raging against "managers" is an infantile anarchist or ultraleft program, isn't that Dilbert's whole thing? Managers are fine, it is capitalism that ruins the natural and normal human ecology of business administration.
Communists want to do business, but the mediator class literally spends their time means testing and putting obstacles in the way of workers getting power. Wage theft can open happen in the dark, don't let the woke utopian reformers hide the truth with their attempts to reconcile the contradictions of class society
Part of this is I think that the left definitely overuses the PMC term. We often use it to describe some middle manager, university professor, or skilled professional who is still selling their labor in order to live - and the best term for these people in my understanding is "labor aristocracy". Personally I like to reserve "PMC" for the enforcers of capital - the CEOs and c-suite executives who make hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars every year. They are still selling their labor, too; but they are directly responsible for enacting the will of capital.
I really do like your point about manager/worker relations. Like even under socialism, we still need some organizational structure in enterprises. The difference is, under socialism a manager really does serve the greater good. When you remove a manager's ability to hold someone's livelihood over their head, act like an abusive jerk, or earn significantly more than those who report to them, the entire dynamic changes.
In the soviet union management were often paid less than the people working for them
And throughout the eastern bloc, workers could potentially have a manager fired if they were incompetent or corrupt (with corruption often leading to criminal charges). Workplace democracy ftw.
“labor aristocracy”
I mean I think we maybe overuse that term too.
Yes. Though I wish there was a good term for a class of people who sell their labor to capital but overall are comfortable and are beneficiaries of the current system to the degree that a change over to socialism could potentially be a hit to their material conditions, either in real terms or simply in their own perceptions.
a class of people who sell their labor to capital but overall are comfortable and are beneficiaries of the current system to the degree that a change over to socialism could potentially be a hit to their material conditions, either in real terms or simply in their own perceptions.
I mean, the term for that is labor aristocrat, issue is some people here seem to think a UPS driver who can afford an XBox and has a dish washer in his apartment is a labor aristocrat that will need to be sent to the coal mines after the revolution for reeducation.
I've seen people argue that all settlers are labor aristocrats at minimum lol
I mean I think that referring to divided "Professsional and Managerial" classes helps things along. Professional isn't quite sufficient cause it alludes to the type of labor being performed rather than the relationship of the laborer to the means of production, but 90+% of the time the person you describe above is a professional. Managers are basically the same, but they have some amount of power given to them that they wield against the worker. It would be nice to have an updated vocabulary that better describes modern class relations.
idk, it indeed captures the dialectic, but isn't PMC getting at the fact that the PMC are basically the ones actually doing the concrete planning and managing while the capitalists just chill out and rape kids or whatever? i feel like "mediator" doesn't really capture this
Are you okay mold? You haven’t been posting like yourself lately. I didn’t see one mention of DSA Karens in this post.
to my understanding the PMC fights to uphold the class structure because, while they are not at the top, they still get to have power/privilege over a majority of people.
So they work against the interests of the working class to uphold their power, like the knights and nobles of Feudalism
like the knights and nobles of Feudalism
That's not good materialist analysis. Knights and nobles, no matter how low down the pole, were still landed gentry. Their relation to the modes of production in the peasant agricultural economy was as landlords / rentiers.
A closer fit for the PMC (and I broadly agree that the term is bad from a Marxist perspective) would be the seneschals or majors-domo of the nobility. Basically elevated and usually better educated (often hereditary) servants of the nobility tasked with carrying out the day-to-day economic activities of the estate.
Good post! PMC is as useful as "middle class" it describes something vaguely true but lacks a material distinction in its definition
To me PMC has value when used in the context of Debordian spectacle. They're a specific cultural manifestation of the caste system tied to university education and executive jobs. They socially launder the rest of the bourgeoisie through things like nonprofits and NGOs, outlets fairly unique to them. Their role within capitalism is mediation as a manager, but the professional part is a new aristocracy hidden behind a false meritocracy driving specific kinds of liberal/conservative ideology uniquely supported by them with targeted in-group messaging by the candidates. Understanding them as they understand themselves, specifically that kind of labeling and imagery that represents their relationship to system you're looking at, is important because it's the superstructural shit that will determine what and how they mediate down the line.
So, still useful shorthand though? Managers are technically labor as well lol, gl explaining this take
Here's a good discussion about PMC. Would love to read your opinion on it.
