Bill Bartlett wrote:
> Why aren't you satisfied with the previous answers? To simply ask the
> questions again, implicitly dismissing the answers already given, is
> indeed a rhetorical device.
I don't think ravi is being disingenuous. Part of the crux of organizing has to do with figuring out how to represent class divisions in political discourse.
> All that matters is whether a person needs to work for a living or can
> live from the work of others. Except for the disabled, unemployed etc
> (who must qualify for an exemption) the working class need to work.
> The ruling capitalist class need not work and need no exemption.
Well, yes, if you take "class" as an economic category, the above is formally true. But "class" is a political as well as an economic category, and the political profile is much murkier than the economic one.
Politically, the working class is divided both from the middle class and the upper class in a variety of ways
-- lack of education -- lack of economic cushion -- lack of political organization -- manual, not brain workers
I'm painting with a broad stroke here, but most people would cite those elements in distinguishing the working class from the middle class. That is to say, both "working class" and "middle class" are "working class" economically, but not politically.
It is that difference between the political and economic context that makes political organizing extremely difficult until there is an economic crises which dissolves the privileges of the "middle class."
Joanna