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I don't consider 'tech workers', working class. We're higher paid, our jobs do not destroy our bodies, in my mind it's a purely middle class career. I agree wit

I don't consider 'tech workers', working class. We're higher paid, our jobs do not destroy our bodies, in my mind it's a purely middle class career. I agree with your actual point though, we are pampered.

rwmj 3y ago
Of course tech workers are working class. You either give your labour for a living or you invest capital in businesses, and almost every tech worker is doing the former. > our jobs do not destroy our bodies I've got news for you there.
- thathndude 3y ago
  this is a valid definition of “working class,” (I.e. non-owners), but it’s not how the phrase is typically used. This phrase would include any non-owner professional like lawyers or doctors or even upper management. On top of that many tech workers don’t fit even your definition because equity is often an important part of comp. That’s not the case for lawyers or doctors or management in other industries. Using standard and customary vernacular, tech workers are not “working class.”
  - Izkata 3y ago
    Yeah, this group is called professional class, not working class.
- guntherhermann 3y ago
  By the definition you give then people who claim benefits and do not work are not "working class". It is delusional to think our jobs are on the same level as someone who grafts all day with their hands and does back breaking work for minimum wage.
  - rwmj 3y ago
    Not everyone who is working class is on minimum wage. Train drivers or boiler engineers or site foremen? All paid very well, in the UK as much or even more than tech workers.
    - guntherhermann 3y ago
      I come from a working class background so I'm very aware of all of this. However my family (extended+) have all had poorly paying jobs, coal miners, nurses, pallet makers, warehouse, electricians, labourers, bakers. I'm the first to go to uni and do an easy job that pays well. It is physically easy and it is very different from the other jobs I've listed. Our jobs aren't working class. Edit: by the by, boiler engineers are not paid well. A self-employed plumber with a gas cert can earn a good wage, but your average british gas tradie isn't bringing home half of what I earn
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > By the definition you give then people who claim benefits and do not work are not “working class”. Yes, people who do not rely on overwhelmingly on selling labor for their support are not working class (people who are working class might transitionally be on support without working, or might be on support while working, depending on the benefit structure, but if their principal source of support over an extended time is not selling labor, then they aren’t, as a matter of economic class, “working class”.) Just as someone isn’t part of the capitalist class if over time they do get most of their support from working and don’t have capital holdings. Economic class is a description of how you relate to the economy. > It is delusional to think our jobs are on the same level as someone who grafts all day with their hands and does back breaking work for minimum wage. The proletarian class isn’t defined by the nature of labor, but by the fact of selling it as one’s overwhelming-majority means of support within the economy. Yes, there are important differences within the class as well as the broad common features and interests.
  - pmulard 3y ago
    There are plenty of factory/labor jobs that don’t require people to wreck their bodies. Many of them provide workstations where people have the option to sit/stand or they are walking around most of the time. Occasionally bending over, not too much heavily lifting. Many of my ex coworkers who did these jobs were in fantastic shape. It’s disingenuous to pick out an extreme example.
- michaelt 3y ago
  > I've got news for you there. Eh, compared to my relatives in the trades, construction, retail and warehouse work, and the jobs I had in high school, I'm on easy street here. Negligible risk of trips or falls, no lifting anything heavy, no working around powerful machines or using dangerous tools, no dealing with chemicals, no need for hard hats or safety boots, no working in hot or cold or wet conditions, no working with knives, no splattering hot oil, no working in the dark, no loud noise, no working near moving vehicles, no standing on your feet 8 hours a day, no boss that gets mad if you're off sick, no mandatory overtime, very low stress. The only thing that makes tech work more dangerous than sitting on my ass on the sofa is the office's free chocolate.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Of course tech workers are working class. You either give your labour for a living or you invest capital in businesses I mean, you’ve left out the petit bourgeoisie entirely, describing only the proletariat and haut bourgeoisie. Its true that some tech workers are in the proletariat (part of the proletarian intelligentsia) but a whole lot of tech workers are petit bourgeois, having a mixed reliance on capital and labor (not, for tech workers as such, the classical pattern of applying their own labor to their own capital, but that’s not the only pattern of mixed reliance that puts people in the middle class that sits between the working class and pure capitalists.)
meheleventyone 3y ago
They mean working class in the capitalist sense rather than social class sense.
- efaref 3y ago
  The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that the "middle class" was a fiction invented by the capital class to divide the working class in two and pit them against each other. If you or someone in your family has to work so that you can survive, you are working class.
  - generic92034 3y ago
    I am not sure putting people working from pay check to pay check or having to work two jobs to survive in the same category as people getting middle six-figures TC would be helpful for analyzing the social strata.
  - pbmonster 3y ago
    > the "middle class" was a fiction invented by the capital class to divide the working class Totally agree. > If you or someone in your family has to work so that you can survive, you are working class. It's not so easy. A dentist owning his own doctor's practice - the means of production, quickly worth several million dollars - does pretty clearly belong to the (petit) bourgeoise. His interest are often clearly opposed to that of the staff he employs. Every dollar saved on salaries, every day of vacation denied means more money in his pocket. Yet he has to work every day. The real difference are the means of production.
  - interpenetrate 3y ago
    You don't want to be divided from the miners who extract the minerals and the factory workers who assemble the crappy tech that we design? I do. It's absolutely squalid over there.
    - Timon3 3y ago
      I sure don't! I want them to have it as good as I do, and I want to use my influence to make it so. This can only work if we are one group.
surgical_fire 3y ago
Being well paid doesn't change the fact that I am providing labor for a salary. The very definition of "working class".

