“Working class” refers to people whose main source of income is a salary earned on exchange for labour, in a free contract between them and an employer.
“Capitalist class” refers to the ones purchasing the labour power of others in order to have them work capital that the former own.
You’re confusing “working class” with “lower class”. The concepts of low, middle and upper class are quite diffuse, mostly based on income, and used to draw artificial barriers between workers who at the end of the day have more common interests than different ones.
I don’t know the person you’re responding to but I have to say that not all software developers earn lots of money like the folks in silicon valley. I earnt less than the median wage in my country for a long time. Also if you’re renter in a country with a rental crisis you’re be losing most of your wages to that, and getting kicked out every 12 months, losing your savings to moving costs. I’m more stressed than I was working as a manual labourer in 2009.
I’m one of those highly paid Silicon Valley workers.
But I’m still working class because I trade my labor for the money I need to live. I trade my labor for the healthcare that keeps me and my wife alive.
I’m working class because I can’t afford not to work.
Don’t let the owners of this country divide us up any longer. They love it when we fight amongst each other to determine who is really “working class” because it means we in-fight instead of challenging them.
I understand where you’re coming from, but I can also understand that someone who works full time but still has to use food vouchers to eat would take umbrage at being put in the same class category as you. I’m relatively comfortable, but precarious (and wouldn’t last long without my job), but I’m not part of the working poor.
Oh I completely agree. And I don’t want any working poor stolen valor (for lack of a better term). I just think we won’t be able to fix these problems if we keep letting the owner class get away with dividing us up.
The way we pay for labor is unfair and the fact that I get a bigger paycheck is about 5% things I can control (skills, training, etc) and 95% blind luck (if I was born in 1890 or 2190 my ability to write erlang wouldn’t be nearly as marketable. In the 1390s my annoying fastidiousness and desire to work purely in theory would have me a pauper)
It’s that old meme though of the worker with a cookie, the immigrant with a crumb, and the wealthy guy with an immense pile telling the worker to watch out for the immigrant. It’s the same playbook for the working class, just add a third guy with 2 cookies and the wealthy guy is telling you “he’s also not on your side because he has 2 whole cookies, don’t band together to take any of mine”
If the working class could achieve class consciousness and start demanding their fair share, we could actually fix some of our problems. So I hope my brothers and sisters and non-binary siblings in the working class can embrace me and each other in solidarity and fight for a better tomorrow.
Yeah. Sorry, you are negating my very existence with this comment and I’m fucking right here and one billion percent in the working class socioeconomic strata. GTFO with your broad stroke generalizations.
You’re not working class if you’re a software developer. If you think you know their world, you’re also delusional or larping.
“Working class” refers to people whose main source of income is a salary earned on exchange for labour, in a free contract between them and an employer.
“Capitalist class” refers to the ones purchasing the labour power of others in order to have them work capital that the former own.
You’re confusing “working class” with “lower class”. The concepts of low, middle and upper class are quite diffuse, mostly based on income, and used to draw artificial barriers between workers who at the end of the day have more common interests than different ones.
I don’t know the person you’re responding to but I have to say that not all software developers earn lots of money like the folks in silicon valley. I earnt less than the median wage in my country for a long time. Also if you’re renter in a country with a rental crisis you’re be losing most of your wages to that, and getting kicked out every 12 months, losing your savings to moving costs. I’m more stressed than I was working as a manual labourer in 2009.
I’m one of those highly paid Silicon Valley workers.
But I’m still working class because I trade my labor for the money I need to live. I trade my labor for the healthcare that keeps me and my wife alive.
I’m working class because I can’t afford not to work.
Don’t let the owners of this country divide us up any longer. They love it when we fight amongst each other to determine who is really “working class” because it means we in-fight instead of challenging them.
No war but class war.
I understand where you’re coming from, but I can also understand that someone who works full time but still has to use food vouchers to eat would take umbrage at being put in the same class category as you. I’m relatively comfortable, but precarious (and wouldn’t last long without my job), but I’m not part of the working poor.
Oh I completely agree. And I don’t want any working poor stolen valor (for lack of a better term). I just think we won’t be able to fix these problems if we keep letting the owner class get away with dividing us up.
The way we pay for labor is unfair and the fact that I get a bigger paycheck is about 5% things I can control (skills, training, etc) and 95% blind luck (if I was born in 1890 or 2190 my ability to write erlang wouldn’t be nearly as marketable. In the 1390s my annoying fastidiousness and desire to work purely in theory would have me a pauper)
It’s that old meme though of the worker with a cookie, the immigrant with a crumb, and the wealthy guy with an immense pile telling the worker to watch out for the immigrant. It’s the same playbook for the working class, just add a third guy with 2 cookies and the wealthy guy is telling you “he’s also not on your side because he has 2 whole cookies, don’t band together to take any of mine”
If the working class could achieve class consciousness and start demanding their fair share, we could actually fix some of our problems. So I hope my brothers and sisters and non-binary siblings in the working class can embrace me and each other in solidarity and fight for a better tomorrow.
Yeah. Sorry, you are negating my very existence with this comment and I’m fucking right here and one billion percent in the working class socioeconomic strata. GTFO with your broad stroke generalizations.
Your very existence is that you’re working class? WTF dude get a hobby.
You have such a singular wit! I bet they trot you out when the party gets boring.