I finally got around to reading a little bit of Murray Bookchin

[Ares Land]

The problem with the American usage of "middle class" is that then you get an artificial separation between working people on the basis of that either they have a college degree* or their parents have college degrees* or they're married to someone with a college degree*, with little being actually said about the position and interests of the people in question.

This results in things such as educated people such as software engineers that have to sell their labor to survive being "middle class" while paradoxically tradespeople who own their own businesses and employ others may very well be "working class", even though the interests of the former (401k's aside) are aligned with the working class** while the interests of the latter are aligned with the petit-bourgeoisie.

* 4-year implied
** in the socialist sense of the term

I didn't know about the British usage of 'middle class'. I guess I learned something

In the older, pre-semantic drift sense, I think it's a useful notion -- in a developped country, you can expect most of the population to be reasonably comfortable without being rich. This has political circumstances; people get more conservative, or at least less radical as they get wealthier.

The 'petite bourgeoisie' is a difficult concept. It's not clear what various leftists theories suggest to do with them -- I suppose they hope they'll go away eventually? They're traditonally despised yet they handle important jobs. We can't do without tradespeople.
I'm afraid, btw., that many people would group software engineers (given they have relatively high income and hence ability to acquire capital) with the petite bourgeoisie.

I agree about your point about artificial distinctions. As I think I said earlier, you'll see conservatives carefully define the 'working class' so that it's mostly comprised of their voters. But the proper answer to that is to get rid of the outmoded terminology.
I don't see that, by the way, there's such a gap in practice between tradespeople and engineers.

[Travis B.]

What I'd do with the petite bourgeoisie is have each and every of their businesses be made worker-owned and self-managed while otherwise leaving them in place as workers at such businesses. The main thing that would change is that they would be made equal with the people that were formerly under them, with them having an equal share in the ownership and decision-making.

[alice]

There exists no better illustration of class in Britain than the immortal "I know my place" sketch with John Cleese and The Two Ronnies.

[Nortaneous]

The problem with the American usage of "middle class" is that then you get an artificial separation between working people on the basis of that either they have a college degree* or their parents have college degrees* or they're married to someone with a college degree*, with little being actually said about the position and interests of the people in question.

What? That's silly. That's the discourse talking. That's something people say when they're trying to play funny business with polls. The middle class is when you work and you own stuff, simple as. Or not so simple, now that we call the thing rich people do "work", or now that we have managers who aren't rich, however you want to slice it. Maybe you could say that, if you can't retire, you aren't middle-class, and if you can't retire early, you aren't upper-middle -- so middle-class is when you have to work but someday you can stop working and just own stuff. Not bad!

[rotting bones]

I think the unified middle class is a figment of the human imagination. Back in the day, it was business owners. Nowadays, it could mean:

People with generational wealth.

Employees who get paid a lot.

Small business owners.

...

All of these are wildly different economic categories in terms of business dynamics.

Regarding fascism, the important category is the small business owner. Most small businesses go bankrupt all the time. When their owners don't understand capitalism, they invent all kinds of conspiracy theories to explain why their best is not good enough. These theories are fascist because the small business owners don't usually take a stand against capitalism, since they are technically capitalists themselves.

Note that I said "usually". Every prominent Communist I've known has been a small business owner. By "prominent", I mean people who keep the wheels of Communist movements turning. I don't think Marxist theorists, influencers, socialites, gas station attendants and the like are sufficient by themselves.

My proposal doesn't have to care about small business owners. Capitalism only has power when the market is the primary mode of distribution.

[Raphael]

I think the unified middle class is a figment of the human imagination. Back in the day, it was business owners. Nowadays, it could mean:

People with generational wealth.

Employees who get paid a lot.

Small business owners.

...

All of these are wildly different economic categories in terms of business dynamics.

For once, I mostly agree with something you post. (The disagreement is that I'd count people with seriously substantial wealth, inherited or not, as upper class.)

[rotting bones]

For once, I mostly agree with something you post.

What gets me is that people don't properly explain why they disagree with me. I mean they don't change their minds once their assumptions are disproved. Some people (not on this forum) have even said they feel like all my opinions come from LLMs. When I showed them the original scholarship, they were temporarily mollified. Later, they again accused me of being an echoborg. They had forgotten how the previous conversation had ended. If facts that are not commonly known look like LLM hallucinations to humans, we're in big trouble.

(The disagreement is that I'd count people with seriously substantial wealth, inherited or not, as upper class.)

Like I said, you're arguing semantics. What difference does it make which term you apply? You can switch out any name with "x" and the result will be the same in how economic processes play out.

[Raphael]

Like I said, you're arguing semantics. What difference does it make which term you apply? You can switch out any name with "x" and the result will be the same in how economic processes play out.

Again, I agree. The disagreement I noted here is mainly a small quibble.

[Ares Land]

All of these are wildly different economic categories in terms of business dynamics.

Regarding fascism, the important category is the small business owner. Most small businesses go bankrupt all the time. When their owners don't understand capitalism, they invent all kinds of conspiracy theories to explain why their best is not good enough. These theories are fascist because the small business owners don't usually take a stand against capitalism, since they are technically capitalists themselves.

Yes, it's a good point. It's not just small business owners, but fascism often seems to start there.

My proposal doesn't have to care about small business owners. Capitalism only has power when the market is the primary mode of distribution.

But maybe it should care. Small businesses serve important economic functions -- local distribution, tradespeople, and so on. I think planned economy schemes tend to ignore these.