Fuck Gentrification - Join the Fuck Parade...Part 3!

[brogdale]

'Working class' and 'middle class' are so imprecise as to be useless. 'Proletarian' and 'bourgeois' are precise. Anyone who works for a wage is a proletarian, anyone who receives income from capital is bourgeois. Most people in our society are both at the same time.

Most?

 

[belboid]

No, this is all pretty much bollux.
Using the WC definition of having to sell labour to survive actually casts those having to exist on benefits as MC.
That's why it seems more productive to think about ownership of the MoP.

it does show, to some extent, how meaningless the term 'middle class' is, except as a term of abuse. Even some of those who do sell their labour are middle class - if they are in one of those contradictory positions, maybe with a bit of managerial power (hire and fire), or because they have a highly skilled job where they can, to a large extent, actually control their labour process even while they don't own the company who pays them for their labour.

 

[phildwyer]

Most?

To varying degrees, yes. Most people have a bank account at least. That wasn't the case when Marx used the terms--at that time, capital and labor really were incarnated in two palpably distinct classes. Now that division has become internalized within individuals.

 

[belboid]

Most?

Pensions? They are based upon investment income, sometimes on the superprofits of third world exploitation. Even 'normal' state benefits have an element of capital earnings involved. Pretty bloody minor tho.

 

[belboid]

To varying degrees, yes. Most people have a bank account at least. That wasn't the case when Marx used the terms--at that time, capital and labor really were incarnated in two palpably distinct classes. Now that division has become internalized within individuals.

Having a bank account, even if you receive a pisspoor amount of interest, does not amount to having an income from capital.

 

[phildwyer]

Pensions? They are based upon investment income, sometimes on the superprofits of third world exploitation. Even 'normal' state benefits have an element of capital earnings involved. Pretty bloody minor tho.

Minor, but real nonetheless.

IMO the interesting thing is that, although it now exists within individuals rather than between social classes, the capital/labor dialectic remains a contradiction: capital is still alienated labor-power.

 

[stethoscope]

To varying degrees, yes. Most people have a bank account at least. That wasn't the case when Marx used the terms--at that time, capital and labor really were incarnated in two palpably distinct classes. Now that division has become internalized within individuals.

You can have my finances if you like, granted I pay into a pension through my work scheme but otherwise no savings, current account constantly in the red and only 1/4 through my mortgage

 

[phildwyer]

Having a bank account, even if you receive a pisspoor amount of interest, does not amount to having an income from capital.

Yes it does. Not a liveable income, maybe even a miniscule income, but still an income from capital investment. And then there's pensions, as you noted.

 

[cesare]

Having a bank account, even if you receive a pisspoor amount of interest, does not amount to having an income from capital.

Well it does in a way. Which is why Lloyds (for example) have Sharia bank accounts that try and circumvent the usury effect. Just pre-empting where Phil's going with this.

 

[phildwyer]

You can have my finances if you like, granted I pay into a pension through my work scheme but otherwise no savings, current account constantly in the red and only 1/4 through my mortgage

Mortgages are another example.

Yet more interesting is the fact that capital and labor still produce manifestly different and contradictory ideologies, just as they did when they were incarnated in distinct social classes. Today those ideological contradictions take the form of psychological conflict within individuals.

 

[belboid]

Well it does in a way. Which is why Lloyds (for example) have Sharia bank accounts that try and circumvent the usury effect. Just pre-empting where Phil's going with this.

It's not en ough to have an interest in defending capital tho (altho that is much less true when it comes to pensions). I was very deliberately avoiding the U word, for the obvious reasons

 

[phildwyer]

It's not en ough to have an interest in defending capital tho (altho that is much less true when it comes to pensions). I was very deliberately avoiding the U word, for the obvious reasons

Any worker who pays into a pension scheme has an interest in defending capital. Yet s/he also has an interest in defending labor. So these contradictory interests are internalized within individuals, without ceasing to function as a contradiction.

 

[phildwyer]

Also, capital has its own interests, which often conflict even with the interests of its putative owners--most of whom work for a wage in addition to owning capital and are thus proletarian as well as bourgeois.

So it seems to me that the definitive contradiction of our time is not between social classes, but between capital and labor-power. Which is to say, between human life and the objectified form of human life.

What is another word for the objectified form of human life?

