yes, they did.
And in the real world there is a huge difference between 30k and 250k a year. Made up 🤣
I think the point is if either gets fired their livelihoods are at risk. Therefore, making them the same class with the same financial precarity.
Maybe 250k can be unemployed for a bit longer, but ultimately they must return to work.
Usually, to get a $250k job you need to have $250k job trappings, aka you’re unlikely to get or keep that job while living, dressing or eating etc as a $50k job person, ending up in the situation you described.
Minimalism seems to be a way to escape the rat-race even through salary, but it seems like a strategy for after you have proven yourself indispensable in a high paying job, not something most people can or will achieve, or are able to then make the necessary life changes.
TLDR if you are a worker become part of a union no matter what salary you’re on.
Agreed, unions are the shit.
The point being made here is that it’s not about income, at least not directly.
It’s about whether or not you need to work for others for that income.
Petit bourgeoisie, the origin of what would become middle class, originally meant small business owner. This was to differentiate between the owners of massive factories and small shops.
The point is about taking absolutely valid class identifiers and trying to pretend they don’t exist is dumb. I haven’t said a damn thing for or against communism.
I haven’t said a damn thing for or against communism.
Neither have I.
valid class identifiers
I don’t know if that’s true. The modern definition of “middle class” is very fuzzy and poorly defined. Sometimes tertiary education is a requirement, sometimes not. Sometimes it’s about professional certification. Sometimes it’s about whether you’re a manager.
Even if you’re looking at a definition that only cares about income and nothing else, that’s still a pretty terrible definition. Cost of living is drastically different depending on where you are. Somebody in New York might be middle class, but lives like a member of the lower class compared to someone on that same income in Kansas.
If we then ignore income and only care about standard of living, does that mean someone living frugally and saving a lot of money becomes lower class due to their spartan lifestyle? Instinctively, that seems wrong.
EDIT: I should mention that I find the worker/small owner/owner distinction more useful than the lower/middle/upper distinction because it’s far better at figuring out who has interests that are aligned. Workers, generally, want higher wages. Small owners and owners are aligned on lower wages, but are not aligned on taxation and regulation. Interestingly, small owners and workers tend to be aligned on minimum wage for competitiveness reasons vs the owners.
And so that means the other classes don’t exist?
Not in any real or useful sense, no.
I think it comes down to your level of analysis, or how you define relations. Having been living off $30-40k income for most of my life, I can definitely get the sentiment of the large differences between that and someone making $100k (even $60k), or at least someone living a working class vs middle class lifestyle. But that also goes for someone making $0-10k to $30-40k. Either way, the salience of financial insecurity hits a lot harder for someone with less existing cash.
That said, I also get the sentiment of the nil difference between working and middle class versus the ultra rich who generate huge swaths of passive income and can basically can dictate whether or not the lower classes have enough for rent. Why bother fight against each other when there’s a much larger and casual target.
In a more nuanced answer, for solidarity sake we do need to recognize our similarities to work together for a better system. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore our differences and privileges either. We should work towards achieving core necessities for all even at the cost of our own privileges (i.e. an opposite tragedy of the commons: those with some threshold excess contribute to the pond). Determining that threshold is another question, with both absolute and relative poverty thresholds with their own criticisms. And not to say that no class hierarchies will form either, technically skilled and heavily laborious jobs should be rewarded, and people will always try to skim a little off the top to get ahead of their own benefit. But in recognizing our differences, we recognize a need to monitor ourselves for the benefit of everyone.
even at the cost of our own privileges
I agree with everything you’ve said except for this. With worldwide growing inequality, it’s very clear where those resources are going. The people making less if the janitors get a pay bump isn’t the middle managers. It’s the owners, by a very tiny amount. If you don’t have a share of the company, you’re not affected by other people making more or spending less.
Funnily enough though, another winner in that scenario are small local business owners. More local income means more customers.
I mean you’re right on that, it’s not like someone having a Netflix account or not heavily affects the impoverished to the same extent Netflix the company has. But I meant moreso to hold so as a general mindset/expectation. Like owning a cottage is something doable, or at least was doable, for someone with a upper-mid income. Maybe a mid income with some time. But generally, but it’s an expense that really only benefits a few that could be used for something else. Not to say don’t enjoy things, but put your purchases in perspective with some deliberation.
