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

[JimW]

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)

Same as with your Tony, also a function of the balance of class forces at different times and its impact on the allocation of the social wage. So in a sense, Tony becomes an example to us now that when the class has more power it gets a better deal and the question instead becomes how to recapture that under direct attack and with the big changes in industrial patterns.

 

[Pickman's model]

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

medicine, being a doctor, has always been a profession, it's always had greater status than nursing

 

[Brainaddict]

There are a number of people here who still appear to believe that Marx established a sort of science of how society works, and that this offers a factual description of what happens in the world. Perhaps rather than assuming that these annoying people on urban75 just don't understand Marx, perhaps you could assume that we do not believe he did offer a 'scientific' description of society. Which is not to say he never said anything useful, but quite apart from the usual methods of critique, in the face of which he doesn't always stand up well, everything has to be subject to the searing test of events and history

 

[Pickman's model]

There are a number of people here who still appear to believe that Marx established a sort of science of how society works, and that this offers a factual description of what happens in the world. Perhaps rather than assuming that these annoying people on urban75 just don't understand Marx, perhaps you could assume that we do not believe he did offer a 'scientific' description of society. Which is not to say he never said anything useful, but quite apart from the usual methods of critique, in the face of which he doesn't always stand up well, everything has to be subject to the searing test of events and history

a sort of science of how society works, that would be sociology i suppose. you seem to be thinking of the positivists, rather than marx. i think it was engels who wrote a pamphlet on scientific socialism, maybe you're confusing scientific socialism with sociology

 

[Louis MacNeice]

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)

Sorry but when was nursing a middle class job?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[Louis MacNeice]

medicine, being a doctor, has always been a profession, it's always had greater status than nursing

And doctors in a hospital have a managerial role in relation to nurses.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[danny la rouge]

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)

I’m adding my dubiety that nursing was a middle class job. Are you thinking of the war effort?

 

[Pickman's model]

I’m adding my dubiety that nursing was a middle class job. Are you thinking of the war effort?

think he's thinking of florence nightingale

 

[extra dry]

If they say our maids took care of that, then you know how lower upper midcle clasx

 

[CNT36]

There are various ways of defining class and Marx's isn't the only one that is useful. The contexts of when those various other definitions are useful and to whom is another question. If we are talking about something called the working class it best have something to do with work and if your talking work rather than cottages or hummus Marx's definition is a good starting point for understanding society and for a worker hopefully a useful one.

 

[The39thStep]

think he's thinking of florence nightingale

I think that’s the problem , stuck with an analysis that may have been apt in the years of the Crimean War but not really fit for today

 

[xenon]

These conversations are so frustrating.

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.

The other analysis being used in this thread is purely aesthetic and doesn't say anything useful on a structural level. It can't highlight a single thing which makes someone working class or not. Wealth and class are not the same thing.

ETA: people's positions in this are so entrenched I don't actually know why I've bothered to reply

But OTOH if trying to frame an alternative you have to address wealth. This is what concerns people more than their class relationship to the MoP. Otherwise it's just a bit describing the water to drowning peple, some of whom have got 2 arms and a leg on a life raft and others barely doggy paddling.

 

[CNT36]

But OTOH if trying to frame an alternative you have to address wealth. This is what concerns people more than their class relationship to the MoP. Otherwise it's just a bit describing the water to drowning peple, some of whom have got 2 arms and a leg on a life raft and others barely doggy paddling.

That analogy misses the people not in the water.

 

[xenon]

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.

This is my frustration with it. OK. so class in the Marxist sense explains the relationship between worker and owner of the MoP. Fine. If that's all it's for, an accademic framing of one aspect of Capitlism, why does everyone go on about it all the time in 2022 as if it has some practicle use in workers struggles.

It's not much use invoking it when trying to tell the poorest workers in society they're actually in the same class as someone earning 100K and leaving out the ovvious power wealth brings. The power to move more freely, turn down certain jobs, buy better quality food, health, etc, etc. However, I did like Redsquirrel's reply to this point up thread.

 

[danny la rouge]

It's not much use invoking it when trying to tell the poorest workers in society they're actually in the same class as someone earning 100K and leaving out the ovvious power wealth brings.

It’s frustrating that people keep saying this when it has actually been answered.

