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I wrote a lengthier post, but in writing it I realized there's a simple way to cut to the heart of this issue. Many workers in various fields (tech, legal, medi

I wrote a lengthier post, but in writing it I realized there's a simple way to cut to the heart of this issue. Many workers in various fields (tech, legal, medicine, and more) now tend to make substantially more money than many business owners, and often for far less hours worked. In this world how does the notion of capitalist vs worker make any sense? Let alone with the stereotypes Marx depended upon for his arguments?

skyyler 2y ago
>In this world how does the notion of capitalist vs worker make any sense? Well paid workers can amass the means to become capitalists. >Let alone with the stereotypes Marx depended upon for his arguments? Marx called these types of people that make enough money to own their own means of production "petit bourgeoisie". This is in contrast to the "haute bourgeoisie". This isn't some exception to Marxist thought; this is literally one of the core components of Marxist thought.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  Wiki tends to be obsessively fond of Marxist stuff, and gives a very different definition for petit bourgeoisie: --- "Karl Marx and other Marxist theorists used the term petite bourgeoisie to academically identify the socio-economic stratum of the bourgeoisie that consists of small shopkeepers and self-employed artisans. The petite bourgeoisie is economically distinct from the proletariat social-class strata who rely entirely on the sale of their labour-power for survival. It is also distinct from the capitalist class haute bourgeoisie, defined by owning the means of production and thus deriving most of their wealth from buying the labour-power of the proletariat..." --- The critical distinction being that they aren't 'selling their labor-power' to others. And I just don't see how one can claim this makes any sense in modern times! Proles selling their 'labor power' are out-earning the bougies, anybody (even relatively low wage workers) can hire the 'labor-power of the proletariat' with things like Fiverr (amongst many others). And basically everybody owns the most valuable means of production in modern society - a computer. If you don't, you can buy one with a day or so of minimum wage work. For that matter bougies in modern times don't make wealth their from buying labor power - they mostly just dump money into investments, bonds, and other such financial vessels. Bonds right now are at near 5%! And again the distinctions really fail because the same is also true of retail investors with a a Robin Hood or whatever. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petite_bourgeoisie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petite_bourgeoisie
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    > And I just don't see how one can claim this makes any sense in modern times! Proles selling their 'labor power' are out-earning the bougies No, they generally are not. There is obviously overlap, as there was in Marx's time, in income, but that’s not a problem with the theory—class isn’t about income but mode of participation in the economy. > For that matter bougies in modern times don't make wealth their from buying labor power - they mostly just dump money into investments, bonds, and other such financial vessels. The “financial vessels” are instruments of other entities, most of which exist by rented labor power. > And again the distinctions really fail because the same is also true of retail investors with a a Robin Hood or whatever. The distinctions have never been hard lines. In the most simplistic analysis class is determined by the predominant mode of interaction with the economy, while a more nuanced view sees class membership as essentially a fuzzy membership function, depending on the degree to which one interacts in the manner (selling labor to capitalists vs applying your own labor to your own capital vs. owning capital to which rented labor is applied) archetypical of a given class (both these modes of a analysis have been around for quite a while, thougj the fuzzy membership function language would only be used fairly recently.)
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      > "that’s not a problem with the theory—class isn’t about income but mode of participation in the economy." We can challenge this assertion by reductio ad absurdum. Imagine somehow all bougies earned less than all workers. Everything Marx said would be absolutely and completely nonsensical. There's nothing inherently impossible about such a world existing and it makes clear the point that income levels do absolutely matter. And in Marx's time I think it is fairly safe to say there would have been exactly 0 proles earning more than bougies. The concept of a 'factory' worker earning more than a factory owner would have been entirely alien to him, and most of the world, until fairly recently. The most paradoxical thing about all of this is that the people most drawn to Marxist stuff are disproportionately in tech, the exact sort who, in many cases, already earn more than many, and likely most, business owners, work far fewer hours, and generally have dramatically nicer working conditions. I think it's mostly misidentified discontent. It's not the economic system that's at fault, but somehow building things in the digital world is fundamentally unsatisfying and unfulfilling, even if you get drowned in money, massages, bean bag chairs, and ping pong tables. If people want fulfilling lives (so far as work as concerned) don't work in ad-tech. If you want stupid amounts of money work in ad-tech. You get the stupid amounts of money precisely because the work is awful and empty. It's a rather dramatically different world from Marx's time where, in general, work was awful and compensation was awful.

