As time goes on and the tasks of the industry undergo automatization, most jobs are left to the part-time workers. Hasn't anyone else noticed this trend? We call them petite-bourgeoisie and yes variably but mostly tend to be since the nature of their work is not collectivist and is akin to the statuses of small business owners (individual entrepreneurs), shopkeepers (of small businesses), small-scale merchants (without a proper shop), semi-autonomous peasants (now just semi-autonomous poor entrepreneurs), and artisans. I feel that class relations have changed and nobody has bothered to do a concise analysis of it, instead clinging to the same labels, looking back and trying to reapply or justify the changed situation with outdated concepts. For example the "peasantry" Marx described is not the same as the poor jobless homeless, they were literally farmers with limited land-ownership and yet I see people calling hobos and the general poor as peasants. I am lead to believe the term proletariat barely applies anymore, the industrial proletariat is being scaled down and once society no longer relies on its labor then nothing makes it a revolutionary subject since it cannot bring about change through strikes or anything - it will just disappear once its no longer needed anywhere. My thesis is that the majority of the current workers are in the sphere of services and that the revolutionary subject may be IT workers, programmers, generally technicians and scientists which can understand the machinery and affect it. Machinery has already enveloped most of society, so any change that comes upon it will affect it and whoever can affect it can take control of the social order.
Most workers don't work a single job anymore, they do part-time jobs here and there to live by. In the historical situation for which Marx was writing, workers generally lived and died the same profession they took up.
And yes we've had this thread before, though there is a different response each time so I'm trying it against to see what comes out as a response. I present it in a different way and with a different flag that may or may not even be related.
My current thesis is that the movement of the declassed (as Bukharin labeled it) might have the upper hand with the growth of capitalism, the contradictions within the capitalist mode of production do lead to a sort of decomposition, but generally don't appear to be able to lead to collapse on their own unless it brings about omnicide.
The industrial proletariat can only exist as long as the industry needs manual intervention, when manual intervention is deduced to management rather than physical labor it is only those professions which can control the machinery and know how it functions that are able to intervene in production at all. There are less and less factory workers since their manual labor to operate the machinery is not needed - most just move onto working in logistic hubs or construction, but what happens when they're no longer needed there either?
Also FYI, this is just speculative thought experiment, I may or may not believe it, just putting it out there to see what others think.
260 posts and 29 image replies omitted.>>2403302I'm sageposting because this is either babyfirst thinking about politics or trolling
>your definition of property is legal>so is mineyour "definition" is an imaginary concept, you call it legal because maybe it is used to explain to people the logic behind some legal decisions. when I say legal definition I mean the entire corpus of the law regulating property, from land regulation, water rights, national sovereignty, taxes, etc. etc. your definition, being imaginary, isn't perfectly embodies by any particular legislation - ask yourself why. therefore, it isn't an observation of an objective reality, but a generalization to simplify a complex and constantly changing social construct
>>2403316read the post you are replying to
<when I say legal definition I mean the entire corpus of the law regulating property, from land regulation, water rights, national sovereignty, taxes, etc. etc.and then
>>>/leftypol/2403321in short, property is only relevant and only exists to the extent and shape it can be enforced, which in most of the world right now means legislation
>>2403324>meritocracywhat happens to the unmeritable?
>>2403325define "property"
>>2403327>what happens to the unmeritable?he who does not work neither shall he eat
he who is against work shall eat the poop of society until botulism - KARL LENIN 30907 A.C.
>>2403327>define "property"read the following posts:
>>>/leftypol/2403249>>>/leftypol/2403272>>>/leftypol/2403312there is no abstract "it means to have something" because in reality it only exists when and how it is enforced
>>2403349Btw forgot flag
long live 420chan I POSTED THIS, I, A 420CHANNER
>>2403351>>>/leftypol/2403249>the definition that matters in the real world is the one that can be enforced and is usually codified in laws>>>/leftypol/2403272>for what country? on what year?>>>/leftypol/2403312>when I say legal definition I mean the entire corpus of the law regulating propertyso you dont actually define it. so pathetic.
but lets read that last statement again:
>the entire corpus of the law regulating property"property" here is not the law itself, but something put under subjection of the law - so the law for property and property are different things by your own admission. what then, is property?
>>2403366>a homeowner in X country magically has different class interests than a homeowner in Y countrylol
>because one may be inalienable by law and the other may be subjected to eminent domain if the government can prove it needs it. one may be inheritable and the other not, etc. etc.this is irrelevant to the fact someone who owns a house wont risk losing it unlike the proletariat who has by definition nothing to lose :)
>>2403365>constantly asking gibberishhere's my "gibberish" question:
what is property?
the dictionary has a definition, should i use that?
>(1) that which a person owns; the possession or possessions of a particular owner.>(2) goods, land, etc., considered as possessions.>(3) a piece of land or real estate.>(4) ownership; right of possession, enjoyment, or disposal of anything, especially of something tangible.https://www.dictionary.com/browse/propertyis the dictionary wrong?
>>2403359>here is not the law itselfread the last part of the post you are replying to but decided not to quote:
<there is no abstract "it means to have something" because in reality it only exists when and how it is enforcedand then
>>>/leftypol/2403366your garbage definition that you call "legal" boils down to precisely that, having something. I point out that the concept itself that you take as universal is actually particular to circumstances and that yes, property is one of the things the law as a whole defines because it defines the concept of having to begin with through it's enforcement. from where did this law arise? there is no seminal, universal concept behind it, only historical development
>>2403381>your garbage definition that you call "legal" boils down to precisely that, having somethingthat is the entire legal definition
>i point out that the concept itself that you take as universalit is a universal concept. name a society that had no property in it.
