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

[Athos]

Little overview piece from the author of that book Dan Evans here

The petty bourgeoisie is Britain’s most influential class

Labour’s new target demographic is an oft-invoked but poorly understood social class. Can Starmer appeal?

www.opendemocracy.net

this referenced in the piece looks interesting
The New Petty Bourgeoisie
Nicos Poulantzas

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/089692057900900105

Absolute bollocks. The idea that everyone who pays off their mortgage is petty bourgeoisie is mental.

 

[nogojones]

What are your disagreements, on what kind of grounds,? Good to know before going in..

On class structure and struggle he's generally OK. Politically it's hard to pin him down, sort of left reformist. He reminds me of old Socialist Action types. With a heavy dose of Welsh republicanism on top.

I mostly know him through Desolation Radio, which can be a little Welsh focused, but well worth a listen to. It's a sort of on-off podcast over the last few years

I can't exactly remember why, but I have a lingering feeling that he might be a little bit soft on the old Stalinist states and that can hang over into how he views imperialism and national struggles. IIRC (I don't do twitter very well and I've only seen bits and bobs) he seemed to be coming over all Ukraine is full of nazi's and it's all NATO's fault. I may be doing him a huge disservice here due to only seeing bits of his twitter adjacent things though.

On the basis that it's him though, I'd likely give the book a read. I think he lives in this part of town, but I've not encountered him in the real world, which is a shame, as he's generally pretty sound. I'd happily spend an hour with him shouting at Welsh Labour types.

 

[Elpenor]

Absolute bollocks. The idea that everyone who pays off their mortgage is petty bourgeoisie is mental.

The focus should be on those who have more than one mortgage

 

[nogojones]

The focus should be on those who have more than one mortgage

And their own bucket.

I think I like him most as he shares the same vitreolic hatred of our local elected representatives that I do,

 

[Pickman's model]

I was talking to someone who used to be in wag and he's a high opinion of the book, which has swayed me more than the quotes we saw above

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I was talking to someone who used to be in wag and he's a high opinion of the book, which has swayed me more than the quotes we saw above

Did you tell your friend that unfortunately you'd already put everyone off reading it having not read it yourself?

 

[Pickman's model]

Did you tell your friend that unfortunately you'd already put everyone off reading it having not read it yourself?

Do you know the thought flitted for some reason across my mind but not having said a word against the book I didn't

 

[The39thStep]

Think I'll read this, there are a few quotes that wet my appetite. "The only positive way out of the crisis would be a broad alliance between both parts of the petty bourgeoisie and the working class".
I think these boards are in a unique position, once we find some working class posters we are on our way.

 

[A380]

Does the book have a chapter on bucket ownership as the definitive class indicator?

 

[mojo pixy]

Absolute bollocks. The idea that everyone who pays off their mortgage is petty bourgeoisie is mental.

That's not how he defines 'petty bourgeois' as far as I can tell. Having a paid off mortgage is one middle class indicator but not as key an indicator of specifically PB as being self-employed (ie owning the bucket). I only read the article posted above though, not the book in full.

 

[pbsmooth]

Surely the opposite - they're mortgaged up to the hilt, car on lease etc.

 

[Athos]

That's not how he defines 'petty bourgeois' as far as I can tell. Having a paid off mortgage is one middle class indicator but not as key an indicator of specifically PB as being self-employed (ie owning the bucket). I only read the article posted above though, not the book in full.

"The petty bourgeoisie occupy a unique position in the class structure. Like the worker, they have to work or starve. But they also either own their own means of production – a shop, tools, a workshop – or a small amount of capital, like a house..."

Fundamentally misunderstands what capital is.

 

[kabbes]

This discussion is exactly why it is useful to have a model that looks directly at hierarchical domination as a process, rather than one that focuses on economics, with domination as an epiphenomenon. The concept of class has become so reified as a concrete phenomenon that causes oppression that people necessarily end up arguing about the definitions of the class. Viewing classes instead as one of the fundamental processes by which oppression is enacted means that you can bypass whether bucket man is in Category A or Category B. It becomes a question of what are the institutional discriminations, legitimising myths, ideological asymmetries and behavioural asymmetries through which the power relations produce categorisations? And how do those categorisations act to reproduce the institutional discriminations, legitimising myths, ideological asymmetries and behavioural asymmetries?

 

[Almor]

"The petty bourgeoisie occupy a unique position in the class structure. Like the worker, they have to work or starve. But they also either own their own means of production – a shop, tools, a workshop – or a small amount of capital, like a house..."

Fundamentally misunderstands what capital is.

Or he does understand what capital is, and so specifically means the ownership of a house for the purpose of making money, investment, rental, or whatever?

 

[Pickman's model]

Or he does understand what capital is, and so specifically means the ownership of a house for the purpose of making money, investment, rental, or whatever?

Certainly misunderstands what athos thinks capital is

 

[The39thStep]

I seem to remember in the 80s there was a narrative in some of the press that the miners and the printers wouldn’t go on strike as they ‘had mortgages and foreign holidays ‘ .

 

[Athos]

Or he does understand what capital is, and so specifically means the ownership of a house for the purpose of making money, investment, rental, or whatever?

That's not how it reads to me, in the context of the the whole article. But, if I'm wrong, and it is what he meant, he'd have been better making that clear.

 

[mojo pixy]

"The petty bourgeoisie occupy a unique position in the class structure. Like the worker, they have to work or starve. But they also either own their own means of production – a shop, tools, a workshop – or a small amount of capital, like a house..."

