Comment on We live in a post scarcity information society and we still haven't moved on from capitalism.

• 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.

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  • 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.

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    • 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.

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      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Or you can present people with actual plans written in terms they understand and are comfortable with.

        I used to work in public health. One of the first things I learned is that a patient needs to be approached on their own level. Some people can handle exact medical terms, and others blank out when they hear terms they don’t understand.

        If you have someone’s ear for five minutes, are you going to waste three of them trying to bring them up to your level, or do you change your terms to fit their point of view?

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      • intensely_human@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Well, there’s the concept of group consciousness, and that definitely depends on a good working set of definitions.

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    • 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.

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      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Education is important, but not all knowledge is equally important.

        I liken it to a carpenter who uses Imperial units instead of metric. You can argue that metric is more exact, but if the carpenter can do the work why ‘correct’ them?

        It’s not the job of the people to be better educated, it’s the job of the leaders to find a way to speak to them that they understand.

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  • 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.

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    • 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

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