Do all blue collar workers consider themselves working class? Because if you have a 100k+ salary, own 2 to 3 cars, own a house comparable to a McMansion and could send your children to private school and/or pay (from pocket) for several extra curricular activities/sport (,*cough*own several guns and ammo*cough*), you really aren't working class. You're actually upper middle class
If you physically use your hands and make 100K a year through a trade. You are absolutely still working class and deserve every thing you’ve earned.
I never said they don't deserve to be rich. Just pointing out that they're rich
Wealthy tradesmen can still be working class.
Annnd the mask slipped
Do explain how a tradesmen that because of him working long hours that acquires wealth from his skill is not working class.
@tendie-defender is correct on this one. To quote from "Wage-Labor and Capital" by Karl Marx:
"Take the example of our spinner. We have seen that, to daily reproduce his labouring power, he must daily reproduce a value of three shillings, which he will do by working six hours daily. But this does not disable him from working ten or twelve or more hours a day. But by paying the daily or weekly value of the spinner's labouring power the capitalist has acquired the right of using that labouring power during the whole day or week. He will, therefore, make him work say, daily, twelve hours. Over and above the six hours required to replace his wages, or the value of his labouring power, he will, therefore, have to work six other hours, which I shall call hours of surplus labour, which surplus labour will realize itself in a surplus value and a surplus produce. If our spinner, for example, by his daily labour of six hours, added three shillings' value to the cotton, a value forming an exact equivalent to his wages, he will, in twelve hours, add six shillings' worth to the cotton, and produce a proportional surplus of yarn. As he has sold his labouring power to the capitalist, the whole value of produce created by him belongs to the capitalist, the owner pro tem. of his labouring power. By advancing three shillings, the capitalist will, therefore, realize a value of six shillings, because, advancing a value in which six hours of labour are crystallized. By repeating this same process daily, the capitalist will daily advance three shillings and daily pocket six shillings, one half of which will go to pay wages anew, and the other half of which will form surplus value, for which the capitalist pays no equivalent. It is this sort of exchange between capital and labour upon which capitalistic production, or the wages system, is founded, and which must constantly result in reproducing the working man as a working man, and the capitalist as a capitalist."
In the example of the spinner he must make his 3 shillings to pay for his own needs in life (his rent, his food, ect.), and that is his daily wage, which is produced with 6 hours of labor in the day. The Capitalist in this example however makes the spinner work 12 hours of labor, thereby paying him 3 shillings and pocketing 3 shillings, and having done no work himself that day. It is this labor relation that determines one class as either in the class of workers (those who labor for a wage) and the capitalist class (those who recieve the profits of the labors of others).
The middle class such as it is a creation of pure politics that divides the workers by who recieves more compensation versus those who recieve less, all to the benefit of the capitalist class. Modern politics is basically an exercise in trying to reduce the "middle class" to extract more profits without tipping into revolutionary territory. This example of the 100k a year tradesman being not working class has no bearing on the reality of the situation, which is that the tradesman has a higher wage but crucially still *works* to obtain it, as opposed to having others work on his behalf.
