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

[brogdale]

Do they? An enormous amount of post-Marx Marxian writing is explaining why the working class haven't become revolutionary yet. That would have been fine for a few decades but now it's just getting silly.

There are many on here that know far better than me, but isn't it a bit tilty at windmills to criticise 'Marxian writing' for not being Marxist?

 

[danny la rouge]

If I've argued that homeowners aren't working class it was only by accident. I'm more arguing for class segmentation according to material interests.

I’m arguing against class segmentation. The Common Sense of the established hegemony (to bring in Gramscian terminology) does that pretty effectively already.

I’m arguing for class solidarity and unity.

 

[mojo pixy]

Do they? An enormous amount of post-Marx Marxian writing is explaining why the working class haven't become revolutionary yet. That would have been fine for a few decades but now it's just getting silly.

I'm not sure what you think is silly?

fwiw I don't think I'd characterise what I think is needed, as 'revolution'. It sounds wanky but I think evolution is a better word, but not edgy enough for mass appeal and sounds like hippy shit, oops.

Just need a way to express the idea of going forward to a place we've never been as a species / culture / society, rather than the idea of reversion to a prior state of which exactly none have been ideal.

Still "now it's just getting silly" caught my eye. What is?

 

[hitmouse]

Tbf though the Waitrose shopper theory does stand up imo

What about people who go into Waitrose but only get stuff from the reduced section, is that petty-bourgeois?

This. I would argue that the terms 'working class' and 'middle class' have become so debatable and so loaded with (usually) silly cultural signifiers as to be almost meaningless. I believe the term is problematic for some, but I prefer the 99% v the 1% / the many not the few.

Using this idea and in the current climate, a lecturer/junior doctor (traditionally seen as middle class occupations) has more in common with a postie or rail worker (traditionally seen as working class occupations). The common enemy is the very wealthy who seek to perpetuate the current system as it benefits them.

...And I'd add to that that a major part of the way that the "wealth rather than relationship to MoP" definition is used in practice is to lump supposedly well-paid rail workers in with supposedly well-paid lecturers and junior doctors as being outside the proper working class.

I currently pay a small mortgage on a small flat. I'm still going to be working until I drop. Due to family problems my savings are miniscule. I'm a retail worker with no tertiary education. I like sushi. Come the revolution do I get shot or re-educated? You need to re-read danny's post.

Yeah, was meaning to mention this - surely if you're looking at home ownership as a key factor then also want to distinguish between "homeowners" who still have mortgages and homeowners who've paid their mortgages off. Having a mortgage means that you have to pay money to someone else every month and if you can't make that payment you lose your home, so it sounds a bit like being a renter with extra steps to me.

You wrote in the same post that you don't see Marx as having come up with the objectively correct description of society, and that Marx outlined a theory of political change that you seem to see as beyond dispute. Perhaps you can reconcile those two claims for me.

I think it's an indisputable fact that the working class (in Marx's defn) in the UK is avowedly reformist and shows no signs of being otherwise. 150 years of evidence is in and I'm going with that rather than with what Marx said. I actually think Marx would go with the evidence too. You can wait another 150 years for the prophecy of the working class becoming revolutionary to come true if you like. I'm a bit more impatient than that.

I don't think there's any contradiction in saying that a) there is no guarantee that positive social change (or whatever term you want to use) will come about according to the Marxist model, and b) Marxist/Marxian class analysis still points us to the most likely route that could lead to positive change, and no one has yet posited a better one. If you reckon you have a better road to revolution, or to successful wanky reformism, I'd be interested to see it?

You can identify differences in order to bridge them. You could even phrase it in Gramscian terms - knitting together social blocs. Saying that everyone has one set of interests because they need to do salaried work has not been working. Has it?

Saying "everyone has one set of interests and that's it, that's all you need to know" would indeed be asinine, but if you don't think people ultimately have those shared interests, and that those interests are important, then I don't know how you hope to keep your social blocs knitted together?

