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

[seventh bullet]

See, half of what you just said is just word soup to me

Sounds impressive, obviously has some meaning and still comes across as condescending

I'm one of those dumb proles who 'doesn't get it.' You're being defensive to someone who left secondary education without any decent qualifications, but if you didn't get the response you wished for by throwing books at people (not literally) in an effort to learn those ignoranamuses then I suggest that you need to reflect on where you could have gone wrong.

 

[mojo pixy]

"My structural analysis works whatever people feel, and even though it hasn't produced the desired results."

"I don't feel it's relevant to my life, so I'm not going to do what your structural analysis suggests I should do."

"Yes but it's still right."

"Bully for you Einstein."

The first speaker here is offering solidarity, the second is rejecting it. Which is fine, nobody has to accept solidarity from someone else. But what do you propose instead of solidarity?

At the moment you're shitting over Capital's analysis but offering nothing in its place, so what are the desired results? Maybe if we start there and work backwards it might teach us something.

 

[Supine]

That's just not my experience at all. People are hugely interested in why the world is as it is and how it might be better. My experience is it's the next bit, the 'how to make it better' which is the area people have little to no faith in - unsurprisingly.

That’s the real problem isn’t it. If people who are strongly anti capital can’t come up with an alternative that is explainable and workable people don’t have anything to really engage with. And capital rolls on, doing what capital does.

 

[bellaozzydog]

I'm one of those dumb proles who 'doesn't get it.' You're being defensive to someone who left secondary education without any decent qualifications, but if you didn't get the response you wished for by throwing books at people (not literally) in an effort to learn those ignoranamuses then I suggest that you need to reflect on where you could have gone wrong.

I will reflect deeply. Thanks for the steer

 

[seventh bullet]

I need to be the out of touch type for you. Working class people just don't develop radical politics independently of people like yourself, do they?

 

[A380]

See, this is why I’m a wanky reformist. Societies change from one economic system to another through revolution when technological change means that the means of production under the old system is not as sustainable as the means of production under the new.

It’s why ( just to pick European examples) the slave based society of the western Roman Empire couldn’t industrialise but instead was surplanted by feudalism. Why late feudal society had to progress towards early capitalism. And why we will need to pivot to socialism before advanced communism. To do otherwise would be as impossible as the peasants revolt ushering in a socialist state…

But bosses never give anything away so we have to organise and make lives better arround the world now.

Who knows when the next great transformation will come, we might be in the start of it now or it might be 100 years away ( although we could be fucked as I don’t believe Marx predicted we would be pushing up against the capacity of Earth’s environment so quickly). And as with other change, leaders probably won’t be self selecting from any ‘vanguard’ of revolutionaries. They are more likely to be unpleasant pragmatic people.

 

[LDC]

That’s the real problem isn’t it. If people who are strongly anti capital can’t come up with an alternative that is explainable and workable people don’t have anything to really engage with. And capital rolls on, doing what capital does.

Well, we can can explain some alternatives I think, but capital is so dominant and so pervasive it's hard for people to see the possibility of these happening. I also think laying out alternatives isn't the right direction tbh, we can have general ideas and thoughts about what we don't want, but the ultraleft position of struggle and getting rid of the domination of capital / state throwing up new ways of doing things is one I have time for. I still find all this easy to discuss and convey to people tbh, and I'm no great speaker or theoretician, most of it is just standard human chatting about how the world is shit and making it better isn't it?

Anyway, I might give up on all this and become a prepper tbh, more likely to be useful given the way the world is going...

 

[The39thStep]

I mean, the whole question of whether someone needs to propose something better in order to criticise an existing thing is one I, like everyone else, go back and forth on, and will surely continue to do so. But in terms of this particular discussion I think it would be helpful if you could share your working-out with the class (pun not consciously intended) here, if we're all creationists or whatever I'd like to hear what the arguments for evolution are.

Is it meaningless to say that, for instance, security staff at Fawley Oil Refinery are powerful? Or dockers at the port of Felixstowe?

Well, we'd need to come up with a working definition of the middle class first, last time I checked we'd got as far as "sometimes nurses, but not all the time".

American nurses.

 

[Edie]

Appreciate the discussion has moved into Marxian analysis, but to add my thoughts on the OP question…

I think the vast majority of people come from a bit of a hodge podge of class backgrounds in their family, and people move between classes within their families and sometimes within their lifetimes. A person who starts off in a working class family might get a higher education and a professional job. Or maybe their Mums side is working class and Dads family middle middle. Or maybe they had a private or even public education but end up doing a working class job like nursing.

Depending on what social situation they’re in they might identify differently. It’s rarely straightforward.

My lads for instance. Me and their Dad work in professional jobs, but only the last ten years, and the second half of their childhood we’ve been financially secure. But their extended family on both sides is pretty firmly working class. They’ve been to inner city northern state schools in deprived area. The eldests mates are working class and all now work apprenticeships at 19. The youngests group is more mixed- gf working class, some mates with Dads who run catering or plumbing businesses that earn more than I ever will. They both have Leeds accents.

