Well, income, wealth and resources are not really that different. It is
the context that makes them different, that is, what they are being used
for and how they are being distributed at any given time. The reason
that dividing classes into low, middle and high income or low, middle
and high wealth has no use is that it completely ignores the dynamics of
the class society. In a way it actually denies that class exists at all.
If you regard class as just collections of people with a lot of wealth,
a little bit of wealth and an amount of wealth somewhere in between you
are completely ignoring how wealth is accumulated, how it is distributed
and how to remedy the situation. It ignores that there is an employing
class that exploits the employed class. It ignores the struggle between
these class for supremacy. Actually it just ignores the complexity of
society in general. By this view if someone is in the low income
category then all that person has to do is to just make more money,
perhaps invest in a Wall Street bank. I think that view is a part of
bourgeois ideology and I started to say bourgeois liberalism, but it is
more an aspect of all the bourgeois ideologies. That is, to preserve the
class structure just deny that there is any class structure and convince
the exploited that all they have to do is to work harder and make more
money just like their bosses do. That is an idea promoted not only by
liberals, but by the very most right-wing bourgeois ideologists. We are
all equal under the law and so we are all equal. It is just as illegal
for a rich person to sleep under a bridge as it is for a poor person to
sleep under a bridge. When a rich person runs a red light he is fined
the very same amount as a poor person who runs a red light. The
treatment is equal because there are no classes and there is no such
thing as privilege. After all, it's just that some people have more
money than other people and sitting in a penthouse office transferring
millions of dollars around from bank to bank is really hard labor,
almost as hard as paving the highways or as digging a mile under the
ground for coal to create more money for the guy in that penthouse
office to shuffle around. If the simplistic view that there are only
high, middle and low income people around without regard to how the
various people interacting with other of various ranks and privileges is
true then there is no need to analyze and if there is any usefulness to
this then the usefulness is for the members of the ruling class who will
be more secure in their positions if everyone believes this.
On 8/27/2016 6:24 AM, Frank Ventura wrote:
Not at all useful, as income, wealth, and resources are three very different
things.
Frank
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2016 9:47 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: what is the working class?
Okay, it means that. Low income means that one does not acquire much money in
relation to that which is acquired by others. But I really don't see how that
is very useful.
On 8/26/2016 9:27 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
That's because when I do that, I'm consciously omitting definitions
and all of the complications that are involved in those definitions.
Low income means just that. It says nothing about the kind of work an
individual does, his education, or anything else. But it tells you
that in a society like our's, where more and more functions are being
privatized, that person will have a really hard time.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2016 9:01 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: what is the working class?
I don't see how it is of much use at all to describe people in terms
of upper, middle and lower income. That says nothing about their role
in the economy or their place in the dynamics of society. It would be
similar to attending medical school and only learning that the human
body consists of two parts, meat and bones.
On 8/26/2016 10:13 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
I find it most useful in 2016 America, when trying to describe peopleword.
in economic terms, to talk about low income, middle income, etc.
Class, seems to me, to be a word that encompasses much more than
income and can be misleading. But, unfortunately, the phrase will
not disappear from this list because it is tied to an intellectual
framework to which people are loyal. It's like asking people to stop
referring to God, because they mean such different things by the same
Miriam
________________________________
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alice
Dampman Humel
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2016 8:26 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] what is the working class?
the subject line says it.as I read all these messages about the
working class, I begin to suspect everyone has his/her own definition
of it, and that, of course determines all the rest.
And, it also often seems that the definitions shift and drift
depending on the particular point being made at any given time.
Thoughts?
