• Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    Choosing to take an active managerial role, and needing to, is what separates bourgeoisie from petite bourgeoisie. Musk is firmly, firmly bourgeoisie. The most bourgeois bourgeoisie, one could say.

    Leanfire is bourgeoisie. Being able to live off of your investments and choosing to makes one bourgeoisie.

    You’re trying to tie net worth to class interests, which defeats the purpose of class analysis in the first place. What connects class is not material conditions, but shared interests.

    • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      I see what you’re saying but I don’t think you’ve closed any gaps. If leanfire is bourgeoisie at $300k, then people with the same amount of money who are working instead of retiring are choosing to work, just like Musk.

      I get that it shouldn’t be a net worth calculation, but that’s really a stand-in for the conundrum that occurs when someone could retire but isn’t, and who gets to define what “could retire” means. Is someone staying one extra year in the coal mines to pay for their granddaughter’s college in the bourgeoisie for that year? Does it matter what the goal is? What about staying multiple years? What if the goal is making enough money to launch a mission to Mars? I’m back on Musk.

      You’re either setting the definition at literal need, in which case you’re making a pretty huge bourgeoisie of whom a large percentage work for a living, or it’s just fuzzy because you need to know interests and intentions and internal thoughts and feelings.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        Leanfire requires setting up and actively living in a manner that has you living off the labor of others by virtue of your own ownership.

        Being able to retire, yet getting your money via labor does not make one bourgeois.

        Again, think in shared class interests. What does the coal miner do to get their money? At most, they would be petite bourgeoisie.

        Have you read Marx? I do think Marxism can help you out a bit. Classes are described as aggregates, it isn’t fuzzy but it also isn’t binary, and most of all relying on net worth defeats the purpose of class analysis as they share no class interests.