Middle class, working class and upper class

[nadinbrzezinski]

in the US we tend to classify these things by income. In other places of the world this is done a little by income, but mostly by occupation.

So let's look at who is who in the zoo, shall we?

Any trade member, factory member, or person in agriculture, regardless of PERSONAL INCOME is considered working class. If this person especially does not have control of the tools, he or she is working class.

Who are the middle classes? These are the people in white collar professions, professionals. And here is where it gets really tricky. Is a nurse by this definition working class or middle class? What about the doctor? One easy way to actually make that difference is wether you are in private practice, aka you own your own tools, or you work for somebody else. Given how technological medicine, for example, has become...you could always argue that these guys have indeed joined workers, and should fight for better conditions at work. If propaganda was not that deep, you betcha that many doctors (and younger ones do) would demand single payer, Mostly it will improve their woking conditions, and medical care. Now in the 19th century these guys were middle class, together with small time merchants, You know the guys who owned a small store with maybe one or two employees.

Now the upper elites are the owners of capital, who control the means of production to use that other ugly term that round these parts it just so uncouth.

Now I want you to think about this. How many small time factory owners (you got 20 employees maybe), or store owners, (ten to twenty upper limit) are there? How many Wallmarts? So if you want to actually look at this from the point of view of what class is... yes doctors are part of the working class any longer, they don't control their practices. Nor are nurses, or teachers... There are a few small time business owners still left, but most small time business owners own franchises, not local businesses, those are really rare. They are incidentally the origin of the term bourgeois... city deller, aka your original middle class.

So when they tell you... but you are middle class... as they say... time to wake up and smell the coffee. In a traditional analysis, and not just marxist before you say it, is gone. It is not getting squeezed, it is just gone. So you want a better living? It will take a fight. So time to develop that class consciousness that is now gone.

Oh and for visiting freepers and other right wingers... this is not just marxist theory, but standard social science and political science analysis... get over it. In fact, a guy by the name of Smith made a somewhat prescient analysis about living wages, oh around 1776 with his great work, on well the Wealth of Nations. In fact, Marx took a lot of that, and a little hegel and EXPANDED on it.

[RKP5637]

1. I've had MD friends that worked so hard, like they were on an assembly line. Definitely

working class, in someone else's large practice.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. My brother, he is near retirement and he is still working

100 hour weeks.

[RKP5637]

4. One of my friends quit the private group practice and went with a hospital. The

hours were better and the environment less inhumane and stressful for them. It was like they were on a quota in the group practice to crank so many patients through a day.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. He works at a hospital

he is just one of the best in his field... and cannot say no.

[RKP5637]

6. His patients are very very lucky to have him!!! n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. So am I, he was the one who suggested Celiacs for me

over a conversation over dinner... and that is why I now follow the diet to great results.

:-)

And yes they are.

[readmoreoften]

3. Most former "middle class" administrative positions have been proletarianized.

In the 19th and early 20th century, teaching and administrative work was petit bourgeois position. Service jobs are now generally proletarianized. When you teach a course at a university, for example, it is a product that you make and design and a profit is made off your labor. You do not control the infrastructure of that course you teach. You do not own the means of production. Anyone who earns a wage and whose labor makes a profit for the capitalists is a proletarian. It doesn't have to do with being blue collar or white collar. A customer service phone bank worker, for example, is 21st century proletarian. A consultant whose business manages customer service workers is petit bourgeois.

But you're right, there. Class has nothing to do with the amount of money you own. And, yes, as I'm sure you know, Marx expanded on Smith-- and also called him on his bullshit in terms of the origins of capital, which Smith wrote fables about (all the people who wanted to work became capitalists! All the lazy people became workers!) while Marx showed the history of primitive accumulation in the 16th century Enclosure Movements. They stole the common lands and forced serfs into factory labor and when the serfs decided to beg or hide out in the churches, the capitalists passed work laws and forced them to work. So much for "freedom" and "individual rights". Those only matter to the bourgeoisie in relation to Kings. Not the bourgeoisie in relation to their workers.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Well Smith was being critical of the main economy of his time

the Mercantile system. In some ways what evolved out of it was a form of capitalism that Smith would never recognize. (That was Marx's era, which has a lot in common with today)... Smith AND Marx would agree on well... regulation, living wages, and unions.

After all both are in the same economic continuum.

And as to the enclosures, they started in the 14th century the real consequences were obvious by the 16th and this included cheap labor.

Note to visiting freepers, no economic theory is not black and white and if you are a Smith Capitalism you will start to sound to what you imagine as a Marxist.

(I love tweaking them noses in Smith's theory of wages)