When we think of working class, many things can be conjured to the forefront of our minds. Blue collar workers, those who work with their hands and fix things, the working poor, those who barely scrape by working minimum wage jobs, and for others, potentially even those stuck on benefits to survive. But when we look at class in this way, we then also have to create other classes that are more ephemeral in nature. Well, we clearly have the upper class, the rich and powerful, like politicians and billionaires. Then upper middle? Perhaps you might consider these to be high powered lawyers and doctors, who work for a living but earn vast sums of money. Middle class would come next, the ever coveted and ever ‘shrinking’ class. Full of basically everyone else not covered by the working-class moniker and the upper-class moniker. White collar workers who work at a desk and do things like IT and consulting. Nurses and junior doctors, and other ‘professionals’. Then some people might even say there is a lower middle, or upper working class. This contains… Maybe nurses for some, teachers, lab technicians, call centre workers and other desk jockeys that earn just above minimum wage.
Splitting the populace into these groups, as you can see already, is difficult. And almost everyone will dice them up, including where they themselves lie, in a variety of different ways. But when looking at class through this lens, we obfuscate the largest and easily definable class conflict. The conflict between workers, everyone who works and sells their labour to live, and the capital class, those who own capital and live off of business profits. These two classes are diametrically opposed to one another. The workers work for the capitalist class, and demand that their time and efforts afford them the necessities for life. Shelter, food, travel, and money for luxuries. Capitalists use wage labourers to create their profits. They are incentivised to pay the labourers as little as possible to get their work, so that they can make the largest profits possible.
But, you may ask, what about small business owners? Those who own their shop fronts, their offices, and in some cases their small factories? These people are in a sort of state of evolution. They still sell their labour (to themselves), in order to make a living, but they may hire a small number of staff to help them in their day to day running of the business. With capitalisms tendency towards monopoly, the reality is that the majority of small business owners will fail. And often within the first few years of trading, they will close up their doors, and end up becoming a worker once again.
Hive, and in some other cryptocurrencies, we are empowered to work for ourselves. We sell our labour to the people, and if they like our writing they will give us a piece of the expanding monetary supply by voting on our work. But most of us will still be working other jobs to make ends meet, despite potentially owning a good amount of Hive and in some cases making considerable income from Hive. There is also the very real potential that Hive might fail sometime in the future. This would lead to all of us who are not in the capitalist class to become full time workers once again and sell our labour to a business owner. In this case, cryptocurrencies very much can represent a sort of anarcho-capitalist dreamscape. While they work and are relatively successful, and if they have mechanisms in place to prevent monopolisation, they can be empowering vehicles for the working class. But, as is the case with all capital investments, the whales (those with considerable capital and most likely part of the capitalist class) will make the most money. And off of the backs of our labour! Each word we write on Hive, and each extra bit of value we provide to the blockchain is enriching the value of Hive for people who may not even use the blockchain but own a large stake in its success. There is no way around this. This is true goal of most if not all cryptocurrencies. They are a nice gravy train in the short term, but the ones who make the most out of them will always be the capitalists.
I would love to see a time in which this problem posed by cryptocurrency could be solved. I can’t see it happening any time soon though, as the challenge is immense and the power to make decisions lies so firmly in the hands of high stakeholders, i.e., those with the most capital. Their class interests do not lie in making Hive and other cryptos more democratic, and more empowering to the individual worker. Any changes made to benefit the majority of holders will only be done so if it will make more money to the largest vote holders. I do not malign any worker who is involved with crypto to make their life better for themselves. I believe that it is often in their interests to do so, especially within the third world where the income from writing on Hive can vastly outstrip their local wages. But we must understand that this is short termism and will not solve all the problems that we as workers face. Only collective action and organisation can do so. Basically, this is a long winded post to say join or start a union!
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I think there will always be an element of those at the top and those at the bottom. Those who came into Hive early are likely to have earned more and have more clout on the platform. They are also the ones who are more likely to be able to regularly cash out some of their Hive. But, as long as Hive remains a viable crypto currency, there should be enough room for many more to make money from it. For me, the crypto side of it is just an added bonus. Although I would like to earn enough Hive to make my efforts worthwhile.
While seniority on the platform definitely leads to more social clout (and more rewards from the reward pool), any newbie can have more voting power than a low investment old-head. All it requires is to have more capital. Jeff Bezos could come in right now and become one of the largest holders of Hive if he wanted. And with that we'd all become a lot richer (obviously), but our voting power remains the same. Bezos would gain dramatic powers to influence the direction in which the blockchain grows, and there would be people who court him to try and get large upvotes from him.
That's an interesting point. I suppose that someone with a lot of capital could in theory own a lot of the blockchain. Although I'm saying that as someone who doesn't really understand how this thing works!
Thanks for starting from the working class. There are a lot of myths and misconceptions flowing around the middle class
This video was a real eye opener for me in this regard:
Great video, and SecondThought is just a great content creator in general. Love 'The Deprogram' podcast too!!
That's an excellent definition of the working class, which makes this better than most writing on this topic.
I hope you'll develop the jump to 'join a union' in a future post, because you know there are complications. As a freelance translator, I have the status of a business owner but the negotiation power of a temp worker. Even if we could organize, we wouldn't be allowed to strike for higher rates.
You can join a union as a freelancer. They can offer you legal advice in the cases of pay, work conditions and discrimination. You can join in on collective action within your industry to make conditions better for everyone.
https://prospect.org.uk/news/how-trade-unions-can-help-the-self-employed-in-the-post-coronavirus-world
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The working class may be one of the most far-reaching issues, I think. For me, it will be anyone who can produce and respond to social needs.
On the other hand, I think the situation in Hive is not just about reflecting its wealth, but also about adopting it a little early. Someone with good finances might come and turn himself into a whale now, but hive seems to have already given early starters that opportunity. For me, it is the beginning of a long road.