class analysis- "the middle class"

Just to clarify the diagram was i no way a dig at you. I think you have made a rather clear argument and I think your insistence on exploitation rather than domination is important. Domination, nationalism etc. are important problems though and Ocelots method of placing the middle class in this non class category is interesting. (as I understood it and expressed in my complicated sentence.)

Wrote more which I deleted as I'm off to see some Dead Bourgie Socialists old house.

My apologies, Cooked. Gettin' worn down, I guess.

Well, it's a bit of both. But using it as a starting point for the analysis of capitalism, in my opinion, priveledges it a little too much. I think that the fact capitalism is based on exploitation should be a conclusion rather than a beginining, if you see what I mean. But this is not a big deal for me.

There is a big difference for the individual involved, and their relative power in the system, but is there a difference in the economic processes and social relations? Not as far as I am aware. I mean, if a million different share holders each owned one share, or one share holder owned a million shares, would anything much change from a structural point of view? Maybe I'm missing something key?

I guess I don't much care about locating individuals in a class hierachy, only about identifying the mechanics of class society. Maybe this is a difference between us?

i think both cases are capitalist, so if ownership was distributed evenly amongst people and nothing else changed then exploitation would continue and most peoples experience of life would be the same as now.

but i think in practice such a system would degenerate and produce a new bourgeose.

To be candid, I'm not really interested in debating class. I am from a manual background, a prole for sure. So what. When I went to uni, many of my mates on the left, came from affluent backgrounds. So what.

The main issue is whether peeps are proletarian in their ideology, not whether they were born with a silver spoon in their mouths.

And on from that, actions speak louder than words. When people roll their shirt sleeves up and do a bit, then I am with them all the fucking way.

Otherwise...inabit.

well class is a tool to analyse society and how it works, but whether someone is revolutionary or not is about what they do.

OK, so not technical specialist knowledge as such, but the organisation of work - specifically making enterprise-level significant decisions as to which labour resources should be deployed on which tasks? That sounds to me like a managerial function?

As for "state managers, head police & military officials, politicians and judges" I would see them as part of the ruling class. Of course then we need additional explanation as to the relationship between the state and the ensemble of "private sector" enterprises. In countries like Iran, Malaysia, even to a degree Egypt, that picture is complicated by the existence of rival dominant class factions (especially the role of the army). But in countries like Japan, Western Europe or the US, the dominance of business interests over and their integration with the state power elite (through a whole combination of practices such as the revolving door between private and state sectors - e.g. G-Sachs & Treasury - the practice of including serving or ex head civil servants, cops & military on company boards as non-exec directors, common elite educational establishments for the next generation, endless clubs, conferences and so on) means that we can talk of a capitalist ruling class.

Which brings me to my big question on the proposed bureaucratic class - in what way are they separate or distinct from the capitalist class? In what way are they a third class?

OK, that was my main point.

First of all, imo you're not on shaky ground at all. Our experience in the workplace (and wider society) is the solid ground against which all theorising has to be tested. After all, the whole point is to end up with tools we can use.

Secondly, I agree with everything you say. In any workplace dispute you'll very quickly find out who is on the other side. Usually that will include, alongside the top boss, a number of lieutenants, the HR department and possible third party helpers like lawyers, union busters, etc. But my point, in relation to the OP, is that these people are representing the interests of the firm's profits against the interests of the workers. It's clearly an instance, or moment, of the class struggle between labour and capital. Again I don't see any "middle class" in this picture. The capital drivers are imposed on them by market mechanisms (market share relative to competitors, company shareprice) and they then represent capital to the workers directly. They are not in the middle between the workers and some other class of people.

You've repeated this point twice. Your posited neat dichotomy between Marxist analyses based on exploitation versus anarchist ones based on domination is yet another instance illustrating the veracity of H.L. Mencken's dry observation that "for every problem there is an answer that is simple, neat and wrong".

The bit you are not listening to (it's not explaining your shit at, it's listening, btw) is the question of the separation of the political and the economic into distinct spheres that is the specific characteristic of capitalist class society. This point was eloquently developed by Polayni (n.b. neither a Marxist nor an anarchist) in his Great Transformation, but the point was repeatedly made by Marx himself, for e.g.

Just because Marx never got around to writing that book on The State, doesn't mean he didn't think it needed to be written.

edit: quote from Vol III, Ch. 51, Distribution Relations and Production Relations

Why is it when I do my best to try to help people to understand complex political arguments and concepts, that I'm constantly assailed by so-called comrades who just can't resist trying to be 'superior', when in fact it's them who need to look in the mirror? And why does it usually seem to be those who've read Capital, and can recite it like a catechism?

