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Sweetleaf
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03 Dec 2011, 11:15 am

They do not actually represent the majority of citizens in the U.S, what about all the people below middle class? should they not also be represented. I just find it bothersome that politicians are always talking about the middle class as if its the only other class besides upper class and wealthy.

I personally would prefer a system with no classes, which I think I've made obvious in other posts........but how am I supposed to feel represented by the politicians in this country when all they care about is the damn middle class?


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ruveyn
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03 Dec 2011, 11:51 am

Sweetleaf wrote:
They do not actually represent the majority of citizens in the U.S, what about all the people below middle class? should they not also be represented. I just find it bothersome that politicians are always talking about the middle class as if its the only other class besides upper class and wealthy.

?


They used to. The Middle Class has been progressively squeezed since about 1970 when wages and salaries (on averaged) ceased to rise after correction for inflation. The Middle Class then took the road of debt. The credit card ruled their lives. Now the ride is over.

ruveyn



Sweetleaf
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03 Dec 2011, 12:02 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
They do not actually represent the majority of citizens in the U.S, what about all the people below middle class? should they not also be represented. I just find it bothersome that politicians are always talking about the middle class as if its the only other class besides upper class and wealthy.

?


They used to. The Middle Class has been progressively squeezed since about 1970 when wages and salaries (on averaged) ceased to rise after correction for inflation. The Middle Class then took the road of debt. The credit card ruled their lives. Now the ride is over.

ruveyn


maybe that is why the politicians like them, because like our government they like to go in debt.


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Burnbridge
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03 Dec 2011, 12:10 pm

The college educated middle class in America, those who earn $25-100k/yr¹ salaries, are supposedly the most "politically active" income group. That income range represents 55-60% of the US population. So, politicians need to pander to them and spin their voting records to appease them in order to continue getting elected.

-
¹ $75-100k is variously considered "upper middle class" or "upper class," there are no concrete numerical terms for what constitutes "middle class."


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ruveyn
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03 Dec 2011, 12:15 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:

maybe that is why the politicians like them, because like our government they like to go in debt.


Correction. The politicians like to use them. Most government policy squeezes the Middle Class even more tightly.

ruveyn



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04 Dec 2011, 6:49 am

Sweetleaf wrote:
They do not actually represent the majority of citizens in the U.S, what about all the people below middle class? should they not also be represented. I just find it bothersome that politicians are always talking about the middle class as if its the only other class besides upper class and wealthy.

I personally would prefer a system with no classes, which I think I've made obvious in other posts........but how am I supposed to feel represented by the politicians in this country when all they care about is the damn middle class?


i think you're being unfair- they also care about the interests of the bourgeoisie. yeah the politicians are part of the ruling class and will always go for ruling class interests. capital is the most important thing to them. i dont know if you define middle class like we do but the ruling class are the rich sh!ts who lord it over us- our bosses/slave masters, the working class are those who have a boss- wealth is irrelevant because the exploitation that the boss inflicts on you is universal to all workers and the middle class are those in the middle- the self employed who may not be oppressing anyone or may not be earning millions each year but might also be a boss eg contractor or small buisiness owner. they could identify with either class really. i actually find it strange that pollies would be talking about the middle class at all- does no one in america have a boss? is everyone self employed? it's just a way to discredit the power of the working class, the biggest class in society- deny it exists. and yeah you're not supposed to feel represented by politicians- rich people are.



Burnbridge
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04 Dec 2011, 9:13 am

Ummm..the bourgeois is the middle class.

In the States at least, you can have a boss and still be "middle class." Middle management. IT workers typically make enough money to be middle class, even right out of college. Working in an office or cubicle is typical of the middle class, although a successful construction worker who has a couple assistants would also be middle class. That entrepreneur construction worker would not be upper class unless they were very successful.

The term describes an income range more than anything: has enough money to buy a house on mortgage, own some motor vehicles (possibly even buy them new), have health insurance, get paid vacation time from work, own a recreational property somewhere (like a mobile home "cabin" at a lake) their kids will probably get presents on their birthdays every year and get a small allowance, their kids probably won't need to get a job until they are in college or later (unless their parents think that working will build character.)


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ruveyn
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04 Dec 2011, 10:05 am

Burnbridge wrote:
Ummm..the bourgeois is the middle class.



Not really. The American Middle Class consisted in good part of Proles with delusions of grandeur and adequacy. The really were not different from "blue collar" type with only enough money and assets to keep them out of poverty for a year.

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04 Dec 2011, 12:31 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Burnbridge wrote:
Ummm..the bourgeois is the middle class.



Not really. The American Middle Class consisted in good part of Proles with delusions of grandeur and adequacy. The really were not different from "blue collar" type with only enough money and assets to keep them out of poverty for a year.

ruveyn


Like my mom, she would be middle class and I would be below middle class........and this actually is part of why I have to drop out of college, I cannot afford to take the loans offered to me for college but because my mom is above poverty I don't qualify for enough grants because I have to list her income as my income for some stupid reason until the age of 23 or 26, which is ridiculous since i don't really receive any of her income.


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Burnbridge
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04 Dec 2011, 12:45 pm

^ Sweetleaf: that is the exact reason I had to drop out of college.


