Joe Biden Love Thread

[The Batlord]

Tfw a bitch like JWB is describing the petty bourgeoisie small business ownership of someone who has the same class interests as a wealthy business owner and a supposed socialist is trying to describe them as working class.

Like yeah a petty bourgeoisie business owner can seem like the working class but at the end of the day they side with capital. This is known.

[jwb]

Originally Posted by elphenor

my exp working at them tells me that a gas station owner, while, yeah, technically acts as a capitalist in a sense, is more akin to a store manager

those dudes stand behind the counter and ring customers, stock shelves, make deposits all the **** employees do, they just obviously pay themselves a ginormous salary for it

even then, there's usually a family dynamic, blood related or not, my dude at the 7/11 down the street from me is making enough to afford a house in Austin

this is a different class than land lords, stock bros, investors etc. which is what I think you were alluding to to begin with

I'm not sure why you think them putting in work at their own business makes them akin to a worker. It makes them a frugal business owner. They aren't selling their labor to anyone, they are investing time and effort into a business that they expect to generate wealth for them in the future. That's not the same relationship with the business as just a worker with a really good salary at all.

[jwb]

Originally Posted by The Batlord

Tfw a bitch like JWB is describing the petty bourgeoisie small business ownership of someone who has the same class interests as a wealthy business owner and a supposed socialist is trying to describe them as working class.

Like yeah a petty bourgeoisie business owner can seem like the working class but at the end of the day they side with capital. This is known.

I didn't say they have the same exact class interests. They don't in every case. But they are both capitalists. And you can name call all you want but at the end of the day you are just purity testing people based on how well they adhere to some version of socialism you've conjured together by listening to podcasts.

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by jwb

I didn't say they have the same exact class interests. They don't in every case. But they are both capitalists. And you can name call all you want but at the end of the day you are just purity testing people based on how well they adhere to some version of socialism you've conjured together by listening to podcasts.

Bro you don't have to be be self conscious about agreeing with socialism when you agree with socialism.

[jwb]

I'm sorry but you simply missed my point. My entire point was that the owner/ worker distinction isn't sufficient to tell us everything about class. It's one metric among many that correlate to higher status and wealth but are not synonymous with said status/ wealth.

The entire point was a business owner/ capitalist can actually be lower on the class totem pole than a successful worker from another industry.

As far as the political class interests of all business owners coinciding... that's probably not always true either. I'm sure the are things that could be lobbied for which specifically help giant corporations at the expense of small businesses or vice-versa. In that case their interests would actually be diametrically opposed.

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by jwb

I'm sorry but you simply missed my point. My entire point was that the owner/ worker distinction isn't sufficient to tell us everything about class. It's one metric among many that correlate to higher status and wealth but are not synonymous with said status/ wealth.

The entire point was a business owner/ capitalist can actually be lower on the class totem pole than a successful worker from another industry.

As far as the political class interests of all business owners coinciding... that's probably not always true either. I'm sure the are things that could be lobbied for which specifically help giant corporations at the expense of small businesses or vice-versa. In that case their interests would actually be diametrically opposed.

Yes, you are agreeing with socialism.

Upper/middle/lower class is not a socialist concept. Bourgeois/proletariat is. You can make working class money and still be owning class and have owning class interests. This is called petty bourgeois.

Congratulations, comrade.

[Marie Monday]

immigrants can be bourgeois too Elph lmao

Charles is mostly right I think. Class, money and bourgeoisie/proletariat are all different things. I wouldn't say that everyone who owns a tiny business is bourgeois, but having a business generally means aiming to exploit capitalism instead of being exploited by it. What jwb said about generating wealth etc.

[jwb]

Originally Posted by The Batlord

Yes, you are agreeing with socialism.

Upper/middle/lower class is not a socialist concept. Bourgeois/proletariat is. You can make working class money and still be owning class and have owning class interests. This is called petty bourgeois.

Congratulations, comrade.

I'm using the worker/owner distinction correctly to identify them as capitalists, yes. That doesn't mean I agree that the worker/owner distinction is a good replacement for income based class distinctions. In fact it was a demonstration for why I don't.

[jwb]

Originally Posted by elphenor

what if he were the only employee, or it's a family owned and operated business

If they don't hire anyone then you can remove the exploitation angle but nonetheless their relationship to the business resembles that of an owner, not a worker. They can pay themselves a salary which might not even be that much but that is only really limited by how profitable the business is. Fundamentally, how much money they make is irrelevant to the worker/ owner distinction. That's the point. It's not a technicality either, you are just trying to make a weird exception here based mostly on intuition from what I can tell.

[Marie Monday]

Originally Posted by elphenor

the point is that they're not inheriting wealth or social standing typically and running a sole corner store is not a vehicle for building generational wealth either

I wouldn't consider a cobbler who employes an apprentice to be a member of the bourgeois but maybe you would

Inherited social standing and wealth is class, not bourgeoisie/proletariat