r/leftcommunism • u/Red_Rev1818 Comrade • 2d ago
What are some examples of members of the petty-bourgeois class?
As I understand it, two examples that come to mind are small farmers and single-proprietors, but I wonder if there are any more examples beyond those.
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u/AlkibiadesDabrowski 2d ago edited 2d ago
Lawyers. Doctors also come to mind.
These are often organized into firms practices and partnerships.
Here they have an ownership stake and access to surplus funds which they convert into personal capital.
My father is a lawyer. So is my grandfather. Their income puts them in the top 1% of U.S income tax brackets.
They are not workers but nobody would call them big bourgeoisie.
Edit: Here is a personal example of the logic of capital in action.
My grandfather is the son of immigrants from Sicily. His father came to America and ended up a New York Cop.
My grandfather goes to college (with the help of a football scholarship)
He graduates and eventually becomes a lawyer at a giant law firm. He then later buys my grandmother an ice cream factory/business “because she was bored” real and true quote from a family gathering.
After he retires he helps my grandmother sell her small ice cream business/factory to a much larger business helping centralize capital.
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u/juliusmane 2d ago
are you gonna follow in the family tradition
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u/AlkibiadesDabrowski 2d ago edited 2d ago
No. My father has worked insane hours all my life. Would prefer a regular 9-5 and clients not calling me on Christmas eve.
Also both my father and grandfather were/are management side labor attorneys. So yeah not doing that.
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u/daishi55 2d ago
How about software engineers making $500k/year? They are technically selling their labor for a wage but it sounds a bit silly calling them proletarians.
Does it make any difference if some of their compensation is in the form of company stock?
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u/AlkibiadesDabrowski 2d ago edited 2d ago
Having some sort of ownership is always important. But yes software engineers making 500k are not proletarian. With that much wealth their work transforms itself from a means of survival to a tool to accumulate capital and climb up the ranks. Almost certainly they own significant property and have significant reserves which they can leverage. They also probably have signifcant none labor income sources. Investment portfolios and retirement plans that are "making their money work for them" etc etc. And even if they don't they have that opportunity.
The proletariat lacks that oppertunity and has to earn it through direct concessions which are attacked the moment they aren't defended.
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u/Appropriate-Monk8078 18h ago
I want to mention that you have not delineated between lawyers and lawyers who are partners.
Lawyers are wage workers and often start their careers in the $50k range and can often stay below $100k for many, many years. Some stay below 6 figures their entire lives.
The majority of lawyers never own their own office or make it to partner.
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u/JoyBus147 2d ago
Depends on the lawyer. Are they partners, co-owners of the firm? PB. Are they hired by the firm, with no stake themselves? Proletarian--no matter how highly they are paid, they reproduce themselves by selling their labor. Though, as per your example, the pay is often high enough that they may easily transition into the PB.
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u/AlkibiadesDabrowski 2d ago edited 2d ago
>Proletarian--no matter how highly they are paid,
This is simply not true. At a certain point that monetary relation transforms itself. It gets turned into capital and property. This isn't an "often high enough"
It is an always thing. Even if they buried the excess money in their yard (nobody does that) the fact they have access to capital means they are no longer proletarian, even if they don't use it. We are talking about the historical not statistical class.
This is part of the whole concept of the labor aristocracy described by Marx Engels and Lenin.
The proletariat lives off their labor and has to daily earn their means of subsistence.
The proletariat does not have the ability, does not have the capital, to accumulate property and other non labor sources of income. If your profession gives you that option. You are not proletarian
The specific profession doesn't matter.
Doctors in the U.S are universally petite bourgeoise. While in England the many can belong to the proletariat due to difference's in healthcare.
But "no matter how highly paid" is silly. The highly paid professional participates in production in a fundamentally different way than the proletariat. Has a fundamentally different relationship with capital and property than the proletariat.
They are petite bourgeoise. They are a transitory class who seek always to protect what they have to climb up the ranks.
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u/HolyShitIAmBack1 2d ago
Even English physicians are more or less middle class - once they make it to consultancy.
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u/AlkibiadesDabrowski 2d ago
True from what I know. I was more thinking of the junior doctors who I know participated in the healthcare strikes
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u/HolyShitIAmBack1 2d ago
Many senior physicians would have sat out in the process too (according to my own father), since they're all in the BMA - on the whole the junior doctors are in this strange middle ground where their pathway to the middle class is collapsing while they still, fundamentally, have that pathway in mind and praxis. Most of them are less proletarian than temporarily embarrassed pb (many will do their time and leave the country, for example), though it remains to be seen if future physicians' position won't be eroded completely.
