Middle Class: Innocent in Class Warfare

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Ah, right. But they didn't. Though I'm sure the average participant would have been appaled to know that the bottom 40% own 0.3%.

Yes, No1Marauder's contribution showed that. The fact remains that they would have been appalled by a figure! Why aren't folks appalled when they come across a beggar, the .3% in the flesh, so to say. Oh, they're appalled alright, but for the wrong reasons. Dammit, it makes me.... sleepy.
G'night timezone.

Originally posted by Yorobot
Yes, No1Marauder's contribution showed that. The fact remains that they would have been appalled by a figure! Why aren't folks appalled when they come across a beggar, the .3% in the flesh, so to say. Oh, they're appalled alright, but for the wrong reasons. Dammit, it makes me.... sleepy.
G'night timezone.

I'm sure they are appalled... they just don't want to be the one fixing the problem if someone else can. Prisoner's dilemma and all that.

Originally posted by sh76
The richest 1% owning a large % is not an evil in and of itself, as long as the others have plenty too. I'd rather have the richest be filthy rich and the middle class and poor be comfortable than everybody be equally miserable.

Marx never said it is an evil "in itself." He thought that we are all capable of great moral and creative development, and this is not a wonderful gift which is restricted to the wealthy and which somehow justifies their wealth.

He said that wealth is accumulated through oppression and that this is inevitable under Capitalism. I see plenty of evidence to support the assertion that Capital is accumulated under highly oppressive and exploitative conditions, which is emphasized when you acknowledge that this arises in a global context, from the South American silver mines of the Spanish Empire through to the use of far eastern child labour to manufacture sports gear and trainers in the modern American empire.

I was responding to the ignorant debate about the relationship of the "middle classes" to "Capital." I think it is not a bad idea to be clear what we are debating, though I recognize it can seem antisocial. "Middle Class" is a highly contentious category in itself, probably an empty concept for most purposes, but I am not aware that it plays much part in the world examined by Marx and Engels.

Originally posted by rwingett
Now you're just being a goofball. The proletariat don't like being mocked!

Hmm.

I'd love to chat with them. Who are they? Got a website I can contact them at? I thought it was the ghetto folks who live in my neighborhood who are full of rage and bitterness due to poverty and riot every 25 years or so, but I guess it must be someone else. Who?

EDIT -

Marx makes a clear distinction between proletariat as salaried workers, which he sees a progressive class, and Lumpenproletariat, "rag-proletariat", the poorest and outcasts of the society, such as beggars, tricksters, entertainers, buskers, criminals and prostitutes, which he considers a retrograde class.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proletariat

Wait a sec. We're not of high enough class to be part of your commie revolution?! F* you. You're not part of the fight. Don't act self-righteous about the plight of the poor. You aren't one of them.

Originally posted by finnegan
Marx never said it is an evil "in itself." He thought that we are all capable of great moral and creative development, and this is not a wonderful gift which is restricted to the wealthy and which somehow justifies their wealth.

He said that wealth is accumulated through oppression and that this is inevitable under Capitalism. I see plenty of evidence es, but I am not aware that it plays much part in the world examined by Marx and Engels.

"Middle Class" is a highly contentious category in itself, probably an empty concept for most purposes

Middle class people in my mind are professionals. Accountants, lawyers, run of the mill doctors, small business owners etc. They have the equivalent of a Master's degree or enough capital and knowledge to run a small business. They work for a living, own their own home by the time they're old, have as many cars as they need, and live in safe neighborhoods. They work with their minds and their people skills, not hard physical labor, but they work. They have all the personal possessions they need and enough luxuries to be mostly satisfied.

What they DON'T have is ownership of phyical goods they don't use (or at least sell in person in a shop).

EDIT

Apparently these are the so-called "proleteriat". The real poor are called "lumpenproleteriat" and dismissed with contempt by Communists.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
[b]"Middle Class" is a highly contentious category in itself, probably an empty concept for most purposes

Middle class people in my mind are professionals. Accountants, lawyers, run of the mill doctors, small business owners etc. They have the equivalent of a Master's degree or enough capital and knowledge to run a small business. They work ...[text shortened]... he real poor are called "lumpenproleteriat" and dismissed with contempt by Communists.[/b]

Just curious, what do you think the average income is, of the people you describe? I know I fit your description and was once told by an HR person that my income was in the upper 3 percent of US workers. Also, two-income households elevate their status on that basis alone. Just for comparison, here's another view, strictly based on income, from:

http://www.ehow.com/about_5212740_average-middle-class-salary-range_.html

The U.S. Census Bureau breaks down the reported household incomes into quintiles (or five divisions). In 2007, the middle quintile reported an income range of $36,000 to $57,660. Many economists and politicians alike believe this range is too narrow to encompass the true middle class of America. Therefore, a more generous range would include the middle three quintiles, which makes the range from $19,178 to $91,705. This range accounts for 60 percent of all households, and with the lower end balancing near the poverty threshold, this range may not be completely accurate.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
"The country's fiscal burden" exists because of stupid capitalists, not the middle class.

??? In what sense? I'm not laying all the blame at their feet, but for all that politicians pander to the "middle class," you've got to think that they have some say in our fiscal policy.

Originally posted by JS357
Just curious, what do you think the average income is, of the people you describe? I know I fit your description and was once told by an HR person that my income was in the upper 3 percent of US workers. Also, two-income households elevate their status on that basis alone. Just for comparison, here's another view, strictly based on income, from:

http://www ...[text shortened]... the lower end balancing near the poverty threshold, this range may not be completely accurate.

This is exactly right. Add to that over the last 30 years household composition has changed significantly toward a lower proportion of households being married. THis alone can account for much of the apparent "stagnation" in median household income.

