The four post-Marxist social classes

There are four major social classes in the post-Marxist system.

(1) The Parasite Class

This class creates a negative value for society because they suck up more value from society than they create through their labor. It includes not just people in prison and people collecting welfare, but the working poor as well. In the United States, government spending per capita exceeds $20,000 per year, so the way I see it, a person who makes less than $20,000 per year is most likely creating less value than he sucks out of the system. Now it’s true that the person earning $20,000 per year is actually creating more value than his salary because some of the value he creates has been transferred to the value transference class before he receives his paycheck, but the working poor also tend to use up more government services than people in the higher classes; their low class behaviors place greater burdens on the police, they receive various public benefits because society deems them too poor to get by on their own, and their children are more expensive to educate because they are “at risk” and cause behavior problems in the schools, etc. Additionally, their low class behaviors create negative externalities, imposed mostly on the class immediately above it, the proletariat.

In Karl Marx’s day, the parasite class existed, but it was a much smaller percentage of society and more easily ignored. The parasite class has expanded because of dysgenic breeding and dysgenic immigration which has increased the percentage of low-IQ people, and because government spending per capita was tiny in the 19th century; there were no food stamps, no social security, and no free medical care.

A sensible society would try to reduce the parasite class by discouraging this class from reproducing, but our current social policies do the opposite. Women from the parasite class are rewarded with welfare payments when they have a baby.

[See also my posts on the cost of low-skill households and is public education worth the money?]

(2) The Proletariat

This is the modern-day laboring class, not too much different than Karl Marx’s proletariat. This class has a higher IQ than the parasite class below it, but a lower IQ than the college graduate class above it.

This class is predominately a value creation class. Being even minimally successful at legal forms of value transference requires higher IQ than most people in proletariat possess. Maybe some people from this class are working as car salesmen are in other low-paying value transference jobs, but for the most part the men from this class do traditional blue collar work, and the women do low-paying office work, retail work, or medical work.

What has changed since Marx’s day is that there are no longer any high-IQ people in this class; they are now part of the college graduate class. This is the reason why the labor unions are dying out. Back in the old days, there were high-IQ laborers who would organize the workers, but today these high-IQ individuals are now in the college graduate class and are not interested in unionizing. The people in the value transference class have convinced the people in the college graduate class that unions are for low class people. The proletariat no longer has any members capable of organizing a union, and over the last century, the value transference class has successfully trained this class to believe that they are not worth any more than they are getting paid.

The other thing that has changed since Marx’s day is that the size of this class has shrunk considerably. The majority of people in the parasite class and the college graduate class used to be in the proletariat.

(3) The College Graduate Class

This class has a higher IQ than the proletariat, and the overlap in IQ with the class below it is rather minimal. Most people whose IQ is high enough to graduate from college do so. And the proletariat contains many people who started college, but their IQ just wasn’t high enough for them to last long enough to graduate.

This class is the most productive class in terms of value creation, which explains why they have higher incomes than the proletariat. In a modern society such as we live in, value creation requires a high IQ. At the top end of this class are people making six figure salaries doing technical work like engineering or computer programming. This class includes middle management, but not upper management.

Compared to the class below, a higher percentage of the work done by this class is value transference work, but members of this class are not successful enough at transferring value to themselves in order to be part of the value transference class. They may make work in value transference industries like finance or advertising, but they get paid regular cubicle-worker salaries.

This class is comparable to the “petit-bourgeois” in orthodox Marxist theory, but Karl Marx didn’t think the petit-bourgeois were very important, and he thought that they would eventually move down to proletariat, with a lucky few moving up to the true bourgeois class. Boy was he wrong about that! This class has grown and become a very important class. In fact, it’s the growth of this class which has fueled the argument that Marx was wrong about everything.

The growth of this class has been of much benefit to the value transference class, because a great deal of the value created by the college graduate class is transferred to the value transference class. Furthermore, the value transference class encourages class struggle between the proletariat and the college graduate class. Members of the college graduate class are made to feel like they are the economic winners, thus they ignore the fact that the value transference class is stealing a good portion of the value they create.

(4) The Value Transference Class

At the top of the Marxist class structure was a class called the bourgeois or the capitalists. This class owned the “means of production,” and thus they profited from the labor of the proletariat. The “means of production” meant owning a factory.

There are some members of the value transference class class who own factories, but what has changed since Marx’s day is that owning factories is no longer the primary means by which members of the value transference class transfer value. What we can say is that members of this class have value transference capital, and it’s this value transference capital which allows this class to be far richer than the value they create with their labor.

There is some value transference capital which can be bought and sold. You can buy or sell a value transference business, which I define as any business which primarily makes money by transferring value rather than by creating it. But much value transference capital is human capital. The CEO of a corporation has a great deal of value transference human capital. He is unable to sell his CEOship, but as long as he works as the CEO, he transfers value from the corporation’s employees and shareholders to himself.

Because value transference capital usually doesn’t exist as a tangible asset, or even as something you can purchase (accountants would call purchased value transference capital “good will”), a lot of people will deny its existence. They will insist that the CEO is making millions of dollars a year because he is creating millions of dollars of value per year through his labor, even though they can’t pinpoint anything that a CEO can do that many people in the college graduate class can’t also do.

