If you need to work to exist, you are working class. Owners make passive income with the wealth they already have. If getting fired from your job puts your basic necessities at risk, you are working class.
And relying on your parents to bail you out does not make you owner class.
I don't disagree with you. These seem like entirely reasonable definitions. Yet... I still kind of question their utility. It's just semantics and the delineation of classes depends entirely on the conversation you're having.
Want to complain about capitalism? Sure... working class vs owning class, or 1%, or whatever you want.
For more or less any other conversation we don't use terms like "lower class" or "middle class" but we divide cohorts into segments in order to make them easier to read about. It's not a sinister plot by capitalists to confuse the plebs, it's just practical.
This is kind of silly.
I'm definitely working class, like I couldn't stop working and coast the rest of my life on what I have saved now without really cutting everything to the bone.
However, I max out my 401k and iras every year. We also put enough money aside that our two kids will probably need to take out little to no money for their college educations. We are contemplating how many hundreds of thousands of dollars we can afford for a house renovation, and we can still take two comfortable vacations per year.
I'm very comfortable and know I am very lucky.
Which is why it's absurd to put me in the same category as the people who literally have cut everything to the bone and still worry about making ends meet at the end of the month. While we should still team up against the owning class, our financial situations are drastically different and shouldn't be treated as the same because that would do a huge disservice to their actual relative situation.
Sure you can argue that your financial situation is a bit better, but the power dynamics between yourself and owners is still the same regardless if you make a lot or a little and more importantly, salaries change. When your job isn't considered competitive anymore you'll be in the same boat or if you get laid off or you get sick, etc.
Sure, which is why I think we should still team up. However, that doesn't change the fact that we are in such ridiculously different positions that it's nonsense to try and pretend these are "made up" just to keep people down. Like my tax rate is higher, and it should be. There are very obvious reason these have different terms, and "it's just conspiracy by the man to keep us down!" without a shred of evidence to back it up is just, well, mindless conspiracy shit.
Yep. It's almost like different words with different meanings are useful to express different thoughts on different contexts.
I don't think it's about denying the difference between subsistence living and moderate wealth, so much as prioritizing a framing that identifies the systemic issue of capital rather than a comparative placement on an arbitrary scale.
It's not that those comparisons don't exist, it's just less important than the shared relationship to capital, and happens to distract from what's actually meaningful.
I think that’s the mythical middle class that some of us in the working class are lucky to be a part of. In my case, I’m not in a comfortable saving situation now because the Covid years fucked my finances with a cactus, but living in a cheap neighborhood and having a white collar job means I can see a way out.
This got me thinking about the use of “middle class” in politics. It’s like the carrot for reasonable people that know they are not temporarily embarrassed millionaires. You don’t work hard and save for yachts, you do it for actually retiring.
You must have heard of "None of us is free, until we're all free!" before, right?
I'll use the example used a lot during COVID: we're all in the same storm, but we're not all in the same boat.
I'm definitely working class
.
I'm very comfortable
These are not mutually exclusive. We can acknowledge our privilege but still recognise that we are in solidarity (or should be) with those who have fewer privileges.
No one is saying you're the same, and certainly not the same in every way except class.
It's like me saying that both myself and Sid Meier are both millennials does not mean we're in every other category together.
And it’s not the owning class, it’s the Parasite Class.
A lot of people own capital without becoming parasitical, and therefore, obscenely wealthy. But becoming obscenely wealthy requires parasitism.
It's basically three classes:
Working Class: the vast majority of humanity. Everyone whose basic necessities for survival and physical as well as mental health is controlled by others. Despite the name, this class DOES include those who are unable to work.
Lesser Owning Class: Anyone who controls said necessities but at least employs or otherwise benefits people of the working class. These aren't necessarily bastards but there should be as few of them as possible.