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peebo
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04 Dec 2011, 4:21 pm

Burnbridge wrote:
Ummm..the bourgeois is the middle class.


well, in vernacular terms, bourgeois is used to refer to the middle class. marx, however, was very specific in his usage of bourgeois in reference to the ruling/owning classes. i feel in modern day terms petit bourgeois might more accurately reflect the middle class.

ruveyn's suggestion that a large chunk of the middle class consists of proles seems to me to be a very american outlook. in eurpoe, there is a very clear distinction between the proletariat and middle class, or what i like to consider the "petit bourgeois". so much so, in fact, that ballard's claim that the middle classes are the new proles was really quite iconoclastic in it's own way (see ballard's millenium people).

i'll likely have much more to say on this subject, but i have very little time to think at the moment. i'll try and get back to it though.


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VMSmith
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04 Dec 2011, 8:07 pm

Burnbridge wrote:
Ummm..the bourgeois is the middle class.

In the States at least, you can have a boss and still be "middle class." Middle management. IT workers typically make enough money to be middle class, even right out of college. Working in an office or cubicle is typical of the middle class, although a successful construction worker who has a couple assistants would also be middle class. That entrepreneur construction worker would not be upper class unless they were very successful.

The term describes an income range more than anything: has enough money to buy a house on mortgage, own some motor vehicles (possibly even buy them new), have health insurance, get paid vacation time from work, own a recreational property somewhere (like a mobile home "cabin" at a lake) their kids will probably get presents on their birthdays every year and get a small allowance, their kids probably won't need to get a job until they are in college or later (unless their parents think that working will build character.)


no the bourgeois are the ruling class- the bosses. it is not descriptive of income range. the terms working class, middle class and bourgeois are used to refer to the position people have in society in relation to their position at work. income range has nothing to do with it. it is the way people are exploited at work that draws lines between classes.
all workers, regardless of income, are exploited by their bosses. we work and produce the wealth that makes the bosses wealthier than us but we never see most of this wealth. it becomes profit that benifits only the bosses who, regardless of the role they play in a buisiness, earn waaay more than we do. miners, for instance, work dangerous jobs and apparently their pay reflects that. but it does not match up with what they produce. here in australia the richest woman, gina rhinehart is worth billions but her workers obviously arent seeing that. has she ever worked in a mine? nope. she inherited her wealth too. the middle class might be wealthy or they mightn't. this means that they can either identify with the ruling class or the working class. it has nothing to do with whether or not you get paid vacation time (thats a benifit fought for and now in australia can be taken away at a whim) or work in a suit or in overalls or in macdonalds. not to mention the nature of work is oppressive in iteself.
it's probably because i hang around marxists too much but i've never heard the middle class referred too as bourgeois though i have heard the claim that there is no working class- we are all middle class before.



Burnbridge
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04 Dec 2011, 8:24 pm

Ok, I did my homework and I stand in the wrong about the Bourgeois. It was the "owning capital" part that threw me, to me I was thinking "owns a house and a car and a stock portfolio," which strike me as things accessible to the middle class. I shut up now.


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auntblabby
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05 Dec 2011, 2:18 am

there are some who would say that middle-class is more a state of mind or philosophy, more than anything else. there are denizens of the inner city who castigate members of their own class for daring to act [or think of themselves as] the part of a higher class, AKA "acting white." the inner-city upwardly aspiring type who may live on the wrong side of the tracks but dresses and comports himself as though he were on the right side of the tracks, may be middle-class even if his wallet is mostly empty.



peebo
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05 Dec 2011, 3:16 am

VMSmith wrote:
but i've never heard the middle class referred too as bourgeois though i have heard the claim that there is no working class- we are all middle class before.


largely agree with the content of your post, but just wanted to mention that i occasionally hear the term used pejoratively to refer to the middle class, often in terms of culture. i wonder if this is to do with location, i am of the feeling that it has been in use in the uk generally in that context, as well as in the context of marxism.

as for the "no working class", it sounds like the ridiculous notion of "classless society" that was thrown around by thatcher and more recently blair claimed we live in one. i often think they might have a change of heart if they took a cursory wander through one or two of the council estates on the outskirts of glasgow, perhaps.


also, and perhaps obviously to yourself, this notion that has been mentioned of class being a cultural, rather than socio-economic concept, is rather dangerous to anyone with an interest in marxism etc. and can be seen as a deliberate tactic by the bourgeoisie to undermine class consciousness and unity and the understanding of class antagonism.


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Burnbridge
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05 Dec 2011, 6:58 am

Merriam-Webster wrote:
1 bour·geois adj
1: of, relating to, or characteristic of the social middle class
2: marked by a concern for material interests and respectability and a tendency toward mediocrity
3: dominated by commercial and industrial interests : capitalistic

2, noun
1 a : burgher, b : a middle-class person
2: a person with social behavior and political views held to be influenced by private-property interest : capitalist


taken into English from middle French, in use since 1565, etymology from old French burgeis meaning "townsman"


Maybe I wasn't that far off the mark. Makes me wonder if Marx redefined the term to make the Burghers/Bourgeois the ruling class, and lump the upper middle class in with the aristocracy and capitalist tycoons? Because the bourgeois pander to the wealthy, and might as well be filthy rich compared to the Working Class?


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