Not a fan of this one.
Classes aren’t designed, there’s no moustache twirling villain behind the curtain. They arise through historical process as people struggle over control of the means of production.
The middle class, which I hate as a concept because it’s weird fuzzy idealistic liberal nonsense rather than something that can be theoretically grounded, is roughly analogous in most people’s thinking to a mix of petite bourgeois and labour aristocracy. The bourgeois began to arise hundreds of years ago as a class, as technological changes allowed merchants to challenge the aristocracy. They were closely followed by the labour aristocracy.
I agree with the idea that the threat of communism during the cold war gave workers more power with which to negotiate for a larger share of their labour (at least, within certain countries) but again this is class struggle and complex. Political and economic realities colliding with increased class consciousness and high degrees of labour organisation. There was not some secret meeting of the capitalists where they all agreed to give people sick leave and a raise to avoid revolution.
I think as leftists we should not invent conspiracy and boogiemen. There are enough solid pieces of propaganda that do not obscure the sensible and systemic explanations for why we find ourselves in this historical moment, and I think that since reality has a left wing bias engaging with it only strengthens the cause.
Unruffled is a weirdo anti-communist asshole who refuses to actually engage with any leftist theory but I applaud your effort.
I don’t know about that. They seem a little incoherent sometimes in the way that most people who haven’t made a study do (and tbh most of us who have done a little are) but I would not describe them as anticommunist based on my interactions and what I’ve seen of them.
Anyway, thanks for the kind words and hopefully others will find them interesting
Gee funny how when the civil rights runs around the middle class vanishes?
Because it was on the backs of minority work. It wasn’t real.
Middle class was a… fluke… that was created deliberately?
And now those people are being pushed into being peasants, which means small independent subsistence farm owners in the countryside??
What fucking nonsense is this 🥀
It’s Unruffled, one of lemmy’s strongest anti-communist cold warriors. They staunchly refuse to learn anything and rebuff all attempts to educate them with pithy thought terminating cliches.
A peasant by definition does not own the land he works. He pays taxes to the feudal landlord for the permission to work the land, so in effect rents the means of production.
Freeholding peasants are a thing :) A quick double check search before making strong declarations is a good idea. Enough misinfo online without well-meaning people spreading it.
While tenant farming still exists to this day which has peasants rent their land, there’s plenty of free peasants who do own their land, utilize family labor and sell their surplus produce. That was the case under feudalism too, except that it was much rarer.
In US though, which is what this dogshit post is referring to, the relationship to land was much different than it was in Europe (no entrenched feudal system carrying over obligations, homesteading acts, etc), majority of peasants owned their own land and that is still the case today
with knights, lords, dukes, duchesses, concubines.
The middle class are those who own their own trades businesses, as an evolution from guilded trades. OP must be ‘murican.
taps Das Kapital
The Bourgeois are the Middle Class and they’ve been around for over 400 years. Hardly a fluke.
The bourgeoisie were only a middle class in relation to the aristocracy above them. While there’s still some aristocrats around, they’re not relevant as a societal class. The modern middle class is a subset of the proletariat afforded enough wealth to be good little consumers fuelling the growth of the economy.
The modern middle class is a subset of the proletariat afforded enough wealth to be good little consumers fuelling the growth of the economy.
Sure. But they’re they consequences of industrialized, Fordism, and the population explosion. They aren’t an engineered response to the 1917 Russian Revolution.
Agreed. This is pretty much what I said in my other comment to this post.
That’s the neat part, its selective pressure. Capitalists don’t need to engineer an outcome (though they still can and do, occasionally). Each one merely acts on their own immediate self interest and collectively this has a tendency to move and shape society towards outcomes that further benefit them as a class.
That would make them “petit bourgeoisie”.
If you sell your labor to make a living, you’re not bourgeoisie. Big or little.
That’s very true, and I think I may have originally misunderstood your comment.
Workers in general, don’t really count as “the middle class”. White collar or blue collar…they’re all still “working class”, no matter how much they earn.
Petit bourgeoisie applies to any entrepreneurs or small business owners. They aren’t “wealthy”, and they are still technically “working for a living”. But, they also aren’t “selling their labor”…they’re buying someone else’s.
They’re the transitional class that sits between the working class and the bourgeoisie. That’s always what I’ve understood the “middle class” to be.
Interestingly someone employed in a highly-sought-after profession may be more financially stable and well-off than a struggling small company owner, even if the latter employs others.
Or to take an example from my wider family: A lady in her 70s (with a more well-off relative securing the loan) managed to buy a small flat to rent out on AirBnB. If not for this, her state pension would not be enough to cover her food and bills, and no one hires older women where she lives. (And she has no savings to speak of.) Like, she’s technically a landlord now, but even with the AirBnB income she’s barely scraping by, so I can’t really see her as bourgeois.
this still all remains true. the bourgeoisie of france and described in classical 1800s socialist theory are administrators of an aristocratic oligarchy. today, this still remains true. they are provided the petty comforts of the plantation overseer in return for carrying out the boring administration work the oligarchs won’t, or can’t, perform. in return, they are given minor aesthetic access to aspect of the oligarchy, like lawns, picket fences, and prepared meals. the bourgeousie of france and classical socialist theory are doctors, lawyers, accountants, and artisans. today they are doctors, lawyers, accountants, and artisans
Fair enough but I kinda feel it makes it real for some folks.
I disagree somewhat. Yes it was appeasement to a significant extent, but I think the middle class was primarily created to grow the consumer base to fuel the growth of the economy by giving a subset of the working class enough wealth to make them better consumers. At the same time they get bombarded with marketing to keep them using their limited wealth for this purpose. The rich can’t get richer if the economy (that they own) doesn’t grow in size and it can’t grow if workers can’t afford to be consumers for the products and services they produce. Financialization is the key thing that is currently (since like, Reagan and Thatcher) shaking things up. The real economy isn’t growing like it used to, with economic growth now coming primarily from asset inflation. Rent extraction and high interest debts gain even more prevalence and guess who’s paying…
This is all true. It should be noted, that was also in response to the Great Depression effectively wiping out the working class, which led directly to the need to give them that economic boost. The economy had all but stalled during the 1930’s for this reason. If they didn’t find a way to inject spending money back into the lower economy, the entire thing might have collapsed.
However, once the economy had a chance to recover, the wealthy decided they shouldn’t have to pay for these loafers to prosper anymore, and convinced politicians like Reagan and Thatcher to implement policies that would allow them to stop giving the working class any more handouts. We’ve been backsliding ever since.
