#class analysis

[maxdibert]

your essay about Snape and classism made me think of the implications behind the Weasleys being the definition of poor in the magical society, according to the books.

They're pureblood, think less about muggles and they never speak about their only muggle relative, yet they don't seem to fit with the aristocrats because they're "blood traitors"?? What does that mean?

Despite being poor, the father and breadwinner for the family works at the Ministry, and Percy joins him later in a higher rank. Meanwhile, the eldest brother works on a bank (THE bank? is there any other banks that isn't Gringotts?) and we have no clue about how people see dragon breeding as a job.

I don't know where I was trying to get to, the Weasley's place in society confuses me. Any idea?

This is a very European dynamic that happens in most countries that still have monarchies or a strong aristocratic elite and a tradition of class systems based on nobility: the figure of the poor aristocrat. In Spain, for example, there is the figure of the hidalgo, which is the aristocrat with a title but without property or land, perhaps even poorer than a bourgeois, but still maintaining their aristocratic status. And this figure exists in other countries too; in fact, it's quite common in popular culture.

The problem with this is that many people (especially from the United States, obviously) think that in old Europe, class is defined by money. But that's not necessarily true, because an aristocrat will always be socially above —even for other aristocrats— regardless of being poor or a "class traitor," as opposed to a bourgeois without a family name. And this is something that is very well reflected in the fact that even Slytherins consider Ginny a "catch." The pureblood Slytherins don’t consider Ginny a catch just because she’s pretty, but because even though she’s poor and a “traitor,” she is still pureblood. She still has “aristocratic” ancestry and comes from the same roots as them. A pureblood would choose a “traitor”—as much of a traitor as she may be—a hundred thousand times over someone who can’t help continue the bloodline. This is pure traditional European aristocratic mentality.

So yes, the Weasleys may be traitors and perhaps not as wealthy as the Malfoys, but the Weasleys are still far above any other wizard in the magical society because of their blood status. Because in an aristocratic society, economic capital is not enough to match social capital: you need both. Lucius is above Arthur because he has both social and economic capital. But Arthur is still above any Muggle-born or half-blood wizard who might have as much or more money than Lucius. Does that make sense? Because despite the hatred and contempt Lucius has for Arthur, he would still be willing to save Arthur twenty thousand times before saving any half-blood or Muggle-born, no matter how wealthy they might be, because Arthur can help preserve the bloodline, and the others can’t. And this is something those of us who grew up in societies deeply affected by these value systems understand quite well.

There’s also the fact that Rowling has never truly grasped what poverty is. For Rowling, being poor means not being as privileged as the most privileged. She doesn’t know what it’s really like to be poor or to suffer from true poverty. The Weasleys always had a hot meal on the table, they could dress themselves, and they could buy things for their children and even spend lottery winnings on a family vacation. A truly poor family could never afford the luxury of spending lottery winnings on a trip, they literally need it to avoid starving. The Weasleys are poor from a privileged perspective, but they are not poor from a class perspective, nor are they truly poor from a sociological standpoint. And even less so considering the author of the books is British.

[gameshowtrainwreck]

the only difference between the weepy wendsday club and myself is that I've been fucked by the system longer than they have (D or R, both parties fuckin' 𝕝𝕠𝕒𝕥𝕙𝕖 the disabled), and now they're sad because there's a chance they might have to experience it themselves.

i am a reflection of what i deal with as shaped by the environment i occupy. people literally tried to argue that sometimes genocide is acceptable and that doing less than the bare fuckin basic minimum (e.g. 1% of the 43 million student loans forgiven) means we shouldn't criticize or talk bad about my betters otherwise trump will win.

trump still won, you dumb motherfuckers.

trump still won and none of these hateful pieces of shit will learn anything from it. losing to trump once can be a mistake, benefit of the doubt covers that. losing to him twice is a pattern of deliberate, willful decisions by those within the party that everybody else swears will defend democracy yet simultaneously are also too fragile to withstand criticism from someone who would have really liked for her to win. considering how fucking smug everybody had been about it before the election, even i thought harris had it in the bag. turns out that if i handled a fucking surgery the same way harris handled her campaign, i would still be in fuckin prison.

