Make no mistake, the owning class is actively working against your interests

If you need to work to exist, you are working class. Owners make passive income with the wealth they already have. If getting fired from your job puts your basic necessities at risk, you are working class.

And relying on your parents to bail you out does not make you owner class.

I don't disagree with you. These seem like entirely reasonable definitions. Yet... I still kind of question their utility. It's just semantics and the delineation of classes depends entirely on the conversation you're having.
Want to complain about capitalism? Sure... working class vs owning class, or 1%, or whatever you want.
For more or less any other conversation we don't use terms like "lower class" or "middle class" but we divide cohorts into segments in order to make them easier to read about. It's not a sinister plot by capitalists to confuse the plebs, it's just practical.
Owners make passive income with the wealth they already have
And there's different degrees. More than half the US population own stock. Is someone who makes $200 a year via investments "owning class"? What about $20,000? $2,000,000? You see how there's vastly different scales? That's what the definition of middle class is and why it's important and meaningful
- Your distinction is answered in the post you replied to.
  If getting fired from your job puts your basic necessities at risk, you are working class.
- It's not just about owning, it's about living off what you own. You have to work to live? Working class. You live from passive income? Owner. As you can see, middle class definition is not meaningful in this conversation. In other contexts, sure it matters, but not here
yeah, growing up i thought my parents were rich because we had a suburban house with a basement and i felt like a privileged dickhead. then i went to college and saw international students with like $100k cars. then i learned how the stock market worked and have correctly hated the rich since -- the 'passive' income they receive is the amalgamation of the actual labor of thousands of people

This is kind of silly.

I'm definitely working class, like I couldn't stop working and coast the rest of my life on what I have saved now without really cutting everything to the bone.

However, I max out my 401k and iras every year. We also put enough money aside that our two kids will probably need to take out little to no money for their college educations. We are contemplating how many hundreds of thousands of dollars we can afford for a house renovation, and we can still take two comfortable vacations per year.

I'm very comfortable and know I am very lucky.

Which is why it's absurd to put me in the same category as the people who literally have cut everything to the bone and still worry about making ends meet at the end of the month. While we should still team up against the owning class, our financial situations are drastically different and shouldn't be treated as the same because that would do a huge disservice to their actual relative situation.

Sure you can argue that your financial situation is a bit better, but the power dynamics between yourself and owners is still the same regardless if you make a lot or a little and more importantly, salaries change. When your job isn't considered competitive anymore you'll be in the same boat or if you get laid off or you get sick, etc.
- Sure, which is why I think we should still team up. However, that doesn't change the fact that we are in such ridiculously different positions that it's nonsense to try and pretend these are "made up" just to keep people down. Like my tax rate is higher, and it should be. There are very obvious reason these have different terms, and "it's just conspiracy by the man to keep us down!" without a shred of evidence to back it up is just, well, mindless conspiracy shit.
Yep. It's almost like different words with different meanings are useful to express different thoughts on different contexts.
- ouch that must've hurt...
I don't think it's about denying the difference between subsistence living and moderate wealth, so much as prioritizing a framing that identifies the systemic issue of capital rather than a comparative placement on an arbitrary scale.
It's not that those comparisons don't exist, it's just less important than the shared relationship to capital, and happens to distract from what's actually meaningful.
- While it may not be explicitly denying it does infact, IMO tell a 13 year old to disregard the difference in the way this is written. So I think the comment still stands that this isn't a great way to highlight the difference between our work to a 13yo
I'm definitely working class
.
I'm very comfortable
These are not mutually exclusive. We can acknowledge our privilege but still recognise that we are in solidarity (or should be) with those who have fewer privileges.
No one is saying you're the same, and certainly not the same in every way except class.
It's like me saying that both myself and Sid Meier are both millennials does not mean we're in every other category together.
- These are not mutually exclusive.
  Which is why I very explicitly said I was both.
  but still recognise that we are in solidarity
  I even explicitly said we should team up.
  I would accuse you of responding to the wrong post, had you not explicitly quoted parts of mine.
I think that’s the mythical middle class that some of us in the working class are lucky to be a part of. In my case, I’m not in a comfortable saving situation now because the Covid years fucked my finances with a cactus, but living in a cheap neighborhood and having a white collar job means I can see a way out.
This got me thinking about the use of “middle class” in politics. It’s like the carrot for reasonable people that know they are not temporarily embarrassed millionaires. You don’t work hard and save for yachts, you do it for actually retiring.
- Oh yeah, I definitely do it for retirement and to give me kids the benefit of getting an education without being saddled with massive debt. Although, I think they should have some skin in the game for college as I hope it will make them take it seriously, unlike with me who partied way too much.
  But make no mistake, we can afford these things because we live frugally. We both drive used hondas, our grocery store is Aldi, we review our budget every month to keep things in check, we walk everywhere we can, we rarely eat out, etc..
You must have heard of "None of us is free, until we're all free!" before, right?
- I'll use the example used a lot during COVID: we're all in the same storm, but we're not all in the same boat.
And yet, you are an accident or a cancer diagnosis away to lose everything and needing a divorce so you and your wife don't lose your house.
- Probably not, as we both have good insurance. This is another advantage my position has.
What line of work are you and your spouse in, if you don't mind me asking?
- Tech and health care
Why is it absurd to you? Why do you need any more class distinction between the ruling and the working? To increase the granularity only serves to prove the post true.
- I don't need anything. I'm just pointing out the absurdity of pretending we are all in the same boat, and that it's all some conspiracy by the guy in his mega yacht to divide us when people point out that my boat will weather much more intense storms.
While there is a lot of sense on what you say, I prefer the class distinctions made by Karl Marx because it does not factor economic differences between workers. He defined classes in 3 groups, independently of their money. It only depends on their relation to the means of production. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxian_class_theory
You're an idiot to think that money defines you. You might think you're not a narcissistic asshole but you are. Regardless if that's all projection from the "rich" class. You're their narcissistic pet boy.
- You might think you’re not a narcissistic asshole
  I don't know you well enough to make an actual determination, but I'd be willing to bet that this is quite the projection.

