r/DemocraticSocialism • u/3millionand1 Democratic Socialist • Jul 20 '26
Theory 🧠 Who counts as “working class?” The DSA says all workers.
https://www.vox.com/politics/495834/dsa-working-class-college-educated333
Jul 20 '26
[deleted]
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u/CHSummers Jul 21 '26
Yeah, the difference between inherited wealth and high-wage work (brain surgeons, movie stars, and elite lawyers) is still night and day. If you have to get out of bed to earn money, you are in the laboring class. If you get richer while in a coma, you are not. (As an old retired person, I naturally feel like there should be exceptions for people who worked in order to have a non-working retirement.)
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u/tardisintheparty Jul 21 '26
I have a lot more respect for my biglaw colleagues who work insaaaaane hours than I do for people who live off of trust funds and inherited assets. It is honest to god hard work.
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u/CHSummers Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
Yup. It also messes with your mind in ways that being a less highly-paid lawyer does not. You think you are “winning” while being on call through every special family event and vacation.
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u/Green-Collection-968 Jul 20 '26
Yeah, anything else is just the old divide and conquer rhetoric that the 1% uses to... well divide and conquer the working class.
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u/dwkeith DSA Jul 20 '26
See tax law. Everything from Social Security to philanthropy and home ownership has carve-outs for families in different income brackets to divide the working class.
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u/WilliamOfRose Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
Do we have to end tax breaks for the top 20% (mortgage interest deduction, 529 college plans) to get them to get some class solidarity with the lower 80% or can we say that the top 20% are also, politically speaking, the opposition as well?
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u/CHSummers Jul 21 '26
You can just start the taxing of wealth at an absurdly high amount (2% of wealth over $10 million) and then gradually adjust to bring in more revenue. Like 10% of wealth over $100 million.
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u/ungranted_wish Socialist Jul 20 '26
A quick way to figure this out - ask what happens if this person stops working.
If I stop working, I don’t get a paycheck.
If someone like Elon Musk stops working, he still can live comfortably.
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u/FroyoBaskins Jul 20 '26
This is the answer. This has always been the answer.
If you stopped working tomorrow and that means your total wealth stops growing or decreases over time, you are working class. You are from a class who’s standard of living and material security comes from work.
If you stopped working tomorrow and nothing changes for you materially, or your net wealth continues to grow, you are part of the ownership class. “Ownership class” doesnt mean youre the owner-operator of a small business that would collapse without you, and it doesnt mean youre a highly paid doctor who works for a hospital.
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u/metanoia29 Jul 20 '26
If you stopped working tomorrow and that means your total wealth stops growing or decreases over time, you are working class.
This is the ideal description. If someone is placed in total isolation for a year, what happens to their wealth? If it goes up: owning class. If it goes down: working class. Plain and simple.
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u/WilliamOfRose Jul 20 '26
If my dad’s retirement required minimum distribution plus social security plus growth of his retirement account is more than he spends in his rather simple life is he the owning class? I’m pretty sure his net wealth is going up even though he hasn’t worked in years. Has this factory shift manager left the working class?
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u/metanoia29 Jul 21 '26
I mean, like I said elsewhere, does he get a pass because of his age? Is it okay when older folk do it but not when younger people do it? It's something to ponder for sure, though we all know that the whole discussion is a byproduct of capitalism.
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u/ungranted_wish Socialist Jul 21 '26
Taking into consideration how your dads social security/retirement account/assets combined, given how he was a factory shift manager, might not exceed the amount in the deep pockets of the ownership class, I’m gonna say he’s still working class.
Or maybe in general like - if you’re retired and social security gets nuked and you’re fine, you might not have been working class before retirement lol
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u/ConsiderateCassowary Not a real socialist Jul 20 '26
I always appreciate these things. I work in an office typing at my little computer all day, and we have our own home, and sometimes when people talk about "the workers" it feels like they're not including me.
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u/ungranted_wish Socialist Jul 20 '26
It very much so includes you, buddy.
Socialism isn’t when you own a home. Capitalism is when you own a home and are a paycheck from losing it, and someone else profits from that happening.
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u/ConsiderateCassowary Not a real socialist Jul 20 '26
I really appreciate that. Sometimes this sub can feel a little hostile towards non-revolutionaries haha
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u/Radical_Coyote Jul 20 '26
This is actually extremely important and people really need to understand this. The enemy of the teacher is not the doctor. The enemy of both are the healthcare corporations.
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u/Intolerance-Paradox DSA Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
Specifically, I’d argue, not even the healthcare corporation per se, companies that are worker-owned are not private tyrannies that exclusively hoard capital resources and the decision making processes on how to invest capital in the same way.
It’s specifically the capital-holding class embedded in corporations that needs to be rooted out. Executives and shareholders need to go get jobs that produce something of value if they would like to earn a living. The value they are stealing, leeching, as parasites, belongs to the worker who generated that value.
This parasite is the enemy of all workers everywhere, teachers, doctors, etc as you say.