the same group of people who watched a genocide unfold and said nothing are now subject to the big sads. folks, nobody has any reason to be sad about something your candidates willfully chose to do.

if anything, y'all should be getting angry. get angry at the people responsible for this in your own goddamned party. or don't, because gosh we all know how much of a fuckin hassle it was actually giving a shit during the 1st trump admin.

i guess that's why a lot of harris voters are now talking about wishing more hurricanes on the south (even though black people will be the most likely to be hurt by it) or calling ICE on latinos for having the fucking gall to not vote correctly; makes sense to just go full-on masks-off.

that's why i'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop and all these sadsack assholes start switching over to full-blown fascism. i would fucking jizz my pants if i was proven wrong, believe you me, but a lifetime of experience and a neurodivergent hyperfocus on world history has told me a lot of people simply ain't got that shit in them.

so fuck em, i will cuss them out if to provide some modicum of consequence for the democratic party failing the people they allegedly care about because god knows a lot of these motherfuckers have been sheltered by their economic status.

[rhiandoesfandom]

Woke up in the middle of the night thinking about Blitz fucking buckzo and need to get this outta my head.

I thought at first that Blitz's constant push away of any affection from Stolas was kinda petty. Like just be soft come on.

But then I reflected or I guess I dreamed about my past experiences with rich friends in high school and college and remembered how much I resented them.

Of course I was never as mean as Blitz gets in the show. But it was off handed comments like "must be nice" and "wow this is a bit much huh" when at their homes or when they would talk about their latest luxury vacation.

As someone who grew up lower middle class it is hard to have as much sympathy for those who have so much more than you. Just for being born into it. Not only that, they often as people seem untouchable and so it makes complete sense to me why Blitz thought Stolas couldn't get hurt. Not just cause he was powerful but because he's an untouchable royal.

"don't touch that pretty thing" is a double meaning in this sense at least to me. Stolas is pretty, yes, but Blitz fights in that moment to willingly and outwardly touch royalty. If you think about it, Blitz has never really initiated contact in good faith when it isn't a full moon night, and besides during Seeing Stars when they were in a crisis situation.

Royalty is something he has been told his whole life is untouchable. That he could get hurt or killed for probably, since it's hell. No wonder he has problems trusting Stolas.

I've said this part before but we as the audience know these boys trauma but they don't know one another's. I think they will address the class angle with Stolas, and I think Blitz will finally feel confident eventually to let go of his biases too.

It's much easier I believe to let go of biases towards those below you than it is for those below you to let go of biases of those so much higher than you.

Okay that's all now go the fuck to sleep, me.

[analysisroulette]

Do you like dragons? Do you like Marxism? Boy, do I have an episode for you...

This week, Dia leads us through a Marxist reading of Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series-- with a only brief side digression to talk about the class politics of time travel.

[octorokdodongo]

Intersectionality without class analysis = radlib stuff ("more queer CEOs and war criminals!")

Class analysis without intersectionality = class reductionism (cringe, white boy Marxism)

Intersectionality + class analysis = critical consciousness (seeing the whole picture of oppression in all forms and how it operates)

[icedsodapop]

The Dracula film starring Nathalie Emmanuel was a better "Eat The Rich" movie than fucking Saltburn when it literally lured you in with the class porn and then turned it on its head by depicting the British aristocratic class as literal fucking vampires.

[alientitty]

What are your thoughts on class the way it's seen OUTSIDE of the U.S.? In most countries, your class has to do with your surname/family (like a respectable European family name with a history of achievers), religion, social network, cultural capital, education etc. meaning for example, you can be a broke liberal arts student but because your grandfather was a successful buisness owner with a good surname and you have a good social and cultural capital, you are considered middle class even if you have 1$ to your name. And a rapper with a billion dollars or someone like Kylie Jenner or the Kardashains are still seen as trashy regardless of their income. Thoughts on that class system?

the dialectical materialist framework (developed by marx, foundational) can be used to analyze any society, so i'll try to do that here or at least point you in the right direction.

i've been specifying the us because i understand our liberal misconceptions the best, but defining class as your relationship to the means of production applies just as well in europe. one difference is that the ruling class there often still contains elements of the old feudal aristocracy. marx understood class (like everything else) as dynamic, always in the process of changing from one form to another. marx and engels actually start off the communist manifesto explaining this:

