Why do people from privileged class backgrounds often misidentify their origins as working class?

[Magnus McGinty]

i mean a marxist - no one's said m-l about dlr. for me what makes a marxist in political terms is someone who accepts marx's view that there will be a proletarian revolution. that when the stars are right or whatever the working class will rise up and seize and destroy power (withering away of the state). ok, that's putting things really simply, but there you go

Thanks. Appreciated.

 

[chilango]

How useful is an analytic tool that assigns two people in extremely different circumstances the same value?

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]

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.

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]

This hasn’t answered my question of what makes a Marxist. You mean a Leninist?

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]

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?

Of course.

 

[danny la rouge]

How useful is an analytic tool that assigns two people in extremely different circumstances the same value?

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.

 

[chilango]

"Ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas marxiste" - Marx.

 

[ska invita]

getting all of those people to realise they are members of the same class and have the same interests is the only way we're going to make the big changes that will improve life for everyone.

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]

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.

Brill pal .

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Realistically how are we ever going to change our everyday usage of the term 'class'? If we have to explain it every time we have a conversation down the pub.

Realistically, how are we going to change anything without constant explanation? You know the "e" bit of educate, agitate, organise

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.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

It’s not a very interesting question.

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]

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]

How useful is an analytic tool that assigns two people in extremely different circumstances the same value?

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]

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.

I thought it was you who brought the term up, asking about me? It’s not one I’d use about myself.

 

[chilango]

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)

The Social and Cultural Capital required for the job, and acquired in the job, perhaps?

 

[bellaozzydog]

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]

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.

to be fair, nor did lenin, don't think he ever encountered eg the german ideology

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I thought it was you who brought the term up, asking about me? It’s not one I’d use about myself.

After you went through some theory I was genuinely interested in what makes someone a Marxist or otherwise.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

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.

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]

The Social and Cultural Capital required for the job, and acquired in the job, perhaps?

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]

After you went through some theory I was genuinely interested in what makes someone a Marxist or otherwise.

a misspent youth

 

[locomotive]

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.

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]

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]

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]

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.

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]

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.

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]

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

doctors spend five years learning medicine at university, they then continue their education in hospitals Hospital doctor | Explore careers | National Careers Service.

 

[locomotive]

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.

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]

doctors spend five years learning medicine at university, they then continue their education in hospitals Hospital doctor | Explore careers | National Careers Service.

And? How does that change their relation to capital? They presumably reliant on their wage for income

 

[Brainaddict]

The Marxist analysis of class (even if the people using it aren't Marxists) points to the essential characteristic that working class people share which, whilst being the source of their oppression, is also the thing which gives then strength and makes them potential agents of revolution.

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.