There was another comment talking about taking assets and while I agree rich people often don’t have wages, I think what is missing is looking at the fundamental power dynamic.
Wherever it means now, “working class” has been meant to describe people who fund their lives with employment income, in contrast to aristocracy or those who make money off their investments. I’m using investments in a super broad way here: stocks etc, landlords, business owners pay wages to employees, sole proprietors, etc. basically anyone who isn’t paid for their time in the service of an employer.
The income of the working class is controlled by those who profit from their labour. It’s not even that “society” values certain jobs over others, it’s that the people with the money have the capital and own the means of production and therefore get to decide how much they will pay people to work for them.
The simple examples that are used to illustrate the means of production aren’t really adequate anymore, but they are still part of it. Say you own a saw mill. You can hire people to operate and maintain it on an hourly basis, pay your expenses from the revenue and any extra becomes profit. You aren’t earning an income necessarily. Adding a few more modern twists: You can take loans against the saw mill, sell stocks in the saw mill to raise money, use those stocks as collateral against loans, use your connections to get preferred access to feedstock, lobby the government for subsidies or to regulate the industry to make competition harder, etc. A lot of that isn’t taxable, and it prevents others from successfully challenging established businesses if they formed a co-op for example. That’s why taxes or redistributing some assets wouldn’t solve the problem.
There was another comment talking about taking assets and while I agree rich people often don’t have wages, I think what is missing is looking at the fundamental power dynamic.
Wherever it means now, “working class” has been meant to describe people who fund their lives with employment income, in contrast to aristocracy or those who make money off their investments. I’m using investments in a super broad way here: stocks etc, landlords, business owners pay wages to employees, sole proprietors, etc. basically anyone who isn’t paid for their time in the service of an employer.
The income of the working class is controlled by those who profit from their labour. It’s not even that “society” values certain jobs over others, it’s that the people with the money have the capital and own the means of production and therefore get to decide how much they will pay people to work for them.
The simple examples that are used to illustrate the means of production aren’t really adequate anymore, but they are still part of it. Say you own a saw mill. You can hire people to operate and maintain it on an hourly basis, pay your expenses from the revenue and any extra becomes profit. You aren’t earning an income necessarily. Adding a few more modern twists: You can take loans against the saw mill, sell stocks in the saw mill to raise money, use those stocks as collateral against loans, use your connections to get preferred access to feedstock, lobby the government for subsidies or to regulate the industry to make competition harder, etc. A lot of that isn’t taxable, and it prevents others from successfully challenging established businesses if they formed a co-op for example. That’s why taxes or redistributing some assets wouldn’t solve the problem.