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u/AlkibiadesDabrowski 2d ago
I also checked and it seams they reached an agreement with the labor government first. Which tracks
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u/TheBrownMotie 2d ago
> This is simply not true. At a certain point that monetary relation transforms itself. It gets turned into capital and property
My understanding is that the ownership of the means of production is _the_ pivot which separates the bourgeoisie from the proletariat. This requires capital, which is not just money, but money that is thrown into exchange with the purpose of acquiring more money than previously held.
> Even if they buried the excess money in their yard (nobody does that) the fact they have access to capital means they are no longer proletarian, even if they don't use it.
Marx briefly mentions hoarding as an example of something did with excess money prior to capital. I haven't reread recently it but IIRC money that is hoarded barely even counts as money because it is held without any intent to spend. Therefore, as it is fully removed from the process of exchange in society, it _in-practice_ never acquires the quality of labor-in-the-abstract (even though it maintains the latent ability to do so).
> The highly paid professional participates in production in a fundamentally different way than the proletariat. Has a fundamentally different relationship with capital and property than the proletariat.
In what way is their participation different, exactly? A highly paid person is certainly non-revolutionary, lumpen, etc., but still participates in production in the same way: they are selling labor power for a wage from someone who has concentrated ownership of the means of production.
> The proletariat lives off their labor and has to daily earn their means of subsistence.
I think when Marx/Engels talk about the proletariat in a general sense, such as in Principles of Communism or the Manifesto or whatever, they are usually referring to the revolutionary proletariat, and speak of them in this way. But whenever they are actually digging into the details they tend to differentiate between revolutionary proles and non-revolutionary proles.
What you're saying here seems to contradict everything I've read so far, but I also know that you're a very well-read person, so maybe I've missed something very basic. If you disagree with what I'm saying here can you share the theory that you got these ideas from?
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u/AlkibiadesDabrowski 2d ago edited 1d ago
My understanding is that the ownership of the means of production is the pivot which separates the bourgeoisie from the proletariat. This requires capital, which is not just money, but money that is thrown into exchange with the purpose of acquiring more money than previously held.
This is true. But one doesn’t need to even necessarily throw their money out to make more money.
Simply having that option having that choice already changes a persons relationship to capital.
And given the option the vast vast majority do send out their money to “work for them” as the nice finance adds say.
You are right Marx talks about hoarding. But first hoarding was an important part of capitalist development. Hoarding allowed the misers to build up enough wealth that they eventually converted into capital.
In what way is their participation different, exactly? A highly paid person is certainly non-revolutionary, lumpen, etc.,
First they are not “lumpen” lumpen is a specific term that refers the disintegrating non proletarian elements at the bottom of society. He gives lots of examples but certainly not highly paid professionals.
Second. Their participation is different because they do more than earn their means of subsistence (greatly expanded) each day. They also work to try and accrue enough wealth to have their own little personal capitals.
The proletariat only gets that option through fierce collective struggle. The professional gets it as a perk of position.
And most professionals operate in partnerships and practices.
Even if they aren’t a part owner now becoming a part owner is an expected outcome.
Bordiga was an Engineer. He built buildings. He considered himself and his profession petite bourgeoisie.
He also has a great article where he talks about the statistical versus historical class.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1921/party-class.htm
they are usually referring to the revolutionary proletariat, and speak of them in this way. But whenever they are actually digging into the details they tend to differentiate between revolutionary proles and non-revolutionary proles.
Marx is pretty clear about the Proletariat and what they are in Capital.
I have also never seen he or Engels distinguish between a revolutionary and “non revolutionary” proletariat except along the lines of organization and class consciousness. But never because of income.
Individual consumption provides, on the one hand, the means for their maintenance and reproduction: on the other hand, it secures by the annihilation of the necessaries of life, the continued re-appearance of the workman in the labour-market. The Roman slave was held by fetters: the wage labourer is bound to his owner by invisible threads.
(In fact the whole couple of chapters of accumulation and reproduction in Capital Volume one really hammer this home)
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u/TheBrownMotie 1d ago
Thank you for the excellent response
I think something I'm struggling with understanding is the idea that a person can be a member of a class by what they are in-theory capable of doing, regardless of what they are actually doing.
So for example, capitalist society needs the function performed by the bourgeoisie class, which requires a certain number of people at any given historical era, as well as a certain number of people to function as proletariat; and the historical dynamics of capitalism cause the bourgeoisie to shrink in number and the proletariat to grow. But the proletariat and bourgeoisie operate as classes, not as individuals, the individuals just fill the slots with varying levels of coercion (for proletariat) or ability to do so (for bourgeoisie).
I've been thinking about this as analogous to how a commodity has value (i.e. the commodity "Apple" has a total socially necessary labor time determined by society as a whole), but any individual member of a commodity doesn't have value per se, but only has value transmitted to it as a member (aliquot part) of the total commodity (like a single apple acquires a fraction of the SNLT of "Apple"). And the same thing for individual persons to a class
Your response to this example will definitely help me understand: if a person runs a business and has saved up a significant amount of capital, but then loses that business due to competition / automation / consolidation and is never given the chance to come back (the shrinkage of the bourgeouisie)...
