CB: Empirically, I find lots of people who are low income and hustle a
> lot. They are working class, but have their own business, of a sort.
> They are part of the relative surplus population, that Marx refers to
> at ....
>
My mother, a cab driver, owns her own car. I imagine in some sense this makes her petit bourgeois, but without most of the negative associations ascribed to that position by Doug and others. (People in her line of work, for example, have a much greater interest in health care reform than others, and no obvious argument with unions or higher minimum wages.) I'm not strong on theory, but have the distinct impression that the left has no idea what to do about the point where the petit bourgeoisie and the underclass meet, while circumventing the classical proletariat.
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."