But doctors are not considered working class, neither in capitalist society nor
in the socialist and communist societies that have existed so far. Working
class is not as rigidly simple as those who apply labor to nature to produce
something. I think it does also include less measurable or tangible, things
such as education, income or economic level, cultural affinities, behavior,
life style, dress, food, And I think both the Marxist, the capitalist, and the
socialist and communist societies that have existed so far all include such
things, too. The whole anti-intellectual actions seen on both sides
historically is an example of that. You grew up the son of a doctor? You are
going to work in a factory to learn to give up your bourgeois ways. My son, the
doctor is a far cry from my son, the factory worker in most contemporary
society. It’s not a feeling in the heart, it’s not entirely subjective, but
assuming the actions of the person do somehow fit with the words he uses to
define himself, then I do think that where one places one’s self has some
validity. What I get a little suspicious about, though, is how one person or a
committee or other determining body insists on critiqueing another, often based
on false assumptions and/or flawed logic and saying I am/we are working class,
but you are not.
If someone calls himself working class and frequents fancyish restaurants a few
times a week and blows $100 each time, is he working class? And capitalist
commerce has blurred the lines, too. Now, anyone can buy diamonds at Sears, so
although those diamonds are hardly the quality found at Fortunoff’s or
Tiffany’s, the working class now has diamonds, too, and along with bread and
circus, they’re deceived into thinking the upper class has admitted them to
their ranks. And there’s that blurring of what Roger will accept as class
definition and what he rejects. But I think it’s all part of the same puzzle.
And I also think that upper, middle, lower class has a seat at the table, too,
because it fleshes out this whole class thing. When is the last time you saw a
debutante in her white dress at her coming-out cotillion with her upper class
arms and shoulders covered in tattoos? Maybe a little rose or butterfly on her
ankle or on her tush, but…
All of this is part of an objective reality, too. The difficulty is how it fits
together, and what the sort of ripple effect does with it. A classless society?
I’m not sure what that even is or would be. There will always be differences,
until we’re all robots or zombies. And even then… Maybe more to the point is
that it shouldn't matter that much, and it shouldn’t be quite so existential.
The shuffling money around class certainly contributes to making class
determine what the lives of others will be, and that is all wrong.
On Aug 27, 2016, at 10:21 PM, Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender
"rogerbailey81" for DMARC) <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Doctors do useful labor. That is enough for them to be working class. The
fact that they have been granted certain privileges in capitalist society
does not change the fact that their labor is useful. Trading stocks is not
useful though.
On 8/27/2016 7:58 PM, joe harcz Comcast wrote:
Roger and Marx did have a good definition though. In fact working class does
not exclude doctors, for example per se. They do labor of a certain sort and
do indeed alter nature in healing people through science and skill.
Income in the capitalist schema doesn't matter to Marxists, or other
schooled socialists in definitional terms.
In other words doctors would be considerred a part of the working class in a
socialist schema.
They probably wouldn't make the average income they do in capitalist
society, but they would still be working class.
----- Original Message -----
From: Alice Dampman Humel
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2016 7:49 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: what is the working class?
I do not use the Marxist definition of working class. Not at all.
On Aug 27, 2016, at 7:35 PM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Alice, Roger and Carl use the Marxist definition of working class with Carl
doing a bit of expanding. If we were on an email list with no members who
were dedicated to the classic theory of working class, we could talk about
all the complexities. Given that we're were we are, I'm trying to avoid the
whole question, entirely.
Miriam
________________________________
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alice Dampman
Humel
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2016 5:10 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: what is the working class?
to expand on my own message and questions:
who gets to decide whether one is working class?
If that surgeon, using his own definition of working class, as Frank wishes
and claims the right to do, sees himself as working class, does a third
party, including me, have the right to say he is not?
How much does the life one lives, the choices one makes to do with the same
wages as the next person, factor into the working class designation?
Does the factory worker who puts every penny he can into buying a house in
the burbs cease to be working class when he and his family move out of their
cramped, substandard apartment even though he still works in the same
factory at the same job at the same wage? What about his buddy who earns the
same money laboring at the same job but blows every paycheck at the local
bar? Is he more working class? Is one answer, or are both answers, yes or no
stereotyping and profiling?
If my questions indicate nothing else, they surely indicate quite clearly
that this is a complex question that can't be left to each person's personal
preference or to some rigid, two-line definition.
Where does that leave us? ?
That's what I mean when I say that in order to have any kind of meaningful
conversation that included anything about the working class
On Aug 27, 2016, at 4:26 PM, Alice Dampman Humel <alicedh@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
so if you're working class, you're not permitted to earn a good
living?
. And Bob's arbitrary income and/or educational measuring standards
seem completely irrelevant. I really doubt anyone has investments that they
live from that give them such a modest return. There wouldn't be such a
problem with that.but when those returns for no labor at all are millions
and millions, it's an entirely different matter.
and Carl added the requirement that the working class person must be
working to support the ruling class.
Many people seem to require a certain degree of suffering and
hardship to qualify for the working class.
Roger quotes a definition that the labor must be directly applied to
nature.
So it seems to me that everyone has their own personal spin on it,
and, it also seems to me that many spins include a certain amount of
exclusion of others and inclusion of the self based at least in part on
those spins
On Aug 27, 2016, at 10:02 AM, Bob Hachey <bhachey@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Hi all,
No doubt, trying to define what is the working class is not
going to be
easy. One could argue that it means earning less than a
certain income,
let's say $40,000.00. The flaw there is that one could be
earning such
income from investments and not working at all. Also,
picking a number for
the income is problematic at best.
Others might say that it means doing some sort of physical
labor. But some
folks like plumbers and electricians earn a pretty good
living doing
physical labor.
Still others might argue that it is based on one's education
level. But we
all know folks who are relatively well educated who don't
make much money
and we know other less educated types who earn more money.
By the way, I
hesitate to use the word earn because it implies that all
who get money
deserve what they get and that is certainly not true in
these days of
injustice and tremendous income inequality.
Perhaps the best way to look at this is to take the approach
that former
SCOTUS justice Potter took in trying to define what is
obscenity. He said
that he couldn't define it specifically but that he knew
what it was when he
saw it.
Bob Hachey