..in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs...almost all of these classes, [were arranged into] subordinate gradations...Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.

basically, the old feudal classes find themselves increasingly becoming part of either the business-owning class or the workers. so the cultural attitude of someone having prestige from their family name is just the cultural reflection of this economic arrangement. perhaps their once-aristocratic family continued to be part of the ruling class by joining the bourgeoisie as it took power (ex.: that lord guy who writes downton abbey), or maybe this "family of achievers" refers to a bourgeois relative who invested smartly a couple hundred years ago and their descendants reap the benefits--in which case it's pretty much the same as being a kennedy in the usa.

in terms of the "broke liberal arts student" example, there's a couple things that could be going on here. one is the process of "proletarianization," where a person (or group) of a higher class like the bourgeoisie is pushed out of that class into the proletariat. however, what's much more common is a situation where someone bourgeois temporarily does not have enough of their assets in a liquid (spendable) form (and are experiencing for the first time what people in lower economic positions deal with all their lives...). you have $1 to your name today, but what other assets are available to you? if you hocked all of it or are disowned and cut off, and have no choice but to sell your labor for wages for the rest of your life, you've been proletarianized. if you still have access to the assets (which is what the terms "social and cultural capital" imply to me) then this is more a case of a bourgeois family mismanaging its funds. hardship or no, the amount of money in your checking account alone does not determine your class position. jeff bezos famously takes home a comparatively small salary because most of his net worth is in investments, but he is most certainly still part of the haute bourgoisie.

i don't know of any billionaire rappers, but i think it's good to break down celebrity here. first of all, europeans see rap as "trashy" mainly for the same reason as americans--racism. (the karjenner clan is also probably seen as "trashy" mainly because their brand is built from appropriating black american culture.) fame doesn't necessarily correlate to power over society--in fact, many say celebrity culture is a distraction from who's really pulling the strings. kylie jenner invests her capital (which she gets from her bourgeois family) into a business that generates more wealth for her, but that doesn't mean she has anywhere near the power and influence of someone like the koch family--who are actual billionaires. they are both bourgeois, both capitalists, and they share more interests with each other than with workers, but one is a much more powerful member of that class with much more capital. having disdain for the karjenner clan doesn't mean they're now proletarian wage laborers.

i don't necessarily think it's completely useless to think about society in terms of income tax brackets either, just that liberal analysis muddies the waters. the attitudes and prestige you're talking about are the result of underlying economic class relations, not the cause of them (technical term: base and superstructure). we need to get a handle on basic marxist concepts like class if we want to have useful conversations and accurate plans of attack.

some suggested readings to get a handle on things:

principles of communism by engels (brief summary, more direct than the manifesto). i also like wage labor & capital

marx for beginners (graphic/illustrated, from the 70s but gives a good overview)

curriculum of the basic principles of marxism-leninism, part 1 (translation of vietnamese gen ed college textbook, also available as a paperback. has wonderful in-depth footnotes and discussions on basic tenets of dialetical materialism--i'm still working through it all! the translator talked about some basics in her youtube vids as well)

introductory videos:

second thought actually has a video about "middle class" (his channel is 101-level and here he encourages the petty bourgeoisie to side with the proletariat)

for more rigor/book recs i like hakim

the marxist project has helped me understand some basic ideas as well

and of course david harvey is here to help you get through capital (one day i'll read it all, i swear...)

[merky-monkey]

[miochimochi]

Marxian class theory is a failure. There are other class theories from anarchists that hold up better. Wally Conger's Agorist class theory, for example.

[maxdibert]

I’m a Brit and think that’s pretty spot on about James trying to put Snape back in his place…Snape doesn’t just offend their sensibilities because he’s working class, but because he doesn’t consider himself inferior and because he’s visibly trying to social climb through academics and connections, the ambition oozes from him (good for him! wish he’d had better mentors!) there is literally *nothing* a British snob disdains more than a social climber. Not getting above your station is considered the ultimate virtue. There’s a bit of this in Lily’s objections to Snape’s Slytherin friends too…obviously her main issue is that they’re bigoted cunts, but there’s definitely also a hint of unflattering disbelief about him being accepted (however conditionally) by well-connected scions.