And it’s not the owning class, it’s the Parasite Class.

A lot of people own capital without becoming parasitical, and therefore, obscenely wealthy. But becoming obscenely wealthy requires parasitism.

It's basically three classes:
Working Class: the vast majority of humanity. Everyone whose basic necessities for survival and physical as well as mental health is controlled by others. Despite the name, this class DOES include those who are unable to work.
Lesser Owning Class: Anyone who controls said necessities but at least employs or otherwise benefits people of the working class. These aren't necessarily bastards but there should be as few of them as possible.
Parasite Class: The ones whose main or sole source of income is gaining wealth by having wealth already. Examples include landlords, billionaires borrowing against their stock portfolio and others whose enrichment removes money from the general economy while adding only to their own dragon hoard and/or mostly closed systems like stock markets. That these exist at all is one of the greatest atrocities allowed by mankind.
- Also known as the proletariat, petite bourgeoisie, and bourgeoisie, respectively
- I think it's nicer if there are more in the lesser owning class, so that anyone can reach there if they work hard, which is not the case today.
- The parasite class includes the welfare class and the corporate welfare class. Not all of the poor people are working class and not all of the parasites are ultra rich.
The real wealth is the comrades we made along the way
The correct term is ruling class.

The middle class are working class who can't afford to go to school longer, but did so anyway because they were expected to.

In a lot of countries (Canada, Germany, etc.) they can afford to go to school longer because society realizes that it is in it's best interest to make it affordable (free in some cases).
If you believe the US's way is the only way to have a democracy and freedom, you need to learn about other democraties.
- Not Canada. Tuition in Canada is as expensive as comparable schools in the US. We just don't really have the ultra expensive tier like Harvard.
- 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?
The Professional Managerial Class, or Labour Aristocracy, is a broadly recognized sub-class that functions as agents of the bourgeois within the working class. In the same way that an Overseer and a Serf are both "working class" but one holds a clearly demarcated position relative to the other, PMCs and service/factory workers are well defined sub-components structured against one another.
- Were u got that theory from? Asking for a comrade.
That's not really a class, it's not a social relation to the Means of Production, that's more of a group of people. A class is more specific, like a Worker, or an owner.
- Indeed, point being there's no real class distinction.

Whatever happened to Marx' "ownership of the means of production" definition? Also, even beyond that, it makes sense to have an understanding that the precarity felt by an upper middle class person is not remotely the same kind of daily struggle faced by a lower middle class person. Not being able to afford property vs. not being able to afford food.

Ultimately it is important to recognize that all humans in the capitalist system are recruited to participate in an extractive, antihumanist global process.

