From a materialist lense, middle class usually refers to the small business owners, landlords, etc. Petty bourgeoisie basically. They historically tend to welcome fascist ideology out of fear of losing their privileged position in society.

So there's a difference between the working person who might get caught in a false consciousness versus the tenuously well-off person who's somewhat class conscious. The latter is likely a lost cause more often than not. The former can often be reasoned with if we can speak to their experiences as a worker and cut through the spectacle.

But yeah the Liberal use of the term "middle class" as someone occupying arbitrary income brackets is an immaterial abstraction with very little utility for either prediction or description.

[–] HerbalGamer@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

In my mind it's always comes down to a very simple question: Do they have to work for someone, or does someone work for them? If the first is true, they're working class, if the second, they're capitalist class, aka ruling class.

There is no middle class.

[–] LinkedinLenin@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Eh I just don't think there's much utility in being so strict with categories. That's fine as a shorthand though, and for explaining to coworkers who aren't familiar with the theories.

But the point of a material analysis is to, well, analyze. What are people's material interests? How do those interests shape a person's revolutionary or reactionary potential?

Rather than try to illustrate it myself with made-up examples, I'm gonna delete the paragraph I wrote and just post an actual material analysis from history

[–] HerbalGamer@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I just don’t think there’s much utility in being so strict with categories

The whole point is that we're fighting amongst ourselves about what basically amounts to comfort levels for the most of us, while we should all look at each other as comrades to stand with against those that are actively taking advantage of all of us plus the rift we've created between ourselves.

[–] LinkedinLenin@hexbear.net 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree with the sentiment, but please do read the essay I linked. It really changed the way I thought about things.

It's very much about strategizing and analysis, not moralizing or dividing or anything like that.

[–] HerbalGamer@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Oof, I just looked and I'll try when I'm better rested but damn, someone really needs to find a way to make theory accessible to nonmedicated ADHDers 😬

[–] bloodfart@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

i'm nonmedicated adhd.

it's a short read. maybe five minutes.

if you want the tldr: there are divisions within classes and they need to be analyzed and understood. just going by someone's relationship to wages in the value form is bound to mess you up.

especially in the essay format, you can keep your own attention by reading the conclusion first and then reading the rest with that in mind.

[–] LinkedinLenin@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago

Oh I can empathize with that struggle. If I get time this week maybe I'll try to write a basic summary of it.

[–] meth_dragon@hexbear.net 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

from zak cope's divided world, divided class.

on class:

...class denotes a dynamic social relationship corresponding to the system of ownership, the organization of labour and the distribution of material wealth as mediated by ideological, cultural and political institutions and practices. Above all, class is the product of political practices, with the relationship between the state and class struggle revolving around the issue of class domination.

cope explains:

The bourgeoisie is that group in society which directly (through full or part ownership of the means of production) or indirectly (through being paid super-wages ) depends upon the exploitation of workers for the maintenance of its income. The working class is that group in society which sells its labour-power in order to make a living. The proletariat is that section of the working class creating values under industrial (urban or rural) conditions which owns none of the means of production and is forced to subsist entirely upon wages equivalent to the value of labour-power.

The labour aristocracy is that section of the working class which benefits materially from imperialism and the attendant superexploitation of oppressed-nation workers. The super-wages received by the labour aristocracy allow for its accrual of savings and investment in property and business and thereby “middle-class” status, even if its earnings are, in fact, spent on luxury personal consumption.

The labour aristocracy cannot, however, be wholly equated with the middle class or petty bourgeoisie. Although the labour aristocracy forms part of the middle class, the middle class also encompasses self-employed property-owners, shopkeepers, small businessmen and professionals whose income largely does not derive from wage labour and whose characteristic ideology is bourgeois.

and lastly:

Ultimately, however, the embourgeoisement of the proletariat, that is, the creation of a middle-class working class, is a political question centred on increasing superexploitation. That is the explanation for the appearance and continued existence of a wealthy working class in the world s core nations. Imperialist national oppression is both the most crucial “historical and moral element” of global wage differentials and the sine qua non for working-class conservatism.

[–] HerbalGamer@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No offense but isn't that basically my point but with a whoooole lot more words and (again with) the reinforcement of these differents parts of the working class?

[–] meth_dragon@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago

labor aristocracy work for people but the people they work for are sufficiently subsidized by global imperialism that they can compensate the labor aristocracy in a manner that would be equivalent to the bourgeoisie anywhere outside of the imperial core. the labor aristocracy understand this at a base level and thus tend to align their interests with the interests of imperialists and global capital accordingly. hence the fascist base comment.

[–] Egon@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago

That's the simple way of looking at it, but things have a tendency to become more complicated. There's talk of labor aristocrats and petite bourgeoisie for a reason.
Hitlers first and most ardent supporters were generally middle class. I'll see if I can find so e English literature on it