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Cowbee@lemmy.ml 3 weeks agoIs an Engineer a class? They make better money than assembly workers. The answer is no, Engineers are a substratum of the Proletariat, worthy of their own analysis, but not as distinct from the rest of the Proletariat. That’s why Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc all viewed managers as proletarian, doing a separate kind of labor, and even distinct living conditions on average, but retaining the same labor relations to the Means of Production.
barsoap@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
So you’re saying that there’s no difference in things like capital access. “Same relations” implying “no difference, nada, zilch”. I don’t find that assessment compatible with the material conditions we live under.
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
One proletarian has the strength of two average proletarians. Does he constitute his own distinct class, as he can leverage that for somewhat higher pay, and therefore eventually become petty bourgeois? No. Again, we can see specialized labor as a substratum, but to confuse it for a class in and of itself goes against the Marxist conception of class.
Now, if you define class as relations of hierarchy, there’s no dissonance, and we can consider managers their own class. But at that point, we have to be careful not to trip over each other’s understanding of class when discussing Marxism vs Anarchism.
barsoap@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
That’s a relationship to a crate or to barbells, not to capital or the means of production.
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I already explained how this can cascade into a different relationship at a rate more advantageous than the average proletarian, as you already saw fit to distinguish classes.