1) do you have the power to hire and fire
2) Are you self employed
3) skilled or unskilled
4) does your work have a high degree of specialisation or bureacratisation
While it is neccesary to talk of the proletariat, and the ruling class, in order to unite the proletariat in their common interest. In a classed society like capitalism there isn't really a fixed class divide or a united proletariat.
It is important to recognise the differences and their limitations but not to divide people on them too much.
The skilled working class are often much better off than the unskilled working class for example.
And just because someones work is bureacratic, liek a chemistry teacher, does that make them more in line with authority than a well to do self employed plumber who rips off old women and has two bmw's.
That makes him petit bourgeois doesn't it, or does it?
I just think that class is fluid and not simplistically divided into two groups, even though in the revolutionary moment of class struggle this is what would happen.
john
ps sorry to be an ashole and suggest books but reckon Gramscis ideas of class are pretty useful here even if you don't agree with all of them.
I'm kinda in a hurry, but just quickly - as millions of people on here have said already (
), class (from a revolutionary point of view) isn't about your accent, clothes or taste in food (sun dried tomatoes vs. jellied eels etc.)
It's about your relationship with society and capital.
By Marx's definition the working class/proletariat or wage-earning class is the class which has to sell its labour power to survive.
A tiny number of people don't have to do this (work, sign on or live by crime), these people live by exploiting the labour of others. These people are capitalists - bosses, landlords, shareholders, investors etc. But of course many of these people work too (but they don't have to). E.g. a CEO works for a wage but also gets huge share options.
Now of course lots of workers do assist the bosses, and act against working class interests (like being managers, bailiffs etc.).
So that's my 2c