There is no such thing as 'the middle class', which is a capitalist invention meant to distract from the fact that you either own capital, or are a worker. 'The middle class' are still workers. Six figure and seven figure workers, are still workers. There are edge cases like workers paid in equity or whatnot, but they are negligible and without any real power for all intents and purposes.

'Inequality' is also one of those nice liberal distractions that is an effort to address symptoms rather than causes. The increased noise level about 'inequality' - while nicely intentioned - is just another attempt to address the problems of capitalism entirely within the ambit of capitalism.

This is why 'soft left' pop economists like Piketty, Kelton, or Mazzucato are so de jour right now. They all argue within the acceptable bounds of not putting capitalism itself into question. Just little adjustments around the edges. The same goes for those who fly the flag of 'stakeholder capitalism' - like people advocating for square circles.

Actually, a good share of Americans think they are Middle Class, despite their rather straitened circumstances.

Commies (and sociologists) define "middle class" quite differently than you do here. You define it as being able to:

quote="schopenhauer1;d12437"]to live in a house, buy some entertainment goods, a car, have all their daily living met[/quote]

That just describes people who are making ends meet.

There are roughly 3 classes (in the real world, not in theory): The working class -- the people who provide the labor to drive the economy -- everybody from agricultural workers picking tomatoes to people charting sales of goods in a corporate office tower. Teachers, nurses, laboratory workers, plumbers, electricians, sales, accounting, car repair, toilet cleaners, etc. (Workers produce all wealth.). Workers have a small share of all the wealth.

The ruling class is the small group of people who actually own the machinery of the economy -- land, factories, mines, warehouses, railroads, stores, banks, etc. Some of their names are familiar: Rockefeller, Ford, Gates, Dupont, etc. Most of these people you have never heard of unless you specialize in tracking large wealth. This group calls the shots for their own benefit. They possess most of the wealth,

The middle class consists of a fairly small group of people who manage the economy at a fairly high level; they are also the professionals who provide special services -- lawyers, doctors, dentists, polling, planning, professors, high level engineers, and so forth. They quite often have independent practices (otherwise known as jobs). The members of the "middle class" tend to be quite financially comfortable.

So, what you are asking is unclear. What if everybody became middle class as it is officially defined? You'd have 130,000,000 doing what 20 million do now. Who, then, would do the basic work o society?

Are you asking what would happen if everybody in the working class (who call themselves middle class or jack shit) actually had more money? Well, they would experience less stress, that's for sure. They might be happier, but not a lot happier. You can buy only so much happiness with a 10% or 15% ncrease in income.You aren't proposing a revolution here, you are just rearranging the deck chairs.

Are you asking what would happen if everybody in the working class (who call themselves middle class) actually had more money? Well, they would experience less stress, that's for sure. They might be happier. Not a lot happier. You aren't proposing a revolution here, you are just rearranging the deck chairs. — Bitter Crank

Yes, that's exactly what I am trying to figure out. What if capitalism somehow worked itself out such that the working class, the 130,000,000 you are discussing made the same amount as the middle class 20 million lawyers, doctors, etc. Would that satisfy the goals? In other words, everyone is comfortable enough.. Would that be essentially the end goal, or does it involve taking down the power differentials altogether whereby the owner class must be removed.. .What would be the impetus though to do that other than abstract power reasons? The immediate concerns would be met of material well-being.

Six figure and seven figure workers, are still workers. — StreetlightX

Was it Lenin or Stalin who said, "Quantity has a quality all its own." I think if I went from a low 5 figure income (<25,000) to a 7 figure income of say... $9,000,000, I would experience a significant revision of reality. I would no longer fit into the status of "worker". I wouldn't be ruling class, either. I'd belong in the income range of about 10% of the American population--the segment below "indisputably rich" whose entrance fee is about $2,000,000. These people do not work like, and do not live like "workers". For one thing, if they have any money management skills at all, they will soon find them in a position which can not be taken away from them by a pink slip.

@StreetlightX
I guess my question then is whether which is more important:
Material well-being or ownership of means of production? Sometimes, I think there is a lot of muddling of the two in communist or perhaps more general leftist theory.

