Working Class

[Carrol Cox]

"Class" is first of all _not_ a moral judgement, and class analysis
makes no concrete predictions as to who will resist capital and who
won't. The assumption that it will exhibits the heart of dogmatism
(whether marxist or anarchist or what have you) -- the premise that
there is a direct relationship between fundamental theory and practice.
That is as silly as to think studying quantum mechanics can tell you
what temperature the oven should be to produce corn bread.

Class analysis is, first of all and directly, aimed at understanding the
dynamic of capitalism, and secondly to determine what are the long-term
objective interests of the various classes. (Only practice will reveal
the extent to which any given fraction of the working class will become
politically active.)

It is true (but really trivial) that some "salaries" are in fact not the
price of labor power but a share of surplus value.Other salaries might
best be characterized as simply freaky and not worth classifying. But a
dependence on salary as an index to class can lead to grave
misconceptions, _not_ so much of the people involved as of the structure
and dynamic of the society. Software engineers earning 200K are working
class, that says nothing  about them personally. It says something about
how contemporary capitalism works. One 100K analyst (whose household
income is probably well over 200k) did pay my way to the A20
demonstration. In fact it was at her suggestion that I even decided to
go.

Incidentally, there are some poverty-stricken individuals who are
non-workers: they are petty producers, running (say) a small janitorial
service and making (clear) say 20k a year, and they are in the same
class as an independent physician making 300k a year.

Money, personal politics, life style simply are of no help in
understanding the dynamics of the society.

Carrol