The popularization of the stock market make the “means of production” definition fuzzy. If you own .001% of Tesla, do you own the means of production? What about 1%? What about 20%? Is it 51%? Elon Musk is obviously in the owner class, but he only controls 20% of Tesla. But if it’s 20%, then does going in with 4 buddies to buy a $500,000 surface parking lot make you an owner? You only need $100k for that and you might not even be employing anyone, and you’re not producing anything except parking. You’re not like set for life at $100k.
I assume this is solved by using money as the “means of production” instead of thinking of it as ownership of a business or machine, but that still doesn’t solve the fuzzy nature of it, you need to set a border at an amount of money.
It’s really not fuzzy. The stock market existed during Marx’s time. If you own enough to live off of without labor, you’re Bourgeoisie. If you own a small business but also must labor to run it, you’re petite bourgeoisie. If you do not own enough to live off of and do not make your primary income via ownership, you’re Proletariat.
The fuzzy part is picking an amount to consider “enough to live off of.” Elon Musk still works, it’s not a question of if you are currently working but a question of whether you need to. But some people “leanfire” retire with $300k in stocks. So is everyone with a net worth of $300k or more part of the Bourgeoisie?
And apologies to the true theorists because I’m sure Marx covered this somewhere but this makes me wonder about the elderly or unfortunate living off of government payments like Social Security with zero net worth…they don’t work to survive, but they don’t have any money.
The popularization of the stock market make the “means of production” definition fuzzy. If you own .001% of Tesla, do you own the means of production? What about 1%? What about 20%? Is it 51%? Elon Musk is obviously in the owner class, but he only controls 20% of Tesla. But if it’s 20%, then does going in with 4 buddies to buy a $500,000 surface parking lot make you an owner? You only need $100k for that and you might not even be employing anyone, and you’re not producing anything except parking. You’re not like set for life at $100k.
I assume this is solved by using money as the “means of production” instead of thinking of it as ownership of a business or machine, but that still doesn’t solve the fuzzy nature of it, you need to set a border at an amount of money.
It’s really not fuzzy. The stock market existed during Marx’s time. If you own enough to live off of without labor, you’re Bourgeoisie. If you own a small business but also must labor to run it, you’re petite bourgeoisie. If you do not own enough to live off of and do not make your primary income via ownership, you’re Proletariat.
The fuzzy part is picking an amount to consider “enough to live off of.” Elon Musk still works, it’s not a question of if you are currently working but a question of whether you need to. But some people “leanfire” retire with $300k in stocks. So is everyone with a net worth of $300k or more part of the Bourgeoisie?
And apologies to the true theorists because I’m sure Marx covered this somewhere but this makes me wonder about the elderly or unfortunate living off of government payments like Social Security with zero net worth…they don’t work to survive, but they don’t have any money.