>This is muddled thinking, you are equating economic class with the
>trade or skills of an individual. It is impossible to determine
>whether a medical doctor, or a manager, is from the capitalist or
>working class without some additional information. It is not whether
>they have a certain trade or qualification, but whether they own
>capital, that makes the difference.
>
>Likewise, being "boss or bossed" is completely irrelevant. The
>capitalist may choose to get a job, as quite a few do, where they
>are subject to direction. They are still capitalists. On the other
>hand a poor unskilled worker may get a job as a prison guard.
>Doesn't make him or her a capitalist.
I'm not talking about an individual doctor, but doctors as a group - or more broadly, self-employed professionals as a class or subclass.
It's weird to hear that being a boss or being bossed is irreleveant to one's class position in society. A prison guard isn't a "boss" in the sense I was using it, even though s/he may get to shove around inmates. S/he has not influence over the productive labor of others. But in a society where the function of the capitalist has been socialized - execs, shareholders, and investment bankers all members of that socialized capitalist class, but individual capitalists are relatively rare - it's one of the easiest measures we've got of one's position in the hierarchy.
What kind of job would a "capitalist" (Rupert Murdoch? Robert Rubin? Martha Stewart? who?) "choose" (under what notion of compulsion and/or freedom is this "choice" made?) to get? Certainly not prison guard. CEO of a multinational? Vineyard owner in the Barossa Valley?
Doug