Communism means a classless, moneyless society whithout a state. China has all three of those things and doesn't even claim it's a communist society.
IMHO as an anarchist, they're not even socialist, since the means of production are partly in control of the state, not the workers. But you could argue about that. But as I said: even China doesn't claim that it is communist.
This is a really stupid distinction to take a stand on.
I’d like to politely ask you to cut out the insults.
There’s no single line where, once you cross, you “no longer need to work”.
That’s the thing about classification: It doesn’t respect the edges, where it’s pretty much always getting fuzzy.
Someone making high 6 figures a year is clearly not in the same situation as someone who has multiple billions, and they’re clearly not the same situation as someone working minimum wage.
Here, it gets complicated: Since it’s highly incentivised by capitalism to invest your capital, most “upper middle class” people don’t actually have all that money sitting in a bank somewhere. It’s usually invested somewhere which makes them (partial) rent-seekers and extractors of other people’s surplus value. This is where the edges get fuzzy.
However, adding a cathegory of middle class, while vaguely pointing in a general socio-economic direction isn’t helpful for discussions about capitalism. The broad strokes of capitalist and wage-dependent class still stands. And adding further distinctions could help understanding a more gomplex model. But it’s never used this way. Whenever you hear someone talk about some “middle class”, 80% of the time, it’s about populism and not about some deeper economic analysis. And if it’s used for populism, it’s always used to divide the wage-dependant/working class.
That’s exactly why the middle class definition is important and meaningful
Can you give a coherent definition of middle class? I’-e never come across one that makes sense.
So you admit that you don’t have an accurate definition. That’s a shame.
that’s not how any of this works.
I beg to differ. The whole concept o class analysis doesn’t make any sense, if you have these wobbly definitions of classes.
This is why you people will never actually get anything useful accomplished in society.
Lol. Please read a history book.
You’re so intent on fighting against human nature
I think I have a more thorough grasp on “human nature” than you do. That’s the whole deal of anarchists (Kropotkin, Graeber, Bookchin, …).
Capitalists don’t take investment risks anymore. Surplus value is a model that’s used to describe a system. I don’t make the mistake or confusing the model with reality.
if you have money in the bank, then according to your logic you are “exerting power”
Yeah, I kind of do. If the bank I deposit my money at, gives loans out to weapons companies, then the money that gts made by war pays my interest. However: I don’t really have a choice if I want to survive after having retired. Also: if you look at wealth distribution, then the comparison gets more and more ridiculous.
if you say that you divide people on working and not, then Elon Musk fits working category.
Just because he does not have to work, but he still does, speaks only positively about him.
Tha only tracks if A) work is inherently good, or B) the work he’s doing is actually beneficial (considered that he actually works). I don’t agree with both (or ever all three) points.
With the way the political landscape is currently looks: I don’t think that european democracies shouldn’t get too high on their horses with their fascist disasters? Netherlands, anyone? Italy?
This is the exact same stupid argument that conservatives use when the answer to “what is a woman” is “it’s complicated”.
Apples and oranges. We’re doing class analysis here, not gender studies. The former is an exercise in modelling, the latter describes complex societal distributed systems.
The rest of your post is not really a response to anything I wrote.
I have written that you’ve got a wrong grasp on class analysis. You’ve not demonstrated that you’ve understood class analysis.
And you saying capitalists don’t take investment risk is just baffling tbh
As soon as you got your first billion, you pretty @uch can’t lose it anymore on the market. Look at Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, etc. And they haven’t even invested their own capital to grow their empires. Entrepreneurial risks my ass.
Edit: I just realized how you just tried to weazel out of the discussion. You’ve brought up “human nature” and I refuted your argument. Claiming I didn’t doesn’t make you less wrong about human nature.
And “people like me” never getting anything done: There have been countless liberatory revolutions in history. Apparently, all the boks you’ve supposedly read left that bit out.
Well, AFAIK, the orthodox marxists tend to be Marxist-Leninists, who kind of want to overlook all that administrative class business, Bakunin warned us all about way before Lenin. Or is that a different bunch alltogether again?
Communist China Just Cured Diabetes and America’s Insulin Industry is Not Happy About it ( medium.com )
Make no mistake, the owning class is actively working against your interests ( i.redd.it )