It’s obvious this is moralistic to you, and so you refuse to use Marxist definitions of class but instead insert your own
The only thing that determines class in a Marxist analytical framework is: do they own the means of production? is their income made from ownership of production, or selling labor to those who own production? If it’s both, in what proportion.
That specifically is the definition of class in the framework we are using. It doesn’t mean those on one side of the line are “good” or “bad” or even “revolutionary”. It just means whether we are calling them proletariat or bourgeoise. There are subclasses, and overlap that we can discuss and not all segments of the proletariat are necessarily revolutionary or progressive (lumpen for example). There are also side cases, such as remnants of old classes from pre-capitalist arrangements like peasants (basically no peasants in USA though).
I see many liberals conflate class with cultural signifiers, with difficulty of labor, with arbitrary income brackets, with specific industries. This is all false and not how Marxists use and apply the terms. We are talking about grouping classes up by shared material interests in regards to the means of production, because only along this axis can one group come into consciousness enough to grab the means of production for itself and move forward history.
“Defending” and “working class”
It’s obvious this is moralistic to you, and so you refuse to use Marxist definitions of class but instead insert your own
The only thing that determines class in a Marxist analytical framework is: do they own the means of production? is their income made from ownership of production, or selling labor to those who own production? If it’s both, in what proportion.
That specifically is the definition of class in the framework we are using. It doesn’t mean those on one side of the line are “good” or “bad” or even “revolutionary”. It just means whether we are calling them proletariat or bourgeoise. There are subclasses, and overlap that we can discuss and not all segments of the proletariat are necessarily revolutionary or progressive (lumpen for example). There are also side cases, such as remnants of old classes from pre-capitalist arrangements like peasants (basically no peasants in USA though).
I see many liberals conflate class with cultural signifiers, with difficulty of labor, with arbitrary income brackets, with specific industries. This is all false and not how Marxists use and apply the terms. We are talking about grouping classes up by shared material interests in regards to the means of production, because only along this axis can one group come into consciousness enough to grab the means of production for itself and move forward history.
That's what makes someone making $100k a year not "working class". Their material interests are with the people richer than them.
which can be gray in a lot of cases. Like knowledge workers having their brain as the means of production.