{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","title":"Labor and Monopoly Capital The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"0853459401","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","id":"bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","uuid":"bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","title":"Labor and Monopoly Capital The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century","normalized_title":"laborandmonopolycapitalthedegradationofworkinthetwentiethcentury","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"0853459401","isbns":["0853459401"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":183,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Labor%20and%20Monopoly%20Capital%20The%20Degradation%20of%20Work%20in%20the%20Twentieth%20Century","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802/search"},"page":{"printed_page":279,"pdf_page":152,"physical_index":152,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"ec1351ea28d50301f73f22a63fb01e03acfca8e81a8396c89bf50a951fefce69"},"chapter":"Acknowledgments","content":"Chapter 18\n\nThe “Middle Layers“ of Employment\n\nIn the discussion thus far we have restricted ourselves to that portion of the population, embracing as we have seen some two-thirds to three-fourths of the total, which appears readily to conform to the dispossessed condition of a proletariat. But the system of monopoly capitalism has brought into being a further mass of employment, not inconsiderable in size, that does not answer so readily to such a definition. Like the petty bourgeoisie of pre-monopoly capitalism (the petty proprietors in farming, trade, services, the professions, and artisan occupations), it does not fit easily into the polar conception of economy and society. But unlike that earlier middle-class mass, which has so largely evaporated, it corresponds increasingly to the formal definition of a working class. That is, like the working class it possesses no economic or occupational independence, is employed by capital and its offshoots, possesses no access to the labor process or the means of production outside that employment, and must renew its labors for capital incessantly in order to subsist. This portion of employment embraces the engineering, technical, and scientific cadre, the lower ranks of supervision and management, the considerable numbers of specialized and “professional” employees occupied in marketing, financial and organizational administration, and the like, as well as, outside of capitalist industry proper, in hospitals, schools, government administration, and so forth. Relatively, it is nowhere near so large as the old petty bourgeoisie which, on the basis of independent entrepreneurship, occupied as much as half or more of the population in the pre-monopoly stage of capitalism. It embraces in the United States today perhaps over 15 but less than 20 percent of total employment. Its rapid growth as a partial replacement for the old middle class, however, makes its definition a matter of special interest, all the more so since its purely formal character is similar to that of the clearly proletarianized working-class population.\n\nThe complexities of the class structure of pre-monopoly capitalism arose from the fact that so large a proportion of the working population, being neither employed by capital nor itself employing labor to any significant extent, fell outside the capital-labor polarity. The complexity of the class structure of modern monopoly capitalism arises from the very opposite consideration: namely, that almost all of the population has been transformed into employees of capital. Almost every working association with the modern corporation, or with its imitative offshoots in governmental or so-called nonprofit organizations, is given the form of the purchase and sale of labor power.\n\n278 Labor and Monopoly Capital\n\n279","previous_page":null,"next_page":null}