"there are now 7 classes, every time a marxist complains we will add another class"

  • JohnBrownsBussy [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Not gonna watch the video, but on the topic of the middle class, I do think it's fair to identify non-proletarian, non-bourgeois classes such as peasants and artisans, who produce commodities on an individual basis and sell those commodities to the market. Proletarianization was an ongoing process in Marx's time, and is still on going in ours.

    An example that I am familiar with is clinical pathology in the US. At the present time, pathologists are professionals that straddle the line between proletarians and the petite bourgeois. Some pathologists own their own practice/firm, while others are employees of healthcare systems. However, there is a push to replace pathologists with digital pathology software that could be operated by a purely proletarian technician. You can see plenty of other pushes to proletarianize the healthcare system, breaking up the myriad responsibilities of highly-paid professions and replacing them with software and low-paid technicians.

    The emergence/destruction of the artisan class isn't a purely one-way street either. A example of this would be the progression of web video content. In the 2000s, you saw the emergence of an artisan population with a lot of self-employed web video creators who would distribute their videos on their own site. However, over time monopolization has lead to proletarianization. Now, these previously quasi-independent creators are now unofficial employees of Youtube.

    • apparitionist [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      non-bourgeois classes such as artisans

      lol you mean the people who first created the middle class hundreds of years ago? Arguably the guild system's corruption was only matched by our modern corporate system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild#Economic_consequences

      • JohnBrownsBussy [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        The artisan class still exists, but in a marginal fashion. Either as holdovers from feudal institutions or in the ferment of emerging industries. Again, proletarianization continues to dissolve that class, but it's a still ongoing process. The idea of a purely two-class society, with one class that does all the labor and another that does all the owning, is the horizon of capitalist development, not its current state.

        • Kereru [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Is the artisan class still considered relevant in the west? It seems to me like anyone that you might say fits into this is actually prole or petit-bourg. I guess musicians who release independently? It doesn't seem like the list is that big though?