No hate for the middle class. I can’t help but enjoy the irony of people who thought they had solidarity with capital talking like Ned Ludd all of a sudden.
Who are these bourgeois creatives that are somehow able to be replaced by tech?
If you work for a living, you aren’t bourgeois.
We need class solidarity. Not this shit.
I always interpreted middle class to be not living paycheck to paycheck. Because that is the more meaningful difference of quality of life in my opinion. Not having some arbitrary line of more and more expensive shit. I would say the next line is having so much you never have to work another day in your life
Edit: clarity
“Not living paycheck to paycheck” and “not needing to work in order to live” are two vastly different concepts. The former is a member of the working class, the latter is a member of the bourgeoisie
I think that’s totally fair. I just think those are three different categories that are meaningful enough to discuss (I.e. not totally arbitrary).
On a broader theoretical level, I think it should be possible to live without working (I.e. you can eat cheap food, live in a cheap place, and pay for all necessary government ID’s and all) but that people don’t have a right to inheritance. Generational wealth is fundamentally inconsistent with equality and the lofty concepts that America is supposed to represent. Enforcing no inheritance law would certainly be… challenging
Just discussion
W2 Menials, identifiable because they have a W2
They are merely petite
that’s not what petit bourgeoisie means either
Oh, define it according to the inventor of the term then.
Wikipedia defines it well, with some history of the term
The petite bourgeoisie is economically distinct from the proletariat and the Lumpenproletariat social-class strata who rely entirely on the sale of their labor-power for survival. It is also distinct from the capitalist class haute bourgeoisie (‘high’ bourgeoisie) that owns the means of production and thus can buy the labor-power of the proletariat and Lumpenproletariat to work the means of production. Although members of the petite bourgeoisie can buy the labor of others, they typically work alongside their employees, unlike the haute bourgeoisie.
Here is another two definitions from marxist.org’s glossary of terms: https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/e.htm
- The class of small proprietors (for example, owners of small stores), and general handicrafts people of various types.
This group has been disappearing since the industrial revolution, as large factories or retail outlets can produce and distribute commodities faster, better, and for a cheaper price than the small proprietors. While this class is most abundant in the least industrialized regions of the world, only dwindling remnants remain in more industrialized areas.
These people are the foundation of the capitalist dream (aka “the American dream”): to start a small business and expand it into an empire. Much of capitalist growth and development comes from these people, while at the same time capitalism stamps out these people more and more with bigger and better industries that no small proprieter can compete against. Thus for the past few decades in the U.S., petty-bourgeois are given an enourmous variety of incentives, tax breaks, grants, loans, and ways to escape unscathed from a failed business.
- Also refers to the growing group of workers whose function is management of the bourgeois apparatus. These workers do not produce commodities, but instead manage the production, distribution, and/or exchange of commodities and/or services owned by their bourgeois employers.
While these workers are a part of the working class because they receive a wage and their livelihood is dependent on that wage, they are seperated from working class consciousness because they have day-to-day control, but not ownership, over the means of production, distribution, and exchange.
Great.
Now describe the key difference from the socialist perspective between owning a small business and owning a small business’s worth of stock in a dozen different businesses.
That is so far from your original labelling of creative laborers who are under threat by AI as bourgeois. What is your point?
That middle class is not working class by definition.
Keep up.
No.
I don’t think many people understand what working class means.
If you have to work to live, then you are working class.
Me living on basic government help: wassup working class?
This meme fundamentally misunderstands what the working class is.
Bourgeois creatives are people like Hollywood directors and actors who make millions of dollars and could easily retire at any time. They are not the ones being replaced, or trying to be replaced by AI or other tech.
The creatives who do the actual work that get projects done, the ones making just as much as other middle class people are the ones being affected. You know, the ones that actually need the money to live and pay bills. Ironically, it’s also these creatives whose work is being used to train the AI models, without their consent.
So, yeah, this is wildly inaccurate and totally pointed at the wrong people.
Furthermore, being replaced by tech is nothing new for creatives. Every tech advancement in commercial art has made thousands of jobs obsolete and has been a goal of capital all along.
Before computers and modern machinery, there were hundreds, if not thousands of jobs that were done by skilled creatives and craftspeople - sign painters, typesetters, draftsmen, carpenters, sculptors, etc.
