The most significant class found between the ruling class and the
working class is the petty bourgeoisie. In that sense it is a middle
class. It makes a lot more sense to identify the petty bourgeoisie
because it functions in a specific economic role in a capitalist economy
and it behaves certain ways depending on the state of the class
struggle. That is, it vacillates. When the class struggle is not at a
crisis point it tends to side with the ruling class and takes advantage
of the perks it gets from holding that position. When the class struggle
heats up it becomes possible to make alliances with it because members
of the petty bourgeoisie are in constant danger of being dumped right
into the proletariat anyway. If the so-called middle class could be
defined as the same thing as the petty bourgeoisie then it would have a
specific meaning and would just be a synonym for petty bourgeoisie.
Middle class is not, however, a scientific term and all the confusion
about what it even is on this list illustrates that. Not withstanding
Alice's objections based on some personal, but not explicit, definition
of the term, the most consistent use of the term refers to people who
have graduated college and then went on to matriculate in some post
graduate school designed for training in some vocation that requires a
license to practice and the school that trains them for that vocation
requires graduation from college in order to attend. The practitioners
of these vocations usually call themselves professionals as if there is
no such thing as a professional plumber or mechanic. In the sense that
the skill levels for these professions are high - that is, require a lot
of education - and the pay grade is normally a good deal higher than
professions that require lesser levels of education this is akin to the
labor aristocracy. However, they tend to be politically more akin to the
petty bourgeoisie in that their comfortable lifestyles are usually
dependent on the stability of the ruling national bourgeoisie as the
ruling class. What it comes down to is that everyone knows what the word
middle means, but almost no one knows what the phrase middle class means
despite the fact that they almost all think they do whether what they
are so sure it means contradicts what others are so sure it means or
not. If we are to take the phrase middle class literally - and I love to
take everything literally because then I can tell what is being talked
about if everyone would just be cooperative enough to say what they mean
and mean what they say - there are several - at least - middle classes.
They are the petty bourgeoisie, the labor aristocracy, the
intelligentsia and more depending on how much of a splitter you are as
opposed to a lumper. And, as I have said before, each and every person
is in some position in the hierarchy that class society imposes as an
individual. Look at your acquaintances. Surely you can find some who are
worse off than yourself and others who are better off if only slightly.
Some have just ever so slightly more or less power than yourself or the
person next to them. To the super spllitter each person can be called a
class and everyone is in the middle of something except for whoever the
two individuals are at the very top and the very bottom. About the only
use such super splitting will have, though, might be for someone who is
studying individual psychology. If you are studying broad political and
economic movements you have to engage in some kind of lumping. Depending
on your immediate purpose you might sometimes do more lumping and at
other times do more splitting, but when you are lumping or splitting
classes of people there is one thing you have to be careful about. That
is to know what you mean when you refer to any group and know what you
are referring to it for. If you just throw around vague terms that mean
one thing one minute and another thing another minute, if you call most
everyone you run into middle class, if you do not think clearly about
how these groups relate to each other then you are accomplishing nothing.
On 7/23/2015 3:01 AM, Frank Ventura wrote:
Alice and all, I always had issues with the term “middle class:. Does that imply it is the middle between the working class and the ruling class? There are certain groups of people such as doctors and cops that enjoy certain protections that the working class does not. Like you said you don’t see cops and doctors being killed in jail cells for not using their turn signal.
Frank
*From:*blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *Alice Dampman Humel
*Sent:* Wednesday, July 22, 2015 9:19 PM
*To:* blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* [blind-democracy] Re: Bernie Sanders Takes His Populism to the Red States and Draws Huge Crowd
Doctors and lawyers, unless they’re working in the free clinics or for legal aid are most definitely not considered middle class…the rest of what you say is an exposee of how you see the world and can’t be argued with for that reason, but that statement about doctors and lawyers being middle class is inaccurate …just ask the doctors and lawyers themselves, their patients and clients, their neighbors, and see what the consensus is...
On Jul 21, 2015, at 10:50 PM, Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx <mailto:rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx>" for DMARC) <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Like I have said, when you use a word or phrase to mean everything
it means nothing and when everyone calls themselves middle class
then middle class means nothing too. The trouble with that phrase,
though, is that it never really meant much in the first place.
