Last week, I expounded on what exactly is the working class and who belongs to the working class. A reader reached out to me afterward to suggest that I could’ve expanded on people who are part of the working class but that others wouldn’t generally see them as the working class.
I thought it was a great suggestion, so I’ve decided to do a short series expanding on my original post. Each week, I will publish a new post in the series, exploring one of the groups that seems to be sitting outside what people consider to be the working class.
The post you’re reading now is the first post in the series and in it, I’m exploring the self employed.
In last week’s post, I mentioned that belonging to the working class depends on one’s relationship to the means of production: if one owns or controls the means of production, then one belongs to the owning class. Otherwise, one belongs to the working class.
As I indicated last week, means of production is also called the four factors of production in economics, that is land, labour, capital, and entrepreneurship.
Isn’t someone who is self-employed considered part of the owning class then?
Let’s use an example someone asked me about on Facebook: a self-employed egg farmer.
This egg farmer lives on a small 10-acre farm that they own, where they raise their own hens and harvests the eggs themself. They own the land, they own their own labour, they own the capital (the chicken coop and any tools they use to harvest, sort, and clean the eggs), and they own the entrepreneurship to tie the other three together.
So, they seem to own the means of production. Doesn’t that make them part of the owning class?
Well, here’s the thing: they’re still having to sell their labour, just like workers employed at some factory. The only difference is that instead of selling their labour to a boss, they sell it to customers.
And this goes for any self-employed worker, whether it’s a plumber selling their labour to a homeowner with a leaky faucet, an artist selling their bronze sculpture to a municipal government, or an independent labour journalist selling their news articles for monthly subscriptions.
Now, this is only the case so long as they continue to be self-employed, by which I mean that they don’t work for anyone else and they don’t employ anyone else.
As soon as they employ someone else, they’re no longer working class. True, they’re arguably petite bourgeoisie—members of the owning class who work alongside their workers—but they’re still owning class.
So are people who are self-employed part of the working class? Strictly speaking, yes, in the sense that “self-employed” means employing one’s self and not employing others.
9 replies on “Are the self-employed working class?”
Interesting question, but I am not sure that I entirely agree with how you answered it. For one thing you appear to define self-employed as someone who does not work for anyone else. I would suggest that most if not all self-employed people work for 1 or more others, being their customer(s). Do you consider it essential for a contractor to work for more than 1 customer in order to be considered self-employed? What if a contractor does work for various customers, but only for 1 at a time? CRA and the courts take a very different approach to determine whether an individual should be considered an employee or an independent contractor, including considering factors such as control (eg. over where, when and how the work is done), ownership of tools, risk of loss, chance of profit, etc.
You also suggest that as soon as a self-employed person employs someone else they cease to be a member of the working class and become part of the owning class. Does it matter whether they employ someone vs. contract with someone to provide services? If so, why? If not, then does it matter whether that contract is for full-time services or only part-time services? If not, then does that mean that a self-employed person would cease to be a member of the working class and become part of the owning class simply by enlisting the services of an accountant to help prepare their taxes, or the services of a bookkeeper to help keep their books up to date? If so, then I doubt there are very many self-employed people that would qualify as working class under your definition.
Self employed people aren’t employed by their clients any more than workers at a company are employed by the company’s clients. The clients don’t dictate how the self-employed worker performs their labour; the clients don’t own or control the means of production.
“Does it matter whether they employ someone vs. contract with someone to provide services?”
It depends. Is that contract exclusive? Can the other person work elsewhere, have multiple contracts with others? If it’s exclusive, then they’re functionally an employee. If it’s a true contract of equals, then I’d consider that to being closer to a co-op.
I don’t think hiring a bookkeeper makes you a member of the owning class any more than hiring a taxi driver to drive you somewhere does, unless, again, that bookeeper works for you only.
Hi Kim — I assume in the first line of your last paragraph you meant to say . . . makes you [cease to be] a member of the working class . . .
Thanks. All fixed!
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Hi, Kim,
Recently you said retired people are working class, but, given that we live off investments, even if only through the CPP, aren't we part of the owning class?
No, because you own equity, not the means of production itself.
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