The Ministry of Truth

[amateur51]

Well that covers everybody from bankers to bin-men.

Do 'bin-men' really sit on the boards of each other' employers and talk up their rate of remuneration? Do 'bin-men' really get paid a basic and then get paid a performance-related bonus often as much as and frequently far more than their basic salary?

[ahinton]

Do 'bin-men' really sit on the boards of each other' employers and talk up their rate of remuneration? Do 'bin-men' really get paid a basic and then get paid a performance-related bonus often as much as and frequently far more than their basic salary?

I do believe that, broadly speaking, Mr Pee is correct here; the definition of members of the "working class" as presented above - namely "one, or a group, who works for another, and receives payment for said work" - does indeed appear to cover anyone and everyone whose work involves the supply of goods and/or services to others, either under employed contracts or in the course of operating their own businesses and being paid for doing so; it does therefore cover bankers and bin-persons and, as such, it seems therefore to have somewhat limited value as a descriptor of a "class" of people. Also, some people are described as "working class" when they are in fact unemployed and seeking work and the descriptor is even applied to the retired when they're described as "working class" people (presumably because they have previously worked).

[ahinton]

Do 'bin-men' really sit on the boards of each other' employers and talk up their rate of remuneration? Do 'bin-men' really get paid a basic and then get paid a performance-related bonus often as much as and frequently far more than their basic salary?

But that's not really the point here, is it? They all "work", which is presumably why they would technically fall into the "working class" description by virtue of having paid work and doing it. I daresay some "bin-men" and women working in the same profession do indeed et performance-related bonuses, actually and some perhaps become directors of the refuse collection companies for which they work.

[Serial_Apologist]

excluding the plutocrats yep lots of low paid proletarian bank workers Mr Pee

but the alienation i refer to is not economically determined; it is social [and i think, unlike marxists, that the social is the determinative structure - certainly of much of economic life]

walk through such space as you can find that is still public in the City of London and tell me how you think that sterile concrete and safety glass canal system they still charmingly refer to as streets reflects and human need other than dominance and control .... its very emptiness is the symbol of its victory; a uniformed jobsworth will pop out and these days taser you if you jabber in any polyglot kind of talk .... they only used to do that at the airports [i am making this up {not the airport} but it could be happening today and certainly tomorrow eh]

walk through any larger city market, Leicester is my current favourite but North End Road in London or Ashington in Northumberland were childhood prototypes, experience the polyglot miscellany, noise, muck, trade &c and feel in the midst of humanity and an emergent 'brit' imperial legacy that is demographic and migrant based [cf the last census data on self definitions]

we have , in our politics, ceded and granted power to organised groups of criminals to act unilaterally in their own interests in any sphere of our lives and to have their interests enforced in and by law and treaty ... and the plod, even the publicly paid enforcers have succumbed to the gangster interest ...

Yes but surely the economic underpins the social - I wouldn't deny that sorting out the economic doesn't automatically sort out the social, but you wouldn't deny the economic as basic to the ensuings of everything else, would you calum?

[Serial_Apologist]

But that's not really the point here, is it? They all "work", which is presumably why they would technically fall into the "working class" description by virtue of having paid work and doing it. I daresay some "bin-men" and women working in the same profession do indeed et performance-related bonuses, actually and some perhaps become directors of the refuse collection companies for which they work.

Yes those who don't belong to the working class (the latter being those who create as opposed to accumulating) comprise a very small proportion of the population - nobody is denying that, nor the disproportionate political and economic power the ruling class's ownership of the means of production and distribution confers, and the wastage in talent resulting from this monopoly of control over an anarchic wasteful system.

[ahinton]

Yes those who don't belong to the working class (the latter being those who create as opposed to accumulating) comprise a very small proportion of the population - nobody is denying that, nor the disproportionate political and economic power the ruling class's ownership of the means of production and distribution confers, and the wastage in talent resulting from this monopoly of control over an anarchic wasteful system.

I think that what you're referring to here is not so much what might or might not determine whether any individual could reasonable be regarded as "working class" as the far more fundamental question of how the world of work works - or doesn't. The term "working class" ought surely to exclude not only those who do not do paid work but also all those who are belowe working age, unemployed and retired.

That said, you then use the term "ruling class", by which I assume you to identify most of those who are not "working class" other than those below working age, the unemployed and the retgired, but you do so in the specific context of "ownership of the means of production and distribution"; this is perfectly understandable in the world of large state-owned and run businesses and equally large privately-owned and run corporations, but how does it apply to SMEs, of which in Britain there are vastly more now than there were in, say, the 1970s? Many of these are owned and run by "working class" people (on the basis that they work and get paid for doing so) but the means of at least some if not all of the production and distribution is surely up to them - but you'd presumably not seek to classify owners of such SMEs as members of the "ruling class", would you?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Yes but surely the economic underpins the social - I wouldn't deny that sorting out the economic doesn't automatically sort out the social, but you wouldn't deny the economic as basic to the ensuings of everything else, would you calum?

yes i would i think humans re/create social patterning in all media/channels [power religion economic knowledge culture and so on] and that this disposition is a fundamental attribute of humanity as is our capacity to warp all kinds of narrative justifications for our patterns in domain terms when they are imv species characteristics

“…the science of association is the mother science; the progress of all the others depends on the progress of that one.” Alexis de Tocqueville