By what definition is somebody who can't afford property "upper middle class"?
- Common definitions for the middle class range from the middle fifth of individuals on a nation's income ladder, to everyone but the poorest and wealthiest 20%. (Wikipedia)
  Americans seem to feel that middle class means having your own "home", meaning a small plot of land with a house. The number of such homes, within a certain distance of workplaces, schools, and various urban amenities, is limited. There's nothing any economic system can do about that. At some point, people have to accept smaller plots of land and/or stacking the dwellings (ie living in apartments).
The popularization of the stock market make the "means of production" definition fuzzy. If you own .001% of Tesla, do you own the means of production? What about 1%? What about 20%? Is it 51%? Elon Musk is obviously in the owner class, but he only controls 20% of Tesla. But if it's 20%, then does going in with 4 buddies to buy a $500,000 surface parking lot make you an owner? You only need $100k for that and you might not even be employing anyone, and you're not producing anything except parking. You're not like set for life at $100k.
I assume this is solved by using money as the "means of production" instead of thinking of it as ownership of a business or machine, but that still doesn't solve the fuzzy nature of it, you need to set a border at an amount of money.
- It's really not fuzzy. The stock market existed during Marx's time. If you own enough to live off of without labor, you're Bourgeoisie. If you own a small business but also must labor to run it, you're petite bourgeoisie. If you do not own enough to live off of and do not make your primary income via ownership, you're Proletariat.
Whatever happened to Marx’ “ownership of the means of production”
The knowledge economy and non-physical services economies make that definition worthless.
- Those existed during Marx's time.

Modern feudalism in a nutshell

I don't think anyone has defined what "upper" "middle" and "lower" classes are too me. I just take it for granted that people who are wealthy (passive income kind of people) are "upper" class, the "middle" class is people getting by adequately. Not really suffering, or fighting to "make ends meet" so to speak, maybe a bit of savings... And "lower" class are people who struggle to pay their bills, live in low cost housing, have few luxuries, etc. Basically, how much disposable income do you have and where does that income come from?

Working, with passive income sources, or not needing to work to cover expenses, is "upper".

Working, with some disposable income, perhaps some savings, but not enough to live on to cover expenses, is "middle"

And anyone without any kind of financial safety, living paycheck to paycheck, only making enough to cover direct living expenses, are "lower".

I have no idea if that's right; nobody has accurately defined it for me. I've always considered myself kind of "lower-middle class" aka, still making enough for some luxuries, but without any significant savings or buffer for financial stability. No issues meeting living expenses.... Kind of the bottom half of middle class, if you will. My father was the same; he was much better with money, mind you, and he was able to dedicate a larger percentage of his earnings to savings. He would forego luxuries and "upgrades" to save money... As long as things worked and the family was comfortable, he was fine with putting the money away. He wouldn't hesitate to spend to replace something that's important, like buying a car to get around when the old one was too broken to work and/or be fixed. But if the vehicle worked, he wouldn't replace it just because it was a bit older.

IDK, I'm working. I need to work to afford to live. I'm almost never at risk of not being able to pay for something I need or want, aside from big ticket items (well into the thousands).... I'm just some guy.

It's not just money. It's also breeding/family.
Watch the guilded age.
Servants are working class
The people with money, even old money are middle class.
The dukes and upwards are upper class.
In modern America Upper class are the dynastic families
You basically have it, uhh, right on the money, so to speak. I think a lot of other people try to make more specific, scientific definitions, but once you get into the meat and potatoes of, what is a "necessary" expense, what is a reasonable amount of comfortable savings, yadda yadda, you start to see the cracks form. Realistically the only solid definitions that I think I've ever seen have mostly just been made on the basis of people not having to work at all, to live, vs people who have to have a job. There's probably a very highly qualified definition of "middle class" out there, but I'm not sure if it would match the idea of "middle class", and if it would also illustrate anything valuable for anyone, really. Especially if you're going based on the former definition of "needs to work to live", then most middle class definitions you'd come up with would probably also fall into working class.
I dunno. It's interesting to me how many people kind of get caught up on what I see as semantic arguments, rather than analyzing arguments around like, oh, do we like a capitalist structure of ownership, like a corp, or do we like a worker structure of ownership, like a co-op? It hits me as being a very kind of moralistic argument about "leeches" and "capitalists not contributing to society", when really I think we should be caring about what's a more ideal/efficient way to live, rather than caring about, you know, whether or not somebody should be defined as middle class, or petite bourgeois, or whatever. It's basically the same argument either way, but I find the framing to be pretty important, and often overlooked.
- Well, I certainly don't give what "class" I am any thought day to day. Only on rare occasions like this, do I even give it any consideration at all.
  I'm part of the workforce, I do my job, I collect a paycheck, I go home and spend time with my family. I'm not complicated, I don't subscribe to "hustle" culture, and I don't have any need to be wealthy, influential or otherwise noteworthy to anyone outside of my friends, family and coworkers. I'm just not that person. Even inside of those circles, I don't see any one person being in charge, except for my direct manager and whatnot in a work context; everything is cooperative.
  That works for me, maybe I'm strange in that respect, but I'm okay with it. I couldn't care less if someone thinks I'm one class or another. I work to live, not the other way around.

Exactly..

The last color of the rainbow is Purple. Violet and Indigo were made up by Green to divide Purple. Make no mistake, Green is actively working against your interests.

Is that what greenwashing is?
Also I'm team pink anyway
So, Richard of York gave battle what?

