what does "working class" even mean in an age of robotics and advanced machine learning?
The working class guy is the guy who has to fix the CNC machine.
>>540351869if someone can argue about le "working class" without ever defining what that is then they have successfully used induction to win the contest before it began.
>>540353384>>540351580Working class are people who do not derive their income from ownership and instead have to sell their labour performing a particular skill for an employer. It's that simple. Self employed people are typically also working class, it's just that their employer changes with each customer they get.
>>540353708and how do we quantify the value of their 'work'?
>>540351580>>540353384An age of hyper abundance is not coming any time soon, but yes if it were to come then the working class would be abolished, either through all of them becoming part of the owning class, or through oligarchs genociding them.
is the working class just heavy industry and agriculture or are other things working class too?
>>540353870Anything where you have to sell your labour to survive is working class, aside from positions where you produce nothing and are an overlord over others for a living, such as judge, cop, or business manager. Those are professional middle class jobs.There is a false consciousness among most people who are tricked into thinking they are middle class just because they work a desk job, despite most of them earning less than an actual builder or factory worker.
>>540353760You basically just guess, like how capitalism does it. The economy is directed by old rich people who invest in whatever their decrepit minds think sounds good.
>>540354131we still haven't quantified the value of labor tho, anon.it's kind of a big deal before we move on to other stuff.
>>540351580Working class are people who need to work and labour to live verses people who own capital that produces value for them without labour.
>>540353760By the amount it sells for at marketThere is a specific minimum, that being what the labourer requires to live and function, but the “value” might not be static even if it is ultimately derived from labour.There is nothing wrong about price mechanics or using a market to come to an agreement on them, just they are not always accurate.Very often things are under or overpriced in the market due to how easy it is to manipulate.
>>540351580>aspiring to be averagewas your first mistake
>>540354264Labour absolutely has a value, though it’s “fair” value might take a lot of effort to wrangle out.It definitely has a minimal necessary value in that if I pay so little that you can’t even survive off the wage then that’s below such a threshold.
>>540354264It's not a big deal, because we already know that doing work is worth less than owning things. Even the most highly paid specialists cap out well below the people they work for. That's why it is a popular strategy to leverage income from labor to move into a position of ownership, where you can profit from other people's labor instead.
>>540354264>we still haven't quantified the value of labor tho, anon.t. Doesn't even have a real job>it's kind of a big deal before we move on to other stuff.Have fun stuck there.
>>540354563you're not wrong, I am pretty stupid about economics compared to people I have read. I still have to get by in the world somehow because that's just life.I am not against working, since I spent most of my life doing it. just don't want to work for nothing, or worse, make a rod for my own back.is that even possible to do, idk.
>>540355546It's a different question if productive work should really be a maligned low-class activity. It was among the ancient Greek nobility, even though they still valued personal excellence (arete). But under current conditions, you have to do what the system rewards most if you want wealth and power, otherwise you will be destroyed.
