#petty bourgeoisie

[mariocki]

Play for Today: Bavarian Night (BBC, 1981)

"These bloody middle class parents, ooh, they do get up my nose! You can work yourself blue in the face for them, go out of your way to accommodate them, but it's no use! They're just out to carve and criticise and try to make a fool out of you! Oh, I felt like - I'm ashamed to tell you what I felt like."

"Giving her a good hiding?"

"Yes, somebody should have done, I don't mind saying so! Oh, they make me sick! Always had their own way, always had the best of everything; she should have been brought up in our house, my dad would've had her sorted! I'm sorry, Estelle, this isn't like me, I know. Well, that's my evening spoilt for a start!"

"But what about the sausages?"

[alientitty]

sometimes it's flooring just how much mainstream culture (not just media but like what and how people talk online or what products r available and stuff) holds the standards of affluent/upper middle class people when most people have nowhere near that kind of money, never have and never will. but i guess that's why they call it the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie

[orc-apologist]

it's funny how when you'll give actual explanations as to why people are racist or transphobic or something similar, like how that happens and why it's happening now out of all times, that go beyond "white people/cishet people evil" so many people will instantly attack you for "apologia"

I think it kinda comes from this idea that identity politics has pushed that people of the unmarked categories like male white and cishet can't possibly struggle with things in life. but economic crises, which we have been in for 16 years now, affect everyone that's not part of the ruling class. prolonged economic instability alienates people from the status quo, from established parties, rhetoric and such. they begin to look elsewhere for solutions. the powers that be know to counteract this with reactionary politics. using scapegoating they'll promise the return to an (often imaginary) better yesterday, the very definition of reactionary politics.

these ideas sound plausible and actionable. things used to be better after all. those scapegoats used to not be there (as visibly) after all.

the way of solving this isn't to go "waaahh people are evil and fascism is back, woe is me" but to a) point out that these reactionary politics are not going to solve the problem because they are not the cause b) point out the actual cause of the problem (capitalism) c) offer actual alternatives (organizing, strikes, expropriating the bourgeoisie, and eventually total labor democracy)

[selamat-linting]

dear lord help, the anti ai art people are starting to target people who made realistic reference painting

[pixalartantfarm]

none of my bills are past due right now

[sh3nlong-promakh0s]

I forgot how petty bourgeois liberal y'all mfs are who gives a shit ab intellectual property you will neverrrrrrrrrr be on the level of the haute bourgeoisie and those laws do not protect YOU. None of your ideas are original, don't defend laws that don't benefit anyone in the long term other than corporations and the bourgeoisie.

[egg0nface]

Dude my friends grandpa is a local right-wing politician and im in his car rn help

[caninecommie]

The panic about "ai" is particularly annoying for the fact that it's a hop and a skip from capitulating to anti piracy calls from these writers which with an ounce of class analysis people rallying behind them under the banner of the "artist" and the elevation of creativity to these sacred and frankly annoying levels would realise that they'll also get fucked over not just by the copyright laws but also the anti piracy itself. These wealthy writers are only looking out for themselves idk why at any point anyone thought it'd be a "democratic win". Stephen King does not have the same class interest as you. Be fucking serious.

[rosaluxembae]

I've managed to confuse myself about antebellum US politics again XD I mean it's weird because the rural/agricultural parties (Democratic-Republicans in the 1st, Democrats in the 2nd and 3rd party systems) were also the more anti-British, whereas the urban/bourgeois parties (Federalists, Whigs, Republicans* in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd party systems respectively) were more favourable towards Britain. But like the agricultural parties opposed tariffs because they relied on exports, while the industrial parties supported them to protect US industry. So you'd expect it to be the other way around? Like the planters to have closer links to British businesses so more sympathetic? I guess it must be something to do with the particular development of (Northern) US industry but idk enough to say what tbh

[ciswomenofficial]

TFW you just measure whether a society does something that you consider to be “bad” and if it does you measure it to be a failure and you ignore all the ways that it was vastly better than what came before or after it.

[alientitty]

american economists will do anything to call as many people as possible middle class. ive seen some measures go straight from "poor" to "lower middle class" so they can avoiding even saying the word "worker." it's a great way to try and convince everyone that they're a potential business owner so that they side with policies that benefit million-dollar megacorps and real estate cartels because it's "good for business"

[orc-apologist]

(neo)liberals love to point at the atrocities committed by systems that were communist only in name (and usually a stalinist bureaucratic dictatorship instead), but then gloss over the fact that capitalism caused the literal holocaust

[txttletale]

lowkey that does seem to be what your old argument was implying about artists though, that if you own the intellectual property (as you do with your games) then that somehow automatically makes you an aspiring petit bourgeoisie. genuinely, am I misunderstanding something about your earlier description of the petit bourgeoisie as a concept? hope you're having a good day

yea like i mean it is just factually true that the position of the independent artist is not a proletarian one, most independent artists are artisans and the more succesful ones are petty bourgeois. but yknow class positions aren't like, rpg classes, innate aspects of the self, they're just relations to economic means of production. when i say that independent artists aspire to be petty bourgeois it is because quite simply that is the path to economic success for them! to make the next hazbin hotel or digital circus or whatever and be able to hire proletarian artists to work on their properties while retaining ownership and profiting from it.

the reason the bait ask was silly was because it was implying some kind of moral or artistic superiority in art created by proletarians (in their capacity as exploited labour), not because they correctly identified that d&d artist drawing epic wholesome found family art splashes and i have different economic relations to our work

[apas-95]

Is China a communist country? I have seen many leftists say that China is a social imperialist country. I am confused, so I want to hear your opinion.