Also, let's add to the mix that household consumption decisions are not based purely upon contemporaneous income, but rather on future expected income and upon current financial wealth. A young two-person household with a $100K/year income and a net worth of -$400,000 (say school debt and a mortgage) is going to have a completely different standard of living than a retired two-person household with the same annual income and $ 2 million in retirement.

Frankly, this whole topic is actually quite complicated, and the efforts of some to simplify it into a capitalist/laborer dichotomy seem to me completely fruitless.

Originally posted by telerion
??? In what sense? I'm not laying all the blame at their feet, but for all that politicians pander to the "middle class," you've got to think that they have some say in our fiscal policy.

In the sense that Goldman Sachs gamed the system to sell worthless property at top prices. In the sense that throughout my youth I watched construction machines carving huge, ugly, irreparable gashes into the beautiful hillsides I grew up on that were abandoned halfway through, only to collapse when the rains came. Houses were built that are still standing vacant because one of the ways to riches in our economic system is through capitalistic ownership of land and buildings. Homes in Victorville are being demolished, destroying the wealth that the home represented, simply because the capitalists who had them built misjudged the market.

And with all this housing, we still have foreclosures, homeless, etc. Why? Capitalism. Middle class people who owned those homes would be living in them for the most part.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/03/60-minutes-michael-lewis-the-big-short/

Originally posted by JS357
Just curious, what do you think the average income is, of the people you describe? I know I fit your description and was once told by an HR person that my income was in the upper 3 percent of US workers. Also, two-income households elevate their status on that basis alone. Just for comparison, here's another view, strictly based on income, from:

http://www ...[text shortened]... the lower end balancing near the poverty threshold, this range may not be completely accurate.

I'd say $40k-150k/year is my guesstimate for the middle class, as long as you work for it in some real sense, even if that sense is simply making sure you follow the laws and play by the rules i.e. accountants, lawyers. They keep the cops off your back and the cops keep the thugs off your back.

It's the people with so much money that homes and factories become nothing more than "investments" instead of places to live and work for whom the game changes to capitalism.

EDIT - Shoot, raise the income max to $500k for the upper middle class.

Mr Ghosla, the venture capitalist, is a BILLIONAIRE. He could hire 20 $500K/year personal employees for 100 years without doing ANYTHING. That's how much money he has. That's how rich these people are. (I think my numbers are right...not sure)

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Depends on the details. "Owning stock in Google" is not quite the same as "owning an apartment building" or "owning a factory". "Stock in Google" is an abstraction, not physical wealth.

Probably middle class. I'd need to know more details. What kind of work? Mr. Khosla, the venture capitalist I referred to in the other thread probably thinks he ...[text shortened]... What physical objects and resources can you make the police withhold from the market?

Owning Google stock and owning an apartment building or a factory are similar in one essential way: owning a profit- generating capital asset that entitles you to that profit by right of ownership, makes one think differently than a person who is entirely reliant on selling their labor. Other things being equal, being in one of the two camps leads one to support laws and lawmakers that favor that camp. This is why the question of which camp the worker is in if the worker also owns stock, is useful to consider. It's worth considering the likelihood that an economic model that enlarges the population having a stake in both camps, will be less prone to "class warfare" than one that segregates the population into owners and laborers.

Originally posted by JS357
Owning Google stock and owning an apartment building or a factory are similar in one essential way: owning a profit- generating capital asset that entitles you to that profit by right of ownership, makes one think differently than a person who is entirely reliant on selling their labor. Other things being equal, being in one of the two camps leads one to suppo ss prone to "class warfare" than one that segregates the population into owners and laborers.

But the person with Google stock can't kick me out of my home or place of employment if I don't pay him rent. It's too abstract to affect the common folks.

If everyone had a stake in both camps, we'd all be middle class. The upper class would cease to exist in it's current form. The people of the upper, capitalist class aren't cool with this, even if I am and many middle class people might be.

Also, if you are rich based on stock alone, you are vulnerable to a stock market crash. Real rich people own real property.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
But the person with Google stock can't kick me out of my home or place of employment if I don't pay him rent. It's too abstract to affect the common folks.

It may be too abstract for the impact to be fully appreciated, that much I'll grant, but publicly traded companies dominate the employment of, and provision of goods and services to, the common person. My attitude about the treatment of the common person by a company, may be compromised by the fact that I have a bundle invested in the company.

As to your specific concern, you can buy stock in any number of companies that rent living space to common folks. Have you heard of publicly traded apartment REITs?

Originally posted by telerion
This is exactly right. Add to that over the last 30 years household composition has changed significantly toward a lower proportion of households being married. THis alone can account for much of the apparent "stagnation" in median household income.

Also, let's add to the mix that household consumption decisions are not based purely upon contemporane ...[text shortened]... s of some to simplify it into a capitalist/laborer dichotomy seem to me completely fruitless.

I agree its a bit more complicated and its true household size has declined a bit since 1980 (though it declined more from 1970 to 1980 than it has in the thirty years since). It's probably fair to say that white collar workers and households generally improved their economic circumstances in the last 30 years up until the Great Recession while blue collar workers didn't. Whatever economic improvement that was made even by professionals was brought at the cost of working more hours rather than higher base pay (the average family worked about 500 more hours in 2000's then in 1980). You can also total in the social costs of far more women with young children working by economic necessity to that mix; in 1966 only 20% of mothers with children under six worked; by the mid 2000's that figure exceeded 60% (figures from Robert Reich's Aftershock).

EDIT: Of course, this post is discussing the increase in income inequality in the last 30 years; the discussion was largely about the even sharper increase in wealth inequality.

Look at this. Forbes' list of the top billionaires has them ALL increasing their net worth as of this year!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes_list_of_billionaires