For instance I know some lawyers and insurance CEOs who built the company themselves and run an ethical business model but because of innovation have made a ton of money. One lawyer has made a name for himself only defending those who have been hurt my big corporations and their life is ruined. The other made an insurance model that helps these hurt people invest their court winnings into annuities to guarantee they’re financially taken care of for life. These are not billionaires but both companies have won for their clients/work with hundreds of millions if not billions.
How can one clearly define someone like Musk or Bezos as bourgeois whereas these hard working individuals who came from nothing and build a huge business actually from nothing and help people?
Hoping for a non-black and white answer. My local MLM group declares everyone evil who isn’t their exact ideology. It doesn’t make sense to apply this thinking when someone whose become rich through helping people isn’t the same as someone whose has taken advantage of people for generations.
Edit: getting downvoted to hell when I am asking a question sure isn’t welcoming.
To start with, you aren’t going to get very far with a moralistic lens and I think that’s the source of your confusion and probably why folks are being dismissive of your question (which I’m going to assume for now is in good faith).
The issue with rich people “the bourgeois” is that they place themselves in a position of power and organize productive forces to reward themselves first. All rich people have something in common with each other and not with us, they own the company, the land, &c. We just work there or rent. Even if they are providing some benefit or treat that we like, unless they are dismantling that structure and sharing they are working against our interests. No matter how hard you worked to become an owner or what your intentions are, your interests as an owner are diametrically opposed to the working class. There’s no “good” way to do it. This is separate from success, which isn’t a “bad” thing in itself.
A large cooperative that makes millions or billions of dollars that are collectively managed by the workers is a “good” thing. The difference is who owns the stuff and how it is managed. There is also nothing “wrong” with a high standard of living, but again, it depends on how things are organized. Which is the real root of the analysis here: Who’s interests are ultimately being served? Who holds the power? Who owns the means of production?
I hope that helps.
There have been a lot of bad faith lemmy users recently. Thanks for taking my question seriously and explaining why it might be taken otherwise :)
This is very clear!
So in these two examples both companies are relatively small and new and people have different responsibilities and are paid accordingly. For instance the lawyer who wins all the cases and the underwriters (if that is the term). Is it that they should be paid the same, even though their jobs are wildly different, or that they should have collective ownership in the organization? Would the latter then result in the same pay?
Thanks!
The pay scale and the size of the organization doesn’t actually matter here, the question is how the decision is made and by whom. This comes back to who ultimately owns / controls the company. Which is why I’m discussing class interests in my post above.
So fair ownership of the company is based on who controls it’s direction and choices. Got it. How does this compare to companies that give employees stock or shareholders in general? Would one say a basic shareholder is not a worker therefore the same logic doesn’t apply? But employees receiving stock would give them a vote in the companies decisions and leadership positions. Or does this capitalist method of dividing the company not apply at all?
The problem with stocks is their disorganisation. Shareholder-workers are simultaneously self-exploiting and extracting value (ie profit) from others, without a social contract or remuneration scheme. Shareholder-workers who become shareholders, that is they stop working there, have unjust power. Stocks can be sold or inherited.
On the other hand, a critical threshold of organised shareholders could change the organisation of the company into a more democratic form.
Incidentally, that’s why employee stock holdings are typically either non-voting shares or granted in quantities that can’t practically become a majority voting bloc. But if you can manage it, this is a valid way to seize the means of production through a peaceful democratic process and it does happen on occasion.
How can one clearly define someone like Musk or Bezos as bourgeois whereas these hard working individuals who came from nothing and build a huge business actually from nothing and help people?
musk and bezos are not “bourgeois”! Oligarchs maybe?
When bourgeoisie ruled the world, they would only in their wildest dreams could make believe that one day so much capital would concentrate in the hands of one or two greedy assholes. Musk is a historical abomination that needs a class of his own. (he would probably take this as a compliment!
musk and bezos are not “bourgeois”! Oligarchs maybe?
They are bourgeois and they are oligarchs. They own of the means of production and extract profits from the labor of others, without needing to labor themselves, which is what it means to be haute bourgeois.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_consciousness
Marxists categorize classes based on their relation to the means of production, especially on whether or not members of the class own capital.
see the “Criticism” in the page you linked
there’s no “haute bourgeois”. The class you’re refering to, the bourgeois, if it still exists, is milked by these monstrosities as much as the proletariat or the precariat.
Marxism is not enough. The world that gave way to his interpretation is no longer here.
See them yourself. Garbage criticisms from libertarian cranks von Mises and Rothbard 🙄