No entirely on topic, but this mindset would also benefit environmentalism. Being in Canada, I can’t count the number of times people have complained about the end of plastic bags. But really, the trouble of keeping a couple cloth bags on you at all times or even purchasing something later is a bare minimum hassle that outweighs the additional trash. Sure, consumers’ impact is more negligible than industry waste, and industry waste should be the main focus. But from an individuals’ perspective, you need to be slightly more mindful of your own responsibility if you care about your impact because you’re the only person that can keep yourself accountable all times. And it adds up with each person, etc.
The existence of a large gap doesn’t negate the differences between working and the top 7-2% ers. All I’m saying is there is very clearly a difference.
Yeah, I’m agreeing with you on that. I’m moreso stating this because it feels like people are talking past each other is all. An extra $5k for someone making $30k affects much more than someone making $80k regardless of top percenters.
True, but the increase in salary and productivity should also go up in proportion. And yet, the minimum wage have remained the same since the 1970s.
And the difference is decided by capitalist class.
You laugh now, but we’re staring down the barrel of all that shit melting away as we all burn. The “owning class” is actually making it happen faster lol.
250k has more in common with 30k than with megayaght CEOs.
And they’ll all burn regardless. Me and you as well. The money and all it meant will burn with us. All these stupid little arguments about class lines are all without value in the face of our self made apocalypse.
You’ll just have to pardon me. I’ve been paying close attention to the actual biggest, most important news in human history that so many seem to want to downplay or ignore. It’s basically already over and the wealthy are still stomping the gas on it to extract more wealth and power.
That’s money for you. Our stupid ass ape brains just couldn’t handle the money game we invented. At least the wealthy will be suffering too as they are left to fend for themselves.
Hey collapse-aware friend,
I definitely get the frustration of having that level of awareness and looking around at others discussing things that seem pointless in comparison. Especially early on, if it happens to be a recent thing for you.
That being said, people aren’t going to suddenly stop living their lives because of where we’re personally at, and saying doomer stuff unprompted is generally just unproductive overall.
Plus, the sooner everyone is aware, the faster collapse will happen. So might as well let people enjoy what they have now. As you said, it’s basically already over.
Personally, I enjoy giving shitty, brutally honest answers to job applications for jobs I don’t actually want, to be particularly cathartic. Because who cares about companies.
Nothing to do with what I said.
Oh it does. You could say it’s quite existential. The pampered house cats that think themselves above will suffer. Poetic justice as the systems they rely on start to collapse and they see the only class there ever was, was human.
Some of them are smart enough to see this and they think bunkers and the like will protect them. They won’t. All this made up divisive shit will burn.
👌👍
Modern feudalism in a nutshell
Exactly…
I don’t think anyone has defined what “upper” “middle” and “lower” classes are too me. I just take it for granted that people who are wealthy (passive income kind of people) are “upper” class, the “middle” class is people getting by adequately. Not really suffering, or fighting to “make ends meet” so to speak, maybe a bit of savings… And “lower” class are people who struggle to pay their bills, live in low cost housing, have few luxuries, etc. Basically, how much disposable income do you have and where does that income come from?
Working, with passive income sources, or not needing to work to cover expenses, is “upper”.
Working, with some disposable income, perhaps some savings, but not enough to live on to cover expenses, is “middle”
And anyone without any kind of financial safety, living paycheck to paycheck, only making enough to cover direct living expenses, are “lower”.
I have no idea if that’s right; nobody has accurately defined it for me. I’ve always considered myself kind of “lower-middle class” aka, still making enough for some luxuries, but without any significant savings or buffer for financial stability. No issues meeting living expenses… Kind of the bottom half of middle class, if you will. My father was the same; he was much better with money, mind you, and he was able to dedicate a larger percentage of his earnings to savings. He would forego luxuries and “upgrades” to save money… As long as things worked and the family was comfortable, he was fine with putting the money away. He wouldn’t hesitate to spend to replace something that’s important, like buying a car to get around when the old one was too broken to work and/or be fixed. But if the vehicle worked, he wouldn’t replace it just because it was a bit older.
IDK, I’m working. I need to work to afford to live. I’m almost never at risk of not being able to pay for something I need or want, aside from big ticket items (well into the thousands)… I’m just some guy.
It’s not just money. It’s also breeding/family.
Watch the guilded age.
Servants are working class
The people with money, even old money are middle class.
The dukes and upwards are upper class.
