working class, what does it mean?

[articul8]

*reads through thread*

I'm so right.

Jesus, where to start

Ultimately, however, the revolution won't be made by the self-employed builders ...

Or teachers, or self-employed plumbers/sparks/gardeners/cleaners etc.etc.

good luck with organising the miners for your revolution

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.

That's a fucking patronising load of wank, When the system is threatened, workers will make their own revolution with fuck all help needed from your lot
Anyone who can be reied upon to work with the SWP is almost by definition not working class

 

[Das Uberdog]

Well done on ignoring the thread, fucktard.

Learn to read, then maybe we'll chat.

Chin-chin

 

[dennisr]

Anyone who can be reied upon to work with the SWP is almost by definition not working class

actually - i have to say I have met a small group of the old style swappies who were somewhat impatient 'ultra-angry-worker' types. I think that is an element of working class 'thought' as well - and they can fuck thing up quite badly with ultra tactics on occasion or end up blaming and isolating themselves from the very people they ultimately need on side - the rest of the working class on occasion... thats an element of the old-style SWP

ps calm down matey

 

[Das Uberdog]

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

That I don't deny - but the Middle-Classes and others do play a significant role in the revolution both before and after in many scenarios. And continue to do so.

My point is that the revolution is nothing without the workers. and by the workers I mean the actual workers, as in those paid a wage to work hourly shifts and have no ownership of their means of production. As in the Marxist definition of workers.

Other people can join in too, of course, but it won't happen without the real class.

 

[articul8]

sadly, I've read the whole thing - and frankly you're embarrassing yourself, or at least you would be if you had any shame.

 

[Das Uberdog]

actually - i have to say I have met a small group of the old style swappies who were somewhat impatient 'ultra-angry-worker' types. I think that is an element of working class 'thought' as well - and they can fuck thing up quite badly with ultra tactics on occasion or end up blaming and isolating themselves from the very people they ultimately need on side - the rest of the working class on occasion... thats an element of the old-style SWP

Yah yah yah, and the SP ate my baby. Let's keep it clean.

 

[Das Uberdog]

sadly, I've read the whole thing - and frankly you're embarrassing yourself, or at least you would be if you had any shame.

rofl

 

[articul8]

For ffs:

I mean the actual workers, as in those paid a wage to work hourly shifts and have no ownership of their means of production. As in the Marxist definition of workers.

again, where does Marx say that workers are only those "paid a wage to work hourly shifts"?

 

[Das Uberdog]

omg

learnz 2 reedz man!!! :O:O:O

reedz zum marx!!!!!11!!

Edit: or for that matter, just read the sodding thread

 

[dennisr]

My point is that the revolution is nothing without the workers. and by the workers I mean the actual workers, as in those paid a wage to work hourly shifts and have no ownership of their means of production. As in the Marxist definition of workers.

the russian revolution was led by armed self employed plumbers and brickies everybody knows that.

slightly more seriously - many of the factories were run by workers being picked out day-to-day i imagine - folk who would nowadays be the 'self-employed'

are you doing a weird version of that old adage "if you ain't paid an hourly wage, you ain't part of my revolution"? What makes you think you can decide all this on behalf of everyone else?

 

[sinbad]

By that defintion, the hourly wage, no means of production one. How many people are working class?

 

[Das Uberdog]

There's no direct equivalent to the jobs of Russian workers nor what position they would have in society today as Britain has changed so much, but I'd imagine the best comparison to the jobs they were working would be more like kids working for agencies today. Complete insecurity, do all you can when you can for a bit on the side, get work as and when it comes by.

Agencies are the real comparison, and they'll be the real nuts to crack for the left. They're also the future - especially for my generation...

 

[dennisr]

By that defintion, the hourly wage, no means of production one. How many people are working class?

about seven in uberdogs town (by his definition like)

 

[Das Uberdog]

By that defintion, the hourly wage, no means of production one. How many people are working class?

Globally? Most people.

In Britain? Most people.

 

[chilango]

Other people can join in too, of course, but it won't happen without the real class.

 

[sinbad]

Globally? Most people.

In Britain? Most people.

In britian, most people are on an hourly wage, is that true? I'm not sure... Can you back that up?

 

[Das Uberdog]

I wouldn't have thought that even needed verifying. As far as I can see, it's a statement of obvious truth - kinda like the sky is blue, or Thatcher is a robot.

The vast majority of all the people I've ever met have worked in a workplace for a wage, paid by the hour at the end of the week. Some at the end of the month.

 

[chilango]

Thing is we can't see the wood for the trees here.

DU, whilst correct in his emphasis on people's material conditions and work status etc. "motivating" them to change the world, is making the classic mistake of allowing that to develop into a value judgement in substitution for mere information.

He is also correct in recoginisng the changing nature of the workplace regarding call centres etc. unnfortunately, the value judgements he has made regarding "class" have led him enshrine certain sections of society as "more worthy" than others.

The simple fact is that Marx looked at (in the context of industrial capitalism) who had the power to abolish it. That is all that mattered.

It is still all that matters.

Reducing the working class to hourly waged workers, or discounting others because of their cultural interests or whatever leads inevitably to defeat.

Personally, I think that the term "working class" has become so loaded with dated misdefinations and value based judgements that it is useless for emancipatory projects.

We need to start using a different vocabulary if our essential ideas are ever to take root...