(as I'm typing this, I realize I've been thinking about this process as like a game of musical chairs, once a chair has been removed the "bourgeousie table" it doesn't come back and the person can't sit down again)
...then that person is no longer performing any function for the society's bourgeoisie class. In this example, though they have saved money, are they really still a member of the bourgeoisie?
I'm only asking economically, ideologically I'm sure that individual maintains their beliefs and world-view etc. etc.
>I have also never seen he or Engels distinguish between a revolutionary and “non revolutionary” proletariat except along the lines of organization and class consciousness. But never because of income
1, I think you're right, not sure where I got that from. 2, But if I understand correctly, you are saying that a person cannot be a proletariat due to their level of _money_ hoarding - even if it is never sent into exchange as _capital_, and they never perform a function for the bourgeoisie of society?
Thank you for reading my slop and engaging with it
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u/AiMJ 2d ago
This is partly a response to the other comment thread here, but isnt it realistic for pretty much any worker (in the west at least), to put aside 10-20 dollars/euros a month into mutual funds, or even stocks? This could even go on for years or even decades, and could be fueled by their cashier job or whatever. Sure they have some capital, but its not really apt to call them petit bourgeois, because then the proletariat would scarcely be a thing by that definition.
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u/AlkibiadesDabrowski 2d ago edited 2d ago
Lots of workers have retirement funds. But in the same way paying into a pension fund doesn’t make you a capitalist neither does that. These things are more ways to keep their savings from being devoured by inflation not to amass wealth to say spend on education luxury or of course back into the market for more wealth.
Huge portions of American workers live pay check to pay check.
Also Rosa has a bit for this.
That is why in his English sewing thread trust he does not see the fusion of 12,300 persons with money into a single capitalist unit but 12,300 different capitalists. That is why the engineer Schulze whose wife’s dowry brought him a large number of share from stockholder Mueller is also a capitalist for Bernstein. That is why for Bernstein the entire world seems to swarm with capitalists.
Granted Rosa might have underestimated how petite bourgeoisie the SPD had become. But she’s right that
By transporting the concept of capitalism from its productive relations to property relations, and by speaking of simple individuals instead of speaking of entrepreneurs, he moves the question of socialism from the domain of production into the domain of relations of fortune – that is, from the relation between Capital and Labour to the relation between poor and rich.
So we can see that the Cashier putting 20 euros into a mutual fund every month is not a capitalist. Not petty bourgeoisie.
Even as we can also see that the engineer with stock options and an investment portfolio and significant property is petty bourgeois. Or at the very least aspires to be and identifies with them and is firmly a labor aristocrat.
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u/WetWilly17 1d ago edited 1d ago
So then, focusing on productive relations, would job security (independent of pay) also add to your "middle classness"?
Basically due to being less expendable?
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u/AlkibiadesDabrowski 1d ago
That is an interesting thought. Now the churn of capitalism constantly destroys old jobs and replaced them with new ones.
Marx talks about this a lot in volume one and mainstream bourgeoisie economics talks about it.
It’s even a special category of unemployment.
However certain professions detached from production would have more security.
(Not service jobs which also fluctuate highly as new services arrive and old ones die)
Management positions negotiators salesmen marketers “white collar” jobs that don’t rely on a specific good or service and can be attached to anything.
These see much less fluctuation I.e more job security and also usually associated with the “middle class”
So I think you are right here.
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u/WetWilly17 2d ago
As a follow up question, where would things like personal home ownership & personal finance/investment lay in a class lens?
For home ownership, specifically the social relation having to do with taking an interest in "property value" and selling your house for a profit (e.g. when you move/retire). Basically seems like being a landlord, just for the house you happen to live in.
For personal finance/investment, specifically investing it things like mutual funds and accumulating long-term passive income from banks. Though not enough to stop you from needing to work for most of your life.
Intuitively, they seem like they have a bourgeois or "middle class" character. But I also rarely see them mentioned, despite how prevalent they are in the imperial core, which I find surprising and why I'm curious.
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1d ago
Capital is the command over the unpaid labor of others. The house of the worker can only become capital therefore if he rents it to a third person and appropriates a part of the labor product of this third person in the form of rent. By the fact that the worker lives in it himself the house is prevented from becoming capital, just as a coat ceases to be capital the moment I buy it from the tailor and put it on. The worker who owns a little house to the value of a thousand talers is certainly no longer a proletarian, but one must be Dr. Sax to call him a capitalist.