Well, here goes, yet again.

I have to do that for the 'hard of thinking', like you, ocelot.

Oh, I've 'listened' to your longwinded verbiage at great length, mate, on a number of subjects, including 'value'. It's a pity you can't seem to explain anything. This is a message board, not a lecture hall for 'listening' to academic experts who love the sound of their own voices, even when the pupils protest that they can't understand what you're saying. I know, I know, it's all the 'fick' kids that you have to deal with.

Why don't you try, really hard, to read what I keep writing?

I'm trying to simplify 'class analysis' for those who want to get a grasp of it, without having to read Marx, Bakunin, Mencken, or whoever else you wish to namedrop, to prove that you, at least, are 'well-educated'.

What's so bad about that aim? To try to help others? Rather than confuse the hell out of them with meaningless, long quotes from the 'masters'. I mean, who the fuck is the big quote above actually aimed at?

Let's try once more to be civil, eh?

Ocelot, can you please provide a short post (A4 leaflet size?) that, in your political and didactic opinion, outlines the main classes in capitalist society, their relations to property and each other, and captures the 'exploitation' at the heart of those relationships, and which is aimed at workers who want an initial orientation as to how their society works?

And finally, I happen to think that there is some mileage in spelling out the difference between 'Anarchists' who focus on 'political domination' as a contrast to 'Marxists' who focus on 'economic exploitation', to help develop the discussion between those who aren't aware of that point. Even if, in the complex reality of politics, those lines of demarcation are often blurred.

Well, if 'exploitation' is a 'conclusion', what is the 'beginning'? This is 'a big deal', for me, because I think it's at the heart of differences between us on this question. Are 'individual people and their impulses' (politics and humanity's natural attitude to 'power') central, or 'structural social forces' (socio-economics and the fact that every individual is brought up in an ideological framework)? Perhaps our 'beginnings' are different?

Yeah, I would say 'yes', because 'size matters' qualitatively.

If the 'one' held a million, and the other 999,999 had none (or just 'one'), then 'yes'. The 'structure' would be entirely different. Perhaps I'm missing something in your question?

No, I'm entirely on board with this aim of yours, mate!

edit

FWIW, I pretty much agree with rg, here:

different basis for their class power. monopolization of ownership of means of production & capital in general, versus monopolization of decision-making authority in management & of expertise directly pertaining to management.

the capitalists don't have the information or expertise to do the day to day management. they also do not run the state directly. i don't think of the elite judges and politicians as directly a part of the dominant or top class, they have a certain independence from them. sometimes people say management are agents of the capitalists and that is true, but so are workers, as we're employed to work to their interests.

to be viable the state needs to appear legitimate, it needs to maintain social peace and minimize the level of popular discontent and opposition. a state that is perceived as a naked tool of the plutocracy would have a hard time gaining that perception of legitimacy. so we have elections and all the myths around "democracy."

There seems to be two different criteria being expressed about 'what constitutes a class' between us here.

One criterion is a socio-economic one, based on exploitative relationships (by 'exploitation', I mean 'theft' of production, not 'treating someone badly').

The other is a political power one, based on authority and management.

I don't recognise 'political power' as the basis of a 'class'.

This is because I think behind political power there is economic exploitation, which is the real basis of 'authority and management'.

This isn't to say we should ignore the power of managers or the state in general, but it is to say there is a difference between our conceptions of what 'class' is.

We will all continue to argue at cross-purposes unless we clarify our different ideas about what constitutes a 'class', how many (relevant) classes there are, and how they are inter-related.

Can anyone provide a simple schema of 'class' relating to syndicalistcat's post?

How are we going to run the world if we refuse to think about, and develop, our ideas?

Quite honestly, mate, you're fodder for the first populist who comes along. Please join in, and ask questions if you're unsure.

syndicalistcat put things pretty well, and I have a couple thoughts on this too if you don't mind my butting in.

The state, or bureaucratic class, has roots beyond modern capitalism and extracts surplus value in a historically different sense: taxes. While the origin of taxing a populace is a bit obscured today under the guise of "paying for a public service" it started as a warlord taking money from (usually) his subjects by force. As syndicalist cat said, in order to have an obedient populace the managerial class must maintain legitimacy with both the capitalists and the working class. At the same time, they don't put down their weapons either, and while they usually use their weapons in the interest of the capitalist class, there are certainly times when they do not.

