#class 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.

[your-worst-boy]

We are not enemies.

Aim your focus upwards, not beside you.

[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.

[azzyblog]

People don't even know what "class" is.

In the simplest terms, there are two groups: those who have, and those who have not.

The owner class, the bourgeoisie, have ownership of the means of production (the factories, the land, the IP, the liquid capital, etc).

The working class, the proletariat, only has control over their labor. They do not own the machines, nor do they control what gets made and who gets to have it. They trade their body, their labor, for an income.

The guy making $60K is not "rich". The tenured California teacher making $120K is not rich. These people are still fundamentally trading their labor for money. They do not own the means of production.

A landlord is rich. A small business owner is rich (as are all larger business owners, or course). These people do not trade their time and labor for an income; they earn money simply because they're the ones who own the land, or the factory, or the company. This gets messy with "small business owners", which may very well also be putting in a lot of labor. But they also profit off of the surplus value created by others labor, and that's the difference.

Okay, so, friends. Occasionally I see an American post on here about “guillotine the rich,” and it turns out that “rich” means “anyone making over $50k.”

We need to clear this shit up REAL fast, because otherwise it’s gonna wind up like the French Revolution, where more middle class and poor people were killed for being “class traitors” than actual nobles. (Did you know that France has more nobles today than during the French Revolution? While there were a few showy executions, many nobles did just fine or experienced minor setbacks.)

If someone makes $60,000 a year, they are making about twice as much as a full time worker making minimum wage in California, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, DC, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, or Washington State.

Brian Thompson, the CEO of United HealthCare who was just assassinated in New York City, earned $10 million a year, which means he earned 333 times minimum wage in those states. Basically, he cleared an annual minimum wage salary in just over a day. And that “rich” person making $60k/year that you want to guillotine? He made their salary in a bit over two days of a year.

So he was rich, right?

Well. Tesla is trying to give Elon Musk a pay package of $101 billion. That is 10,100 times what Brian Thompson earned and 3,366,667 times more than a minimum wage worker. (Tesla hasn’t been successful yet because of a complicated lawsuit from a shareholder, but they’ll get there.) If you are a minimum wage worker, Elon Musk makes more every SECOND than you do in a year. And that “rich” person who you want to guillotine? He makes their salary in about 1.6 seconds. Even when he’s sleeping.

Now, remember. The Muskrat also is the head of SpaceX, the Boring Company, X.ai, and X.com, so this is just ONE pay package for him.

What I’m saying is — you have much more in common when it comes to economic grievances with someone earning $60,000 (or even $200,000) than the ultra wealthy that have real power. They are not the people you should expend your energy on.

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Persuasive – but mostly nutty – theories about economics, religion, class and gender drove poor and working women from the country and into the sweatshops of the early factories in the middle of the eighteenth century.

"Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" - Philippa Gregory

[coffee-cait]

May triumph always be yours, Mydeimos.

[lylahammar]

man I know I shouldn't jump in on Wicked discourse but I keep seeing people calling Glinda the "villain" of Wicked and it's driving me nuts because I really don't think it's as simple as that

imo Glinda's story is a very Shakespearean style tragedy about a white feminist (liberal) politician. Her hamartia is her desire to be accepted by the oppressive ruling class, while her internal conflict is her struggle to be perceived as "good." She was influenced just enough by her marginalized activist friend to feel crushing awareness of her own place in the fascist system, but they were separated before she was able to fully reach self actualization and pursue a more fulfilling goal. Her tragic downfall is that she got exactly what she thought she wanted, but through her incomplete character arc she found that it was actually cold and hollow and lonely. Yeah she's a shitty selfish person and she dug her own grave but she's not the villain, she's the tragic anti-hero

[xxplastic-cubexx]

with these hands i can draw whatever i want

[eenuaj]

pretty man pretty man pretty man

[dearmyloveleys]

Suho and Sieun being tied by the invisible string theory is so incredibly unspoken about. What do you mean they probably spent months to a year not acknowledging each other’s presence in the same classroom? What do you mean for months, Suho has been sleeping in the classroom until dawn and Sieun is the first to enter the classroom but they don’t interact? All the shared award ceremonies, PE lessons, chem lab practicals? It only takes one accident to set off everything between them.

