Do you hate the Working Class?

[Solon]

Poll question: Do you hate the Working Class?

I was looking at the responses from this poll.
I was frankly shocked at both the misinformation, and elitist attitudes of some DUers towards the working class. Particularly since they didn't bother clarifying their positions on even whether or not we even HAVE a capitalist system in this country. Just a hint: we don't have FREE markets, NO ONE DOES, idiots! Governments go one of many different ways economically, one way, which is the system we are currently under, is one where wealth redistribution is flowing towards those at the top, the 5 percenters, to put it bluntly. To give an example, the Airline "Industry", on the service side, they require subsidies from our government just to be in the black, otherwise they don't profit, why we don't just nationalize them, or own half their shares, I'll never know. On the manufacturing side, Lockheed-Martin and Boeing are given MASSIVE contracts, for useless crap that can't even deliver as promised, like the F-22(obsolete before even mass manufactured), and half the time, we reward them equally in these contracts.

I could go on and on, but what the hell, onto the poll.

Poll result (59 votes)
Yes	(9 votes, 15%)	Vote
No	(49 votes, 83%)	Vote
Don't know	(0 votes, 0%)	Vote
Other	(1 votes, 2%)	Vote

[alittlelark]

1. 'I don't hate the working class - I was one'

and if b*sh has his way I may be there again.

[HEyHEY]

2. I don't hate them

Put recently I was at a Hospital Employees union party. Now i'm a pretty crass guy, comfortable in environments full of true losers. But being around people that are losers by choice really bugged me. And I'm not talking about their jobs...just their actions.

But, I find so many are stuck to union ideals rhetoric the way repubs are stuck to stupidity.

[Kailassa]

14. Why did you go?

I'm just dumfounded at the way you are equating the working class with losers.

As for unions, since when did large corporations become charitable unions who would treat employees any better than they had to? One person on their own cannot fight a coporation, anyone who wants their rights respected needs some kind of backing.

[NorthernSpy]

28. so keep your ass home next time

[Kingofalldems]

40. What a snobby thing to write

Unbelievable, to read something like that on DU. You should think about going somewhere else IMO.

[HEyHEY]

42. Hey, it's just a story that came to my mind

I used to be a Union member and the guys I worked with were great... maybe it was just this particular local

[johnnypneumatic]

3. i'm in the out-of-work class

due to corporate outsourcing

[Solon]

4. If you want to work, or prefer to work, you are working class...

it doesn't matter that to the elites, you are an expendable resource, welcome comrade!

[w13rd0]

5. Calling people idiots...

...isn't going to win you friends or influence people.

I hate everyone, that way I never risk discrimination.

[Solon]

6. Just call them as I see them...

When large companies get deferrals or handouts from the government along with no bid contracts, then it is demonstratably NOT a free market, to say otherwise is the peak of stupidity. Truth isn't pretty, but I don't mince words when I encounter such ignorance. I don't CARE if I win friends with said argument, if somebody starting insisting that the world is flat, I would laugh to their face, call them an idiot, and move on. Why the HELL should we pander to "Flat Earthers" anyways?

[Mojambo]

7. More importantly

Why has there never been a band called "The Working Class?" That seems like such a natural.

I'm a member of the working class. Not everyone likes me.

I've always thought that the concept of the "American Dream" has led some people to regard the working class as the refuge of the unsuccessful and not as the backbone of a prosperous country.

I hate how the working class is regarded in this country.

[Solon]

8. I think this is combined with the decline of organized labor...

organized labor was a big factor to one of the biggest economic booms this country ever had. However, the Repukes have been demonizing them, and the entire working class, for going on 100 years now, since the first massacures of the working class took place. Now organized labor is viewed with suspicion, to such an extent, that many in the working class don't want ANYTHING to do with them, all because of propoganda, sad really, even worse when the government sides with the Managers and Elites.

[Mojambo]

10. They have shrunk the middle class out of existance.

It was a natural result of their economic policies. Back to the gilded age!

It's really pretty plain to see.

[sandnsea]

9. $0-$100,000

That's what, 80% of Americans. We're all working class and when the white collar working class realizes it, we'll be a whole lot better off. Lives of quiet desperation. More and more every year the Republicans remain in office. I didn't like everything about Clintonism, but at least I had hope.

[Solon]

11. Too true, of course depends on local standard of living...

However, by and large you are correct, my own father is a white collar worker, in computers, and he is living paycheck to paycheck right now. The only thing to be thankful for is that he works for a European company, and they are marginally better, in the US, than an American company here.

[Hawkowl]

25. More like 95%

Up to $100,000 a year would encompass about 95% of the U.S. households.

[noahmijo]

12. Oh I absolutely hate the working class

lazy bums don't carry my luggage or fix my burgers fast enough.

[regnaD kciN]

19. Of course, we all hate the working class!

After all, we're elitist Democratic liberals. Only the heads of Halliburton, Enron, Global Crossing, and other wealthy Republicans really care about the working class.

[sandnsea]

24. Speaking of burger flipping...

Our KFC got new owners and hired all seniors. It runs much more smoothly now, I have to say. But it's sad, isn't it. Now young people won't even have burger flipping jobs as the boomers who lost their 401K's have to resort to those jobs to supplement their SSI. *sigh* It just keeps getting worse and worse.

[pinto]

13. I see your point, but to be honest I hate polls. n/t

[I_Make_Mistakes]

16. Working class are the only people that work! I have always been

working class because I always had to work (irrespective of salary) so who are you referring to?

