To me they’re like mere servants of the State, like Lenin talked about in “2. What is to Replace the Smashed State Machine?” in his writing “The State and Revolution”
Under Capitalism, they are its privileged knights that try to deflect and control, if not defend directly its image as “the only option”, who have their incentive in doing so, with their class status stake being in their duty to shepherd the means of production and its resulting benefits
However, they don’t own the means of production, as they merely manage it for the landholding, industrialist, and financier capitalists
On the other hand, under Socialism, while its privileges will be probably be done away, the PM class on its own would innovated upon, for their new duty of overseeing, managing, and reporting the collectivized cooperatives and state-owned enterprises…
Until the final stage of Communism arrives, I think they’re pretty handy
I say this, because I hear such disgusted sentiment in Hexbear against them
Is the PMC an actual class? Anarchists think so. Some labor organizers think so (especially those with anarchist tendencies). But the PMC are non-owners. They are more akin to petite bourgeoisie, but with even less reason to be reactionary.
Under socialism, I would like to see the responsibility of oversight and reporting to be through elected representative managers, not overseers - elected by the workers from among their peers, based on those who show the greatest potential for reducing the chaos of work through empathy forged in lived experience.
The PMC has changed over the last century, and it has many segments. Many who would be considered a sort of the PMC are actually intellectual workers solving abstract problems and then trying to implement those solutions in real conditions. I don’t know that it makes sense to treat it as a real class.
Who even came up with the term “professional managerial class” anyway? Like are we not allowed to have professionals managers under socialism?
Lenin and Engels used the term labor aristocracy, which is much clearer and to the point anyway.
Under socialism, I would like to see the responsibility of oversight and reporting to be through elected representative managers, not overseers - elected by the workers from among their peers, based on those who show the greatest potential for reducing the chaos of work through empathy forged in lived experience.
Hm, you’ve seem to have done more homework on that work of Lenin I mentioned than me, congrats…
I’ll keep that in mind…
They are more akin to petite bourgeoisie
And yet so long as they aren’t petty proprietors themselves their relationship to production is proletarian, just as it would be if they were a doctor or an engineer.
There’s an argument that the PMC doesn’t use the means of production and are therefore distinct from the proletariat like the lumpenproletariat are.
You can look to the history of previous successful socialist transitions to see how many of the mandarins of the capitalist class were repurposed under socialism. What else would you do with them, and how would things continue to work if you didn’t make use of their relatively unique working knowledge of things?
The PMC is usually considered a much larger group than just the “managers”: it includes the “professionals.” College professors, scientists, engineers, journalists, etc.
Edit to add: It’s not as if these people would have alternatives to socialism after private property is abolished, other than emigration.
Funnily enough the two most proactively agitative people outside of my politically active close friends have been two of my current and previous direct managers
Both are libs with some socdem tendencies, but they also are smart people working as the interface between money and labor. It’s hard not to develop at least some kind of class consciousness when you are the person telling people that someone else fired them
Granted, their criticisms are often pretty surface level, but honestly the last time I talked with my current manager face to face it felt like they were inches away from calling for a strike (we are firing 80+ people at our location because the line went up slightly less than last year)
My old manager thaught me how to take advantage of the corporation and the bureaucracy for my and the customer’s benefit, and didn’t hesitate to explain in detail the many ways the company and the government was fucking up and fucking people over
PMC’s are labor aristocracy with usually at least some passive capital from shares or investments, but especially with raises being tied to managerial positions at certain levels depending on the industry (and let’s be honest, it’s always better to be managed by someone with actual experience), I wouldn’t determine class positions from the hierarchy of the system
Related !genzhou@lemmygrad.ml thread: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/3187131
I say this, because I hear such disgusted sentiment in Hexbear against them
There’s a strain of thought that basically goes, “If one subset of a group gets more crumbs, then they are more likely to side with the givers of the crumbs instead of siding with those who get fewer crumbs.” Which… leads to turning the concept of “petite bourgeois” and “professional managerial class” into a meme (strawman?, mememan?) and then shittalking that instead of a more honest and serious analysis.
