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Barbarian

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Linux server admin, MySQL/TSQL database admin, Python programmer, Linux gaming enthusiast and a forever GM.

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Barbarian , (edited )
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The point being made here is that it’s not about income, at least not directly.

It’s about whether or not you need to work for others for that income.

Petit bourgeoisie, the origin of what would become middle class, originally meant small business owner. This was to differentiate between the owners of massive factories and small shops.

Barbarian , (edited )
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I haven’t said a damn thing for or against communism.

Neither have I.

valid class identifiers

I don’t know if that’s true. The modern definition of “middle class” is very fuzzy and poorly defined. Sometimes tertiary education is a requirement, sometimes not. Sometimes it’s about professional certification. Sometimes it’s about whether you’re a manager.

Even if you’re looking at a definition that only cares about income and nothing else, that’s still a pretty terrible definition. Cost of living is drastically different depending on where you are. Somebody in New York might be middle class, but lives like a member of the lower class compared to someone on that same income in Kansas.

If we then ignore income and only care about standard of living, does that mean someone living frugally and saving a lot of money becomes lower class due to their spartan lifestyle? Instinctively, that seems wrong.

EDIT: I should mention that I find the worker/small owner/owner distinction more useful than the lower/middle/upper distinction because it’s far better at figuring out who has interests that are aligned. Workers, generally, want higher wages. Small owners and owners are aligned on lower wages, but are not aligned on taxation and regulation. Interestingly, small owners and workers tend to be aligned on minimum wage for competitiveness reasons vs the owners.

Barbarian ,
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Not in any real or useful sense, no.

Barbarian ,
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even at the cost of our own privileges

I agree with everything you’ve said except for this. With worldwide growing inequality, it’s very clear where those resources are going. The people making less if the janitors get a pay bump isn’t the middle managers. It’s the owners, by a very tiny amount. If you don’t have a share of the company, you’re not affected by other people making more or spending less.

Funnily enough though, another winner in that scenario are small local business owners. More local income means more customers.

Barbarian ,
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Really Simple Syndication is a format that allows a program or user to download a bunch of stuff as a simple list of titles, content and tags. RSS readers can also combine different sources into one feed, so you can grab articles from many different RSS capable sites and combine them into one cohesive list.

Barbarian ,
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Nope, no regrets here.

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