skyyler 2y ago

>In this world how does the notion of capitalist vs worker make any sense? Well paid workers can amass the means to become capitalists. >Let alone with the stereotypes Marx depended upon for his arguments? Marx called these types of people that make enough money to own their own means of production "petit bourgeoisie". This is in contrast to the "haute bourgeoisie". This isn't some exception to Marxist thought; this is literally one of the core components of Marxist thought.

somenameforme 2y ago
Wiki tends to be obsessively fond of Marxist stuff, and gives a very different definition for petit bourgeoisie: --- "Karl Marx and other Marxist theorists used the term petite bourgeoisie to academically identify the socio-economic stratum of the bourgeoisie that consists of small shopkeepers and self-employed artisans. The petite bourgeoisie is economically distinct from the proletariat social-class strata who rely entirely on the sale of their labour-power for survival. It is also distinct from the capitalist class haute bourgeoisie, defined by owning the means of production and thus deriving most of their wealth from buying the labour-power of the proletariat..." --- The critical distinction being that they aren't 'selling their labor-power' to others. And I just don't see how one can claim this makes any sense in modern times! Proles selling their 'labor power' are out-earning the bougies, anybody (even relatively low wage workers) can hire the 'labor-power of the proletariat' with things like Fiverr (amongst many others). And basically everybody owns the most valuable means of production in modern society - a computer. If you don't, you can buy one with a day or so of minimum wage work. For that matter bougies in modern times don't make wealth their from buying labor power - they mostly just dump money into investments, bonds, and other such financial vessels. Bonds right now are at near 5%! And again the distinctions really fail because the same is also true of retail investors with a a Robin Hood or whatever. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petite_bourgeoisie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petite_bourgeoisie
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  > And I just don't see how one can claim this makes any sense in modern times! Proles selling their 'labor power' are out-earning the bougies No, they generally are not. There is obviously overlap, as there was in Marx's time, in income, but that’s not a problem with the theory—class isn’t about income but mode of participation in the economy. > For that matter bougies in modern times don't make wealth their from buying labor power - they mostly just dump money into investments, bonds, and other such financial vessels. The “financial vessels” are instruments of other entities, most of which exist by rented labor power. > And again the distinctions really fail because the same is also true of retail investors with a a Robin Hood or whatever. The distinctions have never been hard lines. In the most simplistic analysis class is determined by the predominant mode of interaction with the economy, while a more nuanced view sees class membership as essentially a fuzzy membership function, depending on the degree to which one interacts in the manner (selling labor to capitalists vs applying your own labor to your own capital vs. owning capital to which rented labor is applied) archetypical of a given class (both these modes of a analysis have been around for quite a while, thougj the fuzzy membership function language would only be used fairly recently.)
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    > "that’s not a problem with the theory—class isn’t about income but mode of participation in the economy." We can challenge this assertion by reductio ad absurdum. Imagine somehow all bougies earned less than all workers. Everything Marx said would be absolutely and completely nonsensical. There's nothing inherently impossible about such a world existing and it makes clear the point that income levels do absolutely matter. And in Marx's time I think it is fairly safe to say there would have been exactly 0 proles earning more than bougies. The concept of a 'factory' worker earning more than a factory owner would have been entirely alien to him, and most of the world, until fairly recently. The most paradoxical thing about all of this is that the people most drawn to Marxist stuff are disproportionately in tech, the exact sort who, in many cases, already earn more than many, and likely most, business owners, work far fewer hours, and generally have dramatically nicer working conditions. I think it's mostly misidentified discontent. It's not the economic system that's at fault, but somehow building things in the digital world is fundamentally unsatisfying and unfulfilling, even if you get drowned in money, massages, bean bag chairs, and ping pong tables. If people want fulfilling lives (so far as work as concerned) don't work in ad-tech. If you want stupid amounts of money work in ad-tech. You get the stupid amounts of money precisely because the work is awful and empty. It's a rather dramatically different world from Marx's time where, in general, work was awful and compensation was awful.