From my experience talking to my lib but left-sympathetic friends, it seems like people misidentify the middle class with the working class because they literally "work".

I think they see the "lower class" as critically poor, jobless, homeless people and so on.

What no theory does to a motherfucker, and so on.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 19 points 3 days ago (1 children)

tbf the "upper," "middle," and "lower class" naming convention is maybe-deliberately obfuscatory. Much better to describe things in terms of relation to production.

[–] anarchoilluminati@hexbear.net 7 points 3 days ago

Oh, no doubt. I don't use it myself normally.

[–] Runcible@hexbear.net 17 points 3 days ago (3 children)

, it seems like people misidentify the middle class with the working class because they literally "work".

As I understand it "working class" encompasses anyone whose income comes from working regardless of how well off they are, as distinct from people whose income comes from owning shit (stocks or other rent seeking). Am I off base here?

[–] Z_Poster365@hexbear.net 18 points 3 days ago (1 children)

In the Marxist sense, yes that’s what proletarian means.

In the Liberal sense, working class and middle class are two separate and distinct classes. One is poor and the other is financially comfortable.

[–] ComradeMonotreme@hexbear.net 12 points 3 days ago

Yeah every word basically has a liberal version and a Marxist (working class, labor aristocrat, imperialism etc)

[–] ComradeMonotreme@hexbear.net 15 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Kind of yeah. It's why marxists use more specific terms like proletariat, peasant, petit bourgeois, labor aristocrat, comprador, PMC etc to convey extra nuance.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 8 points 3 days ago

When a Marxist is trying to avoid saying "proletariat", that is the definition they will use, but that is absolutely not the common American definition.