From: "dannylambert" <danlambert-AT-sniffout.com> Subject: Re: AUT: capitalist as risk-taker and supervisor Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 23:38:53 -0000 ----- Original Message ----- From: Sharon Vance <canito3-AT-earthlink.net> To: <aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu> Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2001 3:11 AM Subject: Re: AUT: capitalist as risk-taker and supervisor Hi Sharon, n' everyone I've been looking into this list for about a month and enjoying it. I'm a member of the spgb, world socialist movement, and we define class like this, if you live on rent, interest, profitor a combination of the three you're ruling/owning/capitalist class. If, on the other hand you have to sell your life for a wage, salary or fee (employment) you're working class. The small shopkeeper works for the wholesaler, the news vendor works for newspaper, Danny > This thread is really interesting. > Theoretically, what commie00 is saying sounds consistent to me, but when you > put it into practice politically, empirically and apply it to real world > situations you come up with the absurdities that Tahir is talking about. > This is the problem I am having with Marxist definitions of class (at least > of the type that commie00 is giving and that I also learned in Sociology and > Marxist theory classes) and trying to apply them to Morocco. A petty peddler > who lives in some hut in the countryside south of Mogador and barely has > enough to feed is his family, if he had someone who worked for him (either > for money or for barter or in a client/patron relation) also might fall into > such a definition. Or maybe capitalist relations of production and class > definitions would not completely apply in such a situation. > > But even in a purely capitalist economy, the example that Tahir mentions: > > What practical use is it to characterise someone who owns a little > > corner shop and makes enough just to scrape by as belonging to the same class > > as a director of a multinational company? And why stop there - why not say > > that the vendors that you find along the street in any African city are also > > ruling class if they happen to employ an assistant? > > > > is also an excellent example of where theoretical consistency needs to give > into reality. And what about newsvendors, who were never recognized as > employees, but were legally classified as "independent sub-constractors"? > What does distinguish between a sales clerk who is acknowledged as an > employee and one who is contracted out and forced to into ludicrous legal > and economic arrangements whereby they must 'buy' the product at a fixed > price and sell it at a fixed price, under fixed conditions. And often times > it is these 'contractors' who are the most exploited of all. > Sharon > > From: Tahir Wood <twood-AT-uwc.ac.za> > > Reply-To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu > > Date: 22 Jun 2001 11:03:42 +0200 > > To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu > > Subject: Re: AUT: capitalist as risk-taker and supervisor > > > > > > > >>>> commie00-AT-yahoo.com 06/21/01 07:12PM >>> > > there are small > > business owners who make way less than some factory workers, but they are > > ruling class and the factory workers are obviously not. > > > > I think that when class analysis reaches conclusions like this - and blandly > > stated as if it were simply a matter of fact - then something is clearly > > wrong. What practical use is it to characterise someone who owns a little > > corner shop and makes enough just to scrape by as belonging to the same class > > as a director of a multinational company? And why stop there - why not say > > that the vendors that you find along the street in any African city are also > > ruling class if they happen to employ an assistant? > > > > This seems to me to be the kind of thing that gives theory a bad name. > > > > Tahir > > > > > > > > --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- > > > > --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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