Rich bourgeoisie vs. not-rich bourgeoisie

Although the bourgeoisie are normally thought of as the owners of capital, as I’ve written before this is no longer a good descriptor of a social class in the modern economy. Few people today who are rich are rich because they own transferable capital. They are rich because they get paid a lot of money for their labor; they have a lot of non-transferable human capital. Today, the people who own the transferable capital are stockholders like you are me, and I’m not rich. Sure, a disproportionate amount of transferable capital is owned by the rich on account of the fact that they’re rich, but for the most part their partial ownership of companies is a store of wealth rather than a source of income.

Also, the bourgeoisie don’t have to be rich. The bourgeoisie are the people who benefit from the labor of the proletariat through the means of value transference. The not-rich bourgeoisie includes, for example, college professors, people who work in the not-for-profit arena, writers, and artists. These are people who have a comfortable life doing something they find fun and interesting and that a hard-working regular member of the proletariat wouldn’t consider to be real work, and the labor of the not-rich bourgeoisie doesn’t produce anything that members of the proletariat would want to consume. Both the rich and not-rich bourgeoisie are beneficiaries of the status quo.

Remember that in modern times, doing nothing is not considered a mark of the rich. As we learned from watching the documentary Born Rich, it’s very important for the rich today to spend their live doing something, or at least to give the impression to other rich people that they are doing something. If someone is sitting home all day watching television, this marks them as a member of the idle poor; there is no longer any such thing as the idle rich.

Although the Republican Party is still considered the party of the rich and therefore the party of the bourgeoisie, the not-rich bourgeoisie votes overwhelmingly Democratic. The rich bourgeoisie are more Republican, but not as overwhelmingly Republican as non-members of the rich bourgeoisie like to imagine. Famous rich Democrats include George Soros, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. And Steve Jobs when he was still alive. If there’s a demographic that’s most staunchly Republican, it would be those people making between $100,000 and $250,000 per year in value creation jobs who empathize with the rich bourgeoisie and whom should probably be considered petit bourgeoisie

Comments

[Pussy Galore]

Siggie: "there is no longer any such thing as the idle rich."

You live in Manhattan? Guess you haven't run into those trust fund slobs.

[Thrasymachus]

If you want a Marxist analysis of a Marxist society, read "Nomenklatura" by Michael Voslensky.

[Duncan Idaho]

Almost from it's inception the vast majority of the Republican base was skilled tradesmen and certain type of skilled professions.

What they had in common was...

1. They had the most to lose from the populist mob
2. They had the most to gain from an industrialized and growing America
3. Needed to seek their fortunes on "Main Street"

[asdf]

Pussy Galore,

Even the trust fund kids pretend to be "doing something". Maybe its spending a little time each week as a "lifestyle writer" (unpaid blogger). Or maybe they spent an afternoon at OWS. The point is they don't want to admit to people they do nothing at all.

[asdf]

"If there’s a demographic that’s most staunchly Republican, it would be those people making between $100,000 and $250,000 per year in value creation jobs who empathize with the rich bourgeoisie and whom should probably be considered petit bourgeoisie."

Yup. It more or less sincs up with Moldbug's OV vs BDH class guidelines.

OVs lost WWI and then really fell off the wagon when they latched on to Hitler in WWII out of desperation. People don't realize it but while WWI is taught as a war people got into by accident, it was ultimately the determining factor of whether OV (think Kaiser + German middlestadt) or BDH would rule.

[Jay M]

"You live in Manhattan? Guess you haven't run into those trust fund slobs."

Even trustafarians have to do something. But yes, wastrels do inhabit that stratum.

[Anon]

Most trust fund kids I know of have the kind of jobs regular people wish they could get

[Conquistador]

"Most trust fund kids I know of have the kind of jobs regular people wish they could get". - Anon

Agreed. These hipster/class x trustfundarians must be a Manhattan thing. Where I live these kids are employed in cool, lucrative, and rewarding jobs. I used to wonder how people had it so easy in life while others struggled but thanks to this blog it all makes sense.

[AllanF]

There's another aspect of the staunchly Republican petit bourgeoisie that needs to be kept in mind. While their taxable incomes range in the relatively modest low 6's, their ongoing value creation builds wealth that is ripe for confiscation through taxes on 1) phantom capital gains owing to inflation 2) bursty incomes that might be low for five to fifteen years and then extremely high for one as they experience a "liquidity" event.

When Obama talks about soaking the $250k class, he scares the crap out of medium sized business owners in fly-over country.

This, BTW, is a large source of Buffet's value-transfer. For a healthy cut of the profits he lets these medium sized businessmen gracefully cash out while feeling their legacy is being maintained.

[Boobaka]

The idle bourgeoisie still exists, it's called being a "hedge fund manager".

Without taking too much risk (i.e. sovereign or state companies bonds), you can easily get a 4% annual yield on your money, and with taking a bit of risk (i.e. gold, oil in times of crisis), you can get close to 15% or 20%.

So someone smart you inherited 1 million from his father can easily live a life of laziness.

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"Remember that in modern times, doing nothing is not considered a mark of the rich."

The children of the rich have normally had it easy.

During the Civil War, the pro-Union Northern industrialists made sure their wealthy children - in general - were not drafted. They relied on European immigrants (frequently Irish) to do the military heavy work.

There's no way to really solve the problem of rich people cutting corners for their children; unless you want to go with a classless society.