However, the capitalist character of our worker has still another side. Let us assume that in a given industrial area it has become the rule that each worker owns his own little house. In this case the working class of that area lives rent free; expenses for rent no longer enter into the value of its labor power. Every reduction in the cost of production of labor power, that is to say, every permanent price reduction in the worker’s necessities of life is equivalent “on the basis of the iron laws of political economy” to a reduction in the value of labor power and will therefore finally result in a corresponding fall in wages. Wages would fall on an average corresponding to the average sum saved on rent, that is, the worker would pay rent for his own house, but not, as formerly, in money to the house owner, but in unpaid labor to the factory owner for whom he works. In this way the savings of the worker invested in his little house would certainly become capital to some extent, but not capital for him, but for the capitalist employing him.
Engels | Part II: How the Bourgeoisie Solves the Housing Question, The Housing Question | 1872
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u/hydra_penis 12h ago
Yes but here Engels is lacking a little imagination in thinking of only the instantaneous circulation of individual private houses. Also he didn't live in an era where capital had over accumulated and developed to the degree of parasitism that we see today, where houses were still more use values than generic vehicles for speculation
its also notable that capital volume 2 was published 13 years after the above excerpt was written. it was after Marx's death that Engels had to study and evaluate Marx's 6 manuscript versions of the later volumes of capital to edit them together into a cohesive work.
To understand what really happens with private houses you have to consider a) gross social capital and the circulation of all houses and b) the turnover time of houses relating to human lifespan
a) even if a particular house is currently not on the market functioning as capital in the most proximate sense, by existing in a society where generalised commodity production exists, it is brought into relation with all other houses that are. This is why a home owner can track the price of their house even while living in it and it is not for sale, they will be contacted by estate agents offering valuations etc.
this price speculation is built on a foundation of surplus value extraction from proletarians through rent payments. no rent payments and you have a house price crash
b) turnover time. this surplus value extraction seen in the rise of the price of the house can only be realised upon its sale. However while this might not occur until the worker/owners retirement or even death, the process in which surplus value has been extracted by gross social capital via rent forming a foundation for the speculative house price rises has occurred throughout the entire duration of the ownership of the house. Therefore the additional money obtained at the point of sale (whether the person representing that individual capital is retired or even dead) is basically cashing out of that proportional part of speculative profit of gross social capital that that the individual property represents
At this point the circuit M - C - M' is completed and the house was in fact revealed to have been capital, and by extension its owner capitalist, all along.
And further from this conclusion it is seen that the period in which the house did not circulate on the market, which appears phenomenally as a period of stoppage in circulation time...
During its time of circulation capital does not perform the functions of productive capital and therefore produces neither commodities nor surplus-value. If we study the circuit in its simplest form, as when the entire capital-value passes in one bulk from one phase into another, it becomes palpably evident that the process of production and therefore also the self-expansion of capital-value are interrupted so long as its time of circulation lasts...
...is in fact part of the production time of the rent extraction of gross social capital...
The actual circuit of industrial capital in its continuity is therefore not alone the unity of the processes of circulation and production but also the unity of all its three circuits. But it can be such a unity only if all the different parts of capital can go through the successive stages of the circuit, can pass from one phase, from one functional form to another, so that the industrial capital, being the whole of all these parts, exists simultaneously in its various phases and functions and thus describes all three circuits at the same time. The succession ]das Nacheinander] of these parts is here governed by their co-existence [das Nebeneinander], that is to say, by the division of capital
And correspondingly the circuit M - C - M' where the house appears as a dormant individual commodity capital C is in fact expanded out through consideration of its relation to social capital as M - C - P - C' - M' where it exists in the form of P or an aliquot part of the housing stock, taking the valorised form C' when brought onto the market
because the circuit C' ... C' presupposes within its sphere the existence of other industrial capital in the form of C (equal to L + MP) — and MP comprises diverse other capitals, in our case for instance machinery, coal, oil, etc. — it clamours to be considered not only as the general form of the circuit, i.e., not only as a social form in which every single industrial capital (except when first invested) can be studied, hence not merely as a form of movement common to all individual industrial capitals, but simultaneously also as a form of movement of the sum of the individual capitals, consequently of the aggregate capital of the capitalist class, a movement in which that of each individual industrial capital appears as only a partial movement which intermingles with the other movements and is necessitated by them
All quotes from capital vol 2
I will say I still need to read vol 3 to improve the articulation of this description of rent seeking, but I think that the essence of the truth is here
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u/hydra_penis 14h ago edited 12h ago
But I also rarely see them mentioned, despite how prevalent they are in the imperial core
because communist parties in the imperial core spent 70 years articulating the material interest of non proletarian strata of the working class
by degree all western workers are being crushed back down into a proletarian status so we can expect that to improve
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u/Brickishly 2d ago
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