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Americans with six-figure incomes are in 'survival mode'
(www.usatoday.com)
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And that’s basically it!
Americans with six figure incomes are not the enemy. We need them on our side in the fight against the Americans with eight, nine, and higher figure incomes
Lower 6 figures today is middle class. Or at least what middle class buying power was 40 years ago.
You can’t afford to buy a single family home on $100k/yr in my area. So I’m not sure it really meets the classic definition of middle class anymore.
Lots of homes are easily affordable with that income. Buy elsewhere.
Show me the place where you can both earn the $100k AND afford the homes. Places with higher wages also have higher costs. It doesn’t help someone in Seattle to tell them go buy a home in Oklahoma.
Especially when you factor in the cost of living in places where $100k jobs are to be found. “Six figures” may sound like a fortune if you’re sitting in rural Ohio but it’s little more than a decent wage in Seattle.
Yeah. The problem is that the goalposts keep getting pushed away faster than income is keeping up. Someone might have what is considered a good paying job, but the buying power for major purchases like cars and homes keeps taking hits. On top of that the bills get steeper and steeper. Six figures should be a fortune.
Put bluntly, those who live off labour aren't the enemy. Those who live off property (aka others' labour) are.
Yes, but that definion isn't that clear cut anymore as it was during the industrial revolution. Common people have pensions, i.e. stocks. Workers 'invest' in their home as real estate. Executive managers can be still just workers even if they make a million bucks. The analysis isn't that cut and dry if lots of people have investments on top of their wage job. Everyone not living hand to mouth is a kind of petit-bourgeoisie. The vast majority are not proletariat anymore.
I don't want you to think I'm anti-leftist, because I definitely support significant redistribution and an end to capitalism. Just want people to think a bit further than mid-19th century definions and analysis which I think no longer hold. Alternative suggestions are welcome
I think the definition of working class is still pretty simple regardless of modern financial complexities. If you rely on a paycheck to make a living you are proletariat. If you own enough capital that you don’t have to work, congrats, now you are petit bourgeois.
If you can't quit your job and live off your investments and previous earnings, you are firmly in the proletariat.
Lumping in those who day trade on T212 with those buying into investment schemes at the clubhouse isn't helpful. "It's a big fucking club" and it's pretty obvious whether you're in it or not.
This is everyone with a 401(k) for retirement. Ie, what they will be loving off of. Not sure why you are labeling the vast majority of people the enemy…
Hell, since you are including 'other's labour', then this would also include anyone living off Social Security, a pension, disability, etc. All of that money comes from other's labour.
Your brush is way, way, way too broad. You have marked almost everyone the enemy at some point in their lives.
That's stupid, under that definition small business owners are the enemy. Not to mention that there's no genuine argument as to why owning property or living off it is inherently bad in any way.
This is why I keep saying that Marxism has and well truly lived past it's usefulness. Now it's just an outdated ideology that people try to slap on to a world it wasn't made for.
"living off of your property" is shorthand (and so maybe we should be more explicit) for "living off of the production and labor of other people who need access to your property to do that labor".
So yea, i think it is exploitative to restrict access your property to someone who would use it to reproduce themselves each day (a home) or would use it to produce other valuable goods and services (a job) and to require that person to pay you for access (that home again) or you'll pay them wages less than what they produce (that job).
And i think exploitative is inherently bad.
There's quite a few assumptions here that I disagree with:
Property relations are inherently tied to exploitation - That's just not true. Voluntary exchange is not exploitative. For example, let's suppose a musician makes their livelihood by owning a music school where they sell music lessons, and they need more instructors to meet demand so they go out and hire one. The person being hired is someone who sells their skills for a living, and they applied for this position of their own volition and signed a contract for a wage they find satisfactory... how is that exploitative? This is a win-win situation.
Ownership of property is the same as extraction of surplus value - Again, this is just not true. For example, someone living off their own farm without tenants or employees wouldn’t fit this critique.
Restricting access to property is inherently bad - First of all, I don't know what "reproduce themselves each day" is supposed to even mean, that's just nonsense. Regardless, restricting access to property is literally how societies manage resources. Exclusion is often necessary to prevent overuse and conflict, and when based on fair agreements, it supports both individual rights and social stability. There's a reason why human civilization evolved throughout history to favor private ownership.
Labor is the only source of value in a society - This is false. Things like land (natural resources), technology, knowledge, entrepreneurship, innovation, and capital (tools, infrastructure, machines) also produce value in an economy. Of course labor is important and valuable, but it is not the sole source of value. Holding this assumption as true is just economic illiteracy because you can't run an economy with just labor alone.
Inequality is the same as exploitation - Inequality is a difference in outcomes or opportunity while exploitation is unfair advantage. Not all inequality is exploitative, some of it is caused by things like effort, talent, merit, or choice. Exploitation, on the other hand, involves coercion or injustice, which makes it morally distinct. Exploitation can cause inequality, but not all inequality is exploitative. In this sense profit is not inherently exploitation even if it can be if obtained in certain ways.
When you remove these assumptions from the equation, there isn't really a coherent argument left. Your argument only makes sense if you accept the Marxist framework as true without a second thought, which I don't. I reject both Marxist analysis and proposals. I'm not entirely dismissive of Marxist critiques, but they have to be framed in a way where they're able to stand on their own merits for me to consider accepting them. Otherwise, there's no point because Marxism and its assumptions are simply outdated. It's an 18th century framework and ideology that was made by men of that time for societies of that time. The world has changed since then and modern economies don't work the same way anymore.
Living off of owning property isn't inherently bad? Whatttttt
I can't tell if this is sarcasm
I don't consider them my enemy. I consider them privileged. Am I supposed to weep for them that they can't buy their kids the top of the line xyz or go on vacation this year? Should I spend emotional labor because they need to move to a smaller house or stop eating out? 6 figure salary isn't rich these days I grant you but it is a comfortable amount unless they're trying to live beyond their means.
Six figures could be anything between 100k and 999k. If they are on the lower end, they aren’t really that privileged, especially if they are living in an area that necessitates a pay that high.
Hell, there are some places that 100k would be closer to the regions “poverty line” so to speak.
100k when you are salaried and working 70 hours while technically is still 100k it's not really lol.
Average that shit out and stop lying to ourselves. 500k a year? Yeah fuck those people. 100k a year? Join us. Burn it all down.
Also, a quick reminder that it's not normal to be working 70 hours a week.