On Nov 21, 2009, at 11:57 AM, Eric Beck wrote:
> I should probably reread the Agamben, but I think he's using a
> different definition of petty bourgeoisie, or looking at class in a
> different way, one that's not reducible to income or wealth. My guess
> is that he's following Foucault here in thinking that neoliberalism
> changes the form and function of the wage laboring, makes it something
> more akin to an enterprise. In other words, rather than being just
> workers we are business owners and managers, owners of ourselves and
> our individual enterprises. That turns us into petty bourgeoisie,
> since in addition to being concerned with reproducing our labor
> capacity we also now concern ourselves with risk analysis,
> cost-benefit calculation, the assessment of credit and debt, etc.
Well, yeah, but that doesn't make workers p.b. To some degree, this kind of analysis swallows whole the bourgeois propaganda that equates the economic risks of being working class with those of being entrepreneurs - e.g. Bush's ownership society. (Even a medieval peasant growing potatoes had to do some cost-benefit calculation.) Only about half of American workers have a retirement plan of any kind, and fewer than a fifth have 401(k)'s. For most working people, their daily experience is still about going to a job that they're afraid they might lose, doing what the boss says, and sucking in any complaints. And for the new proletarians in Asia, LatAm, EE - that's pretty much all their experience.
Doug