The average IQ of the value transference class is somewhat higher than the average IQ of the college graduate class, but there is a great deal of overlap between these two classes. Most people with IQs higher than the average member of the value transference class are nevertheless stuck in the college graduate class. Most people with high IQs are able to use their IQs to create value, but they lack the value transference capital which is necessary for membership in this class.

* * *

People will say, “Half Sigma has become a leftist because he sounds like he is sympathetic to Marxism!” But is Half Sigma really a leftist for writing this?

Much of my analysis is based on the innate genetic IQ differences between the post-Marxist classes, and leftists are the people who are outraged at the idea that group differences in IQ are responsible for group differences in outcomes.

Furthermore, as I’ve pointed out before, the modern left is no longer very much concerned with issues of class struggle. Instead, their focus is on egalitarian issues such as affirmative action and gay marriage, and on promoting the new religion of Gaia worship. In the last presidential election, Obama carried the majority of the value transference class.

Comments

[Dr. Horsemeat]

"It appears that HS and other commenters define "value transference" as anything they don't like."
--Shelia Tone, in a previous comment

As you,ve defined it here, I'm not sure that value transference consists of any activity that you don't like, but you seem to have defined the term so broadly and ambiguously that you can pick and choose, down the line, whether, THAT (whatever that is) consititues value creation or value transference.

I think some more examples of what you believe constitutes value transference, and why, would help. 19th Century factory owners, to my mind, were involved primarily with wealth creation, or value creation, if you prefer. Regardless of the working conditions and issues of exploitation (another highly ambigous term), value wouldn't have been created in such quantities without the factories which they owned and were operating.

[Bob]

Wow, impressive analysis.

I think the main reason the very wealthy backed a Democrat for the first time in recent memory is the economically populist part of the left has completely lost control of the Democratic party.

For example, they couldn't even kill the "carried interest" loopwhole that allowed the private equity billionaires to tax almost all of their income at 15% because they had Schumer in their pocket.

With the populist portion of the left so weak, they could afford to vote for the left for cultural reasons.

[Zdeno]

HS, I would recommend boning up on your Economics. Thomas Sowell is a good place to start.

Your distinction between value creation and transference is a good one, but the underlying feature of 95% of value transference activities is that they involve government intervention.

The AIG situation, for example, is a pretty obvious example of value transference. Wealth is being transferred from Americans who are not executives/shareholders in AIG to those who are. But what's the cause of this? Is it the "greedy" ibankers? Or is it the case that EVERYONE is greedy, and the fault lies in the government for permitting such behaviour.

Let's talk about CEO pay. If these guys aren't worth their salaries, why the hell do directors keep paying them? If, as you imply, any college grad could run general electric, why do directors pay out the ass for CEO's?

Perhaps some are golfing buddies, but certainly not all. If hiring a bright, educated, experienced person to run your company for $200k was a viable business strategy, surely at least SOME corporations would do it.

What's missing from your analysis is that government intervention is at the core of the vast majority of value transference, while private enterprise result in value creation in a similarly vast majority of instances.

Also, these value transference types are more deserving of the title "parasites" than your first group, who are more like the pets the parasites use to feel good about themselves.

Cheers

Zdeno

[Sheila Tone]

I've represented more than a thousand parents who got their kids taken away (at least temporarily) by the system. Guess how many meet all of the following criteria: Employed full-time (or married to a full-time worker); married and living with the parent of the subject children; neither they nor spouse has children by anyone else; married prior to first pregnancy; were over 18 at the time of first pregnancy; graduated high school on-time, not special ed; no SSI- or DMH-qualifying mental health disabilities.

One family, so far. (The teenage boy removed was a highly intelligent, nerdy type who met a middle-aged girlfriend playing a MMORPG and kept running away to be with her.) That's it. One out of thousands. I wouldn't think those factors were such a high bar to jump. Nowadays it seems like it.

I hope this series of posts is leading up to a recommendation; perhaps your vision of how society would be if you designed its humans and chose their work.

[Jack]

Half Sigma, there are plenty of high-IQ whites who do not have 4-year college degrees. And there are plenty of mediocre-IQ people who do. With more women going to college and more men not seeing the point, it means that barely average women can get college degrees but the similar IQ men generally do not.

[HS: There's a minimum IQ bar to getting a college degree. I think Sarah Palin is an example of someone who was barely smart enough to get a college degree (and thus obviously not qualified to be Vice President). But I digress.

True, there are some people who could have obtained a college degree, but didn't, most likely because they were born to the proletariat or the parasite class, but there numbers are not so large. The could be considered part of the college graduate class if they, nevertheless, do college graduate type work.]

[Peter]

Where do you classify retired people? Most of them receive more - often *far* more - in government services than they pay in taxes. Even if they had been net contributors during their working years, that may change if they collect Social Security and Medicare for long enough. Not to mention the fact that just a few years in a nursing home on Medicaid will put just about anyone in the "parasite" class even over the course of a lifetime.

[HS: Social Security is one of the reasons why the working poor are classified as being in the parasite class.]

[JH]

My guess is that this classification system
exists in various forms in the fields of
marketing and demographics. In addition it if
very close to the right-wing fascist critique
of capitalism which anathematizes this
value transference class.

Also, one note on the value transference class.
They are also skilled at transferring value
accross national boundaries. This is a major
feature of our current economic unease.