Literally, I suppose it is somewhere in between upper and lower,
but then you have to specify where one class ends and another
begins and by what criteria you are doing the measuring. The terms
upper and lower don't mean much either. If you want to talk about
classes then to do so with some kind of real meaning you have to
use terms that actually describe the role of the classes you are
talking about in the economic system you are talking about. With
all that said, though, I will have to admit that I have a very
strong personal distaste for that term middle class. Virtually
every time I have heard the term being used it has been used to
derogate me and the people I associate with by reassuring that
person who is using it that they are better than us. The vast
majority of people I have ever known do not refer to themselves as
part of any class in normal conversation. If the conversation
turns in a direction that they have to call themselves something
they will usually say working people or poor people. The few who
call themselves middle class, though, do not have to have the
conversation turn in a direction such that they will have to
identify their class. They make a point of telling you that they
are middle class to be sure that you will not mistake them for one
of you. Added to that, all of these obnoxious bourgeois
politicians are constantly talking about what they are going to do
for the middle class as if the vast majority of us do not even
exist. When Joe Biden came to Charleston a whole lot of poor
people turned out for his speech. I know a lot of them. His speech
consisted of middle class this and middle class that through the
whole thing. Did he even have the slightest idea how much he was
turning off his audience. I really did hear at least two people
say that they were convinced that he didn't care a thing about us
because all he cared about was middle class people and in that
context the phrase middle class was used with a bit of a sneer.
Traditionally the phrase middle class refers to the professional
class, that is, doctors, lawyers and the like. Among most of my
acquaintances those people are usually referred to as rich people,
not middle class people. That is, of course, inaccurate, but it is
the term that is used. There are two neighborhoods in Charleston
that mainly consist of those types. They are South Hills and
Edgewood Drive. There are other such neighborhoods, but it is
those two that are normally referred to by the most of the people
I am acquainted with as snobville or where those rich people live.
By the way, John D. Rockefeller owns a house in South Hills, so I
suppose there really are some rich people there, except that
Rockefeller does not really live there. He only bought the house
to officially maintain a West Virginia residence so that he could
be senator. South Hills was about as low as I think he would ever
be likely to go even if he didn't have to live there though.
On 7/21/2015 11:23 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
When Carl and Roger talk about this, they ar using a Marxist
framework in
which class definitions are very specific. You are using the
terms in the
way most Americans use them. But it is also true that blue
collar workers
have been referring to themselves as middle class, probably
ever since they
moved to the suburbs, owned one or more cars, and a color TV.
Corporations'
advertising has sold everyone on the fantasy that they are
similar to the
rich which is why so many former Democrats voted for Reagan.
Was it in the
eighties that all these people began taking cruises? Everyone
purchased this
1 week fantasy of opulence. One or two thousand people crowded
onto a ship,
the majority in tiny windowless cabins, with fancy looking
public rooms and
unlimited food of mediocre quality on the less expensive
cruises and now, on
almost all of them, and nightly entertainment. And each day,
they stop at a
port and are shepherded in huge groups to places where they
can buy things.
And they all think they're doing what the rich do.
Miriam
________________________________
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Alice Dampman
Humel
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2015 10:16 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Bernie Sanders Takes His
Populism to the Red
States and Draws Huge Crowd
I also think there is significant overlap.many working class
people are
also middle class, and conversely, many middle class people are
simultaneously working class. Socially and economically, I
don't see the two
as mutually exclusive, Under certain circumstances, they seem
to be two
different terms that describe the same thing. Maybe it's a
slant in one
direction or another, and the accusation leveled that many
middle class
people think calling themselves middle class somehow elevates
them above the
people they might call working class and look down on is
certainly true in
some cases, but some people always feel they have to look down
on somebody,
and I don't think this is characteristic of all or even many
denizens of the
middle class . I certainly know and have known in the past,
many so-called
middle class neighborhoods that are populated by people who
hold jobs
considered to be working class, not white collar.
And of course this kind of gray area does not exist between
let's say upper
and working class.
Alice
On Jul 20, 2015, at 3:54 PM, Miriam Vieni
<miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
wrote:
It may have something to do with the fact that his background is
working
class. His family was Jewish, working class, and he grew up in
Brooklyn.
