[lbo-talk] "Capitalists" and "the rich"

[Marvin Gandall]

Wojtek writes:

> <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> 1. a person who has private ownership of sufficient
>> productive assets so that he does not have to sell
>> his
>> own labor (power) (i.e., ability to work) to live
>> and
>> who instead employs others who work for wages to
>> make
>> goods or services that are sold at market;
>>
>
> [WS:] By that definition, corporate executives are not
> "capitalists" whereas owners of a mom-and-pop candy
> stores are.  That is not very useful for understanding
> power relations in the US society.

[...]

> I suggest a different definition, one that substitutes
> ownership by effective control of productive assets to
> the degree that such control affects the functioning
> of social, economic and political institutions...
============================
I'm more with Andie on this one, although I think Wojtek raises interesting
questions.

Marx's typology still holds up well, IMO; those who own the means of
production, distribution, and exchange and do not sell their labour power to
earn a living are, strictly speaking, "capitalists".

Small producers like farmers and small distributors like corner grocers are
simply small capitalists.

I don't have much problem identifying them as "petty bourgeois" since I
don't believe that ownership in itself confers power. But, then again,
neither did Marx. He viewed this intermediate social layer as a declining
one, being squeezed out historically as capitalist development polarized
society into two contending  classes - consolidating big capitalists, and
the wage-earning class, whose power was potential rather than actual.

Today, there are many fewer small farmers and grocers and self-employed
professionals in the developed capitalist countries, as Marx forecast,
although some feel they have been replaced by a new and rapidly growing
"petty bourgeoisie", mainly located in the vast bureaucracies of modern
private and public corporations.

I agree the the class positions of supervisory, professional, and
administrative employees has become blurred - their conditions are far
different than those of the 19th century industrial proletariat - but they
are still employees for all that, the "new working class." They're not
exempted because their standard of living has become quite the opposite of
what Marx anticipated, although that has certainly prevented them from
developing the consciousness and behaviour of a "class-for-itself".

Wojtek's definition of "effective control" (usually over hiring and firing)
is often used as a criterion to exclude supervisors from the main body of
workers organized in trade unions, but in most advanced capitalist
countries, with the typical exception of the US, they are still allowed to
form their own unions and to bargain on their own. They are hardly
distinguishable from other workers in terms of their wage dependency,
status, culture, and living conditions.

The class position of the higher-paid administrators and professionals is
yet more difficult to identify. However, I can't agree with Wojtek's
proposition that if you occupy a position to "the degree that such control
affects the functioning of social, economic and political institutions" that
you by definition a member of the ruling class. The state and other
corporate boards of management are instruments of ruling class control; they
serve the ruling class, but are not always part of it. Labour and social
democratic parties, for example, have governed on behalf of capital even
though they have originated in, and for the most part, are still based in
the working class.

As to the individuals who occupy these higher-level corporate or government
offices, my view is that their class position is, again, based on how they
primarily earn their income. Most, as we know, live an affluent lifestyle
derived from a mix of salary and other income from profits, interest or
rent. I would say, if it is the latter which determines their living
standards and their salaries and bonuses are supplementary, they're part of
the capitalist ruling class. If they're still dependent on their salaries to
maintain their living standards, however, I would be hesitate to include
them. They could better be described as the most lordly of the "labour
aristocracy".

Class location, of course, is of more than academic interest. I think it's
still true, even in this period of limited social strife and class
consciousness, that how individuals earn their living is a key determinant
of how they behave politically. Those who are dependent on wages and
benefits to maintain their living standards will typically support liberal
parties whose tax, spending, and other legislative policies strengthen their
capacity to secure them. Those whose income derives from profits or the
ownership of other assets typically favour conservative parties which for
lower taxation, less spending on social programs, and more stringent control
over the poor, the powerless, and dissenters.

This division is admittedly less clear in the US, where a larger share of
the working class votes against its economic class interests because of the
social and national prejudices which tend to be prevalent in the population
of large empires. But even here, I think it's clear that the mass of urban
workers - blue collar, service, technical, administrative, and
professional - supports the Democrat party, and that the Republican base is
located more in rural states and rural counties where the social weight of
small propertyholders is greater.