'Worker' is a social relation to the means of production. It doesn't change because you get paid more. Look, there are probably some nice fine-grained distinctions to be made here and there for the sake of sociological niceties, but 'the middle class' for all intents and purposes is a propaganda category used as a cudgel to convince workers that they aren't really workers. That's the role it plays in the larger discourse, no matter the scholarly finesse on the matter. "Help/grow the middle class' is - for 99% of all cases - code for "ignore your exploitation kthx".

Material well-being or ownership of means of production? — schopenhauer1

The latter overwhelmingly determine the former. To treat them as independent variables is idealism.

The latter overwhelmingly determine the former. To treat them as independent variables is idealism. — StreetlightX

But some of those economists at the edges might say something along the lines of:
Capitalism can possibly manage to create more equitable circumstances through various social democratic interventions (the Scandinavian model let's say). Thus, government can intervene so that the inequalities are smoothed over to a reasonable extent.. Thus the means of overthrowing the owner class is deemed unnecessary through classic social democratic policy.

In other words, everyone is comfortable enough.. Would that be essentially the end goal, or does it involve taking down the power differentials altogether whereby the owner class must be removed. — schopenhauer1

The end goal is a decent life.

Yes, the owner class has to go. Power differentials are a current obsession, and real enough. My reason for taking down the owner class is that they are, essentially, parasites. They have the lion's share of the wealth without doing anything to earn it, In fact, it is inconceivable that they could do anything to earn it -- the amount of wealth they own is to great to find justification.

Comfortable enough, yes. Everybody have a boat at the marina? No. Everybody have two or three undocumented workers serving as household help? No. Everybody have a McMansion? No, Everybody drive a $60,000 to $80,000 car? No. Everybody fly to Bali for a friends wedding? No.

Raising the quality of life for the working class still has to be sustainable. So housing in which families are secure (won't be evicted)? Yes. Have access to a healthy diet of quality food? Yes. Have access to quality public transit? Yes. Have security in their employment (won't be laid off for arbitrary reasons or to enhance profit)? Yes. Have access to quality education? Yes. Have access to quality medical care? Yes. Work no more than necessary to maintain the collective quality of life (as opposed to profitability)? Yes.

I'm sure they would say that. They would be wrong.

World GDP = $80,934,771,028,340

World population: 7,000,000,000

That works out to $1.32 per hour.

Minimum wage (USA) is $7.25 per hour.

Middle class? More like abject poverty for all.

That said, hypothetically speaking it would be great to be middle class: It's always a challenge to try to live the life of the rich, while not making yourself destitute in the process (balance needs and wants).

I agree that the term "middle class" as tossed about in media and in political speeches is meaningless. Yes, it's a cudgel. It's also the case that a lot of 'professional' middle class people, like doctors, lawyers, professors, etc. are essentially "entrepreneurs" working in medical, legal, and academic businesses.

But... I still think that there is a class of [whatever one wants to call them] who are not wage or salary slaves, and are not in positions where their status can be changed by a supervisor. (A tenured prof, for one, an entrepreneur who is head of his or her company).

It's also the case that many very "middle class" jobs, like doctor, have been "degraded" into salary positions which are not all that secure. A private practice is one thing, but when the clinic and insurance company tell you to see one patient every 6.3 minutes, you are definitely a worker.

Material well-being or ownership of means of production? — schopenhauer1

Material well being is the end, ownership of the means of production is the means.

They have the lion's share of the wealth without doing anything to earn it, In fact, it is inconceivable that they could do anything to earn it -- the amount of wealth they own is to great to find justification. — Bitter Crank

We've been through this before.. You keep going after the VERY large CEOs and Board of Director types and NOT the small business owner that started out let's say by himself and grew from there...They would say that they are not parasites but job creators.. Started with one, then several, then dozens, then hundreds....