[dispatchesfromtheclasswar]

[egophiliac]

the lovers, reversed

(aka I'm still freaking out about Jou)

[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.

[pinkd3mon]

NEW KIRBY FORGOTTEN LAND CONTENT I COULD CRYYYYYYY

OF COURSE ILL DRAW MY CRACK THEORIES LATER!!!!!

[sychenb]

Jesus christ I haven't posted in a WHILE... This is an old doodle that I decided to colour and 'render'....ish. I honesty don't know how some artists do that portion cause it's like my brain shuts off and I start crying (for real how do y'all do it).

[fiovske]

can I just say. coffee theory is stupid and completely cheapens the choice Aziraphale makes.

Aziraphale continues to say no to Metatron's offer until Metatron uses the real bait: if you take over Heaven, you can reinstate Crowley to his Angelic status. And that is what gets Aziraphale to say yes hook line and sinker — he can take Crowley with him so Crowey doesn't have to be afraid of Hell and Aziraphale can run things Do It Right as the Head of Heaven and no one would say anything to Crowley ever again if Aziraphale was on his side. Aziraphale doesn't know about the trial and the fact that Gabriel was fired for disagreeing w Heaven on the Second Armageddon front. He just thinks Gabriel was fired bc he fell in love w a demon (and Aziraphale's in love w a demon). Aziraphale strongly believes that if he can reinstate Crowley as an angel again then there would be no such objections from Heaven at all, because they would both be on the same side and they can be together and if anything ever goes wrong, both Crowley and he would be protected under Aziraphale's position as the new boss of Heaven. Plus, the way he remembers it, Crowley enjoyed making things creating things and still likes to do good deeds which he gets in trouble for if Hell finds out, but he won't if he's an angel, in Aziraphale's eyes then Crowley would be free to do all the good he liked. And because Aziraphale would be the boss, Crowley would be able to ask questions and work with him and make things better w his inquisitive perspective, something Crowley always wanted to do and Aziraphale wants to give him that also.

He doesn't know the full depth of things that Crowley knows, which is why when Crowley hears Aziraphale's offer, all he hears is that Aziraphale is choosing Heaven, after everything they have done to him, Aziraphale is leaving Crowley FOR Heaven. The way he sees it, Aziraphale wants him to change and be Heaven's definition of "Good" so they can both be in Heaven, conforming to a life Crowley left behind long ago, a life he knows Aziraphale wouldn't be happy in either. Which is the killing blow to Crowley's heart bc Aziraphale would choose THAT instead of coming away with Crowley? Devastating. But he doesn't know that Metatron's offer WAS Crowley's Angelification and hence forth security that got Aziraphale to say yes. Crowley hasn't communicated a lot to Aziraphale but Aziraphale also hasn't communicated a lot to him either and they're both on very different pages w the information they've got and what they feel they need to do to be together and be safe and happy.

Does Aziraphale make the naive choice? Yes. Does he make so in full control of his mind and senses? Also yes. Having his coffee poisoned is an incredibly cheap tactic because as a writer it's a cop out. It robs Aziraphale of not only his agency but also the reasonings behind his choice. It absolves him from the struggles and consequences of his actions and robs him of the growth and realization and epiphany he will have in the third act. It cheapens their inevitable reconciliation.

Metatron didn't hand him the coffee to poison him. He handed it to him so he can use the manipulative familiarity of "oh look i brought ur coffee order, isn't it cool how I know your coffee order isn't it nice how we are close like that?" that was the tactic. to get him to listen. Not some elaborate coffee poison.