I agree with the common sentiment that capitalists are the dominant class right now. However, in managing information the bureaucratic class can rally the working class, or maintain legitimacy in the eyes of the working class, when they feel the need to do away with the current business class in favor of one that suits their needs. Hence, countless military coups over the past 40 years.

Okay, comrade. Thanks. My understanding of the debate, is that it kicked off with someone saying that anarchist organizations, were dominated by 'middle-class', educated people. I can see where they are coming from, cos my experience at uni taught me as much. The point I was wanting to make, is that whether people are from more affluent backgrounds, or manual backgrounds (like myself), the most important thing is that they are proletarian in their ideology, and committed to socialist revolution.

Sorry but who are you to tell people they are ''fodder'' exactly? Given the context, it just sounds eerily like some conspiracy nut telling us we are all ''sheeple'' or whatever because we are not aware who ''really runs the world'' or some similar madness. Gieven that i'm sure thats not the attitude you meant to convey I'd politely suggest that you refrain from using such abusive and dismissive language in future.

I also have found this debate very dry and uninteresting for the last two pages or so, i'm not particularly interested in trying to categorise individuals and squeeze 6 billion people into two or three or a million and one classes. That to me is the dead end of sociology.
Personally i think class only has any value in terms of looking at our actions and at various material interests in specific struggles/social movements.

No, I'm a sucker for decency, so if we can keep this discussion comradely, you're more than welcome to critically discuss my ideas - just let's keep it to criticising ideas, mate.

This is, I think, a key difference between our conceptions of 'class'. I don't think that the class structure of 'modern capitalism' (definition?) is any different at heart from good, old-fashioned capitalism. I think that the central exploitative relationship regarding 'surplus value' is still 'employment', not 'taxation'.

You're right about the historic truth about 'a warlord taking money from (usually) his subjects by force', but this was an entirely different mode of production to capitalism, that of the 'Tributary mode'. The central difference is that capitalism hides its surplus extraction, using economics, not military force, to dispossess the producers.

If you disagree with Marx's ideas regarding 'modes of production', then we have another point worthy of discussion, alongside that of our present one regarding 'class'.

I agree that the 'capitalist class is dominant right now', but then I think they are always dominant under capitalism.

I don't recognise the category 'bureaucratic class', because I relate 'class' to exploitation, not domination. This is the central point under discussion, I think. How do we define and identify 'class' and 'classes'?

I don't agree that 'military coups' do away with the 'business class' (bourgeoisie?); the military merely facilitates the workings of the system for a period, but the bourgeoisie continue to make profits from exploitation, even under the aegis of their military puppets.

Your turn, mate.

I apologise if you (as others apparently have on your behalf) took offence at my 'fodder for populist' statement, but it was meant sincerely. We have to discuss our ideas, and all get used to giving and taking criticism if we are to ever get ourselves into a position to run our society. Otherwise, we'll always be subject to the ideas of the ruling class.

Mere 'experience' never 'teaches' anyone anything. 'Experience' is always refracted through ideas/philosophies/ideologies, to make sense of the experience.

If one uses 'experience', one employs the current ideas, etc. of the ruling class, to make sense of social reality. That's why, as Communists, we insist that workers interrogate their 'own' ideas, and this discussion is part of that liberatory process.

That's precisely what's being discussed, mate! Just what is the 'proletarian ideological' position on 'class', 'middle' or otherwise?

I think that this viewpoint of the merits of the discussion explains the tone of rest of your post.

If you're not interested, fine, leave us alone to get on with it.

At least Diddy-D seems to have taken my point in the spirit it was intended, not as an insult, but as a warning to a comrade.

And I have apologised to them, and I apologise to you for the misunderstanding.

But if you want to put your 'ten pence worth' into the discussion, be my guest.

oh i will definitely leave you to it the sociological stuff on here is as dull as dishwater and utterly irrelevant

I only posted because i disliked your attitude.

Spoken like a true philistine - thinkin', eh? What use is that? Let's just 'Do stuff!', eh?

What? My 'attitude' of trying to help both my comrades and myself with our thinking?

Or is it my questioning of some of the shibboleths that you hold dear, but can't defend?

Well, you can go back to sleep, now, for your afternoon snooze, after such a mentally tiring post for you to make.

I find that last argument a little formalist, tbh. The point is that management are the agents of capital in relation to the workers. The difference in position as regards the basic class antagonism is evident to any worker.

In terms of the knowledge or expertise in question. I think the experience of factory occupations (e.g. Argentian 2001) is that generally the knowledge required for the internal processes of the workplace are readily available to the workers. The sticking points seem to be more as regards the knowledge of the external relations of suppliers and customers. But the real show-stopper seems to be more the lack of access to operational finance to pay suppliers for the necessary materials (or even just electricity etc) to restart production under workers control.