[HS: I agree that there is international value transfer happening, which is mostly to the benefit of the United States.]

[Independennt Accountant]

We of the economics persuation call the value transference class rent seekers. I've been saying things similar to what you're said for decades.

[asdf]

----
"even though they can’t pinpoint anything that a CEO can do that many people in the college graduate class can’t also do."
---

This is the key fallacy. I used to think this too before working at a startup. Believe me, it is VERY difficult to be a CEO as the company scales. The key difficulty is *context-switching*. For example, here are certain tangible job requirements:

1. You need to work every day. You are always thinking about the business.
2. You need to be the ultimate manager for every thread in the business. That means R&D, sales, hiring, facilities, web development, media, and so on.
3. You need to hire the right people, yet have enough breadth and depth of expertise that you can contribute productively in these areas if one of the managers doesn't know how to get something done.
4. You need to be able to switch contexts to do several different things in a day. One minute you might be haggling over a supplier contract, and the next minute someone will come to you with a hiring issue.
5. You need to be almost immediately responsive to every email requiring a decision, with hundreds of incoming emails a day.
6. You need tremendous energy reserves and work ethic. Do you surf the web? Do you watch TV? Do you procrastinate? Then you don't have what it takes to be a CEO (and neither do I). Blog surfing is out of the question. CEOs are both highly intelligent AND ruthlessly focused. This focus is orthogonal to IQ -- basically you need to keep alternating between doing the next thing on the todo list, and rewriting the list. Moreover, you need to do this on mornings, nights, weekends, and holidays. Easy to say, hard to do.
7. Because you are setting the direction, you take the ultimate responsibility for the company's success or failure. If you don't work hard, no one else will.

I think a great example of someone who (like me and many others) thought that anyone could be a CEO is Ted Dziuba, who spent a lot of time tearing down startups before he founded one. It totally flopped:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/19/pressflip-is-a-belly-flop/

-----------------
Persai/Pressflip has some notoriety because the founders, Ted Dziuba, Matt Kent and Kyle Shank, previously wrote a blog called Uncov, which focused primarily on tearing apart startups and the entrepreneurs behind them. Uncov has now been taken down, although a review is here) It was a blog that, while overly harsh at times, provided a good counterbalance to much of the sometimes overly positive coverage of startups. And, it was extremely funny.

But Uncov was just a hobby for the Pressflip founders as they raised small amounts of angel financing and worked away on their startup. Perhaps the workload from Pressflip became too much, or perhaps they realized that the startup they were building was turning into exactly the kind of thing that they would tear apart clinically on their blog, but they shut down Uncov just a few days before Persai first launched.

Pressflip/Uncov is a perfect illustration of The Man In The Arena quote from a 1910 Theodore Roosevelt speech given in Paris. It’s awfully easy to criticize the work of others but incredibly difficult to build something unique yourself. The Uncov guys are now in the arena, and failing. We’ll see if they have what it takes to take their hits and keep fighting.
-----------------

In short, anyone who thinks a CEO is easily replaced with an average college graduate is VASTLY mistaken. They have been suckered by the same anti-business media propaganda that honors rap artists and promiscuous celebrities over scientists, engineers, and capitalists. It is as ludicrous to think that your average leftist blogger with a Columbia degree could run a 100 person business -- let alone GE or Google! -- as it is to think that he could be the point guard for the Lakers.

And that's the underlying assumption in a lot of business critiques -- hey, isn't management stupid and Dilbertish and replaceable? -- but the thing people are missing is that if it's *really* stupid, then the company is eventually out of business.

Start a startup, get it to scale to 100+ employees with $100M rev, and then tell me how easy it is to be VP of engineering, let alone CEO.

Or talk to the kids at Ycombinator sometime. Ain't easy, even for the top of the top MIT, Stanford, and Harvard grads.

[Kevin K]

You can see the problem here. Groups 2 and 3 hate each other and therefore can be exploited by Groups 1 and 4. You should grow a goatee (if you don't have one) and hand out pamphlets of this. Let the producers unite against the parasites!

[Peter]

[HS: Social Security is one of the reasons why the working poor are classified as being in the parasite class.]

It's not just the working poor. What with longer life expectancies, a significant percentage of people will collect more Social Security benefits than they paid into the system, some estimates I've seen say that this happens at least 75% of the time. And then you have Medicaid. It will turn people who once paid substantial taxes into net lifetime tax recipients.

[Stig]

Posted by: asdf | March 19, 2009 at 09:07 AM

It sounds like you are confusing being a CEO of say AIG with someone who is building their own company/enterprise.

[PA]

HS: I haven't had time to read your comment but it looks interesting. Meanwhile, have you seen Mencius Moldbug's classification of the US population into castes on his blog Unqualified Reservations?

It's one of his earliers blog entries, March 2008 I think or so. The title is "The Castes in the United States" or somthign like that. His castes:

- Brahmin: the "new class" types, professional, academic, media, NGO, State Department, managerial left wing class

- Optimates: the vanishing old money "social register" aristocracy

- Vaysias: middle America, middle and working classes

- Dalits: the criminal underclass, mostly urban black and first-generation Hispanic, white "flyover" underclass

- Helots: migrant laborers, illegals.

