• marxismtomorrow@lemmy.today
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    12 hours ago

    The middle class doesn’t really exist in any meaningful way in the latest capitalist era. It originally meant the link between peasantry and Nobles in the late feudal period when the more aptly named Merchant class starting rising. This distinction was important at the time because unlike peasants the merchant class could generally own land and lived in relative luxury, but unlike nobles they couldn’t exercise any legal or military authority directly.

    The “modern” term started with a random fuckass UK statistician that had that same mindset, but called nobles and the incredibly wealthy “upper class” where as pretty much all business owners and managers were middle class because they controlled large amounts of ‘human capital’ just without any real legal or military authority.

    But really it’s all bourgeoisie, Either you work or you don’t. You produce or aid in the production of something, or you’re a ‘manager’ or ‘owner.’ There is no effective middle class in modern societies, because even if you do own a small business, the gap between you and the lowest paid worker in your society is minuscule compared to the gap between you and the real bourgeoisie; so you’re either bourgeoisie or a class traitor if you consider yourself middle class.

    That all is to justify: We should be focusing on eliminating the “middle class,” by total expansion of the working class to the standards of said middle class. The government should be empowering the poorest members of its society, its foundation, instead of worrying about a mythical and nonexistent middle class or showering the top with infinite money.