Whenever I think about class analysis in Harry Potter, I do so fully aware of how intense the topic of social class has always been in Britain. It’s something I’ve always known, but when I lived there, it became much clearer, so for me, the issue of classism in this context is pretty obvious. I also think the issue of social class and the expectation from the upper echelons (especially the aristocracy) that those from below should stay below and know their place is something very common across Europe—especially in countries where monarchies and, therefore, aristocratic elites still persist today. This means that society isn’t entirely shaped by the neoliberal capitalist perception of class seen in countries like the United States, where the “self-made millionaire” is glorified. Instead, there is a deeply ingrained perception that above the self-made millionaire stands the aristocrat, the name, the old money. The name often matters more than the money because a name represents prestige, pedigree—it’s part of the DNA of a society built on the foundations of an old regime whose pillars haven’t fallen but simply modernized. This is something that also happens in Spain, which, like England, is a monarchy, or in other European countries where monarchies may no longer exist but held significant power over the past two centuries. These nations still retain a strong legacy of social hierarchies rooted in aristocracy within their societal structures.

James and Sirius weren’t just wealthy—translated into a real-world context, they would be aristocrats. They were people of family names and lineages stretching back hundreds of generations. They weren’t just boys from good families; their families were at the pinnacle of the social scale. Severus ended up in a Hogwarts house where not only were the students from high social classes, they were also ARISTOCRATS. He was a working-class kid, but not just that—he came from an industrial area, which on the social scale is just one step above peasants. The only thing that positions an industrial worker above a peasant is that industrial workers are located in cities, and within the web of social classes, cities rank above rural areas. This is something we understand very well in Europe.

From a practical standpoint and from a class perspective, Severus was already at the bottom in the Muggle world. But on top of that, in the wizarding world, he was a half-blood—not because he had parents who were magical but Muggle-born, but because one of his parents was a Muggle, the same parent who gave him his surname. The difference in status between him and Lily in that sense was practically nonexistent. Severus wasn’t just poor from a neoliberal perspective; from the traditionalist perspective of how social classes interact, he came from the very bottom, both in terms of his social position and his blood status. Ignoring that basically disregards not only the lens of class and the significant power imbalance between the characters but also reveals an immense level of cultural ignorance—not just about British culture but about European culture as a whole.

[gameshowtrainwreck]

"Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett

I just don't understand the outrage being directed to those who have expressed some degree of satisfaction from the news of that United Health Care CEO getting shot. Why would his death be any more outrageous or any more unacceptable from the slow, often painful deaths endured by those at the stroke of his pen?

Frankly, the victim got off lighter than what some movies use for plotlines. It's not something I woulda done, probably not even how I'd do it (a couple of ideas, but they're assumptions that would require stuff anyone privy to the investigation might have already ruled out and i feel as if i contribute enough to the problem of online content as it is anyway), but the ruling class experiencing the same kind of terror they've been okay with allowing everybody else to endure is not something that really moves the needle for me. Frankly, I hope they never catch the shooter and the perp becomes a folk hero for the 21st century. Hell, murder ballads about the shooting are already popping up online. This shooting is reviving folk music. Nobody but family weeps for the low-born criminals dead in the gutter, why are the rest of us low-born expected to weep for an industry who has killed more than the drug cartels? Nah. They spent a lot of money on a lot of politicians to fuck us all over. As ye have sown, so shall ye reap. If a paycheck depends on abstracting people into a line item on a ledger and people end up dying because of it, then you really should consider another line of work.

"I have never laid a finger on anyone in my life, Mr Pump. I may be–– all the things you know I am, but I am not a killer! I have never so much as drawn a sword!" "No, You Have Not. But You Have Stolen, Embezzled, Defrauded And Swindled Without Discrimination, Mr Lipvig. You Have Ruined Businesses And Destroyed Jobs. When Banks Fail, It Is Seldom Bankers Who Starve. Your Actions Have Taken Money From Those Who Had Little Enough To Begin With. In A Myriad Small Ways You Have Hastened The Deaths Of Many. You Do Not Know Them. You Did Not See Them Bleed. But You Snatched Bread From Their Mouths And Tore Clothes From Their Backs. For Sport, Mr Lipvig. For Sport. For The Joy Of The Game.”

― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

Sometimes there are people in this world who will make their best contributions to humanity on their departure. If you're afraid that might happen to you: (1) if you're letting shit get so bad in your interactions with others that somebody might take a swing at you that's probably something you should turn yourself in to the authorities over and try to plea bargain even though you can still get shanked in prison, and (2) lol why are you rich enough to work in health insurance and still fucking slumming it on tumblr? Get tae fuck with that scrub-league bullshit. Rich people are horrible fucking fanfic authors anyway, look at what's getting made in movies. (yes, golems speak by capitalizing every word of dialogue in the Discworld novels, it's something Sir Terry Pratchett did with his books and supernatural characters; Death is a character in them and speaks in small-caps without quotation marks. It's a little annoying personally, but Terry is such a good author you get used to it to the point where it feels wrong without it)

[anger-and-red-flames]

what I want to add here is how that effects the way that middle class kids view their position in the class struggle. if people call your family rich in the same breath as someone like Elon Musk its pretty hard to say "well, my interests are still the same than the ones of the lower class."

i grew up as the kid of a doctor and civil servant and my siblings and many other kids of similar class background viewed themselves as closer to billionaires than homeless people or the workers cleaning our school. they were supporting capitalism not just bc they had propaganda brainrot, but because they were sure they'd benefit from it.

After all our families are basically rich, right?

and for me it took actual effort (and going to uni and studying sociology) to reject that label. my family isn't rich, they aren't "the bourgeoisie". we are economically privileged, extremely fortunate, but our fight is similar to the one of lower class people.

so whenever someone calls my family rich I start talking about actual class analysis and that pretending middle or upper middle class families are rich is playing into capitalist propaganda, while also making it harder to see the wealth discrepancies between the people working for their income and the people owning the means of production. and I m sure its annoying, but god, if we want to be able to fight the system together we have to know who our allies are. And the doctor at the other side of town has more in common with you than with Elon Musk.

Ive noticed recently that my generation has... no concept of what the various economic classes actually are anymore. I talk to my friends and they genuinely say things like "at least i can afford a middle class lifestyle with this job because i dont need a roommate for my one bedroom apartment" and its like... oughh

You guys, middle class doesnt mean "a stable enough rented roof over your head," it means "a house you bought, a nice car or two, the ability to support a family, and take days off and vacations every year with income to spare for retirement savings and rainy days." If all you have is a rented apartment without a roommate and a used car, you're lower class. That's lower class.

And i cant help but wonder if this is why you get kids on tumblr lumping in doctors and actors into their "eat the rich" rhetoric: economic amnesia has blinded you to what the class divides actually are. The real middle class lifestyle has become so unattainable within a system that relies upon its existence that theyve convinced you that those who can still reach it are the elites while your extreme couponing to afford your groceries is the new normal.

[ophthalmotropy]

There aren't enough fucking hours in the day to get real good at chess, violin, piano, singing, crosswords, film photography, contemporary dance, literary analysis, writing, film criticism, historical analysis, political commentary, tennis, Latin, French, German, Italian, identification of invertebrates, programming, cooking, musical composition, watercolour painting, philosophy, stage acting, fencing, psychoanalysis, and sickoposting online.

[miochimochi]

The Self as a Whole: A Left-Libertarian Class Theory

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Having definitions in place and having read a few different authors on the subject but finding something lacking, thought I'd give it a go. This was... a process. I was drafting, remaking, drafting again. The process of creating any sort of social theory is not a simple one and you should not even count this as the final draft. So I welcome any feedback (and no "just use Marxian class theory" isn't feedback, that's the theory that prompted me to write this). You can even take this and add to it yourself. If you want to read it and give more constructive feedback, then go onward!

