Do you considers yourself to be 'middle class'?

A question for each of our comrades:

Do you consider yourself to be 'middle class'?
If so, why?

Also, if so, why are you (as a self-identified 'middle class' person) interested in socialism?

I detest the term, which is used as an euphemism in the USA to brush under the rug the fundamental antagonism between labor and capital, and which is used for just about every kind of worker and excludes only hobos and vagrants (maybe it will cover them as well in the future). Anyone who relies on a wage to keep the wolf from the door is a worker. That means not only the school bus driver or the canteen cook but also the neurosurgeon and the university professor. Not only does the term "middle class" serve as euphemism but it also functions to divide workers among themselves, to not see their common class interest, to not see the the tyranny of capital.

I ask this question because I agree with what you are saying hermeticist.
Even further, I think 'middle class' is as a social identity construct used much like the 'white race' and 'American' identity constructs have been used to serve the ruling class historically.

SN Labor Champion wrote:I ask this question because I agree with what you are saying hermeticist.
Even further, I think 'middle class' is as a social identity construct used much like the 'white race' and 'American' identity constructs have been used to serve the ruling class historically.

*twitch*

godlessnorth wrote:

SN Labor Champion wrote:I ask this question because I agree with what you are saying hermeticist.
Even further, I think 'middle class' is as a social identity construct used much like the 'white race' and 'American' identity constructs have been used to serve the ruling class historically.

*twitch*

Good, I intended for our comrades to feel and notice that 'twitch' feeling, and to want to know why they feel it, where it came from, and what purpose it actually serves.

I want our comrades to rethink, and forge anew on sound independent revolutionary foundations, the whole ethnonational identity and conception of our own people.

SN Labor Champion wrote:Good, I intended for our comrades to feel and notice that 'twitch' feeling, and to want to know why they feel it, where it came from, and what purpose it actually serves.

I want our comrades to rethink, and forge anew on sound independent revolutionary foundations, the whole ethnonational identity and conception of our own people.

The tribe > abstract constructs?

Of course I agree. I suppose semantics makes it confusing. If the so-called 'white race' existed in one area it would be called something else, making the 'white race' label pretty meaningless and counter-productive.

Feels a bit fresher transcending this stupor, but also pretty antagonistic. I don't mind that, though.

SN Labor Champion wrote:A question for each of our comrades:

Do you consider yourself to be 'middle class'?
If so, why?

Also, if so, why are you (as a self-identified 'middle class' person) interested in socialism?

No I do not. I grew up working class and I still am working class ( or proletarian if you prefer).

SN Labor Champion wrote:I ask this question because I agree with what you are saying hermeticist.
Even further, I think 'middle class' is as a social identity construct used much like the 'white race' and 'American' identity constructs have been used to serve the ruling class historically.

What exactly do you mean by the White Race being a social construct designed to serve the ruling class?

Rebel Warrior 59 wrote:What exactly do you mean by the White Race being a social construct designed to serve the ruling class?

Not answering for him but:

Divide and conquer. If you identify with the white man or the West in a general sense, it is little chance that you will organzie politically on a local level to specifically challenge class perceptions. It's the devil you know, but the worst is the devil you don't, i.e. the exploitation happening right under our noses. We tend to fight the enemy 'out there'. First, though, is the enemy within, other ruling class 'whites'.

SN Labor Champion wrote:A question for each of our comrades:

Do you consider yourself to be 'middle class'?
If so, why?

Also, if so, why are you (as a self-identified 'middle class' person) interested in socialism?

"Middle class" is a sociological category with very little explanatory power, since it primarily has to do with ones income level, as opposed to ones relation to the means of production. In order to understand the position someone would occupy in the context of class struggle, we need to gain further insights.

The vast majority of any given population are wage laborers, so socialism already has a numerical advantage over capital. Some of those wage laborers undoubtedly qualify as being "middle class," while others do not. Then there is the professional managerial class (or "coordinator class," as some theorists call them). Upper level management can be expected to side with capital, due to the privileged position they occupy in the status quo—worker control of production entails the fundamental undermining of the autonomy and authority upper management currently enjoys, and they'd quickly learn this. Middle and lower level management will most likely be indifferent to the entire issue of class struggle, though certain individuals may well take a decisive stand with either labor or capital.