Raising the quality of life for the working class still has to be sustainable. So housing in which families are secure (won't be evicted)? Yes. Have access to a healthy diet of quality food? Yes. Have access to quality public transit? Yes. Have security in their employment (won't be laid off for arbitrary reasons or to enhance profit)? Yes. Have access to quality education? Yes. Have access to quality medical care? Yes. Work no more than necessary to maintain the collective quality of life (as opposed to profitability)? Yes. — Bitter Crank

Material well being is the end, ownership of the means of production is the means. — Bitter Crank

Right but my point is, in your theory, do the ends necessarily come about from the means of getting rid of the owner classes? Is this like a political law of nature or something like that? ONLY this leads to that?

You keep going after the VERY large CEOs and Board of Director types and NOT the small business owner that started out let's say by himself and grew from there — schopenhauer1

This is something you always read into what people say on this topic. God knows why. Literally no one mentioned a CEO except for you, out of thin air. It's why I stopped discussing this with you last time. It is why I will stop again if you continue to make shit up.

You keep going after the VERY large CEOs and Board of Director types and NOT the small business owner that started out let's say by himself and grew from there — schopenhauer1

Parsing out the share of GDP derived from arms with revenues of more than 1 billion dollars, and those with fractions of that is possible but I don't want to spend a lot of time doing it now. However, there is this:

"The business sector overall contributes 72 percent of GDP in the OECD, and corporations with more than $1 billion in revenue account for an increasingly large share of that."

Newly founded companies tend to grow fast, attract fresh investments, and (sometimes) deliver new products and services that didn't exist before. Old companies keep on keeping on, whether that's Macy's, Ford, Mitsubishi, Royal Dutch Shell, CBS, Whirlpool, or what have you. I talk about "large corporations" because everyone is familiar with them. You have heard of 3M -- Scotch tape or Post-It notes, headquartered in St. Paul, MN. #90 in the Fortune 500 list. You probably haven't heard of HBFuller Company in St. Paul which makes specialized adhesives and coatings. They are not in the Fortune 500 list--they are 786. There are many small companies all over the country, worth at least a few million, some started by go-getter entrepreneurs; some are new, some are old. Too many, too varied.

It doesn't matter. Since you want a commie's opinion, here it is: Company-starting whizzes are simply engaged in the act of "original accumulation" -- making their first big pile of money. Their relationship to their workers may be even more exploitative than the old companies' relationships to their workers. Or not -- like I said, it varies. But new companies are still expropriating the product of the workers who are not receiving the full value of what they produce.

So, maybe you have a soft spot in your heart for some small businesses, and it makes you sad thinking about them being taken over by the workers. Well... tough. The entrepreneurs aren't going to starve -- they will just be workers like everybody else, and entitled to the full share of what they produce -- but not more (like when they owned the company).

Saw this guy's concert once. He arrived with a small amplifier and a guitar. By bus. A modern day troubadour.

He stole the title of this song from Einstein though.

Since you want a commie's opinion — Bitter Crank

Damned! Good to know they are still around! Thought it was a dying breed.

On a completely moral and normative level, raising the standard of living with social democratic policies is good for short term harm reduction, but advocating socialism isn't really based on morality. There's nothing radical about those propositions. It would not satisfy socialists because it wouldn't solve the inherit issues involved with the worker-employee relationship, the state, the profit motive, nor would it solve the only reason capitalist nations even have so-called "middle class" standards of living: Imperialism and the plundering of African nations and the global south. I am not saying everyone should live in huts, and I am NOT saying that nobody deserves a comfortable life, but a problem of the Western left is that it's idea of a comfortable life; IE American upper-middle class lifestyles, is inherently unsustainable for the environment as a whole. Socialism can't just "be satisfied" with maintaining the labor aristocracy that makes up North America and the Imperial Core. Our idea of what constitutes a "comfortable life for all" needs to be radically shifted

Not only that, but this proposition misunderstands that capitalism's goals are aimless and just puts profit over all else. Infinite growth on a finite world and all that. Your worry seems to be that socialists can't decide whether its better to raise living standards for people, or to deal with power imbalances. The answer is that we sort of have to do both. Like I said, it's great to build social systems in the capitalist regime to allow people to live, but we also need stronger community building to show workers that safety nets can exist outside the state. Every socialist knows simply focusing on raising material conditions in capitalism will lead to those benefits getting chipped away. Then we're back where we started. That's essentially what happened in the late 70s and 80s, and what is still happening now (neoliberalization). The Scandinavian model is already starting to crack as more services are privatized. You have to remove the cancer at the root, not just put band aids over it that get slowly ripped off

