these are categories we spin up to help us understand and analyze a complex world. i don't care for them as moral markers or whatever, which seems to be the subtext of this sort of discourse. i care for the categories' utility in helping us make observations and predictions about the world.
do a person's material interests align with revolutionary/progressive interests, or reactionary interests? relationship to the means of production is a great shorthand for assuming a person's material interests, but it's not the end-all-be-all determinant of how a person will act. A doctor making $500,000 a year working for a larger corporation is technically alienated from the means of production, but still has different material interests than the nurses and janitorial staff working for the same company. A CEO may technically not own the means of production (assuming they aren't paid in stock options) but obviously has interests mostly aligned with the owners. The material interests of blue collar versus white collar versus service workers are somewhat different.
All that to say, relationship to the means of production is more of an indicator for material interests and revolutionary potential than a determinant. Relative comfort and income are other indicators. Social class or demographic are other indicators. We can make assumptions about a person or group of people based on how their experience intersects with these various influences, but even then there's variation from person to person and potentially variables we didn't take into account.
We might assume that a hypothetical group of blue collar workers has revolutionary potential because they're being materially exploited, but then in actuality they support reactionary politics because maybe their social class is a stronger influence than their economic one, or maybe their international economic class is a stronger influence than their domestic economic class, or maybe their underlying psychological mechanisms leave them vulnerable to false consciousnesses (or maybe a little of all of the above, a tension between the multitude of reactionary/revolutionary influences and impulses).
class traitors and false consciousnesses exist, otherwise we'd have no reason to educate and agitate.
On a related note, I see a lot of leftists equating class (and class subdivision) with personal morality. There are massively underpaid blue collar workers that subscribe to every reactionary thing there is and actively do harm and there are petty bourgeois people massively funding your local commie orgs. Oh, and highly-paid working class people all over the spectrum.
I see this most often used to start petty fights rather than to do analysis or debate strategy.
these are categories we spin up to help us understand and analyze a complex world. i don't care for them as moral markers or whatever, which seems to be the subtext of this sort of discourse. i care for the categories' utility in helping us make observations and predictions about the world.
do a person's material interests align with revolutionary/progressive interests, or reactionary interests? relationship to the means of production is a great shorthand for assuming a person's material interests, but it's not the end-all-be-all determinant of how a person will act. A doctor making $500,000 a year working for a larger corporation is technically alienated from the means of production, but still has different material interests than the nurses and janitorial staff working for the same company. A CEO may technically not own the means of production (assuming they aren't paid in stock options) but obviously has interests mostly aligned with the owners. The material interests of blue collar versus white collar versus service workers are somewhat different.
All that to say, relationship to the means of production is more of an indicator for material interests and revolutionary potential than a determinant. Relative comfort and income are other indicators. Social class or demographic are other indicators. We can make assumptions about a person or group of people based on how their experience intersects with these various influences, but even then there's variation from person to person and potentially variables we didn't take into account.
We might assume that a hypothetical group of blue collar workers has revolutionary potential because they're being materially exploited, but then in actuality they support reactionary politics because maybe their social class is a stronger influence than their economic one, or maybe their international economic class is a stronger influence than their domestic economic class, or maybe their underlying psychological mechanisms leave them vulnerable to false consciousnesses (or maybe a little of all of the above, a tension between the multitude of reactionary/revolutionary influences and impulses).
class traitors and false consciousnesses exist, otherwise we'd have no reason to educate and agitate.
All very good points!
On a related note, I see a lot of leftists equating class (and class subdivision) with personal morality. There are massively underpaid blue collar workers that subscribe to every reactionary thing there is and actively do harm and there are petty bourgeois people massively funding your local commie orgs. Oh, and highly-paid working class people all over the spectrum.
I see this most often used to start petty fights rather than to do analysis or debate strategy.