 

[Serge Forward]

Do they? An enormous amount of post-Marx Marxian writing is explaining why the working class haven't become revolutionary yet. That would have been fine for a few decades but now it's just getting silly.

There's a difference between those who see what Marx wrote as a bunch of predictions and those who see it as a way to understand how capitalism works and, importantly, our own class interests.

 

[brogdale]

What about people who go into Waitrose but only get stuff from the reduced section, is that petty-bourgeois?

Hands up; that was me...but then the fuckers closed our Waitrose in George Street...so now, I guess I'm back to plain old proletarian?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Is there any way to read Capital without reading Capital? I'm only educated to GCSE level (apart from work related stuff) so academia is beyond me.

 

[The39thStep]

" We are many, they are few! but we like to split ourselves into smaller and smaller divisions allowing them to continue to rule."

I mean, the British Empire had a reputation, well deserved, for divide and rule. But the The British left puts that to shame. It's why I'm a wanky reformist.

Really need to look at your PDP tbh you should be looking to develop into a muscular reformist over the next 12 months

 

[Serge Forward]

Is there any way to read Capital without reading Capital? I'm only educated to GCSE level (apart from work related stuff) so academia is beyond me.

Cafiero's Compendium of Capital (published by ACG) or the summary of Capital by Engels.

 

[Athos]

Is there any way to read Capital without reading Capital? I'm only educated to GCSE level (apart from work related stuff) so academia is beyond me.

The David Harvey book and accompanying video lectures make it (relatively) easy to understand.

 

[The39thStep]

What about people who go into Waitrose but only get stuff from the reduced section, is that petty-bourgeois?

Definitely need to revisit the petit bourgeois issue on here tbh. Marx was pretty hard on them, very few admit to being part of them and the term is used often as a sneer but they are just a minor and often fluctuating class.

 

[hitmouse]

Is there any way to read Capital without reading Capital? I'm only educated to GCSE level (apart from work related stuff) so academia is beyond me.

Serge beat me to posting Cafiero, as he says, available as a book from the ACG or if you feel up to reading it online it's all here:

Carlo Cafiero: Karl Marx's Capital

I think Perlman's Reproduction of Daily Life is an excellent readable guide to (what I understand to be) Marxist economics, but then I've never read Capital so I can't say what bits it's missing:

The reproduction of daily life - Fredy Perlman

Fredy Perlman's excellent analysis of alienation and the way in which we as workers reproduce the capitalist economy in our everyday lives.

libcom.org

Is Value, Price and Profit like Marx's own attempt to do a "readable Capital for beginners" thing?

Economic Manuscripts: Value, Price and Profit, Karl Marx 1865

Value, Price and Profit

www.marxists.org

 

[danny la rouge]

Is there any way to read Capital without reading Capital? I'm only educated to GCSE level (apart from work related stuff) so academia is beyond me.

Yes. Marx himself believed that Value, Price and Profit contained all the relevant ideas and was suitable for a general audience.

Economic Manuscripts: Value, Price and Profit, Karl Marx 1865

Value, Price and Profit

www.marxists.org

Despite your self-depreciation, you’re more than capable of tackling Capital, which does have far more detail, nuance and texture. Although I won’t pretend it’s easy reading, certainly the first three chapters of vol 1. But maybe start with the above.

 

[hitmouse]

Oh, and also to mention I've not had time to post in this until today but did copy Danny's giant post from pages back to share in a discussion elsewhere and everyone appreciated it, so cheers for that.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Thanks for the replies. Appreciated.

 

[smokedout]

Yup there's far more stuff available and consumed ( depending on price ) by all sorts of folks. My question wasn't about class and food styles though it was about the link between multi culturalism and the consumption of things like guacamole ie could marketing ie promotion of 'super foods' , content of films, holidays abroad celebrity tastes etc have helped increase the consumption of some of these products rather than multiculturalism?