 

[cesare]

It's not en ough to have an interest in defending capital tho (altho that is much less true when it comes to pensions). I was very deliberately avoiding the U word, for the obvious reasons

I think it's a mistake to think that any of us don't have a vested interest in defending capital. Which isn't to say that we will, but it's good to be clear about how difficult it is to unintwine/disintwine (are they words?) from reliance upon/defending capital, in a capitalist society.

 

[newbie]

I think it's a mistake to think that any of us don't have a vested interest in defending capital. Which isn't to say that we will, but it's good to be clear about how difficult it is to unintwine/disintwine (are they words?) from reliance upon/defending capital, in a capitalist society.

agreed, very few are not stakeholders, and Phil's point about the phsycological turmoil that can produce is well made.

 

[Pickman's model]

Fine, terms. And I don't think it's about money - independence, power, community, autonomy could all be interchanged into my sentence, so I quite agree.

or jews.

But I don't see how - if this is even an argument - that gentrification is different from the usual 'trickle down' pattern that's become ingrained in so much of our lives. So I don't believe that the dreaded hipsters have any more of these things except proportionally so as afforded by this model. So with greater affluence, they have the ability to configure their hipster district to some extent, but they'll still be powerless when the rents on their cafes and fixed wheel bicycle shops go up threefold or whatever.

there is no trickle down from gentrifiers. they don't buy in the existing shops. they go to shops which cater for them - they are less likely to go to ridley road market than broadway market (or borough market) for their food. this is why businesses like the nefandous cereal cafe spring up. anyway, the money from the gentrifiers does not flow into the pockets of pre-existing local businesses but into the pockets of large supermarkets or the businesses which cater to the tastes of gentrifiers.

When property and basic living costs are dominant, and the flow of money is at upwards at a significant rate, how does anyone towards the bottom of this pyramid really have what you describe? And this has been the whole point - that it's almost the same problem, just offset to some slightly different economic or demographic tier, so with different bounds and timeframes. And so, if you wanted to fight it, or change the underlying construct, who is an ally or who is the enemy? Is it the people moving in or is it the people at the top? Or, who do you want to have your class war with? The lower middle class?

when you talk about the flow of money upwards you somewhat undermine the claim about trickle down. if your posts cannot be internally consistent perhaps you need to think about the reasons for that.

 

[krtek a houby]

How about if it was a small business selling lampshades made of human skin?

But it's not. It's a couple of young brothers who started up a business.

 

[stethoscope]

I'll bite. You're obviously hinting at something in your posts on this thread, why don't you just spit it out?

krtek?

 

[krtek a houby]

krtek?

stethoscope?

 

[stethoscope]

stethoscope?

I don't think you responded to Belushi's question?

 

[krtek a houby]

I don't think you responded to Belushi's question?

I think you'll find I did.

 

[cesare]

But it's not. It's a couple of young brothers who started up a business.

But you said:

I don't follow.

I'm not part of your willy waving club. I dissent against the opinion that attacking small business is a good thing.

So I wondered how far this free pass for small businesses extended.

 

[krtek a houby]

But you said:


So I wondered how far this free pass for small businesses extended.

And then you made some facile comment about lampshades. I don't follow your logic.

 

[Pickman's model]

I think you'll find I did.

no, you haven't.

 

[cesare]

And then you made some facile comment about lampshades. I don't follow your logic.

I was following the blood libel theme that resulted when you suggested that bearded people were being targeted.

 

[stethoscope]

I think you'll find I did.

Hmm, I've re-read pages 39-46, but can't see it. Can you point out the post?

 

[Pickman's model]

And then you made some facile comment about lampshades. I don't follow your logic.

no surprise there then

 

[krtek a houby]

no, you haven't.

Sigh. I have said exactly what I think of this idiotic debacle of a protest and the targetting of a couple of young lads. It's not Nike, it's not Starbucks, it's not Coca Cola or Nestle. It's a cafe.

Bone and his followers are targetting the wrong places.

 

[Pickman's model]

Hmm, I've re-read pages 39-46, but can't see it. Can you point out the post?

i've reread and i have searched and there is only one post on this thread in which 'belushi' appears in a krtek thread: and that's on this page.

 

[Pickman's model]

Sigh. I have said exactly what I think of this idiotic debacle of a protest and the targetting of a couple of young lads. It's not Nike, it's not Starbucks, it's not Coca Cola or Nestle. It's a cafe.

Bone and his followers are targetting the wrong places.

you did not respond to Belushi's post.