Marxism Day School January 14, 2007
Changing Working Class
Defining a Class • Common Sense View • Influenced by capitalist sociologists eg Max Weber
• Marxist Conception
Common Sense View of Class • Status
• Social position • Perception: Own/Others
• Life Style • Consumption Patron
• Occupation • Kind of work one does • Manual Worker/White Collar
• Income
Marxist Conception • Class as a relationship
• Relationship of an individual in a group with other social groups • Antagonistic relationship • • • •
Forms in Process of Production Exploiter/expolited Exploiter owns means of production Exploited sells labour power
• ClassStruggle-Class inseparable • Class Struggle: Owners Security & Control of Labour
Layers in Class • Two Main Classes • Capitalist • Workers
• Layers
• White Collar • Middle Class
• Who are Capitalists?
• Owners of means of production/distribution land, tools)
• Have effective control of MoP
• Who are Workers
• Productive Labour
• Produces surplus value (profit)
• Non-Productive
(machinery,
Effective Control? • MoP: Not a problem of Legal Definition • Bosses: Seth, Director • Bosses: • Multinational Executive: IBM, Boeing • State Bureaucrats • Administrators
• State Owners
• China, Pakistan Railway, PIA
• Effective Control matters rather than the type of ownership
Layers in Class • Middle Class? • White Collar? • Independent Classes?
• Statistics • • • • •
Working Class Disappering Working Class=Manual Service Workers=Non-Manual Less Working Class More White Collar
Nature of New Middle Class • Read Alex ad Chris’s:
• “The Changing Working Class”
• Changing Working Class • Capitalism : A Process
• Changing Capitalism Changes Shape of Working Class
• All White Collar/Middle Class • Wage Labour • All are not Working Class
New Middle Class • Three Divisions • Managers/Supervisors • Varying degrees of control over investment/resource-allocation, labour power • Clearly part of capitalist class • Minority among new middle-class
New Middle Class • Semi-Autonomous
•
• • • •
Employees No longer Self-Employed Designers, Media Producers No or little control..
The New Middle Class have a measure of operational control delegated to them from above, thanks to their success as individuals in climbing up a bureaucratic career-structure.
The Rest of the New Middle Class • Managerial, Professional, Administrative, Clerical
• Lower-Professionals: School Teachers, Nurses, Draughtsmen, Lab Technicialns, Social Welfare Workers, Call Centre Workers, Sales Promoters, Computer Operators, Computer Programmers, Copy-Writers, Sub-Editors, Reporters, Medical Reps
• Purely wage labour • Have no control at all over investment, decision making, resource allocation • Treated on the same or even weaker grounds than manual ‘workers’
Therefore • Capitalists’ Class • Working Class
Conclusion • All those who sell their hours for a salary or wage are working class • They have no role in decision making or over the means of production • They are exploited by one or the other type of exploitation • Their only way out is the abolition of class-based system
Books to Read • Changing Working Class Alex Callinicos & Chris Harman
• Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx (Chapter 8: Marx Today) • Alex Callinicos
• International Socialism Journal • Socialist English/Urdu