>>2403382is the dictionary wrong?
>>2403387see
>>>/leftypol/2403198follow the conversation to the point where you give up on your definition, ask me what's mine and, unable to find any gotcha, give up and loop back to something that has already been discussed
>>2403395where do i give up on my definition?
i provide it. you dispute it.
so i ask for an alternative, which you fail to provide.
remember when you said that negation isnt an argument?
you also cant give me any historical example where property didnt exist, so it proves itself to be a universal concept, defined by personal ownership. the dictionary agrees with me. is the dictionary wrong?
>>2403402>where do i give up on my definition?<i provide it. you dispute it.unable to refute my criticism, you decide instead to
>so i ask for an alternativebut curiously, you then claim
>which you fail to providenow notice that when you replied to
>>>/leftypol/2403381 you didn't refute the definition, but instead tried to pedal back to your original one that had already been discarded. not out of any internal inconsistency or incompatibility with reality on my part, but because you found yourself against a wall
>>2403408is owning a house a capitalist social relation?
>>2403411what book should i read to know the definition of property?
>>2403414>notice that when you replied to >>>/leftypol/2403381 you didn't refute the definitionmy own definition? why would i?
also, you havent given historical sources of propertyless societies yet, proving how property is a universal concept, defined by personal ownership.
>>2403423>you havent given historical sources of propertyless societies yetI don't have to: if I can own a plot of land thousands of kilometers away from my current location, I wouldn't be able to do that if there wasn't a state to enforce my claim. therefore if I know the current state hasn't always been there, or hasn't always been the same as it is now, I know my claim isn't universal but merely a product of the current circumstances
as a side note, notice how funny your wording is
>historical sourcesmeans after the invention of writing, as if humans hadn't existed before that. there could be prehistorical sources, like archaeologic evidence - except of course it would be hard to find remains of the presence, absence, or specific nature of a concept of property because it isn't something material. by looking for a gotcha you are evidencing it's social character
>>2403445>I don't have toright; you dont have to provide evidence for your counterfactual position (that property isnt universal), but that only makes your claims spurious.
>if I can own a plot of land thousands of kilometers away from my current location, I wouldn't be able to do that if there wasn't a state to enforce my claim.this is where property rights come in. property rights can be defined as the legitimacy to the claim of property - so if i say that i own buckingham palace, this is illegitimate. ownership then depends on the agreement of certain claims, i agree, but even so, a state does not need to enforce them, since we also have a social contract which assigns property.
>by looking for a gotcha you are evidencing it's social characterwhere do i imply that property exists outside of society? property denotes a social relationship within its own terms.
>>2403443communism is when the state controls everything, no?
>>2403459>breaking the phrase into disconnected chunks to avoid addressing the point being madenext time just quote letter by letter, randomly skip a few, and claim I'm just posting gibberish
<I don't have to: if I can own a plot of land thousands of kilometers away from my current location, I wouldn't be able to do that if there wasn't a state to enforce my claim. therefore if I know the current state hasn't always been there, or hasn't always been the same as it is now, I know my claim isn't universal but merely a product of the current circumstances
>universal>social relationsee
>>>/leftypol/2403312 the only way it could be "universal" is by being a broad generalization of different social relations - and not the social relations themselves
>>2403468>the state wasnt always thereright, but property will still exist even if the state disappears tomorrow, since people will respect the notion of ownership. now, not all ownership will be respected, but a lot of it will.
>the only way it could be "universal" is by being a broad generalization of different social relations - and not the social relations themselvesthis is where you are confused between the universal and the particular - if i talk about an abstract concept like "family", it has a general meaning, but also specific meanings as well. both can exist at the same time. if i talk about property - there is the universal concept, then the particular forms. i am saying that the generalisation has always existed, which is still a transhistorical social relation, just like the family.
>>2403459>communism is when the state controls everything, no?in marxist theory communism is a society where there is no class conflict and thus no need for a state
the countries where communists govern are called socialist. for example, the bolsheviks considered themselves communists and the soviet union a socialist country
>>2403476>not allbro just conceded
>>2403480so its socialism where the state controls everything?
>concededon what? if there was anarchy, rich people would be robbed, which is my meaning, since their property would appear to be illegitimate by the standards of the social contract.
>>2403485you conceded on the universal. as you seemed to understand in your previous post, you only need a single counterexample to disprove a universal. it is all or nothing
>so its socialism where the state controls everything?socialism is when the working class has more political power than the capitalist class. usually when communist govern they claim this to be the case. taking the soviet union as an example again, you had policies like the NEP where the government allowed and incentivized private ownership of factories and businesses. it was socialism because capital didn't directly translate into political power, this is, the government would continue to pursue a communist project instead of just acquiescing to lobbies, bribes, and all the other mechanisms that allow capital to dictate policies
on the other hand, you have fascist italy where the state, through it's "Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale" was the nominal owner of most of the industrial sectors in the country (capitalists could buy "IRI bonds" and receive dividends). it still wasn't a socialist by the marxist criteria because political power was still overwhelmingly in the hands of the upper classes
>>2403517>you conceded on the universalno, i am affirming the universal in place of the particular. property will always exist, but not all kinds of property, since it is deemed illegitimate.
>socialism is when the working class has more political power than the capitalist classin a democracy, dont the workers' votes outnumber the capitalists'?
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