In modern America Upper class are the dynastic families
You basically have it, uhh, right on the money, so to speak. I think a lot of other people try to make more specific, scientific definitions, but once you get into the meat and potatoes of, what is a “necessary” expense, what is a reasonable amount of comfortable savings, yadda yadda, you start to see the cracks form. Realistically the only solid definitions that I think I’ve ever seen have mostly just been made on the basis of people not having to work at all, to live, vs people who have to have a job. There’s probably a very highly qualified definition of “middle class” out there, but I’m not sure if it would match the idea of “middle class”, and if it would also illustrate anything valuable for anyone, really. Especially if you’re going based on the former definition of “needs to work to live”, then most middle class definitions you’d come up with would probably also fall into working class.
I dunno. It’s interesting to me how many people kind of get caught up on what I see as semantic arguments, rather than analyzing arguments around like, oh, do we like a capitalist structure of ownership, like a corp, or do we like a worker structure of ownership, like a co-op? It hits me as being a very kind of moralistic argument about “leeches” and “capitalists not contributing to society”, when really I think we should be caring about what’s a more ideal/efficient way to live, rather than caring about, you know, whether or not somebody should be defined as middle class, or petite bourgeois, or whatever. It’s basically the same argument either way, but I find the framing to be pretty important, and often overlooked.
Well, I certainly don’t give what “class” I am any thought day to day. Only on rare occasions like this, do I even give it any consideration at all.
I’m part of the workforce, I do my job, I collect a paycheck, I go home and spend time with my family. I’m not complicated, I don’t subscribe to “hustle” culture, and I don’t have any need to be wealthy, influential or otherwise noteworthy to anyone outside of my friends, family and coworkers. I’m just not that person. Even inside of those circles, I don’t see any one person being in charge, except for my direct manager and whatnot in a work context; everything is cooperative.
That works for me, maybe I’m strange in that respect, but I’m okay with it. I couldn’t care less if someone thinks I’m one class or another. I work to live, not the other way around.
The last color of the rainbow is Purple. Violet and Indigo were made up by Green to divide Purple. Make no mistake, Green is actively working against your interests.
Is that what greenwashing is?
Also I’m team pink anyway
So, Richard of York gave battle what?
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t direct linking to an image on Reddit cost your lemmy instance a fair sum of money?
The image provider of Reddit doesn’t hide images behind an API or any authorization layer. It’s basically free especially if the Lemmy instance has a flat fee for bandwidth usage
That’s a surprise, considering Reddit’s whole API meltdown. I appreciate the answer.
APIs can be used to fetch specific data. A link to an image is literally just a link to an image, the server isn’t having to gather the data to send like an API would.
The thumbnail, which I didn’t bother to check until a few minutes ago, offered the impression that Lemmy fetches data differently. It’s not a thumbnail, it’s the full size image. Every comment here has fleshed out my understanding a bit more. Thank you.
How would that work?
Iunno, I’m not a web dev. Reddit created its video and image hosting services to avoid fees associated with linking content from elsewhere. When you click a link, the site you came from is listed as the referrer. Past that, your question is essentially mine.
thats not how the internet works.
If users aren’t loading the linked content then maybe, but that’s just pedantry.
Its not pedantry, its just not how things work. When you load the link its the same as if you went to reddit manually and browsed to the image. The instance having a link to reddit doesn’t mean reddit can charge the instance money now. That makes no sense.
You are wrong.
Any chance you can expand on that slightly? I’m fine being wrong, but this doesn’t offer much information.
Just linking to rxxxit doesn’t require the API, so no API costs.
There is no flood warning because the individual lemmy user viewing the linked content uses their own IP address.
i.reddit is a web server just like any other and if you have a link to a file there, and it is not otherwise secured, you can embed a link or reference to it in any HTML.
You don’t realize this likely because you browse using a mobile app and imagine that reddit is something other than just a website that can be treated and linked to like any other website.
I browse exclusively from a browser, however, I am nearly entirely unfamiliar with how the web works. I’ve pieced together that Reddit was using Imgur’s API and was charged heavily for its use. I’m guessing based on another comment that Imgur required referred requests to go through their API? And Reddit has no such protections for some reason? That about right?
There’s not much to expand on. There’s no mechanism here for linking to someone else’s content to cost money, so it doesn’t.
I realize now that there’s somehow a disconnect in thought between linking content on a content aggregator and expecting users to load it. It’s my mistake, I lack the vocabulary to communicate that properly.
