Tahir Wood wrote:
>I told you that I thought the class was made of those individuals whose alienated labour brings capital into being. This captures the relational aspect of capital and class and avoids the problem of definition where a class is simply a container in which you put all those who seem to share some feature in common. You professed not to understand this definition, and given your naive remarks about value (putting it mildly) below, I now understand why.
I profess my astonishment that you call it a definition. It merely begs the question of how do you determine which individuals' "alienated labour brings capital into being". It is a puzzle, not a definition and a cryptic puzzle at that.
What does bringing capital into being mean anyhow? Does it just mean being directly profitable to one's employer? Would a public servant or other worker in a non-profit sector qualify as working class by this "definition"? I can't tell, I don't get the impression you would see that as a fault though. An objective definition might be a nuisance to you, rather than a help.
Tahir: It expresses the relation between work and capital, which your definition doesn't. There is nothing specific about capitalism in your definition, therefore it is ahistorical. To say that someone must work for a living could refer to a medieval serf. The fact is that work in capitalism is not just work for a living, it is work to provide surplus value and hence to create capital. Bill you don't know squat about marxism and your 'definition' shows it. You're also a backward national chauvinist. Enough already. Tahir