Mencius's contention is that the cultutre war is essentially a B-DH alliance against the O-V classes.

[HS: An interesting analysis. But do Brahmins remain Brahmins when they make a million dollars a year?]

[michael vassar]

yep. Half Sigma has become a leftist... sort of... more accurately he always has been one, just one who hates the Stuff White People Like crowd for shunning him but isn't black or Latino.

[QLZ87]

[HS: An interesting analysis. But do Brahmins remain Brahmins when they make a million dollars a year?]

Why wouldn't they?

And I wouldn't call it an alliance between B, D and H either.

[Joshua Holmes]

I really think this post ought to be the end of the blog. It's the zenith of the Half Sigma worldview: mainly, that everyone's in a conspiracy to hold him down. Below, the low IQ beast races are sucking up his tax dollars, outbreeding him, and screwing up his good public schools! Above, the evil rich master race suppresses his obvious gifts and talents and lords its social standing over him.

The ironic part of all this is that Half Sigma made his name as the inspired Libertarian Girl hoax a few years ago. Turns out that his actual analysis is no better than hers.

[PA]

"But do Brahmins remain Brahmins when they make a million dollars a year?"

The hipster at Starbucks is a Brahmin. So is Bill gates.

[asdf]

----
It sounds like you are confusing being a CEO of say AIG with someone who is building their own company/enterprise.
----

Running a 10000+ person company like AIG is not going to be easier than running a 100 person company.

Thing is -- AIG should just be out of business. No bailout, no mob violence. Businesses must be allowed to fail for capitalism to succeed.The only reason people hate AIG is because they have read negative articles about them. One needs to get beyond asking simply whether a story is true (usually it is) to asking *why this story, why this level of coverage*. Who writes those negative articles? Why aren't people attacking ACORN? Why doesn't Barney Frank fear for his life? Because the media and the left needs a scapegoat. They made this happen by debauching lending standards on behalf of minorities and forcing financial businesses to take their opium. And now they cry "opium addict"...when they are the drug dealers.

Think about it -- your entire knowledge of AIG is mediated. That's why they call it media. The mass media diet is fed to you, unlike what you can find on the web (Google does a lot less filtering than the NYT). Read Steve Sailer to understand what really happened:

http://www.vdare.com/Sailer/090201_meltdown.htm

The media will always pick some business exception and trumpet it, usually on Wall Street. Now it's AIG and Madoff. A few years ago it was Enron. Before that it was the monopolist Microsoft. In the mid 80's it was Union Carbide.

They always have a business scapegoat, a pinata to beat, to further reduce the power and prestige of the one class that might possibly oppose them.
But you are being gulled. Do a little analysis. Count up the number of negative and positive mentions in the press, especially the popular press for each S&P 500 company. You will find that a scatterplot of the number of press mentions against the market cap is all over the place. Many are never mentioned at all. Businesses that donate in huge amounts to leftist causes (Google and Apple come to mind) have paid their protection money and get more favorable coverage as a result.

POINT: Generally speaking, companies are covered in *inverse* proportion to the economic value they contribute to society. This leads to an intentionally distorted picture of capitalism in exactly the same way Law and Order makes people believe that murderers tend to be white rather than black.

COROLLARY: Because CEOs are generally only in the press when something has gone wrong with a company, people have a distorted impression of business. Again, do the same coverage analysis except with CEO last names. Successful CEOs do not get coverage, failures do. And this is what leads to contempt.

In short, everyone feels that they could do the job well enough to stay out of jail. However, that's obviously a baseline. Knowing how challenging it is to manage even an organization of 100 people, I find it highly doubtful that an organization with 1000 or 10000 people would be any easier. I mean, just keeping every product line's current state in memory at (say) Procter and Gamble or GE would tax anyone. Or think about how many products Google has -- from Search to Voice to Apps. The CEO should have at least a glancing familiarity with everything in the business -- and that is VERY nontrivial as things get big.

Basically, your average Ivy grad journalist could probably stay out of jail as CEO, just as he could probably wear a uniform if put on the court in the NBA. Would he be able to increase shareholder value? No, no more than he'd be able to start scoring at will.

[PA]

"And I wouldn't call it an alliance between B, D and H either. "

According to Mencius it is an alliance. The Dalits and Helots serve as paramilitary muscle and vote bank for the Brahmins against their Optimate and Vayisa enemies. Classic patronage arrangement.

[Sheila_Talking_Smack]

Sheila talked some good smack:
**************
Guess how many meet all of the following criteria: Employed full-time (or married to a full-time worker); married and living with the parent of the subject children; neither they nor spouse has children by anyone else; married prior to first pregnancy; were over 18 at the time of first pregnancy; graduated high school on-time, not special ed; no SSI- or DMH-qualifying mental health disabilities.

One family, so far.
***********************
End Sheila

Needless to say, Sheila disqualifies all those families who have had a divorce. POP! Goes about at least 1/4 of ALL families these days.

Oh, and pregnancy before the marriage applies to a HUGE percentage of the population in an age when marriage is put off as long as possible.

I think we've successfully removed about 1/2 of all families at this point.

Sheila continued:
*************
I wouldn't think those factors were such a high bar to jump. Nowadays it seems like it.
************
End Sheila

Since you disqualified over half the population, I'm pretty sure your talking trash.

