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Hmm, you seem to misunderstand me. Marx distinguished 2 classes: bourgeoisie and proletariat (ed.: I’m including the lumpenproletariat) . If someone depends on their labour to survive they’re part of the proletariat, whether they’re white collar doctors with two houses and a mortgage or blue collar factory workers scraping to get by.
Distinguishing strongly between ‘middle’ and ‘working’ class is, in my limited experience, peculiarly British. Lawyers and doctors are generally middle class, manual labourers are generally working class, and neither appreciates being told they’re the opposite. Thing is they’re both proletariat i.e., working class, but the white collar workers or ‘middle’ class are thrown a feel-good bone by not being bundled together with the ‘working’ class. Ed.: this is what I meant by breaking class awareness.
Eseman-
Hmm, you seem to misunderstand me. Marx distinguished 2 classes: bourgeoisie and proletariat (ed.: I’m including the lumpenproletariat) . If someone depends on their labour to survive they’re part of the proletariat, whether they’re white collar doctors with two houses and a mortgage or blue collar factory workers scraping to get by.
You seem to have missed the whole bit where he talked about the petite bourgeoisie as a transitional class (and not in a temporal sense).
Distinguishing strongly between ‘middle’ and ‘working’ class is, in my limited experience, peculiarly British.
You're right; your experience is limited.
itsbruce
You misunderstand me. Marx would be strongly disagreeing with you about most of that. Sure, he thought the middle class was a creation of capitalism, but he didn't think the class division was an illusion.
It isn't a British peculiarity, either. Bourgeois isn't an English word or an English invention.