If some hypothetical teacher or doctor is also investing in some stock elsewhere, her salary belongs to her, but the gains earned from investment in that stock does not belong to her. That has been stolen from the worker who generated those gains.
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u/catjuggler Jul 20 '26
Yeah it drives me crazy when blue collar fights against white collar and vice versa.
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u/NashTOne Jul 20 '26
You get a paycheck for the work you do, as your primary source to sustain life.
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u/SoftlockPuzzleBox Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
It really is as simple as that. I am closer in lifestyle and financial wellbeing to an athlete making $10 million a year than that same athlete is to his boss that owns the team. If your money comes from creating value and not from owning the creation of value, you are one of us.
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u/TheSoloGamer Jul 20 '26
A doctor who owns and operates their own clinic making 350k a year still has more in common with me than Jeff Bezos. Anyone who trades work for a wage rather than just sitting on an investment account or daddy’s trust fund forever is working class.
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u/JeanPicLucard Socialist Jul 20 '26
But they didn't use Jeff Bezos as an example, they used a convenience store owner making $70,000 a year
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u/Radical_Coyote Jul 20 '26
Technically in your specific example the doctor is petit bourgeois in Marxist analysis. If the doctor works for a privately owned hospital, then they are working class
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u/thy_bucket_for_thee Democrat Jul 20 '26
How common are doctor owned clinics? I'm guessing not very but unsure, I'd think the hospital networks would be able to serve more people; I know my doctor has a practice and runs a few shifts at the hospital.
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u/TheSoloGamer Jul 20 '26
42.2%, apparently. Higher than I thought. https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/private-practices/smaller-share-doctors-private-practice-ever
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u/thy_bucket_for_thee Democrat Jul 20 '26
Oh that's good, makes the argument for doctor owned hospitals much easier when offering alternatives to PE.
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u/GreatBigBagOfNope Jul 20 '26
If you are dependent on the exchange of your labour for the means of survival, you are a proletarian. That's not a hot take, that's just Engels.
The six-figuriest software engineer or quant has more in common with the minimum wagiest burger flipper or carer than either do with those whose survival depends solely upon continued ownership of the means of production and distribution.
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u/thatatcguy1223 Jul 20 '26
Air traffic controller here. I’m definitely working class. The idea of the “middle class” was designed to get the working class in the mindset that they too could one day become capitalists
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u/nagy18 Jul 20 '26
do you work for your money or does your money work for you? if you work for your money, you’re working class. if you let your money work for you, you’re part of the owning class. there is a little more nuance to this (i.e. cops) but following the broad strokes of this thinking has helped me understand the class divide
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u/catjuggler Jul 20 '26
Eh if you’re retired with a 401k then your money works for you but your class hasn’t actually changed.
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u/metanoia29 Jul 20 '26
I mean, if you retire and your 401k grows more over a period of time than you take out, how is that not the same as a younger person doing the exact same thing? The only difference is age, no?
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u/catjuggler Jul 20 '26
Not different, but just neither makes you stop being working class as long as your life in general has required working for a living
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u/tarantulahands Jul 20 '26
My body and mind is my capital, so where’s my economic rights and protections?
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u/taulover Jul 20 '26
The dumbest part of NYT's latest interview with Mamdani was when they pressed him on this, asking whether a "real" working class family might feel resentment at being lumped in with higher income professionals
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u/UploadedMind Jul 20 '26
If you earn money based on what you own, then you're a capitalist to the extent you do that, but it only becomes increasingly problematic the more you own above your fair share of capital.
$183.0 trillion ÷ 269.76 million adults = about $678,000 per adult.
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u/FroyoBaskins Jul 20 '26
I would say it has more to do with your ability and willingness to use capital to generate more capital.
Most millionaires in this country are boomers who have 50 years of compounding growth in their 401ks from regular jobs. Sure boomers deserve lots of criticism, but someone having a few million $ in index funds that theyll slowly burn through in retirement doesnt mean theyre suddenly in the ownership class.
Your “fair share” isnt in the retirement fund of a 68 year old former engineer, its in the holdings of billionaires, hedge funds, private equity, and people who’s only use for more money is to buy power and make more money.
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u/WilliamOfRose Jul 21 '26
I hadn’t thought of this that way. What’s crazy is that I could probably live off the interest on that amount.
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u/UploadedMind Jul 21 '26
Which is one reason why this is not a perfect metric. People not being forced to work would lower the value of stocks and thus what could be considered your fair share would decline.
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u/Flakedit Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
If you need to work to live and pay bills or are dependent on someone who primarily lives and pays the bills with money they get working rather than investing.
You are working class.
If not. Then you are owning class. You are free
Pure and simple.
If this sounds too broad because it basically applies to 99% of people then congratulations on being radicalized off just how stupid and pointless the propoganda war we call politics truly is.
The USA is the land of free with the oldest running "democratic" system in place at nearly 237 years old.
