If I were to ask you what social class you are in, what would your response be? Some of you might say lower class, or lower middle class, or upper middle class, or working class, or something along those lines. For a lot of people, these are pretty vague terms and are used pretty loosely, but did you know that they actually represent two entirely different ways of looking at social class?

The first manner of classification is actually a very unhelpful way to make class distinctions. The concept of “lower, middle, and upper” classes is based solely on how much money you make. It can possibly tell you how financially safe someone is in times of crisis- for example a lower class person going through a medical emergency might cause bankruptcy and homelessness, while an upper class person is probably safe from those consequences. That’s about where the usefulness ends for this class distinction, however.

A much more useful way to distinguish classes is by defining them based on how they make their money, not just by how much money they make. This gives us the difference between the working class and the ruling class, or what is classically known as the Proletariat and the Bourgeoisie.

The people in the working class, the Proletariat, make their money by selling their labor power as a commodity to make a living, usually by earning a wage. They then use that money to purchase other commodities, but only after most of the value from their labor power is stolen by the CEOs, landlords, insurance companies, and whoever else finds an opportunity to be exploitative

The people in the ruling class, the Bourgeoisie, make their money by owning the means of production, which is usually machinery and the labor power of others. They exploit others’ labor to steal the value that their workers create.

The main difference between these classes is that the working class creates value and does not own the means of production, while the ruling class owns the means of production and does not create value.

This is the most important distinction of our time. Those who create the value are exploited by those who do not. But if we create all of society’s value, what do we need them for?

We do not need CEOs or landlords or any other capitalists for a functioning society. All of the work is done by the workers. They are just the ones who legally extract the benefits from the work.

Our most powerful ability is our ability to withhold our labor. If we stop working, the world stops and their power becomes useless. They need us- and they need us to not realize that.