Re: The Teixeira thesis

[Michael Hoover <hooverm@xxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx 03/05/04 3:14 PM >>>
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>Why classify workers into "working class" and "not working class"?
>You meant to say "classify people into 'working class' and 'not
>working class'"?

Even Michael Eisner is a worker, at least for a little while longer.
So are bond traders.
Doug
<<<<<>>>>>

oh brother...

i've become bit partial to michael zweig's analysis (even as i continue to dislike use of term 'middle class' as well as think he overstates its size)...   michael hoover

The Capitalist Class (2%)
The main power capitalists have is over the people who work for them. Based on this, and the money the business brings to the capitalist, power at work extends into power in the broader society.

People who own small businesses and work alongside the people they employ are more like middle class professionals and supervisors (see below) than like those who are fully capitalist. A capitalist is a person who is personally removed from the actual production process, but who controls it and sets the general strategic direction for the business * what and how to produce, how to invest and grow the company, and so on. Capitalists control the workforce indirectly, through at least one layer of middle management. The top executives and directors of companies employing more than twenty people are the capitalist class in the United States, about two million people, or about two percent of the private-sector labor force.

There is a lot of variation in power among capitalists. A company employing one hundred people will be important in a small town, less so in a big city. So power depends on the social context in which the business operates, not just the business itself. The part of the capitalist class with power on a national scale is a relatively small percent of all capitalists, around two hundred thousand people. Among these, a few tens of thousand form a web of interlocking directorships among the largest companies and so are in a position to exert power beyond even a single large company. This network of the most powerful people on a national scale is the "ruling class" within the capitalist class. 

The Middle Class (36%)
The middle class is in the middle of the capitalist class on the one side and the working class on the other. The middle class is composed of three broad sections: small business owners; professionals; and managerial and supervisory personnel. As different as the individuals in these occupations can be from one another in the work they do, the income they earn, and the cultural and social life they lead, they share a common position in the social power grid we all live in. In one way or another, middle class people have some of the authority and independence typical of capitalists, but also experience some of the powerlessness, instability, and capitalist discipline more common among working class people.

The Working Class (62%) 
Working class people have relatively little control over the pace and content of their work and they don't supervise other workers - they're not a boss. As with every social class, the working class is diverse. It includes skilled workers and unskilled, blue collar, white collar, and pink collar workers, those in services as well as manufacturing. The working class is women and men, white, black, Hispanic, people of all nationalities and religions. 

One way to count the working class is to count people in the different occupations that fit the definition. Based on U.S. Department of Labor reports, in 1996 sixty two percent of the labor force was in the working class. We need to distinguish occupations by the degree of authority and independence in them. For example, a sales worker cashier is in the working class, while a sales worker stock broker is in the middle class.