"Working Class" is not an IDENTITY; it is a relationship to the means of production [View All]

The worst thing to come out of the identity politics of the 60's and 70's is a complete confusion about class analysis. I am not saying that class analysis should be primary, or that it trumps other sorts of social analysis. I am saying, merely, that we have lost an adequate definition of class.

"Working class" is not an identity that inheres in a person. It is, rather, a very specific sort of relationship to the means and mode of production. It is not about "characteristics" of people (college educated, or not/ pick-up truck, or not/ etc., etc.), nor is it even really about INCOME level, although it correlates with income, for reasons that will become clear. It is about a relationship to the means of production. The definition is simple:

You are forced to sell your labor power in order to ensure basic survival, and you have limited, if any, access to the capital that drives production in your work.

It's not a characteristic that inheres. If at one time you were forced to sell your labor power to assure basic survival, but now you don't, you're NOT working class. Tim Russert's buffoonery about his "working class roots" is just silly. He may sell his labor, but he is not FORCED to sell his labor to assure basic survival (he could quit tomorrow).

If you are a business owner, even a small business owner, you are not working class. You have full access to the capital that drives production. On the other hand, if you are a teacher, or even a college professor, you likely ARE working class, since you are forced to sell your labor (even though it is intellectual or affective labor) to survive. This may lead to a seeming paradox: an independent "blue collar" truck driver (who owns his own rig) is NOT working class, while a "pink collar" software developer in a shiny office building might be. A beer guzzling contractor with the tool belts and the work boots is NOT working class (if he owns his own small contracting company), while a maid for the Hilton is. That's exactly correct. It's about a relationship to production, not about personal characteristics.

We've gone on too long identifying surface features that once "signified" a relationship to the means of production with the actual relationship to production itself. It is an incorrect form of analysis, and it leads only to false problems.