It's also good to know that if the husband loses his job, then he instantly falls into Sheila's bad person category.

Of course, this is assuming we believe Shiela...

which I don't. I'm sure 5 or 10 or 20 cases have been discarded using the power of because.

[QLZ87]

"Classic patronage arrangement."

A patronage arrangement isn't an alliance.

[agnostic]

The parasite class is incredibly SMALLER than it used to be, thanks to the industrial revolution lifting all boats and narrowing the gap between rich and poor. Also, modern medicine has resulted in a lot fewer cripples, freaks, and crazies.

Laws against vagrancy are a relic from the times when a lot of people fell into that class. They may not have had higher fertility rates than bankers, but there were a lot more of them, always being replenished by downward mobility from the working class.

Look at any of Hogarth's depictions of London, or any scene from Revolutionary Paris -- they were overflowing with the parasite class.

[APH]

I've worked at 2 startups, not as the CEO of course. It's true the CEO of a startup takes a special person, workaholic who wears all sorts of different hats, etc. - I could never do it for a million and one reasons. That said, I would guess (and am only guessing) that being the CEO of a startup is completely different than being the CEO of an established firm.

[miles]

HS has made an interesting economic statement here. However, I must add that I simply cannot see people who are drywall hangers, day maids, short-order cooks, waitresses, bricklayers, convienience store cashiers and the like as "parasites". They are the working poor in my eyes. Anybody who puts in 40 hours a week isn't a parasite, they are part of the team. Their kids might become parasites. I dont hold lower IQ's agaisnt people, I do hold destructive behavior against society against people however, and their expectation that the rest of the taxpayers pay for their excess. Some of the working poor are parasitical (single moms who accept benefits even though being marginally employed, etc), but most just work and make it on less money.

[Dragon Horse]

What % of the population would HS describe as parasitic?

[Brutus]

"This [parasite] class creates a negative value for society because they suck up more value from society than they create through their labor. It includes not just people in prison and people collecting welfare, but the working poor as well."--Siggie

This is true, but there are 2 other groups that should be placed in this class: (1) affirmative action beneficiaries, and (2) disability cheats.

Just listen to this, and I doubt it's an extraordinary case. A friend of mine was an Emmy award winning sound guy for NBC, and developed a shoulder injury that was work related. While he was cured years ago, he's still collecting $50K+ per year, and so has no intention of returning to work. Why does our government permit this crap to continue?

As for affirmative action: I'm sure all posters at this site have a story.

[jackson]

Moldbug's class system denotes social classes only. The dividing lines of Siggie's classes are drawn on a more muddled criteria.

[Days of Broken Arrows]

I like this post and think you're on to something here.

BUT....

Having dealt with members of the Value Transference Class for many years, I take issue with your designation of them having higher IQs.

Maybe this was true years ago, but with "legacy admissions" to Ivy League colleges becoming greater each year, the best and brightest are no longer the ones who graduate the top colleges. In fact, there have been surveys done showing a huge percentage of Ivy League students all get A's. Everone is above average?

It's not the meritocracy you think it is. And since the upper class has a lock on the top schools we're becoming a UK-like nation, where dimwits hoard all the money and power.

[mnjohn]

[HS: There's a minimum IQ bar to getting a college degree.

What is it? I've met some pretty dumb people that manage to get liberal arts degrees from public universities. I would guess its about 95 or so.

[Farrout]

"What is it? I've met some pretty dumb people that manage to get liberal arts degrees from public universities. I would guess its about 95 or so."

95 is much too high. Keep in mind that public school teachers have a bachelor's - and in NY they need a Master's. And I know from a reliable source there is more than one elementary school teacher in the surrounding district incapable of teaching math at that level. We are talking very dull.

[Brutus]

1 other point on differentiating classes:

Does anyone here think Michelle Obama would agree that she'a a parasite? I'm sure the so-called parasites have much more glorious opinions of themselves.

HBDers should know that there is a correlation between positive self-image and race, with blacks having the highest opinions of themselves. Now think about Obama's amazing self-confidence for a second. What is he so proud of? His quota spot at Harvard?

[HS: Obama graduated HLS magna cum laude, which only 10% of the class does, so most white students don't accomplish this. Law school grading is blind.]

[saint simon]

This is a good analysis, but its not "post-Marxist". Its pretty much straight Marxism.

Marx called the parasite class the "lumpenproletariat" and the value transferrence class the "ownership class". If you worked and weren't an owner, for example if you draw salary, you are part of the proletariat.

HS is correct that the existence of factory workers is key to Marxism, since they are the first members of the proletariat to achieve consciousness and organize. Its hard to organize peasants. Marxists haven't successfully come to grips with the fact that the owners neutralized the proletariat in Western countries by transferring factories to countries like China and Mexico. In Marxist theory, less developed countries are valuable to the ownership class as new markets, not as alternative bases of production. There are problems with this strategy which are beginning to emerge, but present day Marxists haven't really been in the the lead in discovering them.

Marx was pretty good and analysis and describing problems, but terrible at suggesting solutions.

[rightwingnut]

Posted by: agnostic | March 19, 2009 at 12:50 PM
"The parasite class is incredibly SMALLER than it used to be, thanks to the industrial revolution lifting all boats and narrowing the gap between rich and poor.Also, modern medicine has resulted in a lot fewer cripples, freaks, and crazies." Check out this story for partial confirmation and another 'revolution' of sorts.

