<HTML>In a message dated 8/11/2002 5:54:24 PM Eastern Standard Time, dhenwood@panix.com writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">>There are three >classes in the U.S. > >Capitalists >Workers >Petty Producers > >The term "middle class" is an infallible giveaway of moralistic or >otherwise muddled political thinking. Feeling rather ex cathedra today, are you? So where in your schema do you fit self-employed professionals (e.g., doctors in private practice, who are now plagued by HMOs, but who still don't want to be socialized) or middle managers (who both boss and are bossed, and can vacillate between identifying as worker or exec)? Some people *are* in the middle in the power sense (and not merely the income sense).</BLOCKQUOTE> All of these folks have control over a means of production, whether the commodity is a "good" or a "service". The all have relations with private property whereby capital is produced *for* them and not someone else. The degree may be different but the essential relation is the same. That is why I prefer the term "petty [or petit] bourgeois". These folks will generally always "side" with the interests of capital. Best, David</HTML>