Many people who are filthy rich by being corporate asslickers, the human trash that get paid huge amounts for manipulating the masses, and other similar people don't own anything yet they can hardly be called part of the proletariat.

Are they petty bourgeoisie or an exception of the working class that works against it?

  • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    8 months ago

    from a theoretical position, being paid a wage and living only off that wage is working class, though certainly executive managers and pundits espousing capitalist ideology would be working class traitors. additionally, people with very high incomes are likely investing some of it to generate income outside of retirement. these people do things like buy "investment property" and become rentiers in addition to seeking out interest/dividend generating financial products and ownership of profit generating businesses. those are bourgeoisie methods of income: extracting the value from the labor of others. this is all, of course, assuming they didn't start off as bourgeoisie by virtue of inheritance.

    very high income corporate positions and high profile media propagandists often come from these already-rich, leisure class families. high income positions would be transformative to someone from a true working class background, but function better as a scaffolding for maintaining wealth and power among existing familial networks orbiting capital formations and are gatekept behind family and elite school networks.