cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/3190259
To me they're like mere servants of the State, like Lenin talked about in "2. What is to Replace the Smashed State Machine?" in his writing "The State and Revolution"
Under Capitalism, they are its privileged knights that try to deflect and control, if not defend directly its image as "the only option", who have their incentive in doing so, with their class status stake being in their duty to shepherd the means of production and its resulting benefits
However, they don't own the means of production, as they merely manage it for the landholding, industrialist, and financier capitalists
On the other hand, under Socialism, while its privileges will be probably be done away, the PM class on its own would innovated upon, for their new duty of overseeing, managing, and reporting the collectivized cooperatives and state-owned enterprises..
Until the final stage of Communism arrives, I think they're pretty handy
I say this, because I hear such disgusted sentiment in Hexbear against them
Note: I know a bit about the bazingo techbro culture that the PMC is associated with, please don't criticize them solely on those vibes...
Yes. Seeing the amount of abuse and overwork my parents endure as blue collar workers, and working in retail and manual labor myself during school, I would choose being a useless PMC sitting in a cubicle for 8 hours any day.
The software industry is notorious for being the most cocky and often times most privileged out of the ‘ordinary’ careers, so suggesting to organize is taboo.
PMC employees are also not immune to being exploited, especially at junior levels. Not unheard of for junior lawyers, bankers, consultants, etc to have heart attacks or literally drop dead from overwork.
I'm not trying to draw an equivalence since blue collar workers are exploited in more physically harmful ways and don't have the eventual benefits of high wages. However, while fatcat PMCs who do nothing all day certainly exist, for each one of them there are dozens or hundreds of junior workers killing themselves to climb the ladder.