True, but they still earn enough W2 wages to easily be bourgeoisie by their 40s. Tech is even more egregious because they can make $300k+ by age 35 without any debt or real hard work (tech workers do not work long hours)
You're missing basically the entire point of this.
Workers who are well paid might over time make enough money to retire early or something, fine.
They definitely do not have the same role in production as high capitalists who own considerable means of production and extract billions of dollars in surplus value.
No, but these are the people who become landlords, oftentimes with dozens of properties. These are the people who vote based on their stock portfolio. These are the people start boondoggle small businesses. They aren't humble workers, and they are actually closer to the large high Capitalists than they are to the working class.
They're actually overwhelmingly exactly in the petite bourgeoisie.
The petite bourgeois don't have independent class interests in the marxist sense, they align with the workers sometimes and the capitalists sometimes, depending on individual circumstance and conditions.
A doctor who rents out his vacation home while continuing to work as a doctor is not in the high capitalist class. The people who own commanding shares of Marriott hotels are in the high capitalist class.
Doctors don't just "rent their vacation home". They buy up house and apartments and rent them out, as landlords.
The modern trend is to chase "passive income" which is quite literally being part of the bourgeoisie! Doctors start out either as wage earners or petit bourgeoisie, but they pretty quickly amass enough Capital to be full on bougie. They CHOOSE to keep practicing medicine mostly because being a doctor isn't something you just casually do or discard (plus it's a lot easier physically than being a plumber or a line worker)
Compare like the total real estate holdings of any one major financial institution to the total income property holdings of all doctors in the United States. They may be landlords, and they may therefore have politics more aligned with the big bourgeoisie, but they are not big bourgeoisie. The difference in scale is massive.
~45% of rental properties are owned by individuals. Of the 55% owned by corporations, many are owned by individuals who put their assets in a holding corp for tax/liability reason.
Your landlord is far more likely to be an individual as opposed to a major corporation or a "high capitalist". Not necessarily a doctor, but very likely some tech asshole, some spoiled heir, maybe a doctor.
The Capitalists we're fighting are real people you know, not nameless faceless corporations. They exist, and they are bad.
Edit: Only 25% of rentals are owned by institutions vs individuals. Source https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/who-owns-rental-properties-and-is-it-changing
You are missing the forest for the trees. Capitalism has a tendency to create concentration of capital. Land-holdings, income property-holdings, are no exception.
If I want to socialize the economy, should I expropriate 5 million small businesses, or the 500 corporations that account for 75% of the US GDP? By expropriating the fortune 500, the working class could offer quite a few of those small business owners a considerably easier life, and probably more income, than they would have grinding away at a corner store or something.
Brave and noble of you for disliking landlords, but come on.
You should do both. Major industries are the easiest target for nationalization, but "small business tyrants" and small time landlords are some of the cruelest exploiters and most unreasonable leaders.
Most small business owners aren't slaving away at a corner store. They are the prototypical Chud jet-ski dealer. Or some hippy woo-woo who quit a tech management job to sells fair trade coffee in the sticks, but fights like hell to pay baristas more than $8 an hour. These are also the people who DOMINATE current politics. They are the "middle class" constituents who uphold the status quo, and they are the ones who will fight like hell to reverse the revolution.
Maybe you don't nationalize their business or perp walk them like you do Jamie Dimln, but crushing the Kulaks is critical. These people are the ones causing everyday misery, and they need to be brought to task.
These are also the people who DOMINATE current politics.
The people who dominate politics and society are the literal ruling class, the high capitalist class. The petite bourgeoisie does not, and it’s actually getting squeezed out by that concentration of capital that I talked about and you ignored.
To get rid of capitalism you have to overthrow that high capitalist class. Then you have to keep the small capitalists/petite bourgeois from growing into large ones.
Are many of them morally repugnant? Sure. Are they the motor force of capitalism? No.
In a Democracy, these petit bougie people are the ones who supply the consent. They are the ones who vote for people like Pete and Liz Warren and Trump and all the others. Their concerns dictate the state of political discourse. The high capitalists don't even really have to do much besides provide the cash. It's the "9.9%" who really fuck things up.
Also, the lines are blurred between the high Capitalists and the low ones. They do rub shoulders and "network". They trade places.
