foolish, i say!

al szymanski's essay "a critique and extension of the professional-managerial class" refutes the ehrenreichs' claim that class has to be defined by social function, not just by its relationship to production. szymanski finds fault with the characterization that two engineers, for example–one employed by a company and the other working independently–may be of two classes (51). but why can't this be so? it seems to me perfectly reasonable, and indeed often a point of contention, for many such people that those without their own means of working independently, have to adhere to the standards of the company they work for. and i would add that even between two people who work for the same company in the same, or similar positions, may come from two different classes if you consider their socioeconomic backgrounds, because even at the same job, they may view their work and themselves differently from each other.

for example, a young man from a poorer family in the ghetto who has either not had access to higher education, or who does not value it, may see a job at mcdonald's as unpleasant but nevertheless an inevitable future for himself. he may resign himself to the job, or even come to like it, but more likely he sees the job with feelings of futility. a young man from a fairly affluent family in a suburban community, who is either on his way to college or is looking for "short term" employment afterwards, may take the same job at mcdonald's but sees it as a temporary position, and hardly defining of "who he is." his socioeconomic background assures him not only that he is cut out for better things, but that if it really became necessary, his family would be able to support him economically so that this job is not the same "inevitable future" that it might be for the young man without the support of so many resources. i make generalities, obviously, here.

yet i think this could serve as a model for many people. szymanski says "according to the ehrenreichs, a doctor who goes to work for kaiser hospitals or a lawyer who leaves general motors to set up his own practices, changes classes. by the ehrenreichs' own criteria, this does not seem reasonable" (51). szymanski wants classes to be static, and indeed in the example i gave, it seems like they are so. but on the other hand, that example also shows that occupation is not necessarily tied to class, and if not, there must be something else tied to class, which is what the ehrenreichs were coming back to: ideology. in this sense, then, class is not static. that young man from the ghetto might have parents who couldn't afford college, but who manage to help him find his way into a degree; or perhaps they have a relative who owns a thriving business with our without a college education, who invites the young man into partnership.

the model that szymanski promotes is, like marx's, just too rigid for me. i see value in some of his critiques–where do we draw the line at defining the PMC, for example, and are independent artists purveyors of capitalist culture? yet the ehrenreichs are even flexible on that count–they say quite openly that the classes more or less merge into each other. to deny that our social relationships are not an important piece of our identity, or tied to the relations of production, seems just foolish.