If I could chime in here, one useful way to think of it is how is this person using their labor time. A petit-bourgeois might own a plumbing business for example, doing work as a plumber, but also employing a few other plumbers / assistants.
In that dual role, they might earn 80% of their income from their own labor, and 20% absentee labor stolen from their employees. Since they don’t make substantially more than their employees, their class interests can align more with their proletarian role than their petit-bourgeois one.
Of course its a case by case thing, many and possibly most petit-bourgeois do pretty much no value-producing work, and live entirely off the labor of their employees.
Since they don’t make substantially more than their employees, their class interests can align more with their proletarian role than their petit-bourgeois one.
I completely agree with that, class does not determine the political views of a person. What I am arguing is that they are still part of the bourgeosie because they own the company (means of production).
What I am arguing is that they are still part of the bourgeosie because they own the company (means of production).
Take a look at this passage from comrade Marx, as it illustrates well both of our points:
“The independent peasant or handicraftsman is cut up into two persons. As owner of the means of production he is capitalist; as labourer he is his own wage-labourer. As capitalist he therefore pays himself his wages and draws his profit on his capital; that is to say, he exploits himself as wage-labourer, and pays himself, in the surplus-value, the tribute that labour owes to capital. Perhaps he also pays himself a third portion as landowner (rent), in exactly the same way, as we shall see later, that the industrial capitalist, when he works with his own capital, pays himself interest, regarding this as something which he owes to himself not as industrial capitalist but qua capitalist pure and simple.”
Now, the passage soon thereafter addresses exactly what you may be getting wrong:
“The determinate social character of the means of production in capitalist production—expressing a particular production relation —has so grown together with, and in the mode of thought of bourgeois society is so inseparable from, the material existence of these means of production as means of production, that the same determinateness (categorical determinateness) is assumed even where the relation is in direct contradiction to it. The means of production become capital only in so far as they have become separated from labourer and confront labour as an independent power. But in the case referred to the producer—the labourer— is the possessor, the owner, of his means of production. They are therefore not capital, any more than in relation to them he is a wage-labourer. Nevertheless they are looked on as capital, and he himself is split in two, so that he, as capitalist, employs himself as wage-labourer.”
These quotes explain exactly why I think it’s a mistake to consider the petty-bourgeoisie as part of the bourgeoisie simply because they own their own means of production (sometimes). They can be owners of means of production, but they engage in small-scale production, with a limited number of employees, and they do not have quantitatively the production scale to be considered, qualitatively, a part of the bourgeoisie. In reality, we see a lot of contradictions between the petty-bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie.
By the way, I thank you for giving your perceptions on this topic, it has contributed immensely to my understanding of this subject through the small research I’ve done to answer you.
If I could chime in here, one useful way to think of it is how is this person using their labor time. A petit-bourgeois might own a plumbing business for example, doing work as a plumber, but also employing a few other plumbers / assistants.
In that dual role, they might earn 80% of their income from their own labor, and 20% absentee labor stolen from their employees. Since they don’t make substantially more than their employees, their class interests can align more with their proletarian role than their petit-bourgeois one.
Of course its a case by case thing, many and possibly most petit-bourgeois do pretty much no value-producing work, and live entirely off the labor of their employees.
I completely agree with that, class does not determine the political views of a person. What I am arguing is that they are still part of the bourgeosie because they own the company (means of production).
Take a look at this passage from comrade Marx, as it illustrates well both of our points:
“The independent peasant or handicraftsman is cut up into two persons. As owner of the means of production he is capitalist; as labourer he is his own wage-labourer. As capitalist he therefore pays himself his wages and draws his profit on his capital; that is to say, he exploits himself as wage-labourer, and pays himself, in the surplus-value, the tribute that labour owes to capital. Perhaps he also pays himself a third portion as landowner (rent), in exactly the same way, as we shall see later, that the industrial capitalist, when he works with his own capital, pays himself interest, regarding this as something which he owes to himself not as industrial capitalist but qua capitalist pure and simple.”
Now, the passage soon thereafter addresses exactly what you may be getting wrong:
“The determinate social character of the means of production in capitalist production—expressing a particular production relation —has so grown together with, and in the mode of thought of bourgeois society is so inseparable from, the material existence of these means of production as means of production, that the same determinateness (categorical determinateness) is assumed even where the relation is in direct contradiction to it. The means of production become capital only in so far as they have become separated from labourer and confront labour as an independent power. But in the case referred to the producer—the labourer— is the possessor, the owner, of his means of production. They are therefore not capital, any more than in relation to them he is a wage-labourer. Nevertheless they are looked on as capital, and he himself is split in two, so that he, as capitalist, employs himself as wage-labourer.”
Link to source.
These quotes explain exactly why I think it’s a mistake to consider the petty-bourgeoisie as part of the bourgeoisie simply because they own their own means of production (sometimes). They can be owners of means of production, but they engage in small-scale production, with a limited number of employees, and they do not have quantitatively the production scale to be considered, qualitatively, a part of the bourgeoisie. In reality, we see a lot of contradictions between the petty-bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie.
By the way, I thank you for giving your perceptions on this topic, it has contributed immensely to my understanding of this subject through the small research I’ve done to answer you.