Youngest went to a security agency course in the South. There, for the first time in his life, he met private schooled kids and some boarding school kids. He came back and said “I thought I was posh before then”.

He comes from a working class extended family, a middle class immediate family, and will potentially earn more than any of us. But you’d forgive him if in that a room of strangers he felt a difference.

Life’s complicated.

 

[brogdale]

Appreciate the discussion has moved into Marxian analysis, but to add my thoughts on the OP question…

I think the vast majority of people come from a bit of a hodge podge of class backgrounds in their family, and people move between classes within their families and sometimes within their lifetimes. A person who starts off in a working class family might get a higher education and a professional job. Or maybe their Mums side is working class and Dads family middle middle. Or maybe they had a private or even public education but end up doing a working class job like nursing.

Depending on what social situation they’re in they might identify differently. It’s rarely straightforward.

My lads for instance. Me and their Dad work in professional jobs, but only the last ten years, and the second half of their childhood we’ve been financially secure. But their extended family on both sides is pretty firmly working class. They’ve been to inner city northern state schools in deprived area. The eldests mates are working class and all now work apprenticeships at 19. The youngests group is more mixed- gf working class, some mates with Dads who run catering or plumbing businesses that earn more than I ever will. They both have Leeds accents.

Youngest went to a security agency course in the South. There, for the first time in his life, he met private schooled kids and some boarding school kids. He came back and said “I thought I was posh before then”.

He comes from a working class extended family, a middle class immediate family, and will potentially earn more than any of us. But you’d forgive him if in that a room of strangers he felt a difference.

Life’s complicated.

Life can be complicated, but your relation to capital is fairly straightforward.

 

[chilango]

The vast majority of people - almost by definition - come from working class backgrounds and stay working class.

The main thing that changes is whatever the definition du jour is of middleclassbutnotreally, and how, where and when that is weaponised to divide this vast majority.

 

[The39thStep]

See, this is why I’m a wanky reformist. Societies change from one economic system to another through revolution when technological change means that the means of production under the old system is not as sustainable as the means of production under the new.

It’s why ( just to pick European examples) the slave based society of the western Roman Empire couldn’t industrialise but instead was surplanted by feudalism. Why late feudal society had to progress towards early capitalism. And why we will need to pivot to socialism before advanced communism. To do otherwise would be as impossible as the peasants revolt ushering in a socialist state…

But bosses never give anything away so we have to organise and make lives better arround the world now.

Who knows when the next great transformation will come, iwe might be in the start of it now or it might be 100 years away ( although we could be fucked as I don’t believe Marx predicted we would be pushing up against the capacity of Earth’s environment so quickly). And as with other change, leaders probably won’t be self selecting from any ‘vanguard’ of revolutionaries. They are more likely to be unpleasant

See, this is why I’m a wanky reformist. Societies change from one economic system to another through revolution when technological change means that the means of production under the old system is not as sustainable as the means of production under the new.

It’s why ( just to pick European examples) the slave based society of the western Roman Empire couldn’t industrialise but instead was surplanted by feudalism. Why late feudal society had to progress towards early capitalism. And why we will need to pivot to socialism before advanced communism. To do otherwise would be as impossible as the peasants revolt ushering in a socialist state…

But bosses never give anything away so we have to organise and make lives better arround the world now.

Who knows when the next great transformation will come, iwe might be in the start of it now or it might be 100 years away ( although we could be fucked as I don’t believe Marx predicted we would be pushing up against the capacity of Earth’s environment so quickly). And as with other change, leaders probably won’t be self selecting from any ‘vanguard’ of revolutionaries. They are more likely to be unpleasant pragmatic people.

None of what you say actually makes you a wanky reformist tbh . Organising now , make lives better now is a healthy position to have imo.

 

[Brainaddict]

At the moment you're shitting over Capital's analysis but offering nothing in its place, so what are the desired results? Maybe if we start there and work backwards it might teach us something.

I gave you a couple of versions of: let's talk to people and find out what we want together. But you wanted your structural analysis to trump that. I don't blame you particularly, I think it's a widespread phenomenon on the left. There's some value in structural analysis but it's a hand that is so massively overplayed on the left that you won't find me talking about it much.

 

[mojo pixy]

I gave you a couple of versions of: let's talk to people and find out what we want together. But you wanted your structural analysis to trump that.

No, I didn't. What I wanted was to understand what you would replace it with. I'm not sure there is anything tbh, because you keep coming back to feels and for me that's too arbitrary to be of any real use. So how? How can we use our feelings and desires to do more than act like crabs in a bucket?

 

[Pickman's model]

I gave you a couple of versions of: let's talk to people and find out what we want together. But you wanted your structural analysis to trump that. I don't blame you particularly, I think it's a widespread phenomenon on the left. There's some value in structural analysis but it's a hand that is so massively overplayed on the left that you won't find me talking about it much.

