>Not if they live off the profits, no. But the sort of shopkeepers
>I'm referring to live off the value created by their own work. They
>may have no employer, but they will often have a landlord and a
>financial capitalist exploiting their labour.
>
>It all gets back to essence. You seem to be tripping over details,
>like the legal form of exploitation and lack of freedom.
>
>As for how they vote, that is so obviously irrelevant to their
>objective class that I need not bother addressing it.
Ah the false consciounsess defense. I'd always thought that how a group thinks and acts politically was pretty important to its definition, but maybe I've fallen too deeply under the corrupting influence of postmodernists.
Yes of course small shopkeepers have to contend with landlords, financiers, and big capitalists. They also have to contend with workers who may slack on the job while demanding higher pay, and with environmental, labor, and other regulations. They're stuck in the middle, which is why they've been called middle class or petit bourgeois. If your notion of essence is so essential that it obscures the difference betweeen a fry cook at McDonald's and someone who owns a small restaurant, then I'd say your notion of essence is useless.
Doug