Btw I can remember avocados being marketed as avocado pears in the 1970's.

dp

 

[smokedout]

Yup there's far more stuff available and consumed ( depending on price ) by all sorts of folks. My question wasn't about class and food styles though it was about the link between multi culturalism and the consumption of things like guacamole ie could marketing ie promotion of 'super foods' , content of films, holidays abroad celebrity tastes etc have helped increase the consumption of some of these products rather than multiculturalism?

Btw I can remember avocados being marketed as avocado pears in the 1970's.

Bit of both surely. The British love affair with Indian/Italian/Chinese food was directly due to those communities opening restaurants often in working class areas and people trying it and liking it. That was a big shift from the meat and two veg diet many people had been accumstomed to (and some people didn't like the change, my Mum was considered a bit modern and edgy in our family because she cooked spag bol and the odd chilli and one of my grand parents refused to eat it on the grounds it was foreign). I think the things you mentioned played a role later on but the availability and popularity of different cuisines amongst the working class was initially due to multi-cultural communities and that still plays a big part.

 

[chilango]

Thanks for the replies. Appreciated.

I didn't find Capital (or at least the bits I've read) particularly "academic". It's long, and the references/examples are old so require a bit more concentration, but Marx had a surprisingly (for me) readable tone and turn of phrase.

Personally, I've found Harry Cleaver 's books - Reading Capital Politically and 33 Lessons on Capital - the best "companions". I suspect versions are online for free with the author"s blessing.

I also second hitmouse in recommending the Perlman pamphlet. It's lovely and short!

 

[danny la rouge]

Personally, I've found Harry Cleaver 's books - Reading Capital Politically and 33 Lessons on Capital - the best "companions". I suspect versions are online for free with the author"s blessing.

These are both excellent. I believe the former is online, although I’m not one for reading books on screen.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I didn't find Capital (or at least the bits I've read) particularly "academic". It's long, and the references/examples are old so require a bit more concentration, but Marx had a surprisingly (for me) readable tone and turn of phrase.

Personally, I've found Harry Cleaver 's books - Reading Capital Politically and 33 Lessons on Capital - the best "companions". I suspect versions are online for free with the author"s blessing.

I also second hitmouse in recommending the Perlman pamphlet. It's lovely and short!

Thanks, added those to the list. I have the ‘idea’ that it’s daunting because people say that it is. I don’t think it’ll harm to look through some of these as a primer, I do intend reading it though.

 

[chilango]

Thanks, added those to the list. I have the ‘idea’ that it’s daunting because people say that it is. I don’t think it’ll harm to look through some of these as a primer, I do intend reading it though.

It certainly daunting if you plan on starting at the beginning and reading to the end! Maybe that's the best way, but I dip in and out reading specific bits as interest takes me.

 

[ska invita]

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

the social status of a job has nothing to do with a marxist class categories (i dont think?)

 

[LDC]

Is there any way to read Capital without reading Capital? I'm only educated to GCSE level (apart from work related stuff) so academia is beyond me.

FWIW I avoided it for years, but got a few friends together a bit ago and we committed to doing it. We started with 6 of us, one dropped out pretty early, but we stuck with it. We met fortnightly, in a pub sometimes and online sometimes. We started, as some suggest, with Chapter 26 (the history stuff) which is much easier (and interesting) to read and then once finished went back to Chapter 1. We got someone to present every bit, but the expectations were low and it was OK to do a few minutes, even sometimes being clear that it was all a bit confusing and this what was Wikipedia (or similar) said about it rather than the definitive savage analysis. We did it in small chunks and it took us 2 years pretty much exactly, only missing a few sessions and sometimes going over the same bit twice.

Alongside it I read 33 Lessons on Capital by Harry Cleaver and Companion to Marx's Capital by David Harvey section by section as we did Capital, both of which were useful in different ways and much easier to read. There's also some really good videos on Youtube that cover some of the chapters (these guys I found very useful https://www.youtube.com/@ChapterbyChapter).