I’m pretty sure it’s less that, rather you are memeing your username for the lulz.
No, I’m just asking a question and receiving (mostly) answers from people without any interest in answering it. I did get a couple of proper answers, which was nice. An audience of 20 isn’t enticing enough to troll.
I know I am the one that answered it.
And you are trolling and now you’re blocked.
There’s no mechanism for this. Sure, they could track the referer (if it’s even set - Lemmy apps probably wouldn’t bother, browsers can decide not to as well)
But then what? They send a bill to the Lemmy site? Which would be your instance, not the one where it was posted… Which you could then laugh off and post for content
What you’re describing doesn’t exist, otherwise I could start my own host service and spam posts to Reddit and charge them whatever I want. I could even go to my own content
Now, let’s say they did want to do something like this. They could send a “not allowed” picture instead of what you asked for if you don’t see a valid site. They could then force developers to get a key and proxy the image over from Reddit (if the key leaked, they’d be on the hook, so you’d almost have to do it server-side)
But that’s a bunch of effort on both sides, and people would just reupload somewhere else. It might even lead more people off Reddit
I’m thinking you came to this idea from Reddit saying they started hosting themselves to save money. Here’s some reasons why that situation is different
First, imgur does have a system to restrict outside links. Certain content requires either to see it on their site or to meet criteria, like a referral header.
Second, lemmy is basically leaching off Reddit’s hosting, but does actually have our own image hosting. Imgur was created to serve Reddit - if imgur decided to delete popular Reddit posts, the site would have looked dead. They were already paying imgur for the service
Third, who says Reddit was telling the truth? They’ve been chasing the IPO for a long time now, so of course they’re going to sell every new feature as profitable. In reality, I’m guessing it was a mix of needing something to spend money on to increase their valuation and wanting more control over their content since imgur had grown beyond just serving Reddit
I imagined most image hosting websites would have something of the sort to prevent abuse. I really appreciate your explanation, it filled in several holes left in my admittedly poor understanding. Thank you.
how would that work
So, Elon Musk is then working class too.
No. He could drop working and have a comfortable life. The owning class chooses to work as a way to excert power and accumulate even more wealth
A lot of people in upper middle class choose to work to accumulate more wealth. And “as a way to exert power” is may be true for some, but not for all of them.
If living off of your assets without working is possible to you you are not working class. It’s that simple.
So what’s “possible”? You mean could they take a 1/50th pay cut and survive on like 30k a year from their investments? Possibly. That certainly doesn’t make them “owning class” though
No what makes them owning class is because they own their means of income, they don’t have to work for it.
So what about people who have some investments but also still have to work? Or whose standard of living would seriously decline if they did not work?
Those are trans owners.
A lot of people in upper middle class choose to work to accumulate more wealth.
Then they’re the owning class. The middle class has no coherent definition AFAIK.
And “as a way to exert power” is may be true for some, but not for all of them.
It’s probably true for most of them. Accumulating more wealth to buy a house to rent out counts as accumulating power to exert it as a rent-seeker.
This is a really stupid distinction to take a stand on. There’s no single line where, once you cross, you “no longer need to work”. Someone making high 6 figures a year is clearly not in the same situation as someone who has multiple billions, and they’re clearly not the same situation as someone working minimum wage. That’s exactly why the middle class definition is important and meaningful
This is a really stupid distinction to take a stand on.
I’d like to politely ask you to cut out the insults.
There’s no single line where, once you cross, you “no longer need to work”.
That’s the thing about classification: It doesn’t respect the edges, where it’s pretty much always getting fuzzy.
Someone making high 6 figures a year is clearly not in the same situation as someone who has multiple billions, and they’re clearly not the same situation as someone working minimum wage.
Here, it gets complicated: Since it’s highly incentivised by capitalism to invest your capital, most “upper middle class” people don’t actually have all that money sitting in a bank somewhere. It’s usually invested somewhere which makes them (partial) rent-seekers and extractors of other people’s surplus value. This is where the edges get fuzzy.
However, adding a cathegory of middle class, while vaguely pointing in a general socio-economic direction isn’t helpful for discussions about capitalism. The broad strokes of capitalist and wage-dependent class still stands. And adding further distinctions could help understanding a more gomplex model. But it’s never used this way. Whenever you hear someone talk about some “middle class”, 80% of the time, it’s about populism and not about some deeper economic analysis. And if it’s used for populism, it’s always used to divide the wage-dependant/working class.
