this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2024
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During the time of Marx, the bourgeoisie was keeping the proletariat down. They directly owned the means of production, since Soviet Russia did not have a stock market.
Now in the US, the bourgeoisie has become smaller and less influential. They no longer own the means of production due to selling shares.
Our oppressors are the aristocrats. They sit on the boards with majority power, giving direction without directly running the businesses.
More like plutocrats. Aristocrats would be the nobel left after the fall of monarchies. Plutocrats are the rich corporate elite.
Or just go with the umbrella term: Oligarchs.
Fair. We still agree that our enemy is not the bourgeoisie. They’re becoming more of the proletariat every year.
https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2024/05/31/the-state-of-the-american-middle-class/
What?! The bourgeoisie is the owning class of the means of production. They exploit labour and are the primary enemy of the working classes of this world
EDIT: aristocrats are a feature of feudalism and it's remnants
Right. And what class is running Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street and the like that sit on the board with majority ownership of every bourgeoisie run business in the US? The wealthiest people in the nation.
The bourgeoisie is being leveraged against the proletariat by the aristocrats/plutocrats through stock ownership. The bourgeoisie no longer own or control their own businesses in the US.
You're using class terminology in a way that doesn't conform to any leftist current and this deliberately confuses the conversation. Furthermore, the bourgeoisie are the class that owns Blackrock, Vanguard, etc. You are using Petite Bourgeoisie to refer to Bourgeoisie.
So the wealthiest people in the nation are the bourgeoisie according to Marx? Do you have a source?
Even in Marx's time, there was stock speculation, he even won money on the stock market on occasion. The Bourgeoisie are owners of Capital, this includes large financial and stock Capital as well. The subsection of the bourgeoisie that faces proletarianization is the Petite Bourgeoisie.
You'd do well to read Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.
You didn’t answer my question, and now I have another.
How did he invest in stocks if there wasn’t a Soviet stock system? Russia created the RTS (Russian Trading System) in 1995.
"I have, which will surprise you not a little, been speculating — partly in American funds, but more especially in English stocks, which are springing up like mushrooms this year (in furtherance of every imaginable and unimaginable joint stock enterprise), are forced up to quite an unreasonable level and then, for the most part, collapse. In this way, I have made over £400 and, now that the complexity of the political situation affords greater scope, I shall begin all over again. It’s a type of operation that makes demands on one’s time, and it’s worth while running some risk in order to relieve the enemy of his money."
-Karl Marx, 1864.
This isn't about the RTS, but about stock ownership.
That’s not owning the means of production of his own people. You’re altering perspective to match your system.
In the US, the wealthiest class are the oppressors. They own means of production through stock ownership or connections to Blackrock, State Street, Vanguard, etc. The middle class may have some local control in small scale, but corporate America is owned by the 1%.
The bourgeoisie are not the middle class, but the wealthiest 1%. The Petite Bourgeoisie are the middle class. The Bourgeoisie used to be the middle class until they collaborated with the proletariat and petite bourgeoisie to overthrow the aristocracy.
What nation are we talking about? That’s hardly true in the US.
It's absolutely true of the US. Stock owners are also bourgeoisie.
The intention of the questions I’ve been asking was to understand your point. You didn’t answer any of them.
Also, I’m done conversing with someone who instantly has two upvotes after every comment. You clearly have a second account because being perceived as correct is so important to you.
Have fun always being right.
No, I just stalk cowbees account.
I don't upvote my own comments, for starters. I have a Hexbear account I use for Lemmygrad.ml and Hexbear.net content, and Lemmy.ml for everything else.
Secondly, I don't understand your own point. You're trying to say the top 1% in the US aren't bourgeoisie because they own stock, not the Means of Production "directly" like in a factory of Marx's era, but that's not a determining factor for Marx's bourgeoisie. You are trying to make it so.