 

[Aldebaran]

because, after I don't know how many hundreds of years of the reality of the differing individual relationships to the means of production resulting in our 'elders and betters' deciding our lives to a great extent for us - it would be a bit daft to pretend that that is not the reality.

The question is why entertaining and even cultivating the very awareness that there inevitably "should" be a class difference. By doing so you seem wanting to deprive one group, the "upper" class, from its usefulness and even its right to exist all while the other group, the "workers" is told they can exist without the former. Doesn't that sound strange to you in the light of their obvious - because inherent - interdependence?
To put it simple:
*If there is no capital, there is no workplace there is no need for workers.
*If there are no workers, there can even be no construction of the very workplace there can't be gathered capital to pay for its very construction for its workings, for the workers.

If "workers" become the owners of the capital - and in the supposition they have the background and skills to make this transition go smoothly and hence without loss of jobs/capital -: Who then is going to do the work if not other workers, while the former workers in their eyes inevitably then are shifted to the "upper" class level.

I am not saying 'humans' are different - but their individual relationships to the given power structures within a given society are different and - for me - class is the defining factor in that relationship (as opposed to ownership of whippets etc)

Individual relationships are what humans allow or want them to be. Artificial divisions in societies are created to keep societies rolling and developing within more or less controlled/controllable patterns. "Class" is artificially constructed and as such no more a defining factor in your relation to others than what you make of it.

salaam.

 

[emanymton]

Dennisr, I tend to agree with you but what about going on strike? If a self-employed plumber goes on strike the only person they hurts is themself, unless ‘on retainer’ for a particular employer.

 

[articul8]

If a self-employed plumber goes on strike the only person they hurts is themself,

what if they have a wife and kids?

 

[Yossarian]

Personally, I think that the term "working class" has become so loaded with dated misdefinations and value based judgements that it is useless for emancipatory projects.

I agree with this, especially in the context of the UK - seemed to me like a lot of people in Britain claimed to be 'working class' purely because their parents or grandparents had been working class, which is the kind of thinking that should have died out with feudalism.

 

[emanymton]

what if they have a wife and kids?

lets assume not.

 

[ymu]

Dennisr, I tend to agree with you but what about going on strike? If a self-employed plumber goes on strike the only person they hurts is themself, unless ‘on retainer’ for a particular employer.

Striking is a weapon not (usually) available to self-employed people, but that doesn't mean they're inherently not working-class.

The amount of power a contractor has over their clients depends on how easily their skills can be replaced - same as in any workplace. If they can't easily find another contractor, you have more power than if they can. If you're powerful enough, you can make demands - if you're not, you can't.

I came across a website recently for some profession or other which was devoted to sharing information about bad payers so that people could avoid taking on work for them. I'd regard that as a form of industrial action.

 

[emanymton]

Hmmmm, maybe.
I’ll think on it more.

If we for the moment limit ourselves to arguing about Marx’s theory of class. On point the uberdog made that I agree with is that not everyone who is not a worker is automatically a boss. In fact I can think of many groups of people who are neither. It is possible to not be a worker but be a lot worse of, and have to work a lot harder than a worker

But really Mr Dog teachers not working class!
You sure you’re in the SWP?

 

[Jean-Luc]

All of us except the filfthy rich. Otherwise you end up with the absurd position (put forward by Class War) where a bloke is working class because he's a painter but his sister is not because she's a teacher.

 

[DotCommunist]

All of us except the filfthy rich. Otherwise you end up with the absurd position (put forward by Class War) where a bloke is working class because he's a painter but his sister is not because she's a teacher.

Please tell me your username is a star trek reference

 

[Aldebaran]

All of us except the filfthy rich.

Do you mind I have some objection against your use of the word *filthy* in this context.

salaam.

 

[dennisr]

Dennisr, I tend to agree with you but what about going on strike? If a self-employed plumber goes on strike the only person they hurts is themself, unless ‘on retainer’ for a particular employer.

I think ymu makes the important point - the definition is not based on 'ability to strike', it is based on one's 'relationship to the means of production'.

Striking is a weapon not (usually) available to self-employed people, but that doesn't mean they're inherently not working-class.

And ymu adds examples of how self-employed (or say the unemployed) like other working class people try and negotiate the 'best deal' they can. You are right though - one of the strengths (for the bosses) of the myth of 'self employment' nowadays in the uk is the inherent weakness in their position

That why marxists still argue that the organised waged working class are potentialy the best placed to change their position

 

[dennisr]

We need to start using a different vocabulary if our essential ideas are ever to take root...

Like I have said all along - marx used some generalisations to draw out a pertinant point about the actual underlying relations between groups of individuals in this society.

just becasue one self-professed 'marxist' does not understand that basic point it does not mean one can simply throw out the entire theory or that one needs to play with the language expressing that theory.

language is also a site of struggle (which goes back to article's important correction of my own crude generalisation earlier) - so those who run this society want to hide the underlying realities? what is new about that? generally they dominate society and therefore are able to dominate the formal definitions used but it does not change the underlying relatons between people that constantly re-state themselves

for example, as others have pointed to - the majority of teachers (and say civil servants) would have defined themselves as middle class in the past - but their conditions are shaped by their underlying economic situation and as a result they act as other workers act - organising themselves firstly in 'professional asocciations' that then split from the 'managerial elements of their workplaces (headteachers etc) and take on the clearer form of trade unions