But the question of narrowing down exactly what knowledge or expertise put to one side, my main query would be, who then are the capitalists, if they are not the operational managers of the enterprise? Would that be the institutional shareholders who own the company shares? Are the bosses the bureaucratic/coordinator class, and the big shareholders the capitalists?

On your second point re legitimacy, I agree absolutely. The myth of the "general interest" is the legitimacy of the sovereignty of the state. Particularly in liberal democratic state-forms. (Although the legitimacy of the Chinese CP is to a large extent based on it too, thinking about it). Which is why reporting the news from a class-based perspective is not something you're going to see from a mainstream media outlet any time. As a political force, the identification with a middle ground between capitalist and worker, at least amongst the media and cultural and educational intelligentsia, is an important part of the health of the overall system.

The wider society outside of the individual capitalist enterprises (where I would argue the two-way fight between workers and profit predominates) is the more convincing area for a class interest distinct from capitalists and workers.

The very possibility for the separation of economic and political spheres, or rather the externalisation of the force of coercion from the immediate person of the exploiter, presupposes the existence of a State, in the modern sense. That is one assumes the monopolisation of coercive force, autonomous even, to a certain extent, from the dominant class itself. In fact, historically, when there was a struggle over which class was the dominant class (say between the landed aristocracy and the industrial bourgeoisie in late 18th early 18th C Britain) that struggle was over who could win power over the state - not just political office, but the civil service and the army and so on.

But then once that struggle has definitively been won by the capitalist class (which is still far from the case in places as diverse as Egypt, Iran, China, etc, currently) then the integration with civil service and other state body bosses with the private enterprise capitalist class interests, through the mechanisms I listed in the previous post, means that I can't see the state power elite as a truly distinct and independent class.

Yet it is still a present mode of production. I am not saying it is necessarily the dominant one, but it is definitely a consistent one in any place there is a state.

I don't find this point to be particularly relevant. As it is, the state has interests that are semi-separate from the bourgeoisie and an entirely different way of extracting value from the workers. In as much as they operate independently from the bourgeoisie rather than just an extension of their values, they constitute a different something whether or not you want to call it a class.

I understand that you don't agree, but that does not change historical examples where the military has done away with the factions of the bourgeoisie (and proletariat for that matter) that don't serve whatever goals it has in favor of more complacent sections.

Obviously, when the state is the dominant class the society ceases to be strictly capitalist (since capitalism is where the capitalist class is dominant), but that does not mean that under capitalism this third class ceases to exist altogether along with its own mode of production and interests. Just because in discussing a bureaucratic class we are not talking of the dominant mode of production or dominant class does not do away with the role it plays within capitalism.

Well here's my views on class okay. Probably basic by most peeps standards, but here goes...

Fundamentally, there is capital, the owners of the means of production...and then the rest of us, the working class. We have to sell our labour, and get shafted by capital.

I think there is also, what I would term, the 'middle-class'. These peeps sell their labour too, but often they have specialist skills, tend to be farily to well-paid, and have managerial or technical roles. I once knew a Tory councillor who came from a working-class background. He was a production manager in a factory. Despite his origins, he was responsible for managing workers, and was aligned to capital and supported their system.

These middle-class peeps can be dispensed with by capital of cos, but they can be harder to replace cos of their specilaist skills. At one time, a middle-class job tended to be a job for life. But no longer. So managers get laid off. At this point, they may well re-evaluate their support for capital, and come to a more proletarian consciousness and politics.

In the public sector, there is a middle-class too. Managers of social work teams, for example. I have used day care service, where the senior managers have come to visit with the day centre manager, and tell them they are redundant - just like that. Some social work managers may be more proletarian in their thinking than private sector managers, and less likely to be Tories. But in the end, they still do the dirty work of the state bureaucracy.

Regarding countries like Russia after the revolution, the DDR and so on... I do not know whether these states can best be described as deformed workers states with a bureaucracy, or else as state capitalist. I do know they were not socilaist, as are so-called communist countries today, like Cuba, for example. The senior state bureaucrats who run these states, I see as a form of ruling class, and every bit as pernicious as capital.

I also see a very marginalized and excluded element of the working-class, which some peeps refer to as the 'under-class', though others may use a different terminology. I think I belong to this class, cos I have not worked since 1992 due to illness. I get good benefits though, and have a supportive family, so the worst effects of it in material terms, have been ameliorated. But the impact on my spirits and sense of self-worth and self-esteem, has been horrendous.

