why you're WRONG about the PMC
The professional managerial class is just the most advanced section of wage workers and the primary reason Porky is shafting them is because they RESENT the fact that a subsection of workers, due to the their advanced skill or education, have an increased level of independence.
In the recent debate with the far right over the h1b issue on twitter/x, musk said:
>“There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley,” Musk said on X on Christmas Day. “The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,” Musk said in another post.
Now, it seems to me that what he means by "super motivated" is complying with his unreasonable work demands, and visa holders are much more likely to do so out of fear (of being fired and thus DEPORTED). Musk and his fellow tech titans seem to really resent the relatively high level of bargaining power and independence that skilled professionals have due to their high level of skill and education.
Its no accident that tech-porkies, who rely on these types of workers the most, are the most reactionary and you can see that they have significant government influence (the "tech bro" right). They are waging a brutal class war.
When Musk says "super motivated," he really means "willing to work 80+ hours a week without complaining." And H-1B holders, by design, have no real leverage to push back. H-1B workers are tied to their employers. If they get fired, they have 60 days to find a new job or get deported. That means long hours, no complaints, and low risk of quitting. Musk and other execs hate worker autonomy. If you’re a highly skilled engineer who can walk away and get another six-figure job easily, you won’t put up with unreasonable demands. H-1Bs function as a corporate leash, they allow companies to keep a portion of their workforce permanently dependent. That’s why firms like Google, Meta, and Amazon push so hard for H-1B expansions-not just for talent, but to erode the bargaining power of the wider workforce.
What we’re seeing is a class struggle between professionals and the Capitalist Class—the engineers, developers, and other skilled professionals who actually build and maintain technology versus the executives and investors who extract value from their labor. Engineers, DevOps, and developers make six figures, but they don’t control the means of production—executives and Capitalists do. The professional class has historically been independent. Unlike factory workers, skilled engineers have historically had strong bargaining power because demand was high. Capitalists resent their autonomy. Musk, Zuckerberg, and other tech execs hate that top engineers can just leave if they’re overworked or underpaid.
Tech execs and billionaires have been systematically trying to weaken the professional class for years. Their strategies include:
1. H-1B Visa Dependence – Keeping a portion of the workforce dependent and afraid to push back.
2. Offshoring & Outsourcing – Shifting jobs to lower-paid workers abroad to undercut local wages.
3. "AI Will Replace You" Narrative – Pushing the idea that AI will soon do engineering jobs, to discourage salary negotiations and job security demands.
4. Mass Layoffs to Kill Worker Leverage – Even profitable companies fire thousands at once, not because they need to, but to destroy worker confidence and bargaining power.
5. Union-Busting in Tech – Crushing any efforts by workers to organize and demand better conditions.
The Professional-Managerial Class (PMC)—especially high-paid tech workers—likes to think of itself as "elite," but in reality, it's just a well-compensated sector of the proletariat. Their belief that they’re closer to the billionaire class than to the working class is false consciousness, a myth that keeps them from seeing their real position in the system. Many tech workers think they’re part of the ruling class just because they make six figures and work in fancy offices. But their relationship to capital is fundamentally the same as a factory worker—they sell their labor, and when they stop working, their income stops. The real capitalists own stock, companies, and investments that generate passive income—tech workers don’t. "PMC" workers have zero control over company strategy—they implement decisions made by the actual ruling class (executives, board members, and investors).
The 2022–2024 tech layoffs showed that even top-tier software engineers are expendable when Wall Street demands it. Executives have stock options and golden parachutes—engineers get severance (if they’re lucky). Tech professionals believe their skills make them indispensable, but Musk proved otherwise at Twitter—capitalists will gladly cut 80% of them and still turn a profit. If a factory worker is replaced by automation, they lose their livelihood. If a software engineer is replaced by offshoring or AI, the same thing happens.
TLDR: the "PMC" so called does not exist, except as the temporary false consciousness of a section of high paid workers and as their pay evaporates so does that false consciousness.
>TLDR: the "PMC" so called does not exist, except as the temporary false consciousness of a section of high paid workers and as their pay evaporates so does that false consciousness.
I think I see what you're saying to some extent but I think I have to disagree. At least for the Democrats, the section of the pmc they service performs different institutional and ideological functions. Pay is a part of their class position, but not the predominant one. They also can't just be replaced by foreign technical workers either, in part because if the specialized institutional, legal, and magisterial knowledge they have that are specific to working in the US and its institutions. Some sections of them might be economically threatened by AI, but the network of ngos, think tanks, universities, and other specialized intellectual institutions which the Democratic Party rely on to function and develop and enact policy can't be replaced by it.
