Comment on We live in a post scarcity information society and we still haven't moved on from capitalism.
Sanctus@lemmy.world 11 months ago
The rubes need something to collect so they can lord over you. They don’t want an intelligent society. They want something they can game to get big numbers.
Dagwood222@lemm.ee 11 months ago
In 1980, ‘middle class’ was still defined as one job paying for a family of four. In those days $1 million was still considered a vast fortune. By the time Bush Sr. left office ‘middle class’ was two salaries to support a family and $1 million was what a rich guy paid for a party.
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 11 months ago
To be fair, “middle class” isn’t a real class, the closest is petite bourgeoisie. What’s thought of as the middle class doesn’t necessarily have the same class interests, as they vary in social relation to the Means of Production.
Dagwood222@lemm.ee 11 months ago
When you’re discussing politics you have two choices. You can avoid highly specific terms and focus on real world problems, or you can parse out the meaning of every single word and win a meaningless argument.
99% of the people in America know exactly what I mean when I say ‘middle class.’ Maybe 5% know what ‘petite bourgeoisie’ means. Probably less. You don’t win elections by arguing the difference between the Social Democrats and the socialists, you win them by talkign to people about how much a gallon of gas costs.
PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I think the argument is that creating these definitions ruins class solidarity. You are working class if you have to go to work every day to live period.
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 11 months ago
Yes, but at the same time, this is just an argument for using terms incorrectly and perpetuating bourgeois terminology. The idea of a “Middle Class” was invented in order to give the Proletariat a realistic goal (in their eyes) to work towards, in order to divide the Proletariat against itself.
If more people understand class dynamics, they will also understand more about their surroundings, and will also be able to better think for themselves, instead of you trying to do all of the thinking for them.
Education is important.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Probably just autocorrect but it’s “Petty Bourgeoisie”, referring to those who own a shop or restaurant or something, often joining in the running of it. We call them small business owners in the US.
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 11 months ago
Not a typo, but we are functionally talking about the same thing: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petite_bourgeoisie