And I'm not clever like all yous, I'm only a beginner.

.......

lol I did a double post. Sorry.

You can't exploit someone if you have no power over them. "Exploitation" refers to taking advantage of someone to gain unwarranted benefits through some social relation of domination. Because the working class do not have their own means to life, these being monopolized by the capitalists, they have no choice but to submit to the authority of the firms owned by the capitalists. There are two forms of power here. The unequal power in the labor market enables capital to lower the wage rate to the point they can make a profit. Without that unequal power, there would be no profit.

what is the difference between "political power" and "economic power"? The power that management has over workers in a firm is a form of economic power. Political power refers to the power over society through the state.

But this distinction is to some extent peculiar to capitalism since political & economic power were fused under feudalism or oriental despotism. so your position here makes it impossible to recognize classes in pre-capitalist society.

Even within capitalism this distinction is somewhat forced, given the political power of the capitalists. The fact is, class is a structure of domination. Exploitation wouldn't be possible otherwise.

For sure, but when i was referring to shaky ground, I was more thinking of the problem of extrapolating from my individual experience to thinking about 'middle class' managerialism in general, and particularly it's role in neoliberal capital today. My experiences in office work might not be that of service or 'affective' workers, where there might not be such an entrenched managerial layer perhaps? (particularly for the petty-bourgeois fast food industry, maybe not for the big biz fast food industry).

Has anybody come across any general analysis of the specific form managerialism has taken under neoliberalism? Has the managerial layer or 'middle class' if you like expanded under neoliberalism? Anyone know of empirical studies? There must be lots of critiques of neoliberalism being an ideology of reducing bureaucracy while at the same time (possibly) expanding the managerial layer within corporations and the state if you get my gist.

(I only ask this not cos of wanting to derail the discussion, but because i think its essential to understand the current forms and methods capital uses against us, so we can better subvert them).

Yes, I see your point, and I would agree with it to a large extent, but I do have one query. How do you then account for the fact that the managerial layer are in a 'contradictory class location' - meaning while they represent capital's interests, and enforce them, they are still workers, and subject to the same pressures of being workers (namely, being exploited - with all the work pressure, deadlines, threat of redundancy etc). Many if not most managers still skive off work, try and cut corners, reduce their workload, and try to increase their pay etc, while at the same time managing other workers and representing the interests of profit. Plus managers are in direct everyday contact with workers and might actually fraternise with them.

So, during a strike, management might be pulled two ways. Some might come out during a strike with the workers, or offer unofficial help. But many or most will of course be dead against the strike and will be at the forefront of subverting the strike, using all sorts of tricks and ploys and harassment and PR to break the strike ie. doing their job as lackeys and enforcers of capital. (When we went out a few years ago this precisely happened - maybe about half of line managers were supportive of the strike, a few went on strike with us, and some refused to fill out forms about who of us was striking in direct conflict with directives from above despite massive pressure, but as you went higher up the managerial chain, and closer to HQ, there was far less support).

As managers are sometimes pulled two ways between capital and labour, I can see that it does that give some credence to 'middle class' theories - but still the much stronger pull comes from capital as its their actually job to act on behalf of capital, i'm not suggesting managers are torn between workers and capital!

I am somewhat sympathetic to Ocelot's overall direction and also to LBird's desire for a simple, self-contained explanation.

One simple way that I would see production relations ("the economic") as trumping administrative decision making power ("the political"), is that "the political" is about how society is controlled at any one point while production relations control how society can change.

The point is that the way society is administered has changed a lot in the last two hundred years (say) but the key dynamic remains the same. Thus I'd argue that despite the many changes in administration of different sorts, a coherent group, the capitalist class, remains in charge and that changes from managers to consultants, from personal ownership to joint stock companies and so-forth are just moments in the basic relationships staying the same.

In this framework, you could argue that present day independent consultants, Franchise owners and so forth might be a distinct section from the working class but they don't really have a distinct self-interest from the capitalist class as a whole in contrast to earlier "petite bourgeois" classes. And note that I am only saying "you could argue".

Is that simple enough?

Also, The argument then is something of an answer to syndicalistcat's argument.

One basic point of Marx's argument on the process of capitalist purchasing labor power is that it seems like an even trade, it seems like the capitalist aren't taking advantage of the laborer but rather doing them the favor of buying their labor at market price.

With that, the capitalist social relationship and the property relationship that it engenders stays constant even when the immediate administrative relationships change. And that's where the significance of the capitalist class can be seen.

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