Being a creative, doesn’t equate to having an easy life. There’s a reason why the term, “starving artist”, exists.
To further expand, the term bourgeoisie started because you used to have (all things in this reply simplified for conveniences’ sake, there are nuances not discussed)
- Royals / Lords
- Peasants
Either you owned everything as far as the eye could see, or you lived on that land and you were the property of the owner.
Then, as industrialization and/or global trade opened up, a new class emerged in the 1200s: “town dwellers” (literally what bourgeoisie means).
Now you had the aristocracy, peasants and people in between: they had money, property, a small amount of power and it wasn’t necessarily acquired by birthright.
This is still hundreds of years ago, so still not a 1:1 for today.
Overtime, and after a bunch of revolutions, we end up at a situation where the bourgeoisie needs to split again: haute bourgeoisie and petit bourgeoisie (roughly 1800) The hautes are your corporate overlords, the petits are your guys who own one SME business and are successful at it. The haute don’t labor, but invest, the petit don’t labor but manage.
Today - You could also say haute are CxO, VP; petit are Director; then senior manager and down is just laborers
Between 1800 and end of WW2 the petit bourgeoisie split again: a new layer between laborer and petit: the middle class, this meant people who still worked jobs, still depended on selling the value of their labor, couldn’t stop working on a whim, but were wealthy enough to achieve other markers of the bourgeoisie: property, leisure activities, vacations, travel, cars over horses (at first), more than one hat, inside plumbing…
Between WW2 and today there are much more layers, probably more akin to job titles and workplaces. “Retail workers” “Middle managers” “Blue collar tradesmen” - which aren’t descriptions of their level in society but miniature microcosms of society and economy.
Some workers can be very rich without owning a business. Some can own their own business and be poorer than their employees. It’s not so cut and dried any more.
All that to say, the “middle class” (in developed countries) both expanded and shrunk at the same time: the majority of people have a high quality of living with disposable income, but also can’t retire now or maybe ever.
The line should always be - if you’re under retirement age and quit your job tomorrow, do you have enough assets to comfortably live out the rest of your life with minimal changes to lifestyle until you die of old age?
- Yes? You are not working class.
- No? You are working class.
As for the rest:
Are you worth more than 5 million dollars?
- Yes? Petit bourgeoisie
- No? Middle class at most
Do you and your partner combined earn more than $300,000 a year?
- Yes? Upper Middle class
- No? Middle class at most
$150k?
- Middle class
$100k and below?
- Working class.
“Wow! 100k is a lot”
No, in the grand scheme of things in 2024, it is not.
To be fair, class isn’t determined by income, but relation to the Means of Production, as classes have shared interests.
Thinking artists have money seems incorrect.
Depends on if they do furry commissions, those are apparently lucrative as fuck
No hate for the middle class.
The middle class is a fiction* created by the owning class to divide the working class.
Hate it and those who created it (the fiction, not the people who like to think they are part of it).
*image description in source if anyone needs it
Ohh so an office job is “bourgeois” now?! give me a break…
People who earn less than I do are poor. People who earn more than I do are bourgeois.
At best some of the most privileged are petite bourgeois near the end of their careers.
I hate this in fighting, we are all working class. We all starve if we stop working. Yes, some have much more than others, yes it is unfair, however our interests are still broadly aligned.
Creatives have been shit on economically for a long time. Chokepoint Capitalism goes into detail on how artists, writers, and performers have had a hard time getting paid since day one. That’s a large reason why the actors and writers guilds exist. You can always find someone who wants to do creative work. If you don’t have a union ensuring gigs are paid well it’s a race to the bottom.
The fact a lot of people were clamoring for AI so it could do the work and they could stay home and make art only for AI to come about and replace artists is kind a of hilarious in like a dystopian hellscape kind of way.
normally bitching about verbiage is straight out of the cia manual for disrupting leftist orgs but holy shit OP I assure you the guy who does the drawings on birthday cards is not an appropriate target for your ire.
Middle class people don’t need to work.
Creatives usually don’t make much money.
Are you just hating on the working poor for no reason?
Middle class people don’t need to work
If you don’t need to work, you are not middle class. Middle class still earn a paycheck.