It's a good thing that was underlined or I wouldn't know what part of this was important.

https://youtu.be/iMewtlmkV6c?si=HIHCk9wM6IIK6e7h

Someone correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t direct linking to an image on Reddit cost your lemmy instance a fair sum of money?

The image provider of Reddit doesn't hide images behind an API or any authorization layer. It's basically free especially if the Lemmy instance has a flat fee for bandwidth usage
- That’s a surprise, considering Reddit’s whole API meltdown. I appreciate the answer.
How would that work?
- Iunno, I’m not a web dev. Reddit created its video and image hosting services to avoid fees associated with linking content from elsewhere. When you click a link, the site you came from is listed as the referrer. Past that, your question is essentially mine.
You are wrong.
- Any chance you can expand on that slightly? I’m fine being wrong, but this doesn’t offer much information.
how would that work

And in the real world there is a huge difference between 30k and 250k a year. Made up 🤣

I think the point is if either gets fired their livelihoods are at risk. Therefore, making them the same class with the same financial precarity.
Maybe 250k can be unemployed for a bit longer, but ultimately they must return to work.
- Usually, to get a $250k job you need to have $250k job trappings, aka you're unlikely to get or keep that job while living, dressing or eating etc as a $50k job person, ending up in the situation you described.
  Minimalism seems to be a way to escape the rat-race even through salary, but it seems like a strategy for after you have proven yourself indispensable in a high paying job, not something most people can or will achieve, or are able to then make the necessary life changes.
  TLDR if you are a worker become part of a union no matter what salary you're on.
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.
- And so that means the other classes don't exist?
- The point is about taking absolutely valid class identifiers and trying to pretend they don't exist is dumb. I haven't said a damn thing for or against communism.
I think it comes down to your level of analysis, or how you define relations. Having been living off $30-40k income for most of my life, I can definitely get the sentiment of the large differences between that and someone making $100k (even $60k), or at least someone living a working class vs middle class lifestyle. But that also goes for someone making $0-10k to $30-40k. Either way, the salience of financial insecurity hits a lot harder for someone with less existing cash.
That said, I also get the sentiment of the nil difference between working and middle class versus the ultra rich who generate huge swaths of passive income and can basically can dictate whether or not the lower classes have enough for rent. Why bother fight against each other when there's a much larger and casual target.
In a more nuanced answer, for solidarity sake we do need to recognize our similarities to work together for a better system. But that doesn't mean we should ignore our differences and privileges either. We should work towards achieving core necessities for all even at the cost of our own privileges (i.e. an opposite tragedy of the commons: those with some threshold excess contribute to the pond). Determining that threshold is another question, with both absolute and relative poverty thresholds with their own criticisms. And not to say that no class hierarchies will form either, technically skilled and heavily laborious jobs should be rewarded, and people will always try to skim a little off the top to get ahead of their own benefit. But in recognizing our differences, we recognize a need to monitor ourselves for the benefit of everyone.
- 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.
- The existence of a large gap doesn't negate the differences between working and the top 7-2% ers. All I'm saying is there is very clearly a difference.
True, but the increase in salary and productivity should also go up in proportion. And yet, the minimum wage have remained the same since the 1970s.
And the difference is decided by capitalist class.
You laugh now, but we're staring down the barrel of all that shit melting away as we all burn. The "owning class" is actually making it happen faster lol.
- 250k has more in common with 30k than with megayaght CEOs.
- Nothing to do with what I said.

Stfu, putz

putz, like... putins? klutz? or is that some slur i'm too uncultured to understand
edit: apparently it's a yiddish-derived insult meaning "fool"
No need to transcribe it, I agree.

I mean, Upper Class certainly exists, working class and middle class are the same thing, and the problem is that lower class aren't working.

Lower class aren't working because they can't. That's why they're lower class. Also, you're wrong because NOW the middle class of working are the lower class being underpaid.
The truth & problem is that the upper class aren't working regardless if they "have jobs" or not.
So let me spell that out. You are completely fucking wrong.
- You’re both wrong. The lower class largely is working. More than ever, actually. It’s he system that’s broken, not the people in the lower classes.
I respect Jeff Bezos because he works so hard he could only send dick pics during company meetings.

So, Elon Musk is then working class too.

No. He could drop working and have a comfortable life. The owning class chooses to work as a way to excert power and accumulate even more wealth
- A lot of people in upper middle class choose to work to accumulate more wealth. And “as a way to exert power” is may be true for some, but not for all of them.
I don't understand. He owns huge amounts of capital. In what sense is he working class?
- In a sense that he is working?
lol
Shitposting to the echo chamber you bought isn't work.
There should be some kind of intelligence test before people are allowed to use the internet. It would keep stupid shit like this from spreading.