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poor leftists talk about poverty, labor aristocrats get uncomfortable and insist that sociological classes aren’t materialist. “all that matters is that we’re working class - we’re all in this together”
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black leftists talk about racism, whites get uncomfortable and insist that they’re not personally part of the problem. “we mustn’t allow the bourgeois to divide the proletariat along racial lines - we’re all in this together”
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female leftists talk about patriarchy, men get uncomfortable and insist that it hurts them too. “this men vs women stuff is reductive anyway - we’re all in this together”
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third world leftists talk about imperialism, americoids get uncomfortable and insist that red white and blue lives matter too. “what happened to the international working class - we’re all in this together”
you don’t have to invite yourself to every form and experience of oppression. anyone with a baby’s consciousness of intersectionality ought to be capable of admitting when they have privilege
Yeah, one of my critiques of LA/PMO conceptions of tech workers having different class interests or being a new class is that…well…their aristocracy isn’t. It’s extremely conditional and the Bourgoisie has an interest in removing it. It’s all false consciousness boosted by a larger paycheck.
On the other hand dismissing the real poverty of the lower ranks of the working classes is also a real problem. Wealthy workers have a responsibility to contribute more to the left, not whine about how they’re also poor struggling exploited proletarians
I have long maintained that tech workers are still workers and solidarity with workers is necessary for leftists.
Some tech workers make that very difficult at times if they decide their salary makes them superior to “underwater basket weavers” or the like.
I guess that makes you guilty of no 1 in the post
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By saying labor aristocracy is still just workers, and implying everyone is on the same boat?
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Is that the issue? Because when I consider myself in the same boat as poorly paid workers, it’s to support their — and my — rights, benefits and security.
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It’s a blurry line and I don’t know where to draw it between people paid to do lower level tech tasks for tech corporations on one end and on the other highly paid and connected and privileged “code ninjas” or whatever the techbros call them this week.
Maybe differentiate between poverty and workers rights?
I’m in a good job and have no idea about living in poverty. Without my job and state support I would last some months, maybe a year. Long Covid could take me out easily. I am privileged by having a good job, but when head’s comes to tail I am in the same boat as any other workers.
Honestly I don’t really understand what OP is trying to say.
the main point is that leftists belonging to privileged groups are not immune to chauvinism, bigotry, and unexamined privileged thinking, and when someone criticizes them for it their response should be to shut the fuck up and listen instead of getting defensive or accusing them of dividing the left.
I didn’t get the first point cuz labor aristrocracy by definition is not pretending to be on the left, nor talking to the poor proles, and a lot nor even considering themselves “a prole”. Plus most have the oppprtunity to become petty burshwá.
No but if you have a boat that keeps you afloat for a year and especially if you know it, you have a lot more room to manouver than someone like me whose boat would instantly sink. It gives you more space even before anything happens to you so the difference is there all the time.
It’s like saying falling from a cliff has the same result regardless of how high it is. We are both on a cliff, but it’s not the same one.
The thing about poverty is that there are no error margins on anything. It strips you of good choices and ends up forcing you to make expensive and oppressive choices in ways that is impossible to explain to someone who has never been poor, and that is how we are different.
I deny nothing of that.
I don’t know how much to differentiate. Do the working poor need the same help as those who can’t work? Probably not. My guess is they benefit more from adequate wages and job security than state support. Those are things that I want for myself, too, regardless how much I currently need it.
Do you then go around claiming that working poor and those who’re unable to work are not in the same boat?
ur getting it
I used to argue with pmc urbanist types and the conversation always went something like:
me: “true it’s inconvenient to have to walk far to the subway station but if u build a new station here then property values will shoot up and hundreds of poor ppl will be evicted. idc about the tech workers”
them: “I hate gentrification discourse. you can’t just hold back progress for the sake of a minority of people. are you going to deliberately sabotage the city so that better off workers don’t want to live there?”
struggling against ppl like that can be a matter of life and death for the poor. any day of the week they’ll throw us under the bus for the sake of their own stratum’s restaurant selection. if we show solidarity to them they either won’t notice or shrug and find it completely natural bc it comports with their own priorities. but they will never support us in return unless they already see it as in their interest. that’s how the real world works. where does that leave @UlyssesT@hexbear.net’s vague feel-good notion of solidarity?
I don’t actually know.
The best I can do is say that some tech workers are still workers, but I’d have to find a line to draw between “just trying to survive” and “actively making the world worse for the sake of nerd rapture.”