rc-am wrote:
> I think it's neither possible nor politically helpful to
> define the working class as those who at any given moment are in paid
> work. the labour market simply does not operate like this.)
I think the unemployed have always been considered part of the working class. There have indeed been stupidities on this issue: e.g., Gramsci (pre-prison) argued that the wives of workers were petty bourgeois because they worked in isolation. The more traditional definition is not all those who are working but all those who have nothing to sell but their own labor power. A capitalist who can't sell his product does not for that reason cease to be a capitalist; a worker who does not or cannot sell her labor power does not for that reason cease to be a worker. Children, retired people, the disabled, etc. are also are part of the class.
Carrol