Re: [blind-democracy] Re: what is the working class?

Class distinctions ebb and flow. What determines our current Class
Assignments comes from today's general agreement, based upon where the
folks making the determination see themselves. When I previously
wrote that I see our society in two Classes, only. The Working Class
and the Ruling Class, I understood that this is not a current belief
held by most people, in what our Class Structure looks like. In my
simple-mindedness, I see only "Givers", and "Takers".
All other qualifiers are simply window dressing.
Now I know there are many who will disagree with my division. And
probably I might do so myself, one fine day.
Certainly my heart surgeon would scowl at my inclusion of him as,
"Working Class". He is a fine surgeon, highly skilled and trained at
one of our nation's foremost "Doctor Schools". Indeed, in several
conversations, he indicates that he is not even comfortable calling
himself, "Middle Class". While he did not say so, I get the
impression that he feels that he is in either a Professional Class, or
in an Upper Middle Class. My doctor is also a strong Republican
supporter. I have not seen him since Donald Trump was uplifted to
"lead" his Republican Party, since my doctor's skill cured me nearly
one year ago, I can only speculate on his plight. But just who he
will give his vote to, is his problem, not mine. Whoever my doctor
votes for, he is still in the Working Class. Despite his high
education and his high income and where he lives and what he drives,
he still is serving the Ruling Class. Setting aside my doctor's
attitude regarding his standing in the Human Pecking Order, his income
taxes are sent to the US treasury, where they are used to support the
objectives of the Ruling Class. His taxes, like mine and yours,
assuming you pay Income Taxes, cannot be targeted to only certain
purposes. All of us understand that the major share of our income tax
goes to support the Empire's War.
Without becoming too involved in arguing my point that there are only
two classes, I know that my doctor supports a wide number of state and
local candidates who, if elected, will go to their various government
offices and begin working hard to support the American Empire's
objectives. And just who decides these Objectives? They are set in
place by the people most effected by them, of course, it's the Ruling
Class.
If anyone is confused and wonders just which Class they are in, ask
yourselves, :How much do I profit by the deaths of thousands of young
American people placed in foreign lands, who die protecting my special
way of life? If you can see that your personal fortune has increased
by 50% since our "Recovery", as has happened in the case of the
world's richest man, Bill Gates, whose fortune increased from 60
billion dollars, to over 90 billion dollars during this so called
recovery,while at the same time, the lower half of our American
population has seen a slight decrease in our personal fortunes, then
you are probably in the Ruling Class.
Of course my heart specialist does not relate to that lower half,
since he is in a protected group which has seen small increases in
their personal wealth. Naturally my doctor is not going to want to
"associate" with the people who took the loss. But whether he likes
it or not, he is a member of the working class.
A former student of mine, from the days when I taught Braille at the
Orientation and Training Center, chatted with me the other day. He
said, "I'm not a member of the Working Class, because I haven't worked
in ten years". I asked him if he believed that anyone who wanted to
work should have a job, and that their job should pay a living wage?
I said that just because the Ruling Class has put in effect laws and
conditions that relegate you to Life's trash heap, does not mean that
you are no longer a member of the working class.
I said that the Ruling Class has robbed you of your meager wealth and
of your opportunity to work. Don't let them rob you of your dignity.
Gather together others who, like yourself have been cast aside, and go
to the offices and homes of the Ruling Class and their Totties and
demand that you be treated with respect.
Personally, I would far rather be earning a decent living flipping
hamburgers at Joe's Cafe, rather than managing some pharmaceutical
corporation, making my living off the highly over priced life-saving
drugs that are beyond the financial means of so many Working Class
folks.
We, in the Working Class, need to turn our focus away from our
differences and count our many similarities. Regardless of perceived
differences, we all need to learn to respect one another. Respect.
The cornerstone on which we build a better society.

