Re: [Marxism] Request for Information: US Middle Class

[brownh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Haines Brown)]

> I would consider petty-bourgeois and "middle class" to be the same
> thing, because I believe that people who have a common position in
> relation to property ownership have the same class interest
> regardless of income.

Jesse, I'm sorry, but I must quibble over your point here. The term
"bourgeois" in origin referred to those people living in towns
(burgos), who were free of servile exactions. What was implied was
that they possessed means of production from which they could live,
and in time the term bourgeois acquired an economic rather than
primarily legal meaning to refer to those who owned means of
production, whether actually productive property (the artisan and
merchant) or a licensed skill (doctors, lawyers, teachers).

With capitalism, the distinction between capitalist means of
production and petty production became more important, and so there
arose the distinction between the petite bourgeoisie and the big
bourgeoisie - the capitalists. Nevertheless, "bourgeoisie" still
implied a person who owned or possessed a way to make a living other
than from wages (being in control of production rather than merely a
factor of production).

With imperialism, in the UK and in the US for example, a significant
amount of wealth tricked down to give substance to a political
commonwealth needed for social stability, mass armies (and popular
nationalism). These beneficiaries might happen to own or possess means
of production (small business owners, professionals, and salariat) or
not (better paid industrial workers), and there emerged an associated
middle class "life style" or culture arising from imperialist
prosperity.

Important to note is that the category of "middle class" is based on
an empirical definition of class (relative income level, life style,
culture, etc.) Its members share a set of (arbitrary) empirical
characteristics. On the other hand, the traditional (Marxist and
bourgeois classical political economy) definition of class depended on
the class members sharing an abstract causal relation with means of
production. The former is a static definition of class; the latter
sees class as a process because it is defined in terms of a causal
relation.

In short, I'm suggesting that petite bourgeoisie and middle class
are by no means the same thing, although they often refer to the same
people. The difference is the kind of analysis we wish to make of
society. Although the term "middle class" is inevitably subjective and
un-scientific, it has its uses. For example, it is useful to know the
income distribution in a society in the construction of political
policy. On the other hand, defining class in abstract causal terms, as
a relation of production, offers (in the view of Marxists, anyway), a
basis for the scientific analysis of social and economic dynamics.

While I agree that class defined in terms of a relation of production
is basic in determining class interests, I would not be too hasty in
dismissing "middle-class" consciousness as irrelevant. In my
community, for example, city folk speak disparagingly of their friends
and relatives fleeing to the suburbs and adopting the values there as
"bourgie", while those in the suburbs likewise are disparagingly
dismiss city folks as having "ghetto" values. I suspect that
there is a reactionary "middle-class" ideology that in the last
century has served capitalism very well by obscuring the notion of
class based on a relation of production and undercuting working-class
solidarity. It therefore cannot be marginalized.

--

       Haines Brown
         KB1GRM
         ET1(SS) U.S.S. Irex 482

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