That is the paradigm of the US. When the middle class goes, it is going here. The new bankruptcy laws will facilitate this, the wealthy will have their asses handed to them on a plate. Where do you think those higher rates of returns are coming from? The exorbitant interest rates charged for credit card (cc purchases), products that fail in less than 5 yrs, etc. They are in denial, the only problem is, we will always suffer more than they will, at least short term.

[Seabiscuit]

15. I don't get it. Define "hate". Define "working class".

OK, putting "hate" (the word that really makes the question pretty ridiculous) aside for now, what is "working class":

1. unionized labor?

2. both unionized and non-unionzed labor?

3. what about farm workers?

4. what about illegal alien workers?

5. blue collar workers (define "blue collar")?

6. anyone who works at a job that isn't one of the professions (define professional - it seems everyone has a "professional" sounding job title these days - e.g., a "maintenance technician" used to be called a "janitor")

7. anyone who works at something not considered a "white collar" job (define "white collar").

8. any company worker who doesn't isn't an officer or director of a company?

9. what about the self-employed?

10. does "labor" have to be "menial" labor?

11. Marx's notions of "workers" vs. "owners" doesn't fit in 21st Century America, because many if not most "workers" now "own" stock in the companies they work for.

[Solon]

17. OK, if you need a definition, which means you are REALLY...

out of touch with the working class alone, here it is. Any worker at a company that does NOT have the power to hire or fire at said company. Beyond that, you are just splitting hairs, in a condensending way, I might add.

[lcordero2]

21. or "supervise" others

[Donald Ian Rankin]

26. That definition may well work in the US, but not here in the UK.

By UK standards, someone like Rupert Murdoch is probably "working class", and it's entirely possibly to be on the breadline but still "upper class".

[blogslut]

31. condesending

Pretty funny coming from someone that just called the board a bunch of idiots.

[foflappy]

32. class distinctions

that seperate management from the workers is not very useful. My experience has shown that the management class has close ties to the workers and in many cases the management (at the lower levels) comes from the workeers.

Why put a wall up between them??

Funny thing is that when my spouse was "in management" they made 1/3 what they make now.

[NorthernSpy]

29. employee stock ownership schemes rarely add up...

... to any degree of control.

So yes, one may still reasonably talk about a working class and an owning class.

[Hardrada]

18. Work is the opium

of the drinking class.

[1932]

20. Reminds me of a quote from Vilafredo Pareto:

“If a certain measure A is the case of a loss of one franc to each of a thousand persons, and of a thousand franc gain to one individual, the latter will expand a great deal of energy, whereas the former will resist weakly; and it is likely that, in the end, the person who is attempting to secure the thousand francs via A will be successful.”

Vilfredo Pareto, Manual of Political Economy, (New York: A. M. Kelley, 1927), p.379

Amartya Sen uses this quote in a section of his book Development as Freedom to make a point about where market economies fail. He says the solution to this problem is democracy, but that it's hard to organize a lot of people to realize that what Pareto decribes (which is a market inefficiency) and which happens all the time in capitalist economies.

[CTyankee]

37. Isn't that why we had Keynesian economic theory and practice?

I am no economist (had only one course, but it was graduate level) but it seems to me that Keynes developed his theory to improve the British economy after the Great Depression. He said that the government was also a strong player in the country's economy.

I probably am in dire need of a brush up course on my econ history!

[tech3149]

22. I consider myself working class

even if I'm not working.

[ladylibertee]

23. No, not at all.I hate the Republicans. They don't work.

[Gnostic]

27. Does'nt matter

Makes no difference what anybody thinks of the working class, especially those that belong to it. Since our "leaders" for generations have almost never originated from that class, it is a moot point.

So don't worry about a thing. Everything is fine. Now shutup, go to work, and pay your taxes before we throw you in federal prison.

[NorthernSpy]

30. those elitists care about the interests of their own class...

... and maintain an attitude of hostile indifference toward us.

I care about the interests of the working class, and maintain an attitude of hostile indifference toward those others. Their misfortunes don't bother me, just as ours don't bother them.


They are outside my sphere of moral concern.

[Cobalt Violet]

33. Just the ones who vote republican.

And I'm not too happy with the ones who don't vote either.

[GreenPartyVoter]

34. I love everyone except the upper class, I guess. I don't see much

reason for people to own 7 villas and a fleet of cars and a private island when there are others who are homeless and starving in the world.

Of course, there are decent rich people who do a lot to help out the little people but I count them the exception, not the rule.

[PowerToThePeople]

35. That other poll disgusts me.

I can not believe we have so many "sheeple" on this board that buy into the barrage of elitist propaganda about, "pulling yourself up by the bootstraps." WEalth in this country is transfered generational. WE have an Oligarchy. There is no fair competition for good and resources from the day you are born.

[muriel_volestrangler]

41. This is a board whose primary aim is the support of Democratic candidates

and you're surprised there are many people who like capitalism here? Try asking a Democratic candidate a simple 'Do you like capitalism - yes/no' question. Of course the vast majority will say yes. What's more, those who are able to use a computer are more likely to be doing OK out of capitalism.

[Connie_Corleone]

36. How can I hate the working class when I'm one of them??

[Seansky]

38. I open this thread to answer to your question "what in the world are

you asking this for? until I read your comment. I was going to dive into all the economic aspect of your question. You brought very good point and those are only a very small sample. If everyone looked closely at their communities and review everything their city and county officials did with the taxpayers money, they would be shock at the amount of subsidizes given to private sectors to keep them afloat.

[alarcojon]

39. Not at all

unless they support the Pretzeldent.