Since a socialist revolution would likely occur during one of capitalism's periodic economic downturns—and the bourgeoisie seems to have completely abandoned traditional Keynesian solutions to crises, in favor of austerity—public employees (many of whom self-identify as being "middle class") can be expected to side with the proletariat. The military and police might be the only exceptions, due to the extreme ideological manipulation they undergo, though this is conditional—for example, during both the Bolshevik Revolution and German Revolution of 1918–19, large factions of the military rebelled because they were tired of being used in pointless imperialist wars which benefited only elite interests; such might well occur again, should a revolution erupt in the West at the height of a war.

Lawyers, doctors, and so forth, would vary as to their commitment (if any) in the class struggle.

The "Middle Class" for context and purposes, is largely a matter of sociocide, which is a means and end to genocide (or it could be the reverse depending on how you view it).

I do not consider myself middle class as it is an artificial capitalist construct, one that is not based on merit, or any type of meritocracy, but rather, the continual grasping (expending of energy) towards the materialistic acquisitions of those in a higher income bracket. A true, natural class, would be energy-giving, and promote creativity.

I lean more towards philosophers-as-kings (merit based on ideas, art, music, literature), which is very much disregarded in our current social and political climate.

"If genocide is a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of the essential foundations of the life of a national group, sociocide in turn is a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of the essential foundations of society. Johnathan Schell, as mentioned earlier indicates how genocide leads to sociocide: "When crimes are of a certain magnitude and character, they nullify our power to respond to them adequately because they smash the human context in which human losses normally acquire their meaning for us" (1982, 145). What is the human context in which human losses acquire meaning for us? It is the social."

"By inverting Hegel's argument on the positive correlation between war and society, it is possible to begin to formulate the markers of sociocide. One consequence of sociocide is the dissolution of the solidarity required for society to function. Families and private communities strive exclusively after their inviolable self-existence and absolute personal security. Distrust and bad faith become the dominant orientations of humans living together. Another consequence of sociocide is that government functions weakly, that is, bureaucratically, if at all. Social authority holds no authority. It is not internalized by either individuals or groups."

http://books.google.com/books?id=Vm_0jGbX72EC&pg=PA126&lpg=PA126&dq=sociocide+versus+genocide&source=bl&ots=5R_lZ0aC5O&sig=iY7cDOUjFhRxZhsQWnIPe_bvWiM&hl=en&ei=JJa2TYjrC5K3twfKs5l5&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false

(1) 83 percent of all US stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.

(2) 61 percent of Americans say that "always or usually" they live paycheck to paycheck. This figure is up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.

(3) 66 percent of personal income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1 percent of all Americans.

(4) 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.

(5) 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.

(6) 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.

(7) Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.

( ) Only the top 5 percent of US households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.

(9) For the first time in US history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.

(10) In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has risen to between 300 and 500 to one.

(11) In 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held 7 percent of the liquid financial assets.

(12) The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.

(13) Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.

(14) In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% more than the average worker in the private sector.

(15) The top 1 percent of US households own twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did 15 years ago.

(16) In America today, the average time needed to find a new job has risen to 35.2 weeks.

(17) More than 40 percent of Americans in employment are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.

(18) For the first time in US history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps. The US Department of Agriculture projects that that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.

(19) What American workers must now compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour; in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.

(20) Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.

(21) Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.

(22) The top 10 percent of Americans now earn 50 per cent of the US national income.

http://nesaranews.blogspot.com/2010/07/state-sponsored-sociocide-in-middle.html

I hate the term . I never use it I refer to myself as working class

I much prefer the term middle class to terms like the bourgeois. If you want people (in the uk at least) to think you're a middle-class, university educated, ponce then you only have to use terms like petite-bourgeois and we immediately get an image of people that look like this.



I'm working class btw. I come from a long line of engineers and miners, although there isn't much of that industry left here now so I work in construction, not that there is much construction work here either, unless you're a pole that'll work for nothing and live in a caravan just off site or a blackman that's only got the job because the firm needs to employ more ethnic minorities.