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Comment by kibwen | Hacker News Reader

Techies still see themselves as temporarily embarrassed owners rather than laborers. I wouldn't bet on it anytime soon.

Techies (at least at meta) are owners in the sense that a large % of their comp is in the form of equity, so it is in their interest for the company to maximize stock price.

It's ironic how you replaced "millionaires" in that quote since many engineers are now millionaires.

Your class is not based on the number in your bank account, but on how you make that money. If you are dependent on an Owner to pay you for your time and labor, you are a worker, regardless of what token "riches" you are paid to believe otherwise.

You don't go from worker to owner until you buy three properties to rent out or start your own business.

The quote contrasted “millionaire” with “proletariat” and was clearly a reference to status at least well into the petit bourgeoisie if not the haut bourgeoisie.

A mere millionaire is a lot less rich today b/c inflation (though probably still at least petit bourgeois.)

A low millionaire today can't even retire - IOW can't even stop working, lol.

The petit bourgeois as classically defined are dependent on applying their labor to their own capital (though other patterns of mixed capital/labor dependence fit the class, and are perhaps more common now), unlike the haut borgeois who rent labor to apply to their capital and the proletariat who must rent out labor to owners of capital, so not being able to stop working without a significant lifestyle compromise isn’t inconsistent with being petit bourgeois.

yup, agreed. I'm just highlighting the absurdity of how millionaire status today can sound like safe living or big winners of early employee startup lottery yet still end up as precarious as the rest of us in terms of relying on work day to day.

understood the theory isn't all about that. I reflect on work because I think so much of liberation can begin with freeing peoples time/regaining 'real' control of their time

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