-U.S. teen birth rate up again, fewer pre-term babies http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE52H67H20090319

I guess the last bit is confirmed, modern medicine has contributed to fewer pre-term babies. But I'd put into question how 'SMALLER' this parasite class will remain with the other part of the story: 'The U.S. teen birth rate rose for a second straight year in 2007 after a long decline and more babies were born to all mothers than even at the peak of the baby boom after World War Two'

That's right ladies and gentlemen, the WWII baby boom peak is nothing compared to the number of babies born last year. Will it result in more 'heads to feed' or more 'heads contributing taxes'? News at 11 by Octomom

The gist 'A record 39.7 percent of babies in 2007 were born to unmarried women, including 71.6 percent of black babies and 51.3 percent of Hispanic babies, the report found.'

The easter egg 'But Cesarean deliveries rose for an 11th straight year to a new high -- up 2 percent to 31.8 percent of births. Half or more of Cesareans are avoidable and over-using major surgery on otherwise healthy women' Guess those M.D's really need the extra cash right about now.

[Peter]

"This is true, but there are 2 other groups that should be placed in this class [parasite]: (1) affirmative action beneficiaries, and (2) disability cheats.
Just listen to this, and I doubt it's an extraordinary case. A friend of mine was an Emmy award winning sound guy for NBC, and developed a shoulder injury that was work related. While he was cured years ago, he's still collecting $50K+ per year, and so has no intention of returning to work. Why does our government permit this crap to continue?"

I've got a story for you, if one that goes back a while is okay. Back in the early 1990's I was acquainted with this former police officer who was collecting a full disability pension. He was some years older than me, we weren't what you'd call friends, but I knew people who knew him and had met him a few times, that sort of thing. Anyway, he had suffered a back injury while working as a police officer, I'm not sure quite how, and was eligible to keep collecting this full pension until he reached retirement age and got a regular pension. He basically never had to work again.

Although on the decline, racquetball was still a relatively popular sport in the early 1990's (today of course cartball has killed it off, but that's another story for another time). It was a fairly demanding sport, in a physical sense, not like cartball. This "100% disabled" man was an avid racquetball player, so good at the sport that no one in the large club where he played could compete with him. I watched him play a couple of times and was just amazed at his speed and athleticism. So much for his "disability."

[anon]

"What % of the population would HS describe as parasitic?"

What % are NAMs?

[DAJ]

Brutus: "Now think about Obama's amazing self-confidence for a second. What is he so proud of?"

Perhaps he is proud of becoming the President of the U.S.A.

[Sheila Tone]

Coward Who Can't Spell Sheila wrote: "Of course, this is assuming we believe Shiela...

which I don't. I'm sure 5 or 10 or 20 cases have been discarded using the power of because."

Based upon what evidence? You can't refute my direct observation with nothing but your dislike of the facts I observed.

Coward Who Can't Tell "You're" From "Your" continued: "Since you disqualified over half the population, I'm pretty sure your talking trash."

The rest of your comment only reinforces my point, Coward: Situations that are uncommon in the educated classes are typical for people who get their kids removed. They are also typical for the people HS designates as the two lower classes. These problematic behaviors, once rare, have become common.

Yet, I'll bet the vast majority of people at Ivy League colleges meet all the criteria I outlined above. If their parents are divorced, they 1) didn't divorce until they were in high school or 2) are decamillionaires, at minimum (the very rich minority can have serial marriages without lowering their children's class standing).

[David Alexander]

*a person who makes less than $20,000 per year is most likely creating less value than he sucks out of the system*

I guess this makes me a parasite as my gross pay was roughly $12.5K. IIRC, my effective federal tax rate per TurboTax was -6.8%...

[tommy]

"Does anyone here think Michelle Obama would agree that she'a a parasite? I'm sure the so-called parasites have much more glorious opinions of themselves."

Michelle Obama is a value-transferring parasite.

[fuggy]

There is the healthy class and the unhealthy class, too.
At our Publix in the upper class neighborhood people are waaaay healthier-looking than at the Publix in the lower class neighborhood.
In the LC neighborhood, people of all ages have trouble walking, they all seem to have flat feet and signs of arthritis. Their skin hangs in a limp way when they are thin and hangs in big globs when they are fat (more common). The 3 year old girls are bloated, they look like they are six years old, if you push on their big arms they are full of squishy water.
At the fancy Publix the 3 year old girls look like small girls. (This makes them much cuter and more loveable.)
Raising girls, especially, in this LC way hinders their upward mobility IMHO.
"Head Start" trying to shove the alphabet into LC childrens' heads earlier and earlier solves the least of their problems.

[Comment_Whatever]

Sheila whines that I don't trust her.

Why, dear Sheila, SHOULD I trust you?

Sheila's talking about the 'low born' and clearly, Sheila doesn't care about the 'low born':

The rest of your comment only reinforces my point, Coward: Situations that are uncommon in the educated classes are typical for people who get their kids removed. They are also typical for the people HS designates as the two lower classes. These problematic behaviors, once rare, have become common.

Yet, I'll bet the vast majority of people at Ivy League colleges meet all the criteria I outlined above.