A class is a hierarchical grouping of individuals within a society based on some criteria of standing. A class theory must define the lines of these social classes. Class conflict arises when the vested interests of different classes are at odds. Class conflict analysis must look at the interests of defined classes and analyze the relationships between them. Class consciousness is the awareness of these class divides and the best interests of one's own class. Normally, people only place a distinction between an upper class and a lower class with the conflict arising only there. Afterall, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and so the poor must be one class versus the rich in another. The division of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat is a common one used, although mainstream media has muddied the waters on what these terms mean while erasing Marx's proposition of the petite bourgeoisie and the lumpenproletariat. The bourgeoisie is not simply the rich, they're specifically that class which has labor purchasing power and holds ownership of business. The petite bourgeoisie only holds ownership of business, but without labor purchasing power - a class Marx viewed as a transitional one. The proletariat are then the labor force, those that do not hold ownership of any business. The lumpenproletariat were proposed as the lowest class, of which included sex workers, vagrants, and other "undesirables" that were not useful to the revolution due to a perceived lack of class consciousness.

I find these divisions to be lacking and, in the case of what's counted among the lumpenproletariat, a bit problematic and narrow sighted. For one, the line between the proletarian and the petite bourgeois has become blured over the years with the rise of self employment among workers, where one is both employed labor and owns their own business. Second, what's counted among the lumpenproletariat doesn't make much sense to consider low in class consciousness simply by their "uncouth" profession or lifestyle. Although a number modern Marxists seem to embrace sex workers and vagrants, this is something in contrast to Marxian class theory as an alteration to it. Modern Marxists tend to do away with the idea of the lumpenproletariat being determined by profession or lifestyle and judge class consciousness by action and advocacy instead, but to change it like this is to poke a hole in the original theory and thus tells that it should be revisited, acknowledgingly revised as a form of Neo-Marxian class theory, or entirely scrapped in favor of a new theory. I am of the latter camp. But being in favor of a new theory means nothing if I cannot present an option for that new theory - so that is what I'm here to do.

I do agree with Marx in that there is a lower class that is "counter-revolutionary", but not because of a lack of class consciousness. Rather, they are very much advocating for their class' vested interest - it's just that such interest is a parasitic one. Parasitic being key here, but let me explain the divides of the upper, middle, and lower class. The upper class is comprised of those that hold wide reaching power - they don't need to own businesses because they have executive power over the business owners. They are the law makers and legal arbiters, they are the purest statist element within society. The middle class is comprised of the business owners, stock brokers, and bankers. They tend to uphold the upper class with resources in exchange for benefits. Their power is over the lower class, being the hand those below them are compelled, by force or nature, to go to for their daily bread. The lower class is comprised of the workers, the homeless, and the criminals. They are those that do not hold power over another class, but may beseech the classes above them to exert their power on the lower class' behalf. But these three divides don't give us a concrete view of the divides and the conflict between them, so let's explore how these divides are defined among this theory.

I mentioned before the aspect of parasitism as a distinguishing feature of the counter-revolutionary lower class, but it's a feature that works its way into other classes. The upper class, for instance, is always parasitic. They do not earn what they obtain, rather it is taken from those below them in one form or another. They are above economic power, into the political, and have a vested interest in maintaining their power over all others. The way they do this varies from placation, so as to make the ruled complacent, to domination, so as to remove options for the ruled to revolt. Whatever position an individual within the upper class is at within the hierarchy, they are all upper class and gain from the theft of the fruits of the worker's labor.

The middle class is split into 3 classes. The first is the corporatists, the second is the mercantilists, and the third is the self employed. Corporatists are the rich business owners over large corporation, those who are served by the upper class due to what they can offer. Corporatists don't always work in the interest of the upper class, though, such as their many ways of escaping taxation. Even so, they gain more from the upper class' existence than they would without it. The upper class helps maintain their property claims, regardless of legitimacy, through exploitation of the lower class. This exploitation comes in the form of theft of labor wages and utilizing the lower class to enforce their demands. As a result, corporatists possess the parasitic aspect alongside the upper class. The mercantilists are a step below the corporatists. They are those that own a non-corporate business, with labor having been hired, and are directly invested in the business through financial and labor means. They can be actively parasitic, but that is not an innate feature of them. You see, simply benefiting from the State isn't what makes a class parasitic, it's the active seeking out of state benefits and advocacy for them that makes one parasitic. It's those that are not parasitic that are more likely to be swayed against the State, and perhaps into activism. The parasitic mercantilists fight tooth and nail for corporatist interests, although the corporatist is likely the only one truly reaping the benefits. The self employed are similar to the mercantilists with the distinction that they do not have employees, they are the sole laborer of the business. As a result, their interests do shift from the mercantilist due to the business riding even more on their shoulders. The possibility of parasitism is still there, though, but being in an even greater position to be swayed to activism.

