How do you know you’re a capitalist

[SocialistPunk]

This question was inspired by a recent stint on YouTube. I was checking out some fave old punk, Sex Pistols, The Damned, Dead Kennedys, The Misfits etc and I started clicking on related vids. Eventually I ended up watching a bit of Question Time, I believe it is from last year when they had John Lydon aka Johny Rotten. Anyway, the topic was drug control, Lydon said something along the lines of him being a working class boy from Finsbury Park.

That got me wondering about actors and musicians etc who start out as regular working class people and end up propelled into fame and fortune. Most are not short of a few quid, but at what point do they cease to be working class?

If I won £10 million on the lottery this weekend, would I then be a capitalist?    

[DJP]

If you make your living out of returns from capital then you're a capitalist.I don't think £10 would represent enough capital for you to be able to leave the rat race.

[SocialistPunk]

Oops! I think I made a bit of a mistake with my last sentence there DJP. I bet reading that you prob' thought I had lost the plot completely. That's what ya get for not previewing what ya just typed, before posting.I meant to type £10 million. Would I be a capitalist if I won £10 million?

[SocialistPunk]

I've now edited my original post.

[DJP]

SocialistPunk wrote:

I meant to type £10 million. Would I be a capitalist if I won £10 million?

Would depend entirely on how you used it. If you kept it under the mattress or spent it on wine and women you wouldn't. If you banked or invested it and lived off the interest or dividends or rents you would be.

[SocialistPunk]

Cheers DJP. Believe it or not I already knew the answer to the question as to what makes a capitalist from our perspective. I am however interested, or rather intrigued by the attitude of people who started off clearly as working class but end up, economically speaking, as capitalists, yet still see themselves as working class. These same people would probably be offended if described as capitalists.For those who ain't already guessed, this thread is actually about the subjective vs objective view of class. Something that is guaranteed to cause disagreement among the uninformed. 

[alanjjohnstone]

Being  capitalist  is not about culture, of 'aving a workin' class accent. Long ago the rich chose to dress down where only those in the know would recognise a designer brand pair of jeans from a tattered pair of shoddy denims. There is an article in the Standard somewhere on football players and performers wages which describes their pay as rent rather than a wage although i'm somewhat sceptical of the differentation, where it begins …at the 4th Div ?Much the same queation can be asked of the Party these days, to raise a controversial policy, in where it places its funds and from who it receives income. Are we now a capitalist enterprise in the terms of investment?Anyway, with my first ten million quid i won't be averse to throwing the Party a bob or two, even finance the odd video…but it will be from a paradise island in the Pacific !! Fuck if i am going to wear sack-cloth and ashes or cast-offs from a charity shop, when it can be an Armani suit !!

[Author]

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