 

[Pickman's model]

It’s frustrating that people keep saying this when it has actually been answered.

welcome to urban75

 

[CNT36]

This is my frustration with it. OK. so class in the Marxist sense explains the relationship between worker and owner of the MoP. Fine. If that's all it's for, an accademic framing of one aspect of Capitlism, why does everyone go on about it all the time in 2022 as if it has some practicle use in workers struggles.

It's not much use invoking it when trying to tell the poorest workers in society they're actually in the same class as someone earning 100K and leaving out the ovvious power wealth brings. The power to move more freely, turn down certain jobs, buy better quality food, health, etc, etc. However, I did like Redsquirrel's reply to this point up thread.

I don't see how a Marxist analysis makes making those distinctions impossible. No ones stopping anyone from using an analysis based on wealth, power, culture or whatever but if you ignore the relation to the means of production it'll be fucking shit.

 

[xenon]

That analogy misses the people not in the water.

Exactly. There's no time to talk about them. Which is what a Marxist would probably do. See you might all
be in strife even you with the life rafts but it's because those lot on the distant shore have control over liferafts and even boat production. Your labour is exploited to built their shoreside abodes and you see, whilst this fella here is quite dry and floating along nicely whilst you there are almost submerged, you are actually on the same side. yeah? You see. What you need to do is...

 

[Sue]

Ming and Tanya1982, not sure if you're still reading but hope you are and this is proving interesting.

 

[danny la rouge]

These "what abouts" come up every time this has been discussed over the years.

• what about someone who doesn't live off their capital but earns > £100k a year. They might not live off their capital, but they could. Their interests are aligned with the capitalist class to the extent that those conditions apply. The more they have earnings that could accumulate as capital the greater the degree that it applies.
• What about a small business owner that earns about £21k. A). Are they a sole trader with no employees? Then they equate to an artisan of Marx's time. They're petit bourgeois. Their interests should align with the working class, but they may believe themselves to align with the boss class. B). Do they have employees? Then their income, no matter how small, is (at least in part) derived from the surplus value generated by others. This is about an economic relationship. They are not working class.
• what about people who have paid off their mortgage and own their own home? They can't live off that capital without selling their home. They would likely have to rent and find an income. Their home ownership is the result of a working life in employment. There is another thread in the discussion of the reason that Thatcher sold off Council stock to encourage home ownership and the illusion that gave or sharing interests with the boss class, but unless it led to people able to live off their capital it did not create capitalists.
• What about people who have pensions and the pension funds invest in stuff? We all live in the capitalist mode of production. The way this society chooses to "provide" (huge caveats on that use of the word) post working life is by using their savings to create interest as financial capital. The working class is part of the equation of capital and so are our savings, even those earmarked by tax regulations as being for our retirement. This does not make retired people (necessarily) capitalist class. It makes them people whose savings have been used by the capitalist class for further profit.

And so on. Really, all of this is actually in Marx. It's all there. His examples were examples based on the times he lived, but the analysis still applies.

 

[CNT36]

Exactly. There's no time to talk about them. Which is what a Marxist would probably do. See you might all
be in strife even you with the life rafts but it's because those lot on the distant shore have control over liferafts and even boat production. Your labour is exploited to built their shoreside abodes and you see, whilst this fella here is quite dry and floating along nicely whilst you there are almost submerged, you are actually on the same side. yeah? You see. What you need to do is...

See if you can't give each other a hand out of this and head for those distant shores.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I don't see how a Marxist analysis makes making those distinctions impossible. No ones stopping anyone from using an analysis based on wealth, power, culture or whatever but if you ignore the relation to the means of production it'll be fucking shit.

It's strange to lump together 'wealth, power, culture or whatever' as if, for example, wealth and culture were the same kind of thing. They're clearly not. Wealth is a measure of your material condition. I'd reverse that and say that an analysis based on the relation to the means of production that ignores wealth is going to be fucking shit. I actually don't think it's even coherent to talk in that way. Your wealth is an important part of your relation to the means of production.

 

[chilango]

This is my frustration with it. OK. so class in the Marxist sense explains the relationship between worker and owner of the MoP. Fine. If that's all it's for, an accademic framing of one aspect of Capitlism, why does everyone go on about it all the time in 2022 as if it has some practicle use in workers struggles.

It's not much use invoking it when trying to tell the poorest workers in society they're actually in the same class as someone earning 100K and leaving out the ovvious power wealth brings. The power to move more freely, turn down certain jobs, buy better quality food, health, etc, etc. However, I did like Redsquirrel's reply to this point up thread.