Is $400k/year not enough that they need more?
If you need to work for your salary, you are working class, not the capitalist class.
Some working class people make a lot more than others, but they all pale in comparison to the capitalist class.
$400k per year is very well off. But they’re not rich.
A multi-millionaire is significantly closer to houselessness than they are to being a capitalist class/billionaire.
Exactly.
I don’t think 400k a year as an individual is middle class. I’ve never seen a definition saying anything more than 150k.
That’s what the GOP defines as middle class.
Middle class absolutely needs to work though. They just aren’t complete wage slaves because they have some personal capital to absorb urgent/unplanned expenses and can survive without working for some time. Ultimately they still need to work to survive though
The GOP defines the middle class as $400k a year. If they make in excess of that, is it coming from work? Are they truly part of the working class living paycheck to paycheck at $400k a year? I don’t think so, but hey who knows.
Working class isn’t defined by being poor and middle class isn’t defined by not having to live paycheck to paycheck. Middle class in general is pretty much a made up difference to to split the working class.
Working class is very easily defined. If you have to work for a living you’re in the working class. It doesn’t matter if you make 40k, 400k or 4 million as long as it’s coming from your labor. Capitalists don’t have to work, their capital makes them money and they can live off the labor of their workers. If you make 400k regardless of your contribution, then you’re not working class.
TIL donald trump is part of the “working class”
And what work does he do that’s a necessity for his livelyhood?
Sexually assaulting women and making rotten steaks I guess.
And who is paying him to do that?
So, according to the GOP, less than 12% of the US population is middle class (much less actually, that statistic is apparently for people making more than 200K a year)
The embattled “middle class”. We need to support them. Something something trickle down.
Middle class people are not working poor. Creatives are sometimes working poor, and other times are making $250k as UX designers.
And sometimes making minimum wage as UX designers.
Probably fall into the working poor category.
But I don’t know anyone making minimum wage doing UX.
Startups love to hire kids out of college who can do anything U, I, or X related with regards to tech. My first programming job I made minimum wage for the first few years and then got a $0.50 per hour raise before the company went out of business.
There’s FAANG and then there’s everyone else. Some jobs can be pretty bad in terms of pay. That first job also had a seasoned professional graphic designer with multiple decades of experience and she wasn’t making much more than I was.
That’s crazy. And definitely not the norm, even outside of big tech.
I’ve been in 4 startups, no one was making that little money even 20 years ago.
Yep, I’ve worked at tech places with bad pay but never “decades of experience and only making a little more than minimum wage”. Especially if they held a Senior title. It’s been a wild ride listening to their story evolve.
That first job also had a seasoned professional graphic designer with multiple decades of experience and she wasn’t making much more than I was.
How seasoned could they be if they weren’t able to demand a raise or work somewhere else for more as a UX Designer? How could a seasoned professional be so close to entry level, and minimum wage?
Know your worth, companies aren’t just going to hand you money to be nice. Negotiate, and if they don’t play ball, prove you’re as good as you think you are somewhere else.
Not everyone lives in the bay area / silicon valley. Sometimes folks with tech talent live in more rural areas (or smaller college towns) and there may be only a few options around. It’s great that people have more opportunity to work from home, back then that wasn’t the case. If you did work remotely, you’d probably keep in touch on irc or icq and you’d periodically have a GoToMeeting or a WebEx conference (Zoom wasn’t a thing).
Also, skill level does not equal pay level. We don’t actually live in a meritocracy.
Some of us have been working remote since way before Covid.
Skill level doesn’t equal pay level directly, but if you have decades of experience in a technical field like UX Design and are still making close to minimum wage in the USA, that does sound like a skill issue.
Middle class isn’t real, the closest is petite bourgeoisie, who own Capital but also must work to live.
Creatives now need subscription based software to do their jobs so they no longer own the means of production
Meta: what movie is this template from? I swear I’ve seen it too.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
People have been losing their jobs in all sectors a lot longer than you think, OP. First time?
That’s the entire purpose of the Workers asking “first time?” It’s known that it has been happening, lmao
It’s clearly your’s and OP’s first time in noticing literally everyone around you going through the same thing. the world doesn’t revolve around you.
You should go outside some time
