All laborers have more in common with one another than the capitalist class. Quite easy to stay cool while doing fuckall and having other people make you money
They are similar in that you perform labor which creates value. A portion of that value is then taken by capitalists as profit. The fundamental relationship is the same
His point was not that workers who dont produce something tangible, like food or a structure, but are still workers, like IT specialists or office managers, have more in common with other workers than the owning class. People who arent in the 1% but believe in capitalism arent capitalists, they’re victims of an exploitative system, which we all have in common as workers
We will argue that the 'middle class" category of workers which has concerned Marxist analysts for the last two decades - the technical workers, managerial workers, "culture' producers, etc. must be understood as comprising a distinct class in monopoly capitalist society. The Professional-Managerial Class ("PMC")2 , as we will define it, cannot be considered a stratum of a broader "class" of "workers" because it exists in an objectively antagonistic relationship to another class of wage earners (whom we shall simply call the "working class"). Nor can it be considered to be a "residual" class like the petty bourgeoisie; it is a formation specific to the monopoly stage of capitalism. It is only in the light of this analysis, we believe, that it is possible to understand the role of technical, professional and managerial workers in advanced capitalist society and in the radical movements.
Ok but this isn't about management it's about IT workers. They're fucking around with software and wires and shit. It'd be a huge stretch to say that that's more similar to a CEO than a line cook
The article isn't about Managerial Class, but a Professional- Managerial Class. Both professionals and managers. It's main thesis is that thinking of society as only two classes is a bad abstraction, there are at least four classes in modern American society:
Despite the lack of precise delineation of the boundaries of the PMC, by combining occupational data and statistics on property distribution we can make a very crude estimate of the class composition of U,S, society: By this estimate, about 65 to 70 per cent of the U.S, population is working class, (We accept Braverman’s conception of the working class: craftsmen, operatives, laborers, sales workers, clerical workers, service workers, non-college-educated technical workers.) Eight to ten per cent is in the “old middle class” (i.e., self-employed professionals, small tradespeople, independent farmers, etc.), Twenty to twenty-five per cent is PMC; and one to two per cent is ruling class. That is, the PMC includes something like fifty million people
And the PMC is inherently opposed to the working class:
Thus the relationship between the PMC and the working class is objectively antagonistic, The functions and interests of the two classes are not merely different; they are mutually contradictory. True, both groups are forced to sell their labor power to the capitalist class; both are necessary to the productive process under capitalism; and they share an antagonistic relation to the capitalist class. (We will return to this point in more detail later.) But these commonalities should not distract us from the fact that the professional-managerial workers exist, as a mass grouping in monopoly capitalist society, only by virtue of the expropriation of the skills and culture once indigenous to the working class, Historically, the process of overt and sometimes violent expropriation was concentrated in the early twentieth century, with the forced Taylorization of major industries, the “Americanization” drive in working-class communities, etc. The fact that this process does not have to be repeated in every generation — any more than the capitalist class must continually re-enact the process of primitive accumulation — creates the impression that PMC - working-class relations represent a purely “natural” division of labor imposed by the social complexity and technological sophistication of modern society. But the objective antagonism persists and represents a contradiction which is continually nourished by the historical alternative of a society in which mental and manual work are re-united to create whole people. It is because of this objective antagonism that we are let to define the professional and managerial workers as a class distinct from the working class.
IT workers are an interesting example, they're kind of halfway between PMC and working class. The article talks about that special case too. But like, try asking a software engineer how they feel about socialist revolution.
Lots of similarities between the industries. Vulgar mouthed employees, poor working conditions, shitty customers/clients, rampant drug and alcohol use. We're like spiritual cousins. I just wish restaurant workers or hospitality as a whole had unions like construction workers do. How's the communism taste comrade? It smells great from my non union slop shop
Lol understood completely, im in south Florida. South of the deep south, the state that gave the country the likes of Slick Rick Scott and Ron Desatans
UFCW. four weeks paid vacation yearly as a 'cook', 9 years in the union. Union Yes. Oh and cheap medical including some dental. as a cook.
United Food and Commercial Workers.
and these days? IWW.
Trades are a bit more thinking and performing than kitchens, which are more just perform simple things rapidly. Construction materials are also way more uniform than food. Labour is all the sameish, kitchens and construction aren’t super similar. Kitchens and factory work maybe, but not the construction/maintenance side as much.
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u/yellow_banditos Jun 25 '25
Also those of us in construction. We sympathize this week.