So let's try your way of discussing stuff without any theory or analysis, sounds like a recipe for success, surprised no one's come up with that before

 

[Brainaddict]

Well, we can can explain some alternatives I think, but capital is so dominant and so pervasive it's hard for people to see the possibility of these happening. I also think laying out alternatives isn't the right direction tbh, we can have general ideas and thoughts about what we don't want, but the ultraleft position of struggle and getting rid of the domination of capital / state throwing up new ways of doing things is one I have time for.

We already know we disagree with each other but I think this is the opposite of what would be most productive: offering clear radical reforms with easily understandable reasons. Many people have an appetite for radical reforms, they have none at all for 'This is shit, let's go vaguely in that direction without know what's there'.

 

[Pickman's model]

We already know we disagree with each other but I think this is the opposite of what would be most productive: offering clear radical reforms with easily understandable reasons. Many people have an appetite for radical reforms, they have none at all for 'This is shit, let's go vaguely in that direction without know what's there'.

Yeh this is the post where you show you're bereft of a clew about revolution

 

[A380]

None of what you say actually makes you a wanky reformist tbh . Organising now , make lives better now is a healthy position to have imo.

So let's try your way of discussing stuff without any theory or analysis, sounds like a recipe for success, surprised no one's come up with that before

‘Everyone should play nicely with each other and share; then the world woukd be a Better Place”.

See it’s easy. Plus you fly a helicopter by wiggling the stick and lever and pushing the pedals to make it go where you want…HTH

 

[redsquirrel]

This conversation feels difficult. I feel like I am trying to make arguments that your paradigm is wrong, and you present me with evidence that it is right from within your paradigm. It's difficult to progress the argument.

Even the conversation about naming classes: you assumed that a class is either working class or not working class, while I was thinking of naming groups in society (based on material interests) using neither a category of 'working class' nor 'not working class'. This seems to go so strongly against your instincts (developed within your paradigm) that you thought I was saying something contradictory.

Hang on you did post a contradiction. you stated that owning a house changed someone's class position.
Maybe you did not mean that, fine. But it is what you wrote. If you are now arguing something different then outline it, what is your model of 'class segmentation'?

And more importantly what does that mean for your politics? Are you rejecting class struggle? Are your politics aimed at dismantling capitalism? If so how is that process to be brought about? If not how is any different from the usual progressive liberalism?

 

[Edie]

Life can be complicated, but your relation to capital is fairly straightforward.

No idea what mine or anyone I knows ‘relation to capital’ is but good luck with that

 

[brogdale]

No idea what mine or anyone I knows ‘relation to capital’ is but good luck with that

Maybe I'm wrong, but sounds a bit as though you don't want to know?

 

[Edie]

Maybe I'm wrong, but sounds a bit as though you don't want to know?

Why would I care? It has no practical bearing on my life.

 

[Serge Forward]

It has a very practical bearing on all our lives.

 

[LDC]

Why would I care? It has no practical bearing on my life.

It shapes every aspect of your life! It's like saying the same about patriarchy - to give an example of something I think you might see more clearly.

TBH that's one of the things about it, it's so embedded in everything people can't even see it sometimes, it's become just the way things are.

 

[LDC]

We already know we disagree with each other but I think this is the opposite of what would be most productive: offering clear radical reforms with easily understandable reasons. Many people have an appetite for radical reforms, they have none at all for 'This is shit, let's go vaguely in that direction without know what's there'.

History shows the second part of your writing there is incorrect though.

 

[chilango]

I think we do people down with the anticipation that people can't or won't deal with ideas like "relation to capital" or whatever. Recent years have shown us that plenty of people have displayed an appetite to deploy rapidly learnt perspectives on stuff like European constitutional and trade laws, epedimiology, climate science and God knows how many other "difficult" or "academic" fields. We might be able to question the accuracy or depth of this new-found expertise, but the idea that people can't or won't engage with complex stuff has surely been shown to false?

 

[chilango]

It shapes every aspect of your life! It's like saying the same about patriarchy - to give an example of something I think you might see more clearly.

TBH that's one of the things about it, it's so embedded in everything people can't evne see it sometimes, it's become just the way things are.

That's ideology innit? Makes stuff seem "as if natural".

 

[LDC]

That's ideology innit? Makes stuff seem "as if natural".

 

[ska invita]

Recent years have shown us that plenty of people have displayed an appetite to deploy rapidly learnt perspectives on stuff like European constitutional and trade laws

Capitalexit? We need a referendum!

Another thing to contend with is a lot of poeple think we need bosses, are glad its not them, dont want to get involved at any higher level of such things and are basically happy someone else is 'owning the means of production'.

Then again I think something that has remained as common sense to this day in the UK is that national infrastructure should be kept out of private hands. That logic is powerful and why its resisted so hard by the Right.

 

[Athos]

No idea what mine or anyone I knows ‘relation to capital’ is but good luck with that

At the risk of over-simplifying: do you need to sell your labour power to survive (at less than its worth - the difference being profit that goes to capitalists)? Or do you own sufficient capital to survive without working (which effectively means exploiting the labour of others i.e. trousering that unearned profit).

Why would I care? It has no practical bearing on my life.

I'd say the difference between having to work and not is pretty significant!