At 10:21 AM -0400 17/10/05, ravi wrote:
> I know this comes up every now and then, but I still am not satisifed
> with any attempted answers. So, I ask: What is the working class? Does
> it include white collar workers? How about $150,000/month senior
> engineers? Is wealth an issue? A recent immigrant software engineer
> might make $80,000/year but (s)he may be building his/her life in the US
> from nothing, while a $40,000/year worker might have a family home and
> future inheritance (of parental savings) that could amount to say half a
> million or more.
> >>
> In an earlier thread, someone criticized my questions as "trial
> lawyer"ing or some such. I will try to preempt such dismissal, once
> again, by reinforcing that these are genuine questions, not rhetorical
> or sarcastic ones.
> >
I think it might help to take a step back. IMO class analysis does not start with a formal analysis. It starts with a recognition that there is a war going on. It may be a first person recognition . "The bastards are grinding me down". Or it may start as third person recognition by a someone with common decency and human sympathy. "The bastards are grinding those folks over there down". But it always starts with the confused recognition, amid smoke and fog that you are in a war, that there is oppression going on. Class analysis is attempt to move on from that simple recognition - to figure out who hell is trying to grind down whom.
There are other wars going on too - gender, race, disability, GLBT; like class war they always contain an element of trying to hide who is the screwer, and who the screwee . Figuring it out is always an important step.
So ,while precise perfect categories with no gray areas would be nice if you could get them, that degree of precision is not essential. You are looking for any light you can get in the fog so you can figure out who the hell is shooting at you or the people you are in sympathy with.