Parasite Class: The ones whose main or sole source of income is gaining wealth by having wealth already. Examples include landlords, billionaires borrowing against their stock portfolio and others whose enrichment removes money from the general economy while adding only to their own dragon hoard and/or mostly closed systems like stock markets. That these exist at all is one of the greatest atrocities allowed by mankind.
Also known as the proletariat, petite bourgeoisie, and bourgeoisie, respectively
True, but over a century of anti-communist and anti-socialist propaganda has kinda soured most of the west on anything with even a whiff of either, so I figured I would spell it out without the "scary commie words" 😉
Petite bourgeoisie is what the proletariat are expected to aspire towards. And the way you break into that class is by showing obsequiousness towards the bourgeoisie while enjoying the privilege of unchecked abuse towards the proles.
The crabs in a bucket get a prize if they can climb to the top for long enough.
Owwww my bones! These commie snowflakes are hurting me with their scary words 😰
The middle class are working class who can't afford to go to school longer, but did so anyway because they were expected to.
In a lot of countries (Canada, Germany, etc.) they can afford to go to school longer because society realizes that it is in it's best interest to make it affordable (free in some cases).
If you believe the US's way is the only way to have a democracy and freedom, you need to learn about other democraties.
Not Canada. Tuition in Canada is as expensive as comparable schools in the US. We just don't really have the ultra expensive tier like Harvard.
The Professional Managerial Class, or Labour Aristocracy, is a broadly recognized sub-class that functions as agents of the bourgeois within the working class. In the same way that an Overseer and a Serf are both "working class" but one holds a clearly demarcated position relative to the other, PMCs and service/factory workers are well defined sub-components structured against one another.
That's not really a class, it's not a social relation to the Means of Production, that's more of a group of people. A class is more specific, like a Worker, or an owner.
Whatever happened to Marx' "ownership of the means of production" definition? Also, even beyond that, it makes sense to have an understanding that the precarity felt by an upper middle class person is not remotely the same kind of daily struggle faced by a lower middle class person. Not being able to afford property vs. not being able to afford food.
Ultimately it is important to recognize that all humans in the capitalist system are recruited to participate in an extractive, antihumanist global process.
By what definition is somebody who can't afford property "upper middle class"?
Modern feudalism in a nutshell
Exactly..
I don't think anyone has defined what "upper" "middle" and "lower" classes are too me. I just take it for granted that people who are wealthy (passive income kind of people) are "upper" class, the "middle" class is people getting by adequately. Not really suffering, or fighting to "make ends meet" so to speak, maybe a bit of savings... And "lower" class are people who struggle to pay their bills, live in low cost housing, have few luxuries, etc. Basically, how much disposable income do you have and where does that income come from?
Working, with passive income sources, or not needing to work to cover expenses, is "upper".
Working, with some disposable income, perhaps some savings, but not enough to live on to cover expenses, is "middle"
And anyone without any kind of financial safety, living paycheck to paycheck, only making enough to cover direct living expenses, are "lower".
I have no idea if that's right; nobody has accurately defined it for me. I've always considered myself kind of "lower-middle class" aka, still making enough for some luxuries, but without any significant savings or buffer for financial stability. No issues meeting living expenses.... Kind of the bottom half of middle class, if you will. My father was the same; he was much better with money, mind you, and he was able to dedicate a larger percentage of his earnings to savings. He would forego luxuries and "upgrades" to save money... As long as things worked and the family was comfortable, he was fine with putting the money away. He wouldn't hesitate to spend to replace something that's important, like buying a car to get around when the old one was too broken to work and/or be fixed. But if the vehicle worked, he wouldn't replace it just because it was a bit older.
IDK, I'm working. I need to work to afford to live. I'm almost never at risk of not being able to pay for something I need or want, aside from big ticket items (well into the thousands).... I'm just some guy.
It's not just money. It's also breeding/family.
Watch the guilded age.
Servants are working class
The people with money, even old money are middle class.
The dukes and upwards are upper class.
In modern America Upper class are the dynastic families
A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
Our Goals
