Whether you exploit labor or not does not determine your class. Small business owners without any employees are still petty bourgeois. Class is determined by relation to the means of production. If the person dumping toxic waste in a river was doing it to cut costs they are likely bourgeois since only bourgeois care about costs. Proletarian are paid a flat wage, and it doesn’t matter if the cost to their employer is higher or lower.
Yeah I kind of knew that was a bad example when I typed it but admittedly couldn't think of a better one. I would like people to at least admit that wealthy people are responsible for the majority of excess consumption, regardless of their class, which is killing the planet - and no amount of calling yourself a prole is going to stop you from looking like an asshole buying yacths and flying private jets everywhere. It is fine to criticize people who do stuff like that, IMO.
Whether you exploit labor or not does not determine your class. Small business owners without any employees are still petty bourgeois. Class is determined by relation to the means of production. If the person dumping toxic waste in a river was doing it to cut costs they are likely bourgeois since only bourgeois care about costs. Proletarian are paid a flat wage, and it doesn’t matter if the cost to their employer is higher or lower.
Yeah I kind of knew that was a bad example when I typed it but admittedly couldn't think of a better one. I would like people to at least admit that wealthy people are responsible for the majority of excess consumption, regardless of their class, which is killing the planet - and no amount of calling yourself a prole is going to stop you from looking like an asshole buying yacths and flying private jets everywhere. It is fine to criticize people who do stuff like that, IMO.