How conservatives think about "the working class"

 

First, they accuse Marxists of being reductionists. Marx said that class is a social relation, that a worker is someone who has no capital (means of production or the command of others labor-power in order to make money grow) who has to sell their own labor-power as a commodity. They can either use their brain or hands, it doesn't matter. Capitalism itself is interested in labor as a socially average abstraction. That is, labor is reduced to something homogenous and abstract. Marx talked about Women in the textile industry, clerks in warehouses, people in India making pottery and Shellac, Chinese railroad workers, freed black cotton pickers and on and on. Already, it's noticeable that the working class is rather diverse in its composition, and workers are competing against each other. Of course, the "traditional industrial factory worker" is also a worker, but Marx never made this so-called reduction to begin with. And it's precisely for this reason that he's still relevant. 

However, if you listen to enough conservatives, you'll notice that the sin they accuse Marx of is precisely how they think of the working class. They talk about women and immigrants "driving down the wages of the workers". They act like healthcare and service workers aren't workers. They talk about "poor irresponsible people" (obvious subtext: blacks and people on welfare) driving down wages or taking from productive workers. They think there is some grand divide between unemployment and being a worker, as if every worker doesn't experience being laid off at some point in their life, as if precarity isn't a feature of work. So, for conservatives who evoke "the worker", it becomes a moral symbol: someone with a good work ethic, someone who "contributes to society". And how do you determine that? Apparently by looking at their income. So now the concept of a worker has been narrowed to exclude people who don't fit into this idea of a WASP factory worker, but also broadened to include small business owners and ceos. Elon Musk is a "worker" because he is "creative" and "productive"-- proof: he wouldn't have all the money he does if he didn't work hard, so he must also be a kind of worker. 

They accuse the left of introducing "wokeism" into an area it supposedly doesn't belong. They look to the most outrageous caricatures of radical liberals, and this is supposed to discredit any reasonable discussion of racism, sexism, gender, and so on. Now it's just a taboo and a cudgel to beat someone over the head with. By that, they express an irritation that someone might, for example, point out that a large portion of healthcare workers in Pittsburgh are black women, or that most agricultural workers come from South America. A barista? In the magical thinking of conservatives, this person who sells their labor-power for low-wages, who works long hours on their feet making drinks and pastries for long lines of customers isn't a worker. Why? Because they went to college and might have a degree in art history or philosophy, or maybe they're gay, or their hair color is a bright color. But what does this have to do with an analysis of the relations of production? So, it doesn't fit this strange narrative they have that a real worker is just a European family man and church goer who works in a factory. A millionaire landowner who owns several hundreds of acres of land, billions of dollars worth of equipment, multiple buildings, who employs hundreds of workers and who owns a slaughter house, a few hundred head of cattle, and a close partnership with Tyson? Well, according to conservatives this man is a worker, "middle class". Why? Because he's neither homeless, nor the richest man. George Bush Jr. wearing blue jeans and a cowboy hat? Wow! That man is an honorable Proletarian. 

When conservatives, especially their professional theorists and pundits and politicians, toss around the word "worker", they do so to stave off collective action of workers conceived of broadly, and instead want to instill a sense of quiet resignation that nothing can be done, that all one can do is rely on oneself, on one's own work ethic and intelligence, that the best one can hope for is moving up in the hierarchy of careers by competing harder. They talk about the worker to play up and stoke conflict, not to overcome classes. Challenging the institutions of this society certainly won't help one do that.