The lower class is where the majority of activists can be found, but is still a class rife with parasitism. The lower class is comprised of those social outcasts, those non-owners, those laborers, and those vagabonds. There's three groups among the lower class to distinguish - the welfarists, the plurimists, and the enforcers. Welfarists are those parasitic members of the lower class - they do not work towards self sufficiency of the community and a subsequent voluntary interdependence with it. The welfarist's interests, as the name implies, is in state welfare programs. They aren't interested in alternatives to statist systems that steal the fruits of labor - they're benefiting. These people will call for expansions of the welfare system in the hopes of a nanny state and disparage calls to action to change the system causing the problems in the first place, usually with fallacious and often counterfactual arguments. These are those who will not change, unlike the plurimist masses who can be driven to action by the right motivators. Some of the plurims are pseudo-parasitic, such as violent thugs who would rape, steal, and murder their way through life, mirroring the violent nature of the State, but the majority are simply people going about their day to day life. Their interests are to survive, even if statist means are how they do survive.

But those activists among the plurim, and even the mercantilists and self employed, reject the State's power and move to reduce statist influence in their lives. While one can simply detach themselves from society to do this, that's not a very tenable option for most due to familial ties. Those with the easiest time detaching from society are those without much of anything tying themselves to society. Besides, detaching from society does nothing to solve the underlying issue. Events such as that of Ruby Ridge show that the issue persists and the statist element permeates everywhere one goes. To eradicate the statist element, thus eradicate the issue that is tied to it, community building is crucial. Taking a stand where one is, creating the alternative, swaying others into being cohorts of the counter-economy, that is where change begins and ends. To do so, one cannot simply leave society, especially at the current stage.

The third division of the lower class is by far the most egregious in its parasitism. The enforcers not only benefit from the State, they actively enforce the will of the State, thus given a degree of power above the rest of the lower class, but also the middle class whenever the upper class deems it acceptable. It can be argued that this group is either classless or a paraclass, but I place them as the lower class because they have no power on their own. Enforcers are simply vehicles for the power of other classes, with the hierarchy holding the upper class as having ultimate power and the rest of lower class having none at all. So long as they do not displease the upper class, they are treated as having a higher class standing than they actually hold. However, if they step out of line, they are treated as the lower class they are. They are a traitorous element within the lower class and are least likely of any outside the upper class to become activists.

With these class distinctions, we see the divide arising. The classes of upper, middle, and lower class are distinguished by power, combining economic and political power to create these distinctions. But what would be most useful for the activist is metaclass distinctions. The partyarchist metaclass, the common metaclass, and the activist metaclass. These distinctions are based on their relation to the statist element, with the partyarchs being those who's interests most lie in the State's existence, the commons being a neutral party of which can be most easily swayed one way or the other, and the activists who are antagonistic to the State's existence. Class conflict is intersectional between the metaclass, class, and subclass divides, a complete analysis of which would take more than a single post to do. Between them all, it is the partyarchist metaclass which directly causes the erosion of the freedoms of the commons and attacks on the activists. The commons are used to sate the desires of the partyarchs, being their greatest source of labor and resources. The activists are a thorn in the side of the partyarchs, working counter-economically to undermine their exploitation of them and the commons. Throughout the history of civilization, these metaclasses and the conflict between them can be found, although the subclass distinctions wouldn't be wholly seen, such as the welfarists being a relatively recent development within the class hierarchy as far as I can tell.

This is all extremely bare bones and should be seen more as a first draft of the theory. I would encourage those who are similarly unimpressed with the prevailing Marxian theory to take this and help to paint a clearer picture. What I would say is crucial to this theory would be the distinction of metaclass, class, and subclass, the framing of class divides via a pluralistic view of power, and framing of metaclass divides via their relation to the statist element. Beyond that, the specifics of the distinctions is open. Class conflict analysis is also entirely open, especially given I did not delve into the subject here. Updates on the topic will come in future posts as more is put into building the theory.