The whole point of the above is that 'high born' are fine. So who cares what happens to the filthy peasants?

And it's pretty much certain Sheila censored a WHOLE bunch of cases. Sheila sure doesn't talk like someone who is as pure as driven snow.

[QLZ87]

"The 3 year old girls are bloated, they look like they are six years old, if you push on their big arms they are full of squishy water."

Most people just go to the supermarket to buy food. But if you want a real slice of life, hit a 24 hr Walmart. Not for the faint of heart. The stories are true:
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/comedy-goldmine/disgusting-sights-walmart.php

[Brutus]

Thanks for the anecdote, Peter. It makes me wanna puke.

Sigma, I want to Harvard, so I think I have a little more authority in discussing lightweights like Barack Obama. A Harvard professor, Harvey Mansfield, has written extensively on how Harvard's ridiculous affirmative action program (How ridiculous? The totally untalented Lani Guinier is a full professor at Harvard Law) contributed to runaway grade inflation. And do you really believe that all grading was "blinded" or that Obama did not tale Afrocentric gut courses? Please read the following to appreciate the "essence" d'Obama. Enjoy.

An original insight into Obama's lack of originality

Bruce Walker writing at American Thinker has a new and illuminating insight into Obama. It is that the most characteristic thing about him is not the radical nature of his ambitions, but their sheer imitativeness and dullness. When you think about this, it makes perfect sense. After all, what would we expect of a politician, whose campaign speeches had been fantastically grandiose without connecting with anything in the real world, once he got into the presidential office and actually had to do things? Lacking any useful or creative ideas, but wanting to be revolutionary and messianic, all Obama has to offer is the conceits and delusions of past liberal presidents, recycled and expanded to gargantuan size. For all his supposed freshness, differentness, hipness, and youth, Obama is a picture of mental and spiritual exhaution--the Chernenko of American liberalism.
Thanks to Bruce Walker for seeing this. Here is his article:

,
The Banality of Obama
Pundits have been critiquing the new administration for its socialism, for its willful ignorance of foreign policy, for its puerile missteps, but the salient fact of the Obama Presidency is its banality. He who promised change has dredged up the failed nostrums of the past as if they were something new and fresh. In fact, the ordinariness, the dullness, the lifelessness of the Obama Administration is obvious.

What is the answer to a collapsing economy? Obama simply resorts to the seventy-five year old policies of FDR. When the New Deal began it was, at least, new. It is perfectly right to judge the New Deal a mistake with the perfect vision of hindsight, but at least in 1933 the New Deal was a radical departure from the surplus budgets and modest federal role which had been the tradition of American peaceful national government.

It seems as if Obama cannot think of anything more creative than doing what Franklin Roosevelt did but on a grander scale. When JFK and Reagan slashed taxes, that was revolutionary. When Truman endorsed the Marshall Plan, that was something new. But Obama money to throw at domestic programs, that is robotic governance.

What is Obama's foreign policy? It is a return to the naiveté of Woodrow Wilson of a century ago and to the sanctimonious silliness of Jimmy Carter three decades ago. Evil men are murdering innocent people and reveling in their mayhem? The culprit cannot be these evil enemies of America. It must be the imperfect morality of our nation. Our nation must try to understand those who hate us for being us. We must try in our time, as Neville Chamberlain did in his time, to parlay with the "moderate" wing of the National Socialist German Workers Party or, in our case, with the "moderate" wing of the Taliban. Forget the stupidity of this. Just think about the blandness of this approach.

What is the answer to our problem of national morale? President Obama will use the bully pulpit--again and again and again. Teddy Roosevelt coined that term ... over one hundred years ago. In the first decade of the Twentieth Century, this was a relatively novel approach. T.R. understood media and mass communications. Americans responded to a truly bold, inspiring character in the White House. When his cousin, FDR, used the fireside chat three decades later, his considerable charm and the novelty of radio helped him reassure a frightened nation. But the most commonplace presidential politics of the last five decades has been an American president addressing the nation on television or coming out (usually every week or so) with a new campaign or policy.

President Obama seems to think that if he just does even more of what nearly every president in the last fifty years has done, miracles will follow.

Reagan did great things. He decided to win the Cold War. He cut tax rates and federal regulation. Ronald Reagan took the tide of history and turned it away from the dreary meanders of the postwar world and channeled events towards new and happy futures.

John Kennedy actually thought about things like "flexible response" in national security policy or landing an American on the moon before the end of the decade. JFK slashed capital gains tax rates, trying something truly different. Reagan and Kennedy, as much as any other two modern presidents, took gambles. They tried new ideas. They inspired us.

Great presidents do that. George Washington eschewed personal power for the glorious goal of a limited presidency: America would have no kings. Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of America with a daring purchase. Lincoln fought a horrific war to preserve the Union. Teddy Roosevelt brought a genuine vitality and courage into the presidency. Sometimes these men failed, but they all tried to lead the nation rather than follow the dull force of past directions.

Obama, by stark contrast, seems to think that doing what we have been doing will somehow bring a better America. What if Obama had promised within his term of office to consolidate the cabinet into eight offices? Even Richard Nixon had the imagination to propose that idea. What if Obama proposed a radical tax simplification, even if rates stayed high? That would be something to savor: he could remain a socialist, but at least stand against hopeless confusion.

