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well, if you got a six-figure job offer, you'd still likely be a member of the working class https://twitter.com/Bemundolack/status/1338579899024596994
"working class", as Marx defines it, is not a factor of how large your salary is, but rather whether you control the means of production, and most $100K job offers don't involve ownership over the means of production in any real capacity
this does, theoretically, apply at any salary level. the reason you don't usually talk about someone making $50 million/year as "working class" isn't because their salary has passed some threshold - it's because most people making that much in salary are *also* owners of the MoP
also, there are very few people making $50 million/year in *salary* - the super-wealthy make generate most of their wealth through investments and earnings not tied to their own labor, which means they're not working class by Marx's definition
if you're wondering where equity falls into this: it depends, but as a rule of thumb, if it's compensation for your labor, you're working class.
If it's compensation for something else you provide (cash, access to land, something else), then you're not.
If it's compensation for something else you provide (cash, access to land, something else), then you're not.
this does mean that the 23 year-old MIT grad who's snagged a $200k/year job at Google is working class, while their immigrant landlord is not.
That's not a contradiction! The fact that it feels like one is a sign of how the terms have become distorted in colloquial use.
That's not a contradiction! The fact that it feels like one is a sign of how the terms have become distorted in colloquial use.
"working class" is often (mis)used to describe an 
aesthetic, rather than a description of a person's relationship to capital and power
aesthetic, rather than a description of a person's relationship to capital and power
One of the images people often picture when they hear the term "working class" is a white, self-employed plumber or handyman who drives a pickup truck and lives in a rural house.
In reality, even if that archetypal man isn't wealthy, he's definitely *not* working class!
In reality, even if that archetypal man isn't wealthy, he's definitely *not* working class!
You see this a lot in depictions of American farming and agriculture. Farmers are depicted as poor and therefore working class, but for many, that could not be further from the truth.
Under Marx's definition, they are the epitome of the bourgeoisie!
Under Marx's definition, they are the epitome of the bourgeoisie!
This is different from Marx's description of farmers in his own time, but only because the industrial revolution radically changed the structure of the world economy, and agricultural economics today is very different from pre-IR agricultural economics.
You see a lot of headlines, "Why did so many rural working-class white people vote for Trump?"
The answer is pretty obvious: many of them are not, in fact, working class.
(And white members of the capital class voting for Trump is not surprising - it's expected!)
The answer is pretty obvious: many of them are not, in fact, working class.
(And white members of the capital class voting for Trump is not surprising - it's expected!)
This is a good thread about the agricultural side of this: how farmers - landed bourgeoisie who exploit laborers - have somehow sold the public on the myth that farmers are "working class" and pitiable. https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/1339644522955980800?s=19