There is no such thing as 'the middle class', which is a capitalist invention meant to distract from the fact that you either own capital, or are a worker. 'The middle class' are still worke — StreetlightX

In America and in the socialist west of Europe, the workers are capitalists. Anyone can own voting shares, and anyone can own dividend yielding shares. And most people in the middle class do. They work, because their investments would not allow them to float.

There is the working class who do the same as the middle class: work stiff, but the working class don't own shares or capital.

Then there is the ruling class, those who own only shares and capital, and their work consists of exchanging investment advice with their buddies on the golf course and at charity dinners.

Then there is the beggar's class, then there is the incapacitated class (people who have challenges that effectively prevent them from normative living: working for a living), then there is the criminal class, then there is the drug addict class, then there is the homeless class, and then there is the terrorist class. And finally, there is the fourth grade class of Miss Sindorofski.

In the US, the top 10% of the population own 90% of the shares. The rest confer effectively no managerial rights, other than an entitlement to dividends or selling or lending those shares. That's not control of the means of production. And the rest of your post is just you not understanding what class is, but that's your problem not mine.

Our idea of what constitutes a "comfortable life" needs to be radically shifted — Albero

I would gladly exchange my daily showers and eating chocolates for having unabashed sex with any of the females of the tribe. (Don't let my wife to see this, please!) And as far as tv shows go, or Netflix or even the Internet, I'd rather be preoccupied with how to catch the next reindeer or gazelle, or else with daydreams of how nice it would be to be a citizen of the United States of America.

In the US, the top 10% of the population own 90% of the shares. — StreetlightX

I would like to see your source for this claim, please. I am not arguing or provoking you, or challenging your claim; I just want to see once the actual source of this statistic. Because I've heard this claim so often and for so long, that now I am starting to wonder if it's factual or an urban myth.

Please don't be offended. Instead, please, supply the source. A reliable one, if one such exists in the first place.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/18/the-wealthiest-10percent-of-americans-own-a-record-89percent-of-all-us-stocks.html

First search result.

And the rest of your post is just you not understanding what class is, but that's your problem not mine. — StreetlightX

Please supply a definition of "class", and name the classification system that determined the definition of different classes. You can't claim I'm ignorant if you can't name what your idea of classes are.

First search result. — StreetlightX

Thank you. It actually does not address two issues:
- the distribution of divident yielding shares
- the distribution of voting shares
and it does not contradict my involving shares in my classification system of socio-economic classes, where I said the ruling class lives on investment, the middle class mainly on work and less on investment, and the working class only on work.

So thanks for the statistic, and I appreciate its magnitude in social structure. Except it does not disprove any of my points or make a dent in them.

A social relation to the means of production: typically understood in terms of ownership, or control, or lack thereof.

Except it does not disprove any of my points or make a dent in them. — god must be atheist

You're welcome to do your own research.

A social relation to the means of production — StreetlightX

Why should I really abide by that defintion? Am I not at liberty to subscribe to any other classification of how people relate to wealth in society, and how their lot in life is determined by that?

I appreciate what you wrote. I am well (albeit not fully) versed in Marxist theory. What I am saying is that it's true Marx had a way of systematizing classes, but in the grand scheme of things I am at liberty to accept Marx's or anyone else's (including my own) systematizing of classes. So I resent your calling it ignorant of me to name a few more classes than what Marx had envisioned.

Because it is the one relevant to the OP.

Because it is the one relevant to the OP — StreetlightX

What if everyone were magically making enough income to be middle class.. all retail workers, factory workers, construction workers, agricultural workers, etc.. — schopenhauer1

There is no such thing as 'the middle class' — StreetlightX

Once you declared that the OP is irrelevant (since what it claims exists does not exist), no relevance could have been established.

Then you say your view is in relevance to the OP.

That is absurd.

If that is how you read that exchange then so be it.