Instead we have a president who is not even an innovative ideologue. He is more like a cipher. His rhetoric is lifeless and poll driven. His almost daily new campaigns reflect nothing more creative than the last news cycle.

People worry that Barack Obama is an American Lenin. No: Barack Obama is an American Konstantin Chernenko, a very dull man with very tired programs. The invented giddiness which Obama gets from the mainstream media is already getting tedious to the public. Pravda reports of addresses by General Secretary Chernenko invariably informed readers of the "prolonged, stormy applause" which followed. That is the banality of Obama.

[HS: But you didn't go to Harvard Law School, so don't appreciate how difficult it is to get top 10% grades at ANY law school, not to mention getting them at Harvard.

If Obama has pulled the brilliant deception on the American people that you describe, then he's pretty smart indeed.]

[trumwill]

Why, dear Sheila, SHOULD I trust you?

Sheila has been commenting 'round these parts for a lot longer than you have. Her career in child welfare has been established. Though I hadn't heard this particular nugget from her before, it folds in pretty tightly with what she's been saying all along in reference to her career and her experience growing up and living in the lowerish classes.

We have a lot more reason to trust her than we do to trust you.

Sheila sure doesn't talk like someone who is as pure as driven snow.

Because she doesn't say things that you like to hear?

[trumwill]

If Obama has pulled the brilliant deception on the American people that you describe, then he's pretty smart indeed.

Sorta like the Palin's brilliant deception about Trig's parenthood, no?

[DAJ]

"At our Publix in the upper class neighborhood people are waaaay healthier-looking than at the Publix in the lower class neighborhood."

There are Publix's in lower class neighborhoods? :)

[zzz]

In the last couple of decades I have been in groups 1, 2 and 3. What is my innate IQ?

There are no innate differences in IQ, at best there are tendencies towards 'intelligence' being concentrated at the top. This is explained in Marxist terms by pointing to different educational opportunities. A degree of comfort which enables some to view education as an end as well as a means, which is not the case lower down the ladder. Also perception of education within particular classes which is valued more the higher up the ladder you go (usually). And various other factors stemming from one's material background.

Yes it is useful to offer a 'post-Marxist' analysis which explains a larger middle class, but not if this is done by appeal to innate qualities.

IQ is a bogus concept anyway, but even allowing for this, it is still not even established that people are actually smarter the wealthier they are. I have met many of the stupidest people I know at university, and some of the smartest people I know are currently working shit jobs.

Being economically savvy does not mean that you are smart, yet this is more important that actual intelligence or productive power when moving up the ladder.

If you begin from an advantaged position all you need to do is learn how to retain this position in order reap the benefits of your class. You do not have to have a high IQ to do so. Likewise, transcending classes requires more than intelligence, and even if someone was very intelligent it does not mean that they will be able to move up the ladder. Nor does it mean that they will want to move up the ladder.

I am sorry I just really disliked this post.

The proletariat versus the college graduates ... complete nonsense. As if someone with a college diploma will go to a job interview and then walk out owning the company instead of being its hired servant.

And the term "petit bourgeoisie" doesn't refer to college graduates. It refers to self-employed small business owners.

[Daniel Miessler]

Perhaps the reason the rich backed Obama is because enough of them realized that the progression of the whole is essential for their progression. In other words, helping others is not just charity, it's also self-defense.

Self-isolation isn't an option for the rich and educated--at least in the long-term. It'll only lead to further divides and then their position of power being removed by force.

If you want to see where the real power is, look to who who's multiplying the most. Unless the ruling class has the power to commit genocide or use tactics that divert attention completely away from the wealth gap, the time the rich have to live on top is limited.

The ONLY real solution is to elevate the masses to a level of education, intelligence, and comfort that will prevent them from hating those who have what they don't. Anything else is a temporary buffer solution prior to revolution.

[Audacious Epigone]

Very thought provoking.

How do you account for the support of underclass immigration by the value transference class, though. Doesn't this reduce the value creating potential of the college graduate class? Is it to keep the college graduate class "in check"?

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"How do you account for the support of underclass immigration by the value transference class, though. Doesn't this reduce the value creating potential of the college graduate class? Is it to keep the college graduate class "in check"?"

AE,

Big business primarily looks at short term economic effects, not long term effects like economists do (or are suppossed to do, anyway).

Big business was the primary reason Chinese laborers were allowed into the US in the late 19th century, despite the "racism" of the era because business interests wanted the short term cheap labor back even then.

Big business is not always good for a nation's economy because they don't plan longterm as well as economists, they usually concentrate on getting by quarter to quarter.

Of course, economists have also drunk the kool-aid on immigration, but economists are still better at longterm economic thinking than CEOs.

[Bruno]

Halfsigma, you don't say anaything on how Value transference Class is selected out of graduate Class people ? do they inherit this statute, is there a specific Value _transfer_IQ they do have at the top ? because you can have a very general IQ explanation and at the same time explain an identified group ony by the work they handled without being inconsistent ?

My theory is that the VTC is madre of people with a special link to the highest level of Government. They either inherit this link through their family business and relationships or they gain it in positions where they are able to work on capital supertructure (IB, Private Equity, Some top lawyers , some top civil servants).