Thanks. Appreciated.
Why do people from privileged class backgrounds often misidentify their origins as working class?
- Thread starter brogdale
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chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
I think this is a really important point at the heart of the 'problem'.
People from all over the political and social spectrum see class as a (or having a) value. That can - obviously - to lead to both idprole nonsense and to the elevation of individual social mobility and and the entrepreneurial self as a virtue.
Similarly, viewing class as individual circumstances, rather than as a relational process leading to those circumstances (Maxwell's Demon as Bourdieu put it) quickly leads to the centering of income - or even access to commodities - as somehow definitional rather than 'merely' symptomatic.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Symptomatic of what, though? At the very least you have an explanatory gap there. If a particular relational process can lead to vastly different individual outcomes, that fact rather demands an explanation, no?
danny la rouge
I have a cheese grater in the dishwasher.
It’s not a very interesting question. I’m also not a Kropotkin-ist or a Paul Mattick-ist.
I think the term Marxism suggests several things:
i) adherence to a person rather than a set of ideas. I’m never keen on that. People are fallible. I’m into good ideas, not heroes.
ii) Marxism as term has been coloured by the split in the first international into authoritarians and libertarians, and has come to signify statists and authoritarian. Unfairly, but still.
iii) I’m not claiming to have read all of Marx’s output, but he did evolve his thought over time. I find several of volumes of his work useful, but I actually don’t know all of it.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Of course.
danny la rouge
I have a cheese grater in the dishwasher.
A ginger woman and a bald man about to be hit by a runaway bus are in the same category for something very significant at that moment.
ska invita
back on the other side
agree, but they dont all have the same immediate interests, thats the problem
many people are very keen to maintain the status quo, because of their position within it
its partly why Tories keep winning elections
of course there is a layer of common interest that can be found also
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Brill pal .
Kevbad the Bad
Amiable Bowel Syndrome
Yeah, I know, but I don't want to bore the pants off people I meet and interact with any more than I do already. When 99% of people use a non-Marxist definition of class in their daily lives I can't see myself investing too much effort in trying to change that, when there's so much else to talk about anyway.
If people are going to use particular terms it’s useful to know what they mean by them. And besides, I was asking Pickman’s.
ska invita
back on the other side
Id like to ask that question again: why was nursing once a middle class job and now a working class job (considering in both cases the nurse was living solely from income from their wage)
locomotive
come on baby, do the locomotion
It's useful because it demonstrates that people who appear different have a crucial feature in common.
If the objection is it's a bad concept because 'it lumps people who appear different together' then we can't have a conversation because I view that as the point of the analysis.
They do have the same material interest, it's just obscured by the trappings of / the social construction of social class, or race, or gender... Etc.
danny la rouge
I have a cheese grater in the dishwasher.
I thought it was you who brought the term up, asking about me? It’s not one I’d use about myself.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
The Social and Cultural Capital required for the job, and acquired in the job, perhaps?
bellaozzydog
rolling turds in glitter
Discussing definitions of class from Marxist perspective with 98% of the U.K. population is probably just as pointless and exhausting as trying to explain critical race theory to my white male 70 year old GBnews streaming expat colleague
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
to be fair, nor did lenin, don't think he ever encountered eg the german ideology
After you went through some theory I was genuinely interested in what makes someone a Marxist or otherwise.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I think this is a bit of a weakness, though, because ska wasn't talking about social constructions of the kind you mention and neither was I. Our examples are of material conditions.
ska invita
back on the other side
cant see it, lots of people go into nursing with none of that at the start, and i dont see how nurses are related to socially any different now than 40 years ago
for me the answer is clearly wages and means within the wider economy, - thats the point Barbara Ehrenreich makes too - but this contradicts people saying its wrong to talk about accumulated wealth and its power, its solely about the ultimate relation to capital
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
a misspent youth
locomotive
come on baby, do the locomotion
Were not going to agree on this. Your position in the class structure is the crucial material condition, not how much money you earn or how many bedrooms your house has. The point is to get people to recognise this. The way wealth impacts people's behaviour, politics, and the way they are treated by others is a social construction.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Not sure about the idea that nursing used to be a middle class job. My mum became a nurse in the 1950s as it was a job that was open to girls who had to leave school at 15.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
tbh i'd suggest that the majority of people who own houses in eg scunthorpe and the majority of people who own houses in eg hampstead share neither the same material conditions nor the same class
ska invita
back on the other side
i never understood it but teachers and nurses were always considered middle class as far as I was aware
i also dont see a difference between a nurse and a doctor other than wage level
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Nah. Your material condition is everything to do with how much money you earn and what assets you own. Your position in the class structure as defined by you isn't a material condition. It's an abstraction.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
doctors spend five years learning medicine at university, they then continue their education in hospitals Hospital doctor | Explore careers | National Careers Service.
locomotive
come on baby, do the locomotion
I don't think spending the majority of your waking hours going to work for a boss who pays you less than the worth of your labour is an abstraction but I'm out because we're.talking at cross purposes, intentionally or not.
ska invita
back on the other side
And? How does that change their relation to capital? They presumably reliant on their wage for income
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
This is what this disagreement comes back to though. This was an assertion of Marx's, which he proved to his own satisfaction, and to the satisfaction of some other people. A hundred and fifty years down the line, when revolution as he described it has not happened, and what revolutions did happen did not abolish capitalism, and the 'working class' is no closer to a revolutionary position in the UK than in his time - in fact considerably further away - do we not reassess his ideas at some point?
For me the useful thing to take from Marx is to examine the material forces in society, particularly against the idea that society progresses mostly through new ideas or enlightened leadership. Shouting at everyone that MY VERSION OF CLASS IS THE ONLY RIGHT ONE and getting upset at people who fail to 'understand' what class really means (we understand, thanks), is achieving what, exactly? Maintaining a blind faith in one person's depiction of society, against 150 years of consequent evidence, as far as I can see.
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