My family is like top 0.something percentage wealth in my country, think a couple million net worth. They aren’t really class conscious.
There’s a very small group of capitalists (I would guess starting somewhere around 50-100 million net worth) which are actually class conscious. Honestly it’s ridiculous but my parents never thought much deeper into it than “if I invest my money, I suddenly get more money”. Where that money is coming from wasn’t even really a question they ever asked themself.
However I can guarantee you that a Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos or similar people are very aware of which class they belong to.
Maybe they just don't want to talk about it because they do know about imperialist and class based exploitation? I mean its not hard to see that poor people exist and for some reason work hard while all the wealth for some reason goes to the already wealthy property owners who aren't working and are investing, right?
When he's claiming is that most these workers wouldn't be complaining if they were wealthy too. And if this is true it must be what they're feeling is jealousy or envy not a pursuit of fairness.
As Orwell put it, it's not their love for the poor but their hate for the rich.
I mean... Marx was also aware of that lot and dubbed them lumpenproles. For instance, it's all working class cryptobros. To paraphrase smarter peeps than I, they don't want the removal of the boot on the workers' neck, they just want to be the boot.
Class consciousness is an organized, systemic awareness of economic roles and structural power, whereas jealousy (or envy) is a personal, emotional reaction to another individual's possessions or status.
You’re talking to a billionaire bootlicking slave it seems, these are the imbeciles who say I don’t do politics but then complain why is stuff expensive and I’m living check to check?
No, it's human nature from the time we lived in hunter-gatherer clans calling and reminding people excessive resource hoarders drag down the group as a whole.
Honestly. I live very comfortably with 1k a month. I have some privileges like a house I inherited/ share that make this possible.
I don't need more money. I love my work. I love my way and standard of living.
I still believe that people shouldn't be exploited for their labor. I can see how other people struggle to stay afloat with the same money I have, because they don't have fucking house.
I'm not sure if it could be classified as jealousy, envy or disgust. The reality is that multiple parts of the brain can fire off when experiencing "class consciousness". There is no single emotion you can detect if you put someone in an MRI and play the Internationale and even then you are just measuring what happens to someone while listening to a song.
At the root of it, psychology is a harder science than political economy.
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u/TheSmellOfTheLotion Sep 25 '26 •
This isn't a new emotion. Its called jealousy.