He's a bit younger than I am, but our childhood experiences are
probably
similar. One doesn't forget that, unless one puts forth a lot of
effort to
do so.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger
Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx
<mailto:rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx>" for DMARC)
Sent: Monday, July 20, 2015 3:18 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Bernie Sanders Takes His
Populism to
the Red
States and Draws Huge Crowd
There is at least one point in favor of Sanders. He, at least,
gives
lip
service to working people instead of assuming that the so-called
middle
class is the only class of people worth addressing.
On 7/20/2015 2:33 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org) Home >
Bernie Sanders
Takes His Populism to the Red States and Draws Huge Crowd
________________________________________
Bernie Sanders Takes His Populism to the Red States and
Draws Huge
Crowd By Zaid Jilani [1] / AlterNet [2] July 19, 2015 Today,
Sanders
took his Southwestern tour to Dallas and Houston. In Dallas,
he spoke
to nearly 10,000 people. The senator condemned the
Democratic Party's
political strategy in the South, saying that it has
"conceded half of
the states in the national level." He said that when
"childhood
poverty in Texas is 27 percent, we've gotta take it on. When
34
percent of people living in Texas have no health insurance,
we've
gotta take it on." The people sitting in the bleachers
behind him took
to their feet to applaud when he said it makes more sense to
invest in
"jobs and education" rather than "incarceration," something
that has
become a feature of his stump speech.
Sanders' speech in Phoenix on Saturday night brought
together an
estimated eleven to twelve thousand people - one of the
largest
political rallies in the city's history (by comparison
Barack Obama
got 13,000 in January 2008 [3]). The crowd gave Sanders
standing
ovations at numerous points, such as when he condemned
police
violence, called for tuition-free college, and demanded that
American
provide for the veterans of its wars. It's worth noting
that, in contrast
to Donald Trump's homogeneous audience, Sanders'
crowd was extremely diverse; there was heavy representation
of young
Latinos, with one activist introducing the Senator before
his speech.
Bernie is campaigning across the Southwest to show he has
broader
appeal than just the safe blue-state regions of the country.
It is an
echo of the swing through the South that Sanders did in
2013, when he
was still considering his candidacy.
"I really strongly disagree with this concept that there's a
blue
state and red state America," he told In These Times in an
interview
that year. "I believe that in every state in the country the
vast
majority of the people are working people. These are people
who are
struggling to keep their heads above water economically,
these are
people who want Social Security defended, they want to raise
the
minimum wage, they want changes in our trade policy. And to
basically
concede significant parts of America, including the South,
to the
right-wing is to me not only stupid politics, but even worse
than
that-you just do not turn your backs on millions and
millions of working
people."
Although the majority of the address in Phoenix was similar
to the
remarks the senator has given around the country, there were
a few
innovations. "God bless Pope Francis," he joked. "Some
people think my
economic views are radical, you should check out this guy."
He also
ended his address on a note of optimism, pointing out that
while some
may say this country can never have truly universal health
care, this
is the same country that in the span of two and a half years
successfully defeated both the Germans and Japanese in the
Second World
War.
Watch the video of Sanders' address below:
In Houston, Taylor Channing, a 25 year-old from Houston who
has been
volunteering with his local Bernie Sanders group, was
thrilled by Sanders'
visit.
"It's funny because whenever I found out the other day that
he was
coming to Houston, I mean it freaked out we weren't
expecting such a
gift or such an early visit to one of the reddest states in
the
nation," he exclaimed. "I've never seen such a response to a
progressive campaign in my lifetime. I thought the response
I saw to
Obama was huge but this is just, I mean it's just, it's
insane."
For Channing, this Southwestern tour is a sending a message
to the
entire country about the Bernie Sanders' attitude towards
politics. In
his mind, Sanders is saying "I have no druthers about
showing up in
what is perceived to be a conservative bastion and just
being who I am
and seeing how the people respond."
By the looks of the response in Phoenix and the expected
response in
Texas Sunday evening, this strategy is working.
Zaid Jilani is an AlterNet staff writer. Follow @zaidjilani
[4] on
Twitter.
Share on Facebook Share
Share on Twitter Tweet
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx>'.
