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this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
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If you need to work to exist, you are working class. Owners make passive income with the wealth they already have. If getting fired from your job puts your basic necessities at risk, you are working class.
And relying on your parents to bail you out does not make you owner class.
I don't disagree with you. These seem like entirely reasonable definitions. Yet... I still kind of question their utility. It's just semantics and the delineation of classes depends entirely on the conversation you're having.
Want to complain about capitalism? Sure... working class vs owning class, or 1%, or whatever you want.
For more or less any other conversation we don't use terms like "lower class" or "middle class" but we divide cohorts into segments in order to make them easier to read about. It's not a sinister plot by capitalists to confuse the plebs, it's just practical.
And there's different degrees. More than half the US population own stock. Is someone who makes $200 a year via investments "owning class"? What about $20,000? $2,000,000? You see how there's vastly different scales? That's what the definition of middle class is and why it's important and meaningful
Your distinction is answered in the post you replied to.
Still not a great definition, because many working class people have emergency funds saved up. It's normally advised for adults to have a 6-month emergency fund of savings to live on, and many of us responsible types do. My basic necessities could be met for a long time with no job but I would need to get one before the savings ran out of course.
6 months savings is still at risk tho.
If you don’t find a new job within 6 months, then what?
I have literally 3 years worth of minimum living savings, but that isn’t actually a lot of money and I only have it because I live well below my means because I’ve spent my whole life in poverty.
I’m not owner class even tho I can go 3 years without working. Because eventually I do need more income to survive. Owners don’t. They can use passive income and never ever have to work again. That’s the difference.
Now you are just typing to see your own words.
It's not just about owning, it's about living off what you own. You have to work to live? Working class. You live from passive income? Owner. As you can see, middle class definition is not meaningful in this conversation. In other contexts, sure it matters, but not here
So everyone who retires transitions from the working class to the owner class?
I'm not sure it's that useful to say that a 70 year old retired engineer is owner class because they're living off of the stock market returns of their 401k.
No, that's just called retirement
So what about someone who retires in their 30s?