Who is working class?

About a year ago, our then 13-year-old asked me out of the blue, “What class are we?” I wasn’t quite sure what they meant by that question, so I asked for clarification: “What do you mean?”

They then responded with, “You know, like lower class, middle class, upper class.” Then it clicked for me, and without missing a beat, all that pro-labour content I’d been consuming for nearly a decade took control and the following statement came out, almost involuntary:

Oh, we’re working class. Those other classes were made up by the owning class to divide the working class.

I’ve shared this story a few times on social media, and while it’s been pretty well received, there have been a few questions that people have brought up, and I thought I’d address them here.

First of all, what did I mean by that statement?

Fundamentally, everyone on the earth is broken down into two classes: working class and owning class. Some people prefer the term “capitalist class”, but to me a capitalist can also be used to refer to someone who supports capitalism. I prefer the term “owning class” because it more directly ties its members to their relationship to the means of production.

You see, the delineation between the two classes comes down to the relationship each class has to the means of production, that which is used to produce goods or services. In economics, these are referred to as the four factors of production: land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship.

Those who own and control the means of production—primarily land, labour, and capital—belong to the owning class. They own and control the land where the production occurs, as well as the natural resources in and on that land. They own and control the labour used to convert raw materials from the land into goods and services. They own and control the capital that the labour uses—tools, factories, machinery, money, etc—to convert raw materials from the land into goods and services. And of course, they own and control the entrepreneurship, that which brings land, labour, and capital together to produce goods and services.

The working class is pretty much all those who don’t own the means of production, who don’t own the land, labour, capital, and entrepreneurship that creates the goods and services. Often they comprise the labour factor of production. But sometimes they don’t.

For example, stay-at-home parents don’t provide labour that the owning class then owns and controls. People who are disabled and can’t work are part of the working class even though they don’t work at a paid job. Same with retirees. Post-secondary students are another example of working class, regardless of whether they are holding down a part-time job while in school. Self-employed people are part of the working class despite not having an employer.

While most people who belong to the working class hold down a job, working for a paycheque isn’t what makes you working class. Your relationship to the means of production does. If you don’t own or control the means of production, then you’re working class.

So, there you basically have the two classes: owning class and working class. Karl Marx called them the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

Some Marxists delineate these classes a bit further by adding in the petite bourgeoisie and the lumpenproletariat. The former is part of the owning class, but unlike the haute bourgeoisie, they often work alongside the workers they employ. The lumpenproletariat, in modern usage, refers to the chronically unemployed, the homeless, and career criminals; although, like the proletariat, they also don’t own the means of production.

But for the most part, we all belong to the owning class or the working class.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s explore what I meant by the last part of my response to my child, that the terms lower class, middle class, and upper class were made up by the owning class to divide the working class.

Unlike working class and owning class, which are determined by one’s relationship to the means of production, the terms lower class, middle class, and upper class are delineated along income lines.

No longer are we seeing what we have in common related to systems of exploitation. Instead, we view commonalities through how much money we make.

As a result, we start to see society’s problems as income related rather than economic ones that are inherent in capitalism.

We see crime and homelessness as issues specific to the lower class, without any connection to how capitalism exploits the working class. We see the overindulgence of the upper class as driving out-of-touch public policy, rather than being driven by those with a desire to perpetuate the private ownership and control over the means of production.

Rich doctors, university professors, and public servants become the enemy and take the heat off the CEOs. Disabled and unhoused people are seen as drains on society rather than victims of capitalist exploitation.

Then there’s the ever nebulous so-called middle class. Because it forever remains undefined, the politicians cater to them in their budget speeches and campaign rallies. Without boundaries, the middle class has grown to include pretty much everyone: no one thinks they’re rich and no one wants to be poor.

After all, if you’re part of the middle class, then it feels as though your favourite politician is speaking to you when they make milquetoast promises that will hardly make a dent in improving the material conditions of the working class.

Above all, however, if we’re all trying to be part of the middle class, looking down on those in the lower class and resenting those in the upper class, then none of us are in the working class.

The move away from working and owning class and toward lower, middle, and upper class, was deliberate. And there are two main reasons for this shift.

First, the number of people in the working class is far greater than in any one of the income classes, even in the ever-desirable middle class. By splitting up the working class, it minimizes the risk of class-based actions. The middle class are more likely to yell at lower class protesters while they commute to their middle class jobs than they are to join them on the picket line. Likewise for the striking university professors, who they see as entitled and not actually deserving of better pay and working conditions.

And second, moving away from our relationship to the means of production to our relationship to our paycheques means we no longer see our fellow workers as comrades in the fight for a better society but as competition or even a threat to our livelihood.

This two-pronged approach has undermined class solidarity. No longer are we willing to stand with our fellow workers. Instead we want to undermine their efforts. No longer are we wanting to collectively bargain for better pay and working conditions. Instead, we’re left on our own, to negotiate for our individual circumstances, with barely any bargaining power, especially not as much power as those who own and control the means of production.

If you ask someone today what “working class” means, they’ll probably tell you that it’s blue collar work, the trades, people who work with their hands and perform physical labour.

Because of this focus on class being based on income rather than on our relationship to the means of production, the term “working class” has come to mean something else. In turn, even the term “work” itself now means something else. If you work a desk job, it’s not real work. If you are pouring coffee or flipping burgers, it’s not real work. Heck, if you are an independent labour journalist, it’s not real work. As a result, people don’t see workers in the service industry as being working class.

And we haven’t even touched on the many other ways that the owning class tries to divide the working class, through racism, homophobia, sexism, ableism, and so on.

This constant undermining of working class solidarity has all but destroyed working class power. As a result, worker wages aren’t keeping up with inflation. Worker wages aren’t keeping up with labour productivity. Worker wages aren’t keeping up with owner compensation.

As well, work is becoming more precarious, with people having to work more than one job to make ends meet and families no longer being able to rely on just one income. And with increased job precarity comes a reluctance to organize the workplace.

Who’s going to try unionizing their coworkers if they’re living paycheque to paycheque and worried about losing their job and then ending up homeless? Who’s going to organize a work stoppage if they’re worried about a reduction of hours in retaliation.

What we need is to return to understanding what “working class” really is, and then leveraging that understanding to strengthen class solidarity and increase collective bargaining power.

The key to making our society better for all is coming together as a massive majority and demanding real change. That has to start with understanding who is part of the working class.