[5]
[6]
________________________________________
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/bernie-sanders-takes-his-populis
m-red-
states-and-draws-huge-crowd
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/zaid-jilani-0
[2] http://alternet.org
[3]
http://tucsoncitizen.com/morgue/2008/01/31/75657-obama-rally-draws-13-
000-in
-phx/
[4] https://twitter.com/zaidjilani
[5] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Bernie
Sanders
Takes His Populism to the Red States and Draws Huge Crowd
[6]
http://www.alternet.org/ [7]
http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org) Home >
Bernie Sanders
Takes His Populism to the Red States and Draws Huge Crowd
Bernie Sanders Takes His Populism to the Red States and
Draws Huge
Crowd By Zaid Jilani [1] / AlterNet [2] July 19, 2015 Today,
Sanders
took his Southwestern tour to Dallas and Houston. In Dallas,
he spoke
to nearly 10,000 people. The senator condemned the
Democratic Party's
political strategy in the South, saying that it has
"conceded half of
the states in the national level." He said that when
"childhood
poverty in Texas is 27 percent, we've gotta take it on. When
34
percent of people living in Texas have no health insurance,
we've
gotta take it on." The people sitting in the bleachers
behind him took
to their feet to applaud when he said it makes more sense to
invest in
"jobs and education" rather than "incarceration," something
that has
become a feature of his stump speech.
Sanders' speech in Phoenix on Saturday night brought
together an
estimated eleven to twelve thousand people - one of the
largest
political rallies in the city's history (by comparison
Barack Obama
got 13,000 in January 2008 [3]). The crowd gave Sanders
standing
ovations at numerous points, such as when he condemned
police
violence, called for tuition-free college, and demanded that
American
provide for the veterans of its wars. It's worth noting
that, in contrast
to Donald Trump's homogeneous audience, Sanders'
crowd was extremely diverse; there was heavy representation
of young
Latinos, with one activist introducing the Senator before
his speech.
Bernie is campaigning across the Southwest to show he has
broader
appeal than just the safe blue-state regions of the country.
It is an
echo of the swing through the South that Sanders did in
2013, when he
was still considering his candidacy.
"I really strongly disagree with this concept that there's a
blue
state and red state America," he told In These Times in an
interview
that year. "I believe that in every state in the country the
vast
majority of the people are working people. These are people
who are
struggling to keep their heads above water economically,
these are
people who want Social Security defended, they want to raise
the
minimum wage, they want changes in our trade policy. And to
basically
concede significant parts of America, including the South,
to the
right-wing is to me not only stupid politics, but even worse
than
that-you just do not turn your backs on millions and
millions of working
people."
Although the majority of the address in Phoenix was similar
to the
remarks the senator has given around the country, there were
a few
innovations. "God bless Pope Francis," he joked. "Some
people think my
economic views are radical, you should check out this guy."
He also
ended his address on a note of optimism, pointing out that
while some
may say this country can never have truly universal health
care, this
is the same country that in the span of two and a half years
successfully defeated both the Germans and Japanese in the
Second World
War.
Watch the video of Sanders' address below:
In Houston, Taylor Channing, a 25 year-old from Houston who
has been
volunteering with his local Bernie Sanders group, was
thrilled by Sanders'
visit.
"It's funny because whenever I found out the other day that
he was
coming to Houston, I mean it freaked out we weren't
expecting such a
gift or such an early visit to one of the reddest states in
the
nation," he exclaimed. "I've never seen such a response to a
progressive campaign in my lifetime. I thought the response
I saw to
Obama was huge but this is just, I mean it's just, it's
insane."
For Channing, this Southwestern tour is a sending a message
to the
entire country about the Bernie Sanders' attitude towards
politics. In
his mind, Sanders is saying "I have no druthers about
showing up in
what is perceived to be a conservative bastion and just
being who I am
and seeing how the people respond."
By the looks of the response in Phoenix and the expected
response in
Texas Sunday evening, this strategy is working.
Zaid Jilani is an AlterNet staff writer. Follow @zaidjilani
[4] on
Twitter.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'.
[5] Error!
Hyperlink reference not valid.[6]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/bernie-sanders-takes-his-populis
m-red-
states-and-draws-huge-crowd
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/zaid-jilani-0
[2] http://alternet.org
[3]
http://tucsoncitizen.com/morgue/2008/01/31/75657-obama-rally-draws-13-
000-in
-phx/
[4] https://twitter.com/zaidjilani
[5] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Bernie
Sanders
Takes His Populism to the Red States and Draws Huge Crowd
[6]
http://www.alternet.org/ [7]
http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