Carl Jarvis


On 08/27/16, Alice Dampman Humel <alicedh@verizon.net> wrote:
> But doctors are not considered working class, neither in capitalist society
> nor in the socialist and communist societies that have existed so far.
> Working class is not as rigidly simple as those who apply labor to nature to
> produce something. I think it does also include less measurable or
> tangible, things such as education, income or economic level, cultural
> affinities, behavior, life style, dress, food, And I think both the Marxist,
> the capitalist, and the socialist and communist societies that have existed
> so far all include such things, too. The whole anti-intellectual actions
> seen on both sides historically is an example of that. You grew up the son
> of a doctor? You are going to work in a factory to learn to give up your
> bourgeois ways. My son, the doctor is a far cry from my son, the factory
> worker in most contemporary society. It's not a feeling in the heart, it's
> not entirely subjective, but assuming the actions of the person do somehow
> fit with the words he uses to define himself, then I do think that where one
> places one's self has some validity. What I get a little suspicious about,
> though, is how one person or a committee or other determining body insists
> on critiqueing another, often based on false assumptions and/or flawed logic
> and saying I am/we are working class, but you are not.
>
> If someone calls himself working class and frequents fancyish restaurants a
> few times a week and blows $100 each time, is he working class? And
> capitalist commerce has blurred the lines, too. Now, anyone can buy diamonds
> at Sears, so although those diamonds are hardly the quality found at
> Fortunoff's or Tiffany's, the working class now has diamonds, too, and along
> with bread and circus, they're deceived into thinking the upper class has
> admitted them to their ranks. And there's that blurring of what Roger will
> accept as class definition and what he rejects. But I think it's all part of
> the same puzzle. And I also think that upper, middle, lower class has a seat
> at the table, too, because it fleshes out this whole class thing. When is
> the last time you saw a debutante in her white dress at her coming-out
> cotillion with her upper class arms and shoulders covered in tattoos? Maybe
> a little rose or butterfly on her ankle or on her tush, but…
> All of this is part of an objective reality, too. The difficulty is how it
> fits together, and what the sort of ripple effect does with it. A classless
> society? I'm not sure what that even is or would be. There will always be
> differences, until we're all robots or zombies. And even then… Maybe more to
> the point is that it shouldn't matter that much, and it shouldn't be quite
> so existential. The shuffling money around class certainly contributes to
> making class determine what the lives of others will be, and that is all
> wrong.
>
> On Aug 27, 2016, at 10:21 PM, Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender
> "rogerbailey81" for DMARC) <dmarc-noreply@freelists.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> Doctors do useful labor. That is enough for them to be working class. The
>> fact that they have been granted certain privileges in capitalist society
>> does not change the fact that their labor is useful. Trading stocks is not
>> useful though.
>> On 8/27/2016 7:58 PM, joe harcz Comcast wrote:
>>> Roger and Marx did have a good definition though. In fact working class
>>> does not exclude doctors, for example per se. They do labor of a certain
>>> sort and do indeed alter nature in healing people through science and
>>> skill.
>>> Income in the capitalist schema doesn't matter to Marxists, or other
>>> schooled socialists in definitional terms.
>>>
>>> In other words doctors would be considerred a part of the working class
>>> in a socialist schema.
>>>
>>> They probably wouldn't make the average income they do in capitalist
>>> society, but they would still be working class.
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: Alice Dampman Humel
>>> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
>>> Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2016 7:49 PM
>>> Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: what is the working class?
>>>
>>> I do not use the Marxist definition of working class. Not at all.
>>> On Aug 27, 2016, at 7:35 PM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Alice, Roger and Carl use the Marxist definition of working class with
>>>> Carl
>>>> doing a bit of expanding. If we were on an email list with no members
>>>> who
>>>> were dedicated to the classic theory of working class, we could talk
>>>> about
>>>> all the complexities. Given that we're were we are, I'm trying to avoid
>>>> the
>>>> whole question, entirely.