That’s exactly why the middle class definition is important and meaningful
Can you give a coherent definition of middle class? I’-e never come across one that makes sense.
Can you give a coherent definition of middle class? I’-e never come across one that makes sense.
It’s someone for whom money isn’t a daily concern, but is still a resource that can run out. They might have to plan for their yearly vacation, or have to discuss the next car purchase, but wouldn’t have a problem buying things or eating out. If you’re looking for a more specific definition of “makes below $$$” then you’re not going to get it, because that’s not how any of this works.
Since it’s highly incentivised by capitalism to invest your capital, most “upper middle class” people don’t actually have all that money sitting in a bank somewhere. It’s usually invested somewhere which makes them (partial) rent-seekers and extractors of other people’s surplus value.
This is why you people will never actually get anything useful accomplished in society. You’re so intent on fighting against human nature, and playing victim of “exploited surplus labor value” that you simply can’t understand that there IS value in capital investment risk. It’s simply not the case that 1 unit of labor = 1 unit of money.
So you admit that you don’t have an accurate definition. That’s a shame.
that’s not how any of this works.
I beg to differ. The whole concept o class analysis doesn’t make any sense, if you have these wobbly definitions of classes.
This is why you people will never actually get anything useful accomplished in society.
Lol. Please read a history book.
You’re so intent on fighting against human nature
I think I have a more thorough grasp on “human nature” than you do. That’s the whole deal of anarchists (Kropotkin, Graeber, Bookchin, …).
Capitalists don’t take investment risks anymore. Surplus value is a model that’s used to describe a system. I don’t make the mistake or confusing the model with reality.
Do you have money in the bank? That brings you some rate? Then by your definition you are “speaking to exert power”
Are you telling me that I’m not dependant on my wage?
No, I am saying that if you have money in the bank, then according to your logic you are “exerting power” the same way as your have accused rich people do.
The main point I am trying to make that if you say that you divide people on working and not, then Elon Musk fits working category.
Just because he does not have to work, but he still does, speaks only positively about him.
if you have money in the bank, then according to your logic you are “exerting power”
Yeah, I kind of do. If the bank I deposit my money at, gives loans out to weapons companies, then the money that gts made by war pays my interest. However: I don’t really have a choice if I want to survive after having retired. Also: if you look at wealth distribution, then the comparison gets more and more ridiculous.
if you say that you divide people on working and not, then Elon Musk fits working category.
Good thing that’s not what I’m doing. The “working class” is the set of people who have nothing to sell, but their labour to survive. Here’s a great channel which explains why this distinction is important
Just because he does not have to work, but he still does, speaks only positively about him.
Tha only tracks if A) work is inherently good, or B) the work he’s doing is actually beneficial (considered that he actually works). I don’t agree with both (or ever all three) points.
Did you really just call the richtest man in the world upper middle class?
I think they are outrage trolling, a common pastime for muskrat groupies. It will significantly improve your internet experience if you just block all of them.
I don’t understand. He owns huge amounts of capital. In what sense is he working class?
In a sense that he is working?
You seem to have confused “paying people to work for you” with “working.”
Not according to the definition:
If you need to work to exist, you are working class.
If snorting coke is working then yes
lol
Shitposting to the echo chamber you bought isn’t work.
There should be some kind of intelligence test before people are allowed to use the internet. It would keep stupid shit like this from spreading.
It’s a good thing that was underlined or I wouldn’t know what part of this was important.
Stfu, putz
putz, like… putins? klutz? or is that some slur i’m too uncultured to understand
edit: apparently it’s a yiddish-derived insult meaning “fool”
No need to transcribe it, I agree.
I mean, Upper Class certainly exists, working class and middle class are the same thing, and the problem is that lower class aren’t working.
Lower class aren’t working because they can’t. That’s why they’re lower class. Also, you’re wrong because NOW the middle class of working are the lower class being underpaid.
The truth & problem is that the upper class aren’t working regardless if they “have jobs” or not.
So let me spell that out. You are completely fucking wrong.
You’re both wrong. The lower class largely is working. More than ever, actually. It’s he system that’s broken, not the people in the lower classes.
You missed half my post.
No, I read it. You’re mostly right, just that first sentence makes it sound like lower class = can’t work.
That assumption leads to the observation that you didn’t read the following point.
I respect Jeff Bezos because he works so hard he could only send dick pics during company meetings.
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