working class, what does it mean?
- Thread starter sinbad
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Das Uberdog
remembers the alamo
Das Uberdog
remembers the alamo
dennisr was actually suggesting it was me who was unwittingly putting homeowners in the category of petit-bourgeois.
_angel_
.
My uncle and cousin work for themselves as self employed electricians. They are bloody minted. Definitely middle class, although my uncle's original background may well not have been.
So a self employed lavatory cleaner is middle class if they own their own bog brush?
Thank Christ that some folk stick to arguing over definitions rather than getting involved in real politics.
Das Uberdog
remembers the alamo
You're not 'a worker' or 'middle-class' - there are variations and distinctions between and within.
dennisr
the acceptable face
workers cannot be skilled (remember the fleet street printers? or engineers? etc etc). and proud of those skills (i know I am of my own skills as a worker)
I think the key thing is that you are using what for marxists are limited (although acurate overal...) generalisations - definitions of class - linked to the economic structure - in a mistaken way. You are looking for the minutie using the language of marx to try and put every individual in some pigeonhole of your making rather than using the method of marxism as a guide to understanding society.
teachers are working class mate, many of them may also be 'middle- class' by their own definition (less so nowadays - same being true of civil servants - I agree with your earlier point), - plumbers are working class - selling their labour - regardless of the illusions some may have. my mate a skilled bricklayer (and self-employed_ is conciously and proud working class. Plenty of left-wing GPs as well as right-wing ones - they are torn by varied individual circumstances and resulting received interests.
the vast majority of people - including the pety-bourg and the 'middle-class' have similar objective interests. marxists base their idea of class on appealing to the most concious section of that vast majority of people (the other will sway with the majority). thats the theory anyway - obviously folk on this thread will disagree as to the practice.
I thought he was saying a Marxist would argue that? So anyway do you think that? What I would really like to find is a up to date socio-economic analysis of the country that is relatively easy to access, if anyone knows of where i could find one that would be really helpful?
dennisr
the acceptable face
dennisr
the acceptable face
Whats your excuse?
lazy self-employed worker, who can't be arsed doing any more work today
dennisr
the acceptable face
I'll leave you to think that one through yourself.
dennisr
the acceptable face
like uberdog said - i don't think that - personally I think they are working people who have been mugged and made more dependant on kow-towing to their employers to ensure they keep a roof over their heads.
put crudely - the banks own the houses - the proles sell them off at the end of their lives to pay for retirement - when they are no longer any 'use' to employers as workers. The next generation of workers face what younger folk are now facing trying to keep a roof over their heads - we pay the higher percentage of our income in trying to keep that roof over our heads in europe. There will be a rapid concentration of house-ownership in fewer hands over the next few years and we will be back to square one (ie pre-social housing! - becasue that has all been flogged of to bribe a section of the working class to vote tory for a while - now they can vote labour and still get tory)
i think the house-ownership was one of thatcher's cleverest slights of the hand - a clever con - and fooled quite a few people for a while
dennisr
the acceptable face
dennisr
the acceptable face
nope, I was just gently ribbing uberdog because he claims to be a marxist but comes out wth a really weird definition of class for a marxist.
both me and him claim to be marxists - but I think my view on class is very different
Yeah I agree with that completely, it's probably the biggest obstacle to left politics in the country, the fear of re-nationalisation of everything and nanny state type controls. Is it possible to have (real, not new labour style) left politics that except private ownership?
The Left has always been dominated by the middle classes...Militant in the 80s and 90s were a bit of an exception but even they had quite a middle class leadership. Red Action probably had a majority of working class members but there was only ever about 50 people in Red Action.
The SWP and most other socialist and anarchist groups consisted almost entirely of middle class people trying to be proley for a while.....
Mines a pint of bitter......
The SWP and most other socialist and anarchist groups consisted almost entirely of middle class people trying to be proley for a while.....
Mines a pint of bitter......
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
What concept of class can exist outside of a concrete cultural context? The idea that class is a mechanical 'relfection' of some objective 'economic' relationship is a view of class that reads Marx as somehow unproblematically fitting into 19th C scientism.
Class is necessarily always also the site of cultural reproduction - which isn't to say that there aren't non-marxist, ahistorical cultural readings of class, but Marxist readings have to be cultural as well, Just with a more sophisticated account of culture.
Thats just wot the bloke down the pub said......
dennisr
the acceptable face
personally, i think the equating of 'nanny-state control' and genuine 'control of the means of production' (the ultimate in 'nationalisation') is carefully played up.
there is actually a lot of sympathy for certain 'nationalisations' (just mention the railways to the average train commuter or telephone systems to the average BT customer or 'the nhs' to the average hospital patient or 'schools' to the average parent or etc etc etc)
- and thats despite a complete silence of this 'option' in our 'free' press.even northern rock - considering we are all paying on average 2 grand out of our tax to bail out those big business gamblers - and still new labour poop their pants about the very idea of nationalising these criminals being raised.
and yes, the left have to raise an alternative to 'state control under this system - it isn't people control if we still have the same system
anyway that's a whole other can of wroms I suppose...
dennisr
the acceptable face
dennisr
the acceptable face
Of course - but not 'culture' ripped out of its economic and social context - turned into a static matter not something constantly re-shaped and re-defining itself, by and acting back on its context.
touche
dennisr
the acceptable face
I don't think that is true historically - not for most of working class history or existence can be said to have existed - the middle classes (using my crude non-marxist insult version of class for a second...) only took over when sod all else was happening - and will soon get pushed aside as working class take up the more sensible ideas
Das Uberdog
remembers the alamo
*reads through thread*
I'm so right.
For the record, I'm not guilty of 'workerism'. I've been lambasted on these boards for that very point before now. Ultimately, however, the revolution won't be made by the self-employed builders nor will it be made by the self-employed lorry-drivers or other professions. They are middle-class and their economic interests are concretely different from working class interests. They have an interest in low taxation, low regulation, they have an aspiration to exapnd and employ (if not the means), they own their tools - ultimately, they have a stake in the system. As such, they can't be relied upon en masse to work with us when the system is seriously threatened. Like the peasants, they'll just go back home and watch over their little plot.
That's an actual Marxist defnition of class.
I'm so right.
For the record, I'm not guilty of 'workerism'. I've been lambasted on these boards for that very point before now. Ultimately, however, the revolution won't be made by the self-employed builders nor will it be made by the self-employed lorry-drivers or other professions. They are middle-class and their economic interests are concretely different from working class interests. They have an interest in low taxation, low regulation, they have an aspiration to exapnd and employ (if not the means), they own their tools - ultimately, they have a stake in the system. As such, they can't be relied upon en masse to work with us when the system is seriously threatened. Like the peasants, they'll just go back home and watch over their little plot.
That's an actual Marxist defnition of class.
Das Uberdog
remembers the alamo
Errrr, check Lenin's politburo man...
dennisr
the acceptable face
dennisr
the acceptable face
Check the people who had the drive, capacity and will to turn abstract academic ideas into the complete overthrow of tsarism - that is the entire point of a marxist view of class matey - only the working class can emancipate itself (others can only flog pamphlets to it)
of course a small privlidged layer have the time, education etc and make the theoretical break with their class background - but their ideas arn't anything unless they orientate themselves to the masses - the great unwashed (skilled or unskilled, employed, [under] unemployed or 'self'-employed)
real change comes through mass presure not genurouly handed down by sections of the more enlightened petty-bourg (or students)
with our workerist attitude you should be in the SP
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