Fundamentally misunderstands what capital is.

You could at least have quoted the whole paragraph... "The petty bourgeoisie occupy a unique position in the class structure. Like the worker, they have to work or starve. But they also either own their own means of production – a shop, tools, a workshop – or a small amount of capital, like a house, that gives them a stake in the system. They are both worker and capitalist and this torn position influences everything the petty bourgeoisie does or thinks." IMO the bit in bold is key but you left it out.

 

[Pickman's model]

You could at least have quoted the whole paragraph... "The petty bourgeoisie occupy a unique position in the class structure. Like the worker, they have to work or starve. But they also either own their own means of production – a shop, tools, a workshop – or a small amount of capital, like a house, that gives them a stake in the system. They are both worker and capitalist and this torn position influences everything the petty bourgeoisie does or thinks." IMO the bit in bold is key but you left it out.

It is after all the athos show

 

[danny la rouge]

Can we for once discuss the fucking topic?

 

[mojo pixy]

On that, we all approach discussions about class with a lifetime of baggage, and sometimes it is hard to get past the framing and angling.

TBH I think 'having a stake in the system' is a useful phrase, because it admits the possibility that nearly all of us have a stake in this system. It's really more a question of what kind of stake, what are the benefits? And I think particularly: is it the kind of stake which can be bequeathed? A 100% owned house or bit of land can be bequeathed as easily as a bucket and that goes right to the heart of what capitalism is and is meant to be.

 

[ska invita]

On that, we all approach discussions about class with a lifetime of baggage, and sometimes it is hard to get past the framing and angling.

TBH I think 'having a stake in the system' is a useful phrase, because it admits the possibility that nearly all of us have a stake in this system. It's really more a question of what kind of stake, what are the benefits? And I think particularly: is it the kind of stake which can be bequeathed? A 100% owned house or bit of land can be bequeathed as easily as a bucket and that goes right to the heart of what capitalism is and is meant to be.

really agree about stakeholding, and as i said earlier i think the right theorised the power of stakeholding and put that theory into action by consciously encouraging and growing stakeholding within the population at large. right to buy was a key one, privatising national assets and encouraging people to buy shares in those companies another perhaps - general stock investment. building a stakeholder society was central to blairism and third wayism. the expansion of the petit bouj another.

the left by comparison hasnt i think sufficiently theoretically grappled with the outcome of this much deeper stakeholding than existed in the past, and what it means. heres stats for home-ownership for example...yes coming down a bit now but before and after 1990 are two different worlds

how significant home ownership is towards someones politics is up for debate but i dont think its meaningless

 

[pbsmooth]

Not sure you should be getting away with that x axis numbering

 

[Athos]

You could at least have quoted the whole paragraph... "The petty bourgeoisie occupy a unique position in the class structure. Like the worker, they have to work or starve. But they also either own their own means of production – a shop, tools, a workshop – or a small amount of capital, like a house, that gives them a stake in the system. They are both worker and capitalist and this torn position influences everything the petty bourgeoisie does or thinks." IMO the bit in bold is key but you left it out.

Maybe, but I think that seems to elide "having a stake" with being petty bourgeoisie. And seems to suggest that a house is necessarily capital (which I don't think is right).

 

[Raheem]

And seems to suggest that a house is necessarily capital (which I don't think is right).

I'd be intrigued to know why you think this. Seems to me a house is always capital, unless for some reason it has zero market value. Because it can be sold and the money can be used to buy shares, train as a donkey handler, retire early etc etc. That's capital by definition.

 

[Athos]

I'd be intrigued to know why you think this. Seems to me a house is always capital, unless for some reason it has zero market value. Because it can be sold and the money can be used to buy shares, train as a donkey handler, retire early etc etc. That's capital by definition.

That's a meaningless definition, because it could apply to literally anything.

 

[Raheem]

That's a meaningless definition, because it could apply to literally anything.

Anything you can use to make any sort of investment, yes. Things of trivial value wouldn't normally be thought of as capital, maybe, but that isn't usually going to apply to a house.

Still intrigued, btw.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Anything you can use to make any sort of investment, yes. Things of trivial value wouldn't normally be thought of as capital, maybe, but that isn't usually going to apply to a house.

Still intrigued, btw.

If you own one house and live in it, that frees you from paying rent, which is great, but it doesn't give you capital to make investments except through borrowing against its value. That's a bit different from having actual money in an account.

That said, people do borrow against the value of their houses in order to start businesses all the time, so it's certainly not nothing to have that as an option. Business fails and you lose the house, though, the place you live in, so calling that capital doesn't seem quite right.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

A house isn't capital you can earn money from, if all you're doing in it is living in it. I know construction labourers who have mortgages. Petit Bourgeoisie? Bizarre.

 

[Raheem]

If you own one house and live in it, that frees you from paying rent, which is great, but it doesn't give you capital to make investments except through borrowing against its value. That's a bit different from having actual money in an account.

That said, people do borrow against the value of their houses in order to start businesses all the time, so it's certainly not nothing to have that as an option. Business fails and you lose the house, though, the place you live in, so calling that capital doesn't seem quite right.

I think it's what you could do that matters, rather than what you are doing. If you have a box of gold bullion and you just keep it under your bed, it's still capital.

(Plus, even if you are doing nothing other than saving in rent, that probably means you are accumulating wealth of the back of your investment, no?)