[lbo-talk] Re: more class!

[Turbulo at aol.com]

Nathan Newman wrote: 
> What Marx argued was that the nature of capitalism was encouraging a
> flattening of class distinctions, where the vast numbers of the population
> would increasingly make their income through wage labor, while a very small
> number would own enough capital to earn most of their income through returns
> on their wealth. This is an issue not of a continuum of status and income
> but of asking whether a person's income comes from working for other people
> or whether a person contols other peoples' labor. Class in this conception
> is a process effecting the whole economy, not a description of individual
> status

The NYT aside, I have two questions concerning a real class analysis of 
American society:

1) To what extent has big corporate capital become depersonalized? I know 
there are still many privately held firms in this country and that stock 
ownership is concentrated in the upper-income brackets. But isn't it also true that no 
individual or family owns enough stock in the really big corporations to 
exert a controling interest?

2) What percentage of the population lives either exclusively or primarily on 
the proceeds of capital? The most recent stats I've seen on this are from an 
article by Dumenil and Levy in the New Left Review of 30 Nov. They state that, 
even among the top 0.005% income bracket (6,836 households with an income of 
over $10 million) wages still account for 50.1% of income excluding capital 
gains, and 25.3% including capital gains. Are their wages really wages in the 
sense that ordinary people would give the term? 
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