My takeaways from it (as an anarchist that spent years sneering at Marx and Marxists) is that, while not without flaws and bits that are incomplete, it's an incredibly useful and relevant analysis of capitalism that still holds the kernel of how capitalism operates today. I think most of the people critising it have not read it and have no idea of what it says tbh. I also think many of the fundamentals could be covered well in a shorter pamphlet (like the ones mentioned)... as he does like to repeat himself! Suprisingly it isn't academic at all imo, but some of it is complicated and very detailed which can be a bit intimidating, but it's well worth sticking with, and I wish i'd read it a long time ago (although had read some other bits of his and other's opinions on it). It's also quite fun and interesting in parts, and you do get a nice feel of the tumult and insurrection of the time as well.

TLDR: Hard work in parts, but well worth it and sometimes suprisingly fun, but defo could be a pamphlet.

E2A: Oh beaten to it by a few above, should have read before posting!

E2A part 2: I think you'd like it Magnus McGinty for me some of the drive to read it came from a complete despair at the moralist direction parts of the anarchist scene/movement had taken, and their analysis of capitalism that seemed to be reduced to a criticism of consumerism, which led them into an individualist liberal dead end where their analysis and then political program seemed to be reduced to convincing people to make the correct choices about lifestyle issues, and the variety of strategies of the way to do that (petitions and demos on one end vs. arson and riot on the other) was the difference between them rather than having a better structural analysis and understanding of capital, what it is, and how it works.

Ooof, had 2 lagers after a long shift, might not be making complete sense....

 

[ska invita]

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

no - i was going with barbara ehrenreich on this and her ananlysis of the changes in the professional middle classes, but yeah teachers, nurses, social workers < middle class - thats was a popular definition in the past. none of htose are managers. but maybe this is folk-class catagories rather than marx-class

there's a vested interest from the 1% in trying to persuade a swathe of people that they are 'middle class' and therefore have more in common with the 1% than they do with the 'working class' who they should fear and look down on. although there's a few on the left who seem to help by telling most people that they aren't working class enough to join their gang...

probably where this has come from in fact

 

[danny la rouge]

no - i was going with barbara ehrenreich on this and her ananlysis of the changes in the professional middle classes, but yeah teachers, nurses, social workers < middle class - thats was a popular definition in the past. none of htose are managers. but maybe this is folk-class catagories rather than marx-class

She’s American. Not only is health provision different there, so is the term “middle class”, which tends to mean “not blue collar”.

 

[ska invita]

She’s American. Not only is health provision different there, so is the term “middle class”, which tends to mean “not blue collar”.

thats true, though shes also well versed in marxism, room for confusion for sure

 

[chilango]

no - i was going with barbara ehrenreich on this and her ananlysis of the changes in the professional middle classes, but yeah teachers, nurses, social workers < middle class - thats was a popular definition in the past. none of htose are managers. but maybe this is folk-class catagories rather than marx-class

probably where this has come from in fact

Some might argue that teachers, social workers, maybe even nurses, etc. are 'managers' in a social sense...

 

[The39thStep]

Next week Al Pacino when he led the Miners strike

 

[The39thStep]

Some might argue that teachers, social workers, maybe even nurses, etc. are 'managers' in a social sense...

Less Foucault please

 

[ska invita]

I’m arguing against class segmentation. The Common Sense of the established hegemony (to bring in Gramscian terminology) does that pretty effectively already. I’m arguing for class solidarity and unity.

you need to argue with the 'rich' parts of the working and middle class, thats where the solidarity is really being lost (is basically my point overall)

handily for resolving the conversation on this thread, the stratifications within the working and middle class are slipping into history - the future of the uk seems to be an immiserationist one of reduced living standard for the considerable majority...Marx will be a lot more right again