True, but they still earn enough W2 wages to easily be bourgeoisie by their 40s. Tech is even more egregious because they can make $300k+ by age 35 without any debt or real hard work (tech workers do not work long hours)
You're missing basically the entire point of this.
Workers who are well paid might over time make enough money to retire early or something, fine.
They definitely do not have the same role in production as high capitalists who own considerable means of production and extract billions of dollars in surplus value.
No, but these are the people who become landlords, oftentimes with dozens of properties. These are the people who vote based on their stock portfolio. These are the people start boondoggle small businesses. They aren't humble workers, and they are actually closer to the large high Capitalists than they are to the working class.
They're actually overwhelmingly exactly in the petite bourgeoisie.
The petite bourgeois don't have independent class interests in the marxist sense, they align with the workers sometimes and the capitalists sometimes, depending on individual circumstance and conditions.
A doctor who rents out his vacation home while continuing to work as a doctor is not in the high capitalist class. The people who own commanding shares of Marriott hotels are in the high capitalist class.
Doctors don't just "rent their vacation home". They buy up house and apartments and rent them out, as landlords.
The modern trend is to chase "passive income" which is quite literally being part of the bourgeoisie! Doctors start out either as wage earners or petit bourgeoisie, but they pretty quickly amass enough Capital to be full on bougie. They CHOOSE to keep practicing medicine mostly because being a doctor isn't something you just casually do or discard (plus it's a lot easier physically than being a plumber or a line worker)
Compare like the total real estate holdings of any one major financial institution to the total income property holdings of all doctors in the United States. They may be landlords, and they may therefore have politics more aligned with the big bourgeoisie, but they are not big bourgeoisie. The difference in scale is massive.
~45% of rental properties are owned by individuals. Of the 55% owned by corporations, many are owned by individuals who put their assets in a holding corp for tax/liability reason.
Your landlord is far more likely to be an individual as opposed to a major corporation or a "high capitalist". Not necessarily a doctor, but very likely some tech asshole, some spoiled heir, maybe a doctor.
The Capitalists we're fighting are real people you know, not nameless faceless corporations. They exist, and they are bad.
Edit: Only 25% of rentals are owned by institutions vs individuals. Source https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/who-owns-rental-properties-and-is-it-changing
You are missing the forest for the trees. Capitalism has a tendency to create concentration of capital. Land-holdings, income property-holdings, are no exception.
If I want to socialize the economy, should I expropriate 5 million small businesses, or the 500 corporations that account for 75% of the US GDP? By expropriating the fortune 500, the working class could offer quite a few of those small business owners a considerably easier life, and probably more income, than they would have grinding away at a corner store or something.
Brave and noble of you for disliking landlords, but come on.
You should do both. Major industries are the easiest target for nationalization, but "small business tyrants" and small time landlords are some of the cruelest exploiters and most unreasonable leaders.
Most small business owners aren't slaving away at a corner store. They are the prototypical Chud jet-ski dealer. Or some hippy woo-woo who quit a tech management job to sells fair trade coffee in the sticks, but fights like hell to pay baristas more than $8 an hour. These are also the people who DOMINATE current politics. They are the "middle class" constituents who uphold the status quo, and they are the ones who will fight like hell to reverse the revolution.
Maybe you don't nationalize their business or perp walk them like you do Jamie Dimln, but crushing the Kulaks is critical. These people are the ones causing everyday misery, and they need to be brought to task.
The people who dominate politics and society are the literal ruling class, the high capitalist class. The petite bourgeoisie does not, and it’s actually getting squeezed out by that concentration of capital that I talked about and you ignored.
To get rid of capitalism you have to overthrow that high capitalist class. Then you have to keep the small capitalists/petite bourgeois from growing into large ones.
Are many of them morally repugnant? Sure. Are they the motor force of capitalism? No.
In a Democracy, these petit bougie people are the ones who supply the consent. They are the ones who vote for people like Pete and Liz Warren and Trump and all the others. Their concerns dictate the state of political discourse. The high capitalists don't even really have to do much besides provide the cash. It's the "9.9%" who really fuck things up.
Also, the lines are blurred between the high Capitalists and the low ones. They do rub shoulders and "network". They trade places.