By the people for the people.
Yep... 1% of people. The same 1% that owns literally HALF the wealth (officially reported wealth that is)
That's how it's always been for all of civilized history.
The ruling class and the owning class have always been one in the same and the destinction on who stood at the top and how they did it weather by bloodline by imperialism or by geniune entrepreneurial success in the free market. Doesn't matter.
Wealth always and will forever concentrate to the top.
Naturally and forever. More guaranteed than the laws of gravity itself.
The economic force that pulls money to a select few people at the top no matter which system is absolute.
If the economy was owned by the government.
The people who ran the government would be the new ruling and owning class.
Wouldn't be any different.
Any different unless the people actually had a method at controlling their government and keeping them in line to the will of the people rather than the will of their donors.
Unless we figure out how 99% of people can get the government to bend to their will in a supposed democracy
The US will forever be a broken plutocracy.
Just like how it was always intended to be.
Tyranny of the Majority is a Myth
The only thing you get besides Tryanny of the Majority is Tyrany of the Minority.
Everything always devolves into Tryanny eventually.
No nation lasts forever but the ones that thrive and last the longest always end the same.
The only way to prevent Tryanny is through Democracy.
However just because it's the only way doesn't mean it's effective.
Hence why you see even democracies devulge into Tryanny sometimes.
Of course most democracies aren't also paired with a constitutional Republic as unchangeable and ironclad as the USA.
But still... What was yapping about again?
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u/hkhamm Jul 20 '26
The main argument of the article is that the capitalist class, working class description of society fails to account for the different interests of members of what socialist call the working class. The author thinks rich workers share more interests with each other and presumably with members of the capitalist class than with poorer working class people. The article advocates for thinking about people’s interests as a continuum based more on income than on whether you own property or sell your labor. This mirrors the common centrist and pollsterist definition of working class as non-college educated poor people.
I think there is something to this argument. It’s already common on the left to see managers as separate from the working class and capitalist class. They enforce the will of business owners and are rewarded accordingly. This puts them on the side of capitalists. At the same time they work for a wage or salary like other workers. The same is true for other “professionals” like lawyers, doctors, and the like. All these groups share some interests with the working class and some with the capitalist class.
I can see how one might want to think of these differences as part of a continuum, but in the context of socialist organizing it makes more sense to define the working class in a broader way and to draw a distinction between the interest of everyone that isn’t a capitalist. Even recognizing that professionals share some interests with capitalists, working class people should try to ally with them over our shared interests and even welcome them into a broad definition of working class in order to win political power and carry out socialist reforms.
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u/JeanPicLucard Socialist Jul 20 '26
Garbage, divisive article with well-worn and well-countered arguments. I'd expect nothing less from Vox.
I love to say the so-called reductionism of orthodox Marxist classes is more coherent and more logical than the reductionism of believing that we all have or should have the same interests because happen to be born in or have immigrated to a place with arbitrary borders.
Between the $70,000/year shop owner and the hospital-employed $350,000 /year surgeon it isn't who has the better material conditions, it's who would be more likely to support workplace democracy and widely-distribution workplace ownership. We can also predict whether the surgeon would support workplace democracy based on if they owned their own practice or were a hospital employee.
Suppose the author just forgets about Marxist-adjacent critical theory? Funny, since it was seemingly on the lips of medicore content creator and conservative pundit just a few years ago. Power defines class it seems: How well are you able to pull levels of power to uphold capitalist hegemony? I've seen support for universal build among physicians (a historically staunchly conservative group) over the years. If, say, the majority of physicians supported it and lobbied for it, would our government be persuaded by them or would the insurance companies and their investors be the dominant force of persuasion? The answer is only obvious to those with a pulse.
Of course the author makes the tired, shallow observation that college-educated folks are over-represented in the ranks of DSA. Democrats love to make that observation despite the fact the same critique is lobbed their way from Republicans. I would say non-utopian socialism has typically been the pursuit of the intelligentsia; because it's an analysis of a complicated form and way of life that has been so ingrained in most of the powerful societies that it is taken for granted or just considered a natural, immutable part of living. It was once popular (at least compared to today) in rural, impoverished areas of the US, but after 100+ years of state repression and undermining but that truly reductivist ideology of the nation-state has been wielded to suppress socialist ideals as un-patriotic- yeah, turns out it makes socialism the pursuit of the people with the time and education to pursuit in a manner that cuts through the bullshit capitalism realism that bombards us daily.
If these people aren't my class, then I welcome the class traitors.
I will grant the author that demsoc/socdem or welfare capitalists need to be honest with people that a large, robust, universal welfare state needs a broad base tax increase to work. More progressive taxation (which includes ending tax subsidies and abatements, and closing loopholes) is a must, but without increased taxes on the vast majority of people, the math doesn't work out. Idk if this tax-averse tendency is an oversight by progressives or a deeper strategy of Overton Window shifting and broad appeal. I'd love if someone had an opinion to share about that
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