'I do NOT believe that people should be judged by their relationship to the means of production. I do not believe that all blue collar workers have positive values (i.e., those egalitarian values discussed here), nor that all owners of the means of production have negative (anti-egalitarian) values; I think people should be judged by the values they have and on which they act. At the same time I know that ON AVERAGE people who own a great deal of the means of production or a lot of land or a lot of rental property have negative values, and that people who do not own such things have ON AVERAGE positive values. But when it comes to any specific individual, one must investigate the individual to know if they have positive or negative values. It’s just like determining if somebody is tall or short: one cannot determine this merely by knowing whether they are a man or a woman, right?" I fully agree.
That is why honest Marxists (as opposed to dogmatic "Marxists") would say you judge a person by their class stand, not simply by their class background. The latter superficial method was used to great dishonor during the Great Proletarian Revolution in China," when that nuance was not well understood, and too many good people were humiliated or worse. Engels himself was a factory owner yet clearly aligned with the working class, aided no doubt by his working class wife.
Well stated! When you say:
'I do NOT believe that people should be judged by their relationship to the means of production. I do not believe that all blue collar workers have positive values (i.e., those egalitarian values discussed here), nor that all owners of the means of production have negative (anti-egalitarian) values; I think people should be judged by the values they have and on which they act. At the same time I know that ON AVERAGE people who own a great deal of the means of production or a lot of land or a lot of rental property have negative values, and that people who do not own such things have ON AVERAGE positive values. But when it comes to any specific individual, one must investigate the individual to know if they have positive or negative values. It’s just like determining if somebody is tall or short: one cannot determine this merely by knowing whether they are a man or a woman, right?" I fully agree.
That is why honest Marxists (as opposed to dogmatic "Marxists") would say you judge a person by their class stand, not simply by their class background. The latter superficial method was used to great dishonor during the Great Proletarian Revolution in China," when that nuance was not well understood, and too many good people were humiliated or worse. Engels himself was a factory owner yet clearly aligned with the working class, aided no doubt by his working class wife.