[timkam]

This is an interesting perspective, and I assume your definition is the technically correct one. Still, many SEs receive substantial compensation in RSUs, direct stocks, shares in startups, et cetera. So also from this perspective, there are many non-working class SEs. Another aspect is that culturally, the perception has been that SEs don't necessarily sell their work by the hour, but instead sell knowledge that scales tremendously, in exchange for a comfortable upper middle-to-lower upper class life.

[neom]

To be technical, and to borrow a bit. Proletariat[1] are the working class, they work for the Bourgeoisie[2], the people who own the means of productions. That's why I asked why you used demote. Lower, Middle and Upper are strata or ranks within classes. Within the bourgeoisie, you can distinguish:

Petite bourgeoisie: small business owners, shopkeepers

Haute bourgeoisie: industrialists, financiers

Managerial class (in some frameworks): high-paid non owners who control labor

Within the proletariat, you can distinguish:

Lumpenproletariat[3]: unemployed, precarious

Skilled laborers vs unskilled laborers

Labor aristocracy: better-paid, sometimes ideologically closer to capital

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proletariat [1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourgeoisie [2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpenproletariat [3]

[staunton]

> the Bourgeoisie[2], the people who own the means of productions

> Within the bourgeoisie, you can distinguish: [...] Managerial class [...] non owners who control labor

Contradiction?

[schmidtleonard]

It's not technically correct, it's correct.

The distinction here is "do you get your money from owning assets or do you get your money from working" because where you get your money is where you get your incentives and the incentives of owning are opposite the incentives of working in many important regards.

The economy is inhabited by people who work for a living but it is controlled by people who own things for a living. That's not a conspiracy theory, it's the definition of capitalism. If you do not own things for a living and do not know people who do, spend some time pondering "the control plane." It should seem like an alien world at first, but it's an alien world with a wildly outsize impact on your life and it behooves you to understand it in broad strokes even if you aren't trying to climb into it.

[zeroonetwothree]

I wouldn’t say the economy is “controlled” by those people. The economy is just an emergent phenomenon. It’s a natural result of unrestricted freedom of exchange.