[maxdibert]

Your previous anon hasn’t understood how prejudice works.

James *is* prejudiced. He’s a classist bigot. He’s also, despite fighting on the anti-Voldemort side of the war, got an ingrained sense of superiority based on his blood status. Yes, he marries a muggleborn and befriends a werewolf. But he picks his victim knowing Severus is an easy target who won’t be defended by his blood supremacist housemates because he’s the son of a muggle. He’s not going after the pureblood Slytherins, because he knows he wouldn’t get away with it so easily if he went after people with important families. He never unpacks what this says about his true attitudes towards blood status.

Severus is prejudiced as a youth, but it’s internalised self-hatred because he too is part of the marginalised class as somebody with a muggle father. As a teacher, he doesn’t dislike Hermione because she’s a muggleborn. He dislikes her because she’s a uniquely insufferable student who isn’t as clever as she thinks she is.

Many people in this fandom don’t seem to understand what classism is, nor do they grasp class dynamics or how they shape power structures. The globalized, neoliberal, Americanized perspective has led to a cultural misunderstanding of class as the foundation upon which all other social inequalities rest. By ignoring class issues, people tend to focus on individual trees rather than seeing the forest. So, let’s break it down:

James Potter comes from a wealthy and respected pureblood family, which places him in a position of privilege both in the wizarding world and within Hogwarts. Although he opposes Voldemort’s ideology and the explicit blood supremacy of the Death Eaters, he still benefits from a structure that grants advantages to those from old, wealthy families. His choice of Severus as a bullying target is not arbitrary; it aligns with the implicit social hierarchy at the school: Snape is the son of a Muggle, comes from a poor family, and lacks the protection of a powerful lineage.

James’ behavior can be analyzed through Antonio Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony, which argues that ruling classes maintain power not just through coercion but also by instilling norms and values that reinforce their status. James, while rebelling against the most extreme version of blood supremacy, still operates within the values of his class: he despises and torments a peer who represents marginality within the wizarding world.

Furthermore, his friendship with Remus Lupin, a werewolf, can be interpreted through the theory of “tokenism,” which suggests that elites often include a few marginalized individuals as a way to justify their own position as Rosabeth Kanter said on her sociology studies. His friendship with Lupin does not dismantle the system of privilege in which James operates, just as his marriage to Lily Evans does not force him to question the wizarding world's class structure as a whole.

Severus, on the other hand, embodies a different kind of prejudice. His initial alignment with Death Eater ideology does not stem from pure supremacist conviction but rather from a survival mechanism within a society that despises him. In terms of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory, Severus seeks to accumulate “symbolic capital” by associating with Slytherins of pureblood status, as his “social capital” (his family and connections) is practically nonexistent. However, despite his desire to belong, his lineage relegates him to an ambiguous position: he is not fully accepted among the blood purists, but he also finds no protection within the broader wizarding community.

His resentment toward Hermione Granger, therefore, is not because she is a Muggleborn but because she represents the kind of student who has always been valued by Hogwarts society in a way that he never was. In terms of Bourdieu’s theory of reflexivity, Hermione embodies the institutional validation of academic talent that Snape himself never received.

The relationship between James and Severus, then, is not just a school rivalry but a manifestation of class struggle within the wizarding world. James, the benevolent aristocrat who never fully questions his privilege, represents the dominant class—one that opposes extreme ideologies but does not challenge the system that benefits him. Severus, on the other hand, is the outcast who desperately seeks upward mobility, even if it means aligning himself with ideologies that ultimately despise him.

Rowling presents the characters through a lens of individual morality, but if we examine their actions from a structural perspective, we can see that Hogwarts' system perpetuates inequalities that go far beyond the Gryffindor vs. Slytherin divide.

[taracalaby]

… history is better if it has a bite to it, an uncomfortable edge, a critical edge. Class analysis used to be subversive; that it is not at present, with the flattening of ideologies, is a problem, not just for historians, but for the whole of civil society.

Chris Wickham, "Memories of Underdevelopment: What Has Marxism Done for Medieval History, and What Can It Still Do?" (2007)