Yeah the weirdest thing about "PMC" is that it lumps managers in with educated workers. People talk about it a lot but it honestly makes no fucking sense to me. Managers are often opposed to employees but employees with high qualifications are... paid more?? Why would they be closer to managers than someone else
When you reach a position where your bonuses, stock options, retirement benefits and so on are all tied to quarterly performance, you may find that your immediate interests align much more closely with the company than with your fellow workers. And since capitalism is built on that sort of short-term thinking, it's much harder to convince these guys that they'd be better off aligning with the whole of the working class. I don't think these types are necessarily beyond hope and they certainly aren't representative of all PMCs, but I get why people are quick to write them off.
I think there's something to it but it can't be the only tool to analyze the class interests of highly educated, highly paid workers either. A quick search says a software engineer at Google can make $263k total compensation, before you even get to a "senior engineer" level. Consider someone like this, they own a home in a relatively expensive area, they paid a lot for college but probably paid it off by now, they have say $500k in a 401(k) and other investments in the stock market. It's very good for them if line go up. But they're a worker, nobody reports to them. Are they in the same class position as the janitor who vacuums their office? I'd say one of them has a LOT more material interest in maintaining the status quo than the other, and so one of them is much more likely to work to maintain their position within capitalism, even if they're still technically exploited for their labor it sure feels a lot less like it than if you were less well off. It's certainly not impossible for the Google engineer to have class consciousness, but there's also a huge incentive for them not to.
even on monopolist salary it's still hard to buy a home in SF without hereditary wealth
Average down payment on a home (all of which are 7 figures+ unless you want a ridiculous commute) is ~50%. How long's it gonna take you to save up a few hundred grand when you're paying ~30k/yr in rent, even on that salary (now imagine not making google tech salary and living there)?
it's why there's stories about techbros getting the google job and living in their car in the parking lot in order to keep living expenses low
Sure, I'd say SF isn't a relatively expensive area, it's a ludicrously expensive area. Regardless I'm not really trying to have a debate about whether a quarter million a year counts as rich or not, just trying to argue that there is some utility in recognizing that there are people who benefit from capitalism more than others, within the working class, and some people call some of those "PMC". These people are invested, in various ways, in how All This Works in capitalism and are likely to see their position degraded if we ushered in a more egalitarian system, and so from a material standpoint they're less likely to have revolutionary potential and are more likely to defend capitalism than other workers - even if they're technically in the same position in terms of their relationship to the means of production as other workers. Even if you're not responsible for assigning tasks to other people who answer to you as their boss, that quarter million a year came from somewhere, and at that point it's not just the value of your labor - someone else's labor somewhere else in the system has been exploited to get to that point. And you know, no ethical consumption employment under capitalism, you could say the same about most jobs in the imperial core or whatever but there's SOME utility in analyzing people's motivations with this relatively nebulous "PMC" concept. I think. Probably. I could be wrong.
I suppose that makes sense- so they're more likely to basically be class traitors until they can be replaced by the minimum wage coding gulags that the Democrats keep trying to create
Yeah the weirdest thing about "PMC" is that it lumps managers in with educated workers. People talk about it a lot but it honestly makes no fucking sense to me. Managers are often opposed to employees but employees with high qualifications are... paid more?? Why would they be closer to managers than someone else
When you reach a position where your bonuses, stock options, retirement benefits and so on are all tied to quarterly performance, you may find that your immediate interests align much more closely with the company than with your fellow workers. And since capitalism is built on that sort of short-term thinking, it's much harder to convince these guys that they'd be better off aligning with the whole of the working class. I don't think these types are necessarily beyond hope and they certainly aren't representative of all PMCs, but I get why people are quick to write them off.
So is it like, stock ownership or is it professional qualifications? It seems like such a vague and inaccurate concept
I think there's something to it but it can't be the only tool to analyze the class interests of highly educated, highly paid workers either. A quick search says a software engineer at Google can make $263k total compensation, before you even get to a "senior engineer" level. Consider someone like this, they own a home in a relatively expensive area, they paid a lot for college but probably paid it off by now, they have say $500k in a 401(k) and other investments in the stock market. It's very good for them if line go up. But they're a worker, nobody reports to them. Are they in the same class position as the janitor who vacuums their office? I'd say one of them has a LOT more material interest in maintaining the status quo than the other, and so one of them is much more likely to work to maintain their position within capitalism, even if they're still technically exploited for their labor it sure feels a lot less like it than if you were less well off. It's certainly not impossible for the Google engineer to have class consciousness, but there's also a huge incentive for them not to.
even on monopolist salary it's still hard to buy a home in SF without hereditary wealth
Average down payment on a home (all of which are 7 figures+ unless you want a ridiculous commute) is ~50%. How long's it gonna take you to save up a few hundred grand when you're paying ~30k/yr in rent, even on that salary (now imagine not making google tech salary and living there)?
it's why there's stories about techbros getting the google job and living in their car in the parking lot in order to keep living expenses low
housing commodification's a fuck
Sure, I'd say SF isn't a relatively expensive area, it's a ludicrously expensive area. Regardless I'm not really trying to have a debate about whether a quarter million a year counts as rich or not, just trying to argue that there is some utility in recognizing that there are people who benefit from capitalism more than others, within the working class, and some people call some of those "PMC". These people are invested, in various ways, in how All This Works in capitalism and are likely to see their position degraded if we ushered in a more egalitarian system, and so from a material standpoint they're less likely to have revolutionary potential and are more likely to defend capitalism than other workers - even if they're technically in the same position in terms of their relationship to the means of production as other workers. Even if you're not responsible for assigning tasks to other people who answer to you as their boss, that quarter million a year came from somewhere, and at that point it's not just the value of your labor - someone else's labor somewhere else in the system has been exploited to get to that point. And you know, no ethical
consumptionemployment under capitalism, you could say the same about most jobs in the imperial core or whatever but there's SOME utility in analyzing people's motivations with this relatively nebulous "PMC" concept. I think. Probably. I could be wrong.I suppose that makes sense- so they're more likely to basically be class traitors until they can be replaced by the minimum wage coding gulags that the Democrats keep trying to create