Well, let's be specific, here - China is not a communist country, in that communism is a classless, stateless society. China is a socialist country. Socialism, the lower stage of communism, is the transitional period between capitalism and communism.

China is a socialist country because it is a country where state power is held by the proletariat, through a workers state and a communist vanguard party. In contrast to capitalist countries, where state power is held by the bourgeoisie, in China the capitalist class is under the control of the working class. Workers, through the communist party, manage the country, and keep a tight leash on their national bourgeoisie. Under socialism, China went from being poorer than all but a few nations during its century of humiliation and foreign invasion, to having lifted 800 million people out of poverty through massive programs that built free housing, brought jobs to rural areas, and constructed massive public infrastructure.

Socialism is a necessary stage on the path to building communism, under which the capitalist class would cease to exist, and the state along with it. Some currents of thought, which have failed to bear fruit in reality, demand instead an instant transition to communism, to do away with all classes in one stroke. These currents claim that communists who have carried out revolutions and, in accordance with the conditions they faced in reality, instead set out on the long and arduous work of slowly developing their nations and building up the level of political and economic development towards the point they could actually make classes obsolete (rather than just declare them such with the stroke of a pen) have betrayed their revolutionary ideals. These views are mainly popular in the imperialist countries, where they enjoy no small degree of support from the empires that would very much like to invade China again, and whose communists tend to have very little experience in the complexities of actually carrying out revolution.

No small amount of money - billions of dollars, in fact - is dedicated by the US to 'countering Chinese influence' through enforcing a narrative that China is imperialist, that Chinese vaccines are dangerous, and whatever else. It's an investment that has largely paid off.

As an addendum, 'leftist' is a largely meaningless category. There are left and right wings of different classes, but the 'leftist' thought of the petty-bourgeoisie is completely unhelpful to the proletariat and to communists.

[spaghettioverdose]

Am I stupid or something because I agree with all of your post but I don't know what's wrong with small businesses. Am I a capitalist because I'm disabled and can only make money selling stickers or am I missing a bigger picture

Because this is tumblr and people in the notes will immediately read three lines of this and accuse me of pissing on the poor, I will begin with a disclaimer that I am neither comparing you to a Elon Musk nor calling you evil.

So, you sell stickers. I would assume that in this context you are selling your own stickers with your own designs, rather than working as a cashier selling someone else's stickers, since you're disabled and you mentioned you can't work a job. You are therefore selling a product you own (whether you produce the stickers entirely yourself or use a 3rd party company) for a profit at a (presumably) online store instead of selling your labour power for a wage. This, by definition would make you petit bourgeois.

When communists talk about class positions, it is not a question of an individual's morality, motivation or amount of income.

Being a small business owner (or petit bourgeois), means that your class interests and the class interests of the workers (the proletariat) come into conflict. As a clear example, let's say in this scenario that you are selling a sticker design on a 3rd party website that specialises in this service, and they source the actual physical stickers from factories around the world. Here, you are essentially selling your intellectual property to the company in exchange for some of the profits from its further sale. Perhaps many of those factories are in the global south, in countires with very low wages and few worker protections (due to intervention from imperial core bourgeoisie powers). One day, the political struggle for worker rights and higher wages is won in some of these countries, driving up the cost of production for the stickers. Perhaps there is also a victory for a union of delivery service workers at home in the imperial core, driving up wages and protections for them as well, further cutting into profits.

The function of the 3rd party sticker company is to strive for ever-increasing profits the capitalists who own it and its investors. The cut in profit will have to be made up elsewhere. This will be done by investing in political groups that are willing to repress worker movements within these countries, shifting production to countries that have yet to achieve these worker victories, cutting corners on their imperial core workers, increasing their price of service by taking a larger cut of your profits, or a mixture of some or all of these.

In that scenario, the proletarian class interests (higher wages, more protections and regulations) are in direct conflicts with the interests of the bourgeois 3rd party sticker company (higher profits, meaning lower wages and less protections and regulations) and by extension, yours, as your class interests also revolve around profit. When workers gain more power, it cuts into your profits. As a petit bourgeois, you are incetivised to support and pursue bourgeois and petty bourgeois politics such as IP laws.

As an individual, you can be whatever kind of person with whatever politics and views you have. As a petit bourgeois small business owner, you have a certain class position that comes with a certain set of class interests. You can always choose to forego your own class interests and instead support the class interests of the proletariat by being a communist even while continuing to be petit bourgeois or even as full on bourgeois. Very notable example being Engles who, although he was a factory owner, he was also one of the two founders of marxism, with the other one being Marx.

The point I was trying to make in the post that probably got you to send this anon, is that there isn't anything inherently communist or "leftist" about supporting small businesses. It is both an incredibly common liberal policy and talking point to support small business, and it does not serve the interests of a proletarian political movement to protect the petit bourgeoisie or ally with them, except in certain instances and involving certain sections of the petit bourgeois, rather than a blanket statement of saying that the small business owner is a nobler form of capitalist.