Income inequality is obviously prominent in people's minds (as of course will be stuff like home ownership, pension status etc.).

...but, in practice, it often ends up with a smorgasbord of whataboutery and exceptionalism as infinite arbitrary divisions can be conjured.

£100k pa in London is not the same as £100k in the Rhondda. It's not the same for homeowner soon to retire with a good pension as it is for a young family trying to save for a deposit and pay rent. It's not the same for someone is a secure 'career job' as it is for self-employed gig worker and so on and so on.

Doesn't mean it's not important, it is. Obviously. But it does mean as a lens through to analyse (and organize) it's too limited (imo).

 

[chilango]

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

I've got some research somewhere on the main computer about the proletarianisation of supposedly m/c occupations. Haven't really read it though so can't summarise. Just that people have been looking at this exact question.

 

[chilango]

It's strange to lump together 'wealth, power, culture or whatever' as if, for example, wealth and culture were the same kind of thing. They're clearly not. Wealth is a measure of your material condition. I'd reverse that and say that an analysis based on the relation to the means of production that ignores wealth is going to be fucking shit. I actually don't think it's even coherent to talk in that way. Your wealth is an important part of your relation to the means of production.

Depends on whether "power, culture or whatever" can be exchanged for, or used to access, "wealth" (and vice versa)?

 

[Pickman's model]

I've got some research somewhere on the main computer about the proletarianisation of supposedly m/c occupations. Haven't really read it though so can't summarise. Just that people have been looking at this exact question.

the way librarians have seen their role slip down is an interesting one. used to be the librarian of a college would be one of the most important people in the hierarchy, same in local authorities. there used to be a librarian's residence in the palace of westminster. but the status of the profession has diminished over the years, to the point where some institutions (eg london school of hygiene and tropical medicine) have tried to employ people without any library background to run services. not sure that's proletarianisation but it's certainly been the case that librarians are no longer seen as eminent members of institutions - be they heads of service or whatnot.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Income inequality is obviously prominent in people's minds (as of course will be stuff like home ownership, pension status etc.).

...but, in practice, it often ends up with a smorgasbord of whataboutery and exceptionalism as infinite arbitrary divisions can be conjured.

£100k pa in London is not the same as £100k in the Rhondda. It's not the same for homeowner soon to retire with a good pension as it is for a young family trying to save for a deposit and pay rent. It's not the same for someone is a secure 'career job' as it is for self-employed gig worker and so on and so on.

Doesn't mean it's not important, it is. Obviously. But it does mean as a lens through to analyse (and organize) it's too limited (imo).

A wide range of people struggle in different ways and see their problems increase while a small elite at the top gets richer and richer and richer. Imho that's a decent place to start to analyse and organise. And it can be easily linked to other issues such as climate action. That's more or less the message of the Occupy movement, and it is largely a wealth-based argument. Corbyn's 'for the many, not the few' captured the same kind of idea.

 

[CNT36]

It's strange to lump together 'wealth, power, culture or whatever' as if, for example, wealth and culture were the same kind of thing. They're clearly not. Wealth is a measure of your material condition. I'd reverse that and say that an analysis based on the relation to the means of production that ignores wealth is going to be fucking shit. I actually don't think it's even coherent to talk in that way. Your wealth is an important part of your relation to the means of production.

It's strange to comment on a list of things that are different to add that they are too different.

 

[chilango]

A wide range of people struggle in different ways and see their problems increase while a small elite at the top gets richer and richer and richer. Imho that's a decent place to start to analyse and organise. And it can be easily linked to other issues such as climate action. That's more or less the message of the Occupy movement, and it is largely a wealth-based argument. Corbyn's 'for the many, not the few' captured the same kind of idea.

But, if you separate the masses from the elite (the 99% or whatever) you're gonna have an even broader range of incomes and wealth represented, and thus the same potential for those earning (say) £10k seeing those on £30k as having different interests, who in turn see those on £50k...well, you get my point.

For this approach to work, I reckon it would very much have to not be about "wealth".

 

[cesare]

For those using material conditions for their point of analysis, you are including those workers overseas that earn a fraction of our minimum wage? Or do you have a material analysis point/range at which you disregard (or re-class) those earning far above or far below?