Class Consciousness

One of the central components of the Marxist critique of social relationships within capitalism is "class warfare." Now, many descriptions of class warfare rely upon absurdity. Criticisms of the legitimacy of class warfare often refer to some straw man caricature of the concept. And those attacks on fantasies have had a strange way of influencing the supposedly concrete way that many people conceive of class warfare. Rhetorical tropes against Marxist analysis of class relations tend to first persuade people that they do not belong to the working class — and then go on to idea that any socialist attempt to convince them that they are part of the working class is the instigation of a social war against the propertied class (presumably made up of those who do not identify as part of the working class). But socialists cannot possibly instigate class warfare, because it was initiated long ago, and consciously sustained under the command of a social class quite distinct from that of the vast majority of socialists. 

What does it mean to be part of the "working class?" If we simply interpret the term with pure grammatical literalness, it ostensively means the category of people who work. Given that most people living within modernist liberal democracies do not identify as working class, this definition leads to some peculiar logical disconnects. When someone denies that they are working class, is that supposed to mean that they don't work? And we have the common phenomenon of people who insist that they are not working class, but who also insist that they work very hard to make a living. What is going on here? Let me try to clarify in my own heterodox way. 

A household is a group of people who socially cooperate to maintain some regular lifestyle. A household might be a family, but it doesn't have to be. The members of a household typically all live under one roof, but they don't have to — especially when we consider, for example, households that include college students. The lifestyle of the household at the most fundamental level consists of such things as the types and quantities of food consumed, and the number and timeframe of hours slept on a week-by-week basis. Lifestyle also includes types of clothes worn, entertainment engaged in, household chores completed, and modes of transportation utilized by the various members of the household. One lifestyle might be characterized by a single mother who gets the kids to school using public transit, and at the end of a day spent juggling multiple jobs, comes home to an unending stack of dishes in the sink. Another is characterized by a billionaire who makes their way home from the club in a Ferrari to be greeted by a cadre of servants. 

Suppose that a household requires someone within the household to regularly and reliably work a job in order to maintain the lifestyle of that household. If, for whatever reason, none of the members of the household went to work for several months, the lifestyle of the household would have to fundamentally change. The household might have to downsize, or they might become homeless. Such a household is a working class household. And any individual belonging to such a household belongs to the working class. 

Any individual who does not belong to a working class household is not working class. That means that they can maintain their lifestyle without receiving any income (either directly or indirectly) from any kind of employment for at least several months on end. 

Note that as I have defined working class, the vast majority of people strictly belong either to the working class, or to the non-working class. And the Federal Reserve's "2022 Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households" survey showed that 37% of respondents did not have enough money to cover a $400 emergency expense — meaning that more than every third person in the United States would have to resort to a credit card, borrow from family, or sell assets for any unexpected monthly cost (Will Daniel,"'Turbulence Ahead:' Nearly 4 in 10 Americans Lack Enough Money to Cover a $400 Emergency Expense, Fed Survey Shows"). It is safe to say that most Americans belong to the working class as I have defined it. 

If in reading this clarification you have just come to realize that you are working class, then you have just achieved what socialists primarily mean when they talk of "class consciousness." But perhaps you already knew that you were working class — a more enduring sense of class consciousness. Or perhaps you just realized that you are definitely not working class — not the type of class consciousness socialists are most interested in, but a kind of class consciousness.  

In any case, it shouldn't be too difficult to see that western liberal democracies are organized to serve the political and economic interests of non-working class households — comprising a minority of the population. And within that minority, there are relatively few individuals who actually conduct the technical organization of society. Business executives organize their limited domains within private enterprise — where, by the way, most members of the working class spend much of their adult life. And there are some very wealthy individuals — who, if they are ready, willing and able to do so,  negotiate among themselves to organize the public sphere of the nation state, and even beyond — the broad social universe in which we all live our entire lives. 

It should also be clear that the members of the miniscule minority that organizes the public sphere of the nation state and beyond have, by definition, achieved class consciousness. They are very aware of the very special category of people to which they belong. And they conspire to organize society in a way that maintains the lifestyle of their households (see, for example, the "Powell Memorandum"). The abiding lifestyles of the ultrawealthy do not require any members of their households work jobs — not ever — but in a systematic and structural way, the lifestyles of ultrawealthy households depend on the inescapable need among working class people to send some members of their households out into the marketplace to seek regular employment. The conscious conspiracy to organize and maintain this systemic dependence is class warfare. And, apparently, this class warfare has been going on for some time. 

For traditional reasons, we usually call this conspiring class "capitalists" — even though this does not quite fit the technical definition of "capitalist" as coined by Karl Marx. It is that category of people —the capitalists — who have long conducted class warfare in a conscious and organized fashion against the disorganized and desperate working class — very much a lopsided fight. And it should be noted that, obviously, socialists are not welcome as strategists within the capitalist camp. 

In reading this essay, did you perhaps realize that you are a capitalist? —No, not likely. Have you come to realize that you are working class? —Much more likely. Do you maybe fit somewhere in between — in the "middle" class? —Possibly. Whatever the case may be, I hope you have achieved some sense of class consciousness — framed within the perduring societal struggle of class warfare.