>>8PMC is not only managers and supervisors
who certainly are proletarian and necessary for production under socialism but also more specialist professionals like engineers and scientists employed by corporations.
>>1Good post. There's also an underrated element to this which is the low level rumble of a drive to include Indians within the hegemonic compromise of whiteness. We see this on both sides of the Atlantic, with Indians taking up positions of power within conservative institutions (the only way they can become white) while Modi and co make overtures towards preferred status.
No guarantee it will win. The far right despise Indians so if it does there would need to be a pretty deep round of myth making. Will never encompass all Indians, but upper caste Hindus only who will attempt to draw lines between them and the 'bad ones' while possibly exploiting some pseudo history about Aryans etc
Good post until the end which does not follow your logic:
>TLDR: the "PMC" so called does not exist,…<Malcolm X said, “If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out, that's not progress. The progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they won't even admit the knife is there”. 🗡️🪿 peace with settler Amerikkkan holocaust spreadsheet workers was never an option
>the "PMC"…are just the temporary false consciousness of a section of high paid workers and as their pay evaporates so does that false consciousness.Malcolm X on the new version of Uncle Tom negros and how they identify with the new versions of slave owners:
https://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/mxp/speeches/mxt17.html>during slavery you had two Negroes. You had the house Negro and the field Negro.>The house Negro usually lived close to his master. He dressed like his master. He wore his master's second-hand clothes. He ate food that his master left on the table. And he lived in his master's house–probably in the basement or the attic–but he still lived in the master's house.>So whenever that house Negro identified himself, he always identified himself in the same sense that his master identified himself. When his master said, "We have good food," the house Negro would say, "Yes, we have plenty of good food." "We" have plenty of good food. When the master said that "we have a fine home here," the house Negro said, "Yes, we have a fine home here." When the master would be sick, the house Negro identified himself so much with his master he'd say, "What's the matter boss, we sick?" His master's pain was his pain. And it hurt him more for his master to be sick than for him to be sick himself. When the house started burning down, that type of Negro would fight harder to put the master's house out than the master himself would.>But then you had another Negro out in the field. The house Negro was in the minority. The masses–the field Negroes were the masses. They were in the majority. When the master got sick, they prayed that he'd die. [Laughter] If his house caught on fire, they'd pray for a wind to come along and fan the breeze.>If someone came to the house Negro and said, "Let's go, let's separate," naturally that Uncle Tom would say, "Go where? What could I do without boss? Where would I live? How would I dress? Who would look out for me?" That's the house Negro. But if you went to the field Negro and said, "Let's go, let's separate," he wouldn't even ask you where or how. He'd say, "Yes, let's go." And that one ended right there.>So now you have a twentieth-century-type of house Negro. A twentieth-century Uncle Tom. He's just as much an Uncle Tom today as Uncle Tom was 100 and 200 years ago. Only he's a modern Uncle Tom. That Uncle Tom wore a handkerchief around his head. This Uncle Tom wears a top hat. He's sharp. He dresses just like you do. He speaks the same phraseology, the same language. He tries to speak it better than you do. He speaks with the same accents, same diction. And when you say, "your army," he says, "our army." He hasn't got anybody to defend him, but anytime you say "we" he says "we." "Our president," "our government," "our Senate," "our congressmen," "our this and our that." And he hasn't even got a seat in that "our" even at the end of the line. So this is the twentieth-century Negro. Whenever you say "you," the personal pronoun in the singular or in the plural, he uses it right along with you. When you say you're in trouble, he says, "Yes, we're in trouble.">But there's another kind of Black man on the scene. If you say you're in trouble, he says, "Yes, you're in trouble." [Laughter] He doesn't identify himself with your plight whatsoever.PMC don't identify themselves with your plight whatsoever…why don't you try waiting another 100 years LOL 😹
>>4>I think I see what you're saying to some extent but I think I have to disagree. At least for the Democrats, the section of the pmc they service performs different institutional and ideological functions. Pay is a part of their class position, but not the predominant one. They also can't just be replaced by foreign technical workers either, in part because if the specialized institutional, legal, and magisterial knowledge they have that are specific to working in the US and its institutions. Some sections of them might be economically threatened by AI, but the network of ngos, think tanks, universities, and other specialized intellectual institutions which the Democratic Party rely on to function and develop and enact policy can't be replaced by it.thats just redefining the PMC though? originally the PMC included people like nurses, lawyers, scientists, and certainly engineers right? Essentially most "white collar" workers? So if you want to say the PMC is only directors of NGOs and MSNBC hosts then you're defining the PMC way more narrowly than it historically has been, let alone how the term is colloquially used today on the left.
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