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The rich have yet again convinced the working class to attack each other
I know someone that buys a swasticar is still poor compared to the centibillionaires, but I can't help but think that if you can afford to burn more than 100k on a luxury vehicle, you're not exactly "with" the working class.
I draw a distinction between "rich" working professionals and such that can afford a 85K car, and giga rich.
Perhaps I diverge with Lemmy on this, but its OK to get rich. Being Elon Musk rich is not okay.
Nobody working class is driving a Cybertruck.
This is not far off from the logic of acting like a cop is part of the working class. This isn't "working class attacking each other". This is literally a sticker with the richest dude on the world on it. This is shaming what is most likely some petty bourgeoisie. Or someone that thinks their class interest align with them.
I get your point but is someone who owns a $100k+ truck really in the working class?
A 100k auto loan with 20k down financed for 84 months is $1,1167/mo.
It isn't an intelligent purchase, but it is very much in the budget for a professional working class person.
Guess we would need to agree on what "working class" means.
People who earn their living primarily from working and earning a paycheck.
As opposed to the capital class, who earn their living primarily from interest on their invested capital.
I see. That's not what I would have thought the term applied to. I would have figured more people who are hourly or perhaps low salary, maybe a manager at a fast food restaurant. At the rate quoted above, the payment is only a little less than my mortgage. I would not have put someone with that kind of disposable income into the working class.
You can label different sections of the working class but on the scale of history and societies the only real divisions in society is between the class people who trade their labor for money and the class of people who earn money simply by virtue of having money.
The poorest Walmart employee and the richest doctor have more in common than the doctor and a person of inherited wealth. You'll interact with doctors and engineers many times a year in your community. While you'll probably never be in the same room as a wealthy person.
Laws that protect labor, provide social safety nets, provide for education, security, etc all benefit the Walmart worker and doctor. But they're completely worthless to the people who own their own security, pay for their own education and never have to worry about starving to death if they're unable to work.
We're seeing the wealthy taking control and deciding that they can save money by simply choosing to not support working people. After all, what are we going to do? Stop working for them?
Yes I understand the concept. Not sure I agree with it. I am retired. By that definition, I am in the latter and I can tell you, I'm not flying around on private jets or forcing lower wages on people. I do feel rich because I have discarded the yoke of the people I worked to make richer, but that doesn't really mean I've joined them.
So brain surgeons are working class, not upper class? Because they make half a million on salary?
Yes, brain surgeons are working class. They earn a lot because they actually produce a lot of value. If you suffer from a brain disease, getting surgery to fix it is probably one of the most valuable things you can get (depending on the severity, it will be the most valuable thing). Additionally, it requires a lot of skill.
They're upper class, which is part of the working class because they earn their money by their labor, aka working.
If they earn their money for simply owning things and collecting interest then they're not working class.
Yes, what the hell do you think the word "working" is doing there?
If you're work for a living, you're working class. Even if you get paid a big salary, you're still a person who works a job for it.A brain surgeon makes money by working on brains and therefore is in the working class; the person that owns the hospital makes money by extracting rents from the brain surgeon and therefore is in the capitalist class.
Upper class and middle class don't necessarily correspond directly with those terms.
Others pointed this out but I wanted to put numbers on it for fun. Working class means you work for a living, doing some form of labor rather than being able to live and earn just off of your capital. However, someone could then try and argue that Musk for example "works" as CEO, so we need numbers.
The average cost of living in the US is apparently $61334.
The average return of investment in the stock market is roughly 10%.
That makes this part easy: you need roughly $613,340 in investments to no longer be working class in my book.
It's very frustrating to me. I bought a used Model 3 back in 2019 for like 35k. I'm not rich.
I know a guy who bought a Cybertruck. He makes around $140k a year which is better than most but still nowhere near what I would call "rich." Was it a stupid decision? Yeah. Does he support Trump or Musk personally? No. He saw the launch announcement, put in a reservation years ago, and went ahead with it when he got his chance because he was hyped about it for his own personal aesthetic reasons. That people think he's somehow to blame for Musk is stupid. That someone might damage his car, costing repairs he can't really afford because he spent it all on a stupid large car loan, but forcing him to pay Musk even more to get it repaired is so amazingly dumb that I can't actually comprehend the thought process.
Some people with Cybertrucks are probably a part of the problem. Some are just people who got hyped. But in this thread are people who unironically claim that buying a Cybertruck is supporting a Nazi while they themselves pay for Amazon Prime, use Gmail, own an Oculus, eat Nestle products, and buy gas at Exxon.
It just feels weird that this car is the line people draw. I guess because it's expensive, but when you look at how much some of those big luxury trucks cost you've almost certainly seen more expensive ones on the road more frequently than you've seen Cybertrucks.
It just feels weird that this car is the line people draw.
To me the problem is that it's an expensive, oversized, poorly made vehicle designed by a Nazi who even at the time of announcement was expressing some pretty distasteful views.
Other older Tesla's I can give the benefit of the doubt to as they're some of the cheapest and at times most ubiquitous electric vehicles available, but the cyber truck is not cheap and it doesn't predate Elon's obvious slide into being a nazi
Thank you for having an actually good take on this, I'm blocking most of the people in this thread for their stupidity. My experience with Lemmy seems to improve the more people I block lol