>>>>
>>>> Miriam
>>>>
>>>> ________________________________
>>>>
>>>> From: blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org
>>>> [mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org] On Behalf Of Alice
>>>> Dampman
>>>> Humel
>>>> Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2016 5:10 PM
>>>> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
>>>> Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: what is the working class?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> to expand on my own message and questions:
>>>> who gets to decide whether one is working class?
>>>> If that surgeon, using his own definition of working class, as Frank
>>>> wishes
>>>> and claims the right to do, sees himself as working class, does a third
>>>> party, including me, have the right to say he is not?
>>>> How much does the life one lives, the choices one makes to do with the
>>>> same
>>>> wages as the next person, factor into the working class designation?
>>>> Does the factory worker who puts every penny he can into buying a house
>>>> in
>>>> the burbs cease to be working class when he and his family move out of
>>>> their
>>>> cramped, substandard apartment even though he still works in the same
>>>> factory at the same job at the same wage? What about his buddy who earns
>>>> the
>>>> same money laboring at the same job but blows every paycheck at the
>>>> local
>>>> bar? Is he more working class? Is one answer, or are both answers, yes
>>>> or no
>>>> stereotyping and profiling?
>>>> If my questions indicate nothing else, they surely indicate quite
>>>> clearly
>>>> that this is a complex question that can't be left to each person's
>>>> personal
>>>> preference or to some rigid, two-line definition.
>>>> Where does that leave us? ?
>>>>
>>>> That's what I mean when I say that in order to have any kind of
>>>> meaningful
>>>> conversation that included anything about the working class
>>>>
>>>> On Aug 27, 2016, at 4:26 PM, Alice Dampman Humel <alicedh@verizon.net>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> so if you're working class, you're not permitted to earn a good
>>>> living?
>>>> . And Bob's arbitrary income and/or educational measuring standards
>>>> seem completely irrelevant. I really doubt anyone has investments that
>>>> they
>>>> live from that give them such a modest return. There wouldn't be such a
>>>> problem with that.but when those returns for no labor at all are
>>>> millions
>>>> and millions, it's an entirely different matter.
>>>> and Carl added the requirement that the working class person must be
>>>> working to support the ruling class.
>>>> Many people seem to require a certain degree of suffering and
>>>> hardship to qualify for the working class.
>>>> Roger quotes a definition that the labor must be directly applied to
>>>> nature.
>>>> So it seems to me that everyone has their own personal spin on it,
>>>> and, it also seems to me that many spins include a certain amount of
>>>> exclusion of others and inclusion of the self based at least in part on
>>>> those spins
>>>> On Aug 27, 2016, at 10:02 AM, Bob Hachey <bhachey@verizon.net>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>> No doubt, trying to define what is the working class is not
>>>> going to be
>>>> easy. One could argue that it means earning less than a
>>>> certain income,
>>>> let's say $40,000.00. The flaw there is that one could be
>>>> earning such
>>>> income from investments and not working at all. Also,
>>>> picking a number for
>>>> the income is problematic at best.
>>>> Others might say that it means doing some sort of physical
>>>> labor. But some
>>>> folks like plumbers and electricians earn a pretty good
>>>> living doing
>>>> physical labor.
>>>> Still others might argue that it is based on one's education
>>>> level. But we
>>>> all know folks who are relatively well educated who don't
>>>> make much money
>>>> and we know other less educated types who earn more money.
>>>> By the way, I
>>>> hesitate to use the word earn because it implies that all
>>>> who get money
>>>> deserve what they get and that is certainly not true in
>>>> these days of
>>>> injustice and tremendous income inequality.
>>>> Perhaps the best way to look at this is to take the approach
>>>> that former
>>>> SCOTUS justice Potter took in trying to define what is
>>>> obscenity. He said
>>>> that he couldn't define it specifically but that he knew
>>>> what it was when he
>>>> saw it.
>>>> Bob Hachey
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
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