rwmj 3y ago

Of course tech workers are working class. You either give your labour for a living or you invest capital in businesses, and almost every tech worker is doing the former. > our jobs do not destroy our bodies I've got news for you there.

thathndude 3y ago
this is a valid definition of “working class,” (I.e. non-owners), but it’s not how the phrase is typically used. This phrase would include any non-owner professional like lawyers or doctors or even upper management. On top of that many tech workers don’t fit even your definition because equity is often an important part of comp. That’s not the case for lawyers or doctors or management in other industries. Using standard and customary vernacular, tech workers are not “working class.”
- Izkata 3y ago
  Yeah, this group is called professional class, not working class.
guntherhermann 3y ago
By the definition you give then people who claim benefits and do not work are not "working class". It is delusional to think our jobs are on the same level as someone who grafts all day with their hands and does back breaking work for minimum wage.
- rwmj 3y ago
  Not everyone who is working class is on minimum wage. Train drivers or boiler engineers or site foremen? All paid very well, in the UK as much or even more than tech workers.
  - guntherhermann 3y ago
    I come from a working class background so I'm very aware of all of this. However my family (extended+) have all had poorly paying jobs, coal miners, nurses, pallet makers, warehouse, electricians, labourers, bakers. I'm the first to go to uni and do an easy job that pays well. It is physically easy and it is very different from the other jobs I've listed. Our jobs aren't working class. Edit: by the by, boiler engineers are not paid well. A self-employed plumber with a gas cert can earn a good wage, but your average british gas tradie isn't bringing home half of what I earn
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > By the definition you give then people who claim benefits and do not work are not “working class”. Yes, people who do not rely on overwhelmingly on selling labor for their support are not working class (people who are working class might transitionally be on support without working, or might be on support while working, depending on the benefit structure, but if their principal source of support over an extended time is not selling labor, then they aren’t, as a matter of economic class, “working class”.) Just as someone isn’t part of the capitalist class if over time they do get most of their support from working and don’t have capital holdings. Economic class is a description of how you relate to the economy. > It is delusional to think our jobs are on the same level as someone who grafts all day with their hands and does back breaking work for minimum wage. The proletarian class isn’t defined by the nature of labor, but by the fact of selling it as one’s overwhelming-majority means of support within the economy. Yes, there are important differences within the class as well as the broad common features and interests.
- pmulard 3y ago
  There are plenty of factory/labor jobs that don’t require people to wreck their bodies. Many of them provide workstations where people have the option to sit/stand or they are walking around most of the time. Occasionally bending over, not too much heavily lifting. Many of my ex coworkers who did these jobs were in fantastic shape. It’s disingenuous to pick out an extreme example.
michaelt 3y ago
> I've got news for you there. Eh, compared to my relatives in the trades, construction, retail and warehouse work, and the jobs I had in high school, I'm on easy street here. Negligible risk of trips or falls, no lifting anything heavy, no working around powerful machines or using dangerous tools, no dealing with chemicals, no need for hard hats or safety boots, no working in hot or cold or wet conditions, no working with knives, no splattering hot oil, no working in the dark, no loud noise, no working near moving vehicles, no standing on your feet 8 hours a day, no boss that gets mad if you're off sick, no mandatory overtime, very low stress. The only thing that makes tech work more dangerous than sitting on my ass on the sofa is the office's free chocolate.
dragonwriter 3y ago
> Of course tech workers are working class. You either give your labour for a living or you invest capital in businesses I mean, you’ve left out the petit bourgeoisie entirely, describing only the proletariat and haut bourgeoisie. Its true that some tech workers are in the proletariat (part of the proletarian intelligentsia) but a whole lot of tech workers are petit bourgeois, having a mixed reliance on capital and labor (not, for tech workers as such, the classical pattern of applying their own labor to their own capital, but that’s not the only pattern of mixed reliance that puts people in the middle class that sits between the working class and pure capitalists.)

meheleventyone 3y ago

They mean working class in the capitalist sense rather than social class sense.

efaref 3y ago
The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that the "middle class" was a fiction invented by the capital class to divide the working class in two and pit them against each other. If you or someone in your family has to work so that you can survive, you are working class.
- generic92034 3y ago
  I am not sure putting people working from pay check to pay check or having to work two jobs to survive in the same category as people getting middle six-figures TC would be helpful for analyzing the social strata.
- pbmonster 3y ago
  > the "middle class" was a fiction invented by the capital class to divide the working class Totally agree. > If you or someone in your family has to work so that you can survive, you are working class. It's not so easy. A dentist owning his own doctor's practice - the means of production, quickly worth several million dollars - does pretty clearly belong to the (petit) bourgeoise. His interest are often clearly opposed to that of the staff he employs. Every dollar saved on salaries, every day of vacation denied means more money in his pocket. Yet he has to work every day. The real difference are the means of production.
- interpenetrate 3y ago
  You don't want to be divided from the miners who extract the minerals and the factory workers who assemble the crappy tech that we design? I do. It's absolutely squalid over there.
  - Timon3 3y ago
    I sure don't! I want them to have it as good as I do, and I want to use my influence to make it so. This can only work if we are one group.

surgical_fire 3y ago

Being well paid doesn't change the fact that I am providing labor for a salary. The very definition of "working class".