Our True Class System

[jimkeller]

So, I've been thinking lately about our division between "rich" and "poor." "Rich" people often have very little in common, and have very different interests when it comes to what they need and expect from their country. Similarly, "poor" people fall across a wide range of political self-interest, and can be "poor" within many different societal

Comments

[jonahmama]

I think lumping business owners in with freelancers is a big mistake. Many freelancers are in fact hourly workers who are simply not provided either health insurance or job security. They prosper when labor costs are high, because they compete with W-2-ers and are more likely to get jobs at higher wages when those workers make more too. And they desperately need low consumer prices to buy what they need on limited earnings. And they need government-subsidized health care, because they don't have access to anything else. So called business-friendly policies generally tend to be fatal to them, as they put more and more and more workers in this category, increasing labor competition. They have little in common with small business owners, many of whom mitigate their risks by sharing a family with a W-2 worker, getting the best of both worlds. (The vast majority of the "middle class" people I know fall into this last category - best of both worlds.) The "better wages for struggling families" often refers to this freelancer group, many of whom are struggling. They have much more in common with the unemployed and the lower-end W-2 workers than with business owners.

[stacymckenna]

Concur.

Describing an actor like a business owner assumes he can generate income with his acting regardless of the presence of an employer. Unless someone manages to pull off a Dr. Horrible/The Guild scenario and magically generate a pile of cash, that doesn't happen.

[jimkeller]

I would argue that any business owner requires someone else in their transaction. Being an actor, the producer is more akin to a customer than an employer, because you're on the job to deliver them a product (your performance), and then you're gone. This isn't really all that different from the guy who comes to trim my trees. He doesn't become a W-2 employee while he's on my property doing what I'm paying him to do.

What the actor does not generally get to do is file a 1040EZ at the end of the year claiming a standard deduction. The actor is, for all legal purposes, a self-employed person, and therefore I think that's the best place to put them.

I'm happy to be argued down on that, though. No useful classification system has clear edges, much to the dismay of the library science majors. :)

[stacymckenna]

Knowing a variety of "self-employed" video game designers, it's still very much an employer/employee situation without the security of W-2-esque security structures. Based on the performers and other entertainment industry types I know (VO work, anime translation, etc.) I know, the situation is similar.

[jimkeller]

I think these folks, though, are in the W-2 employee class, and need to file a labor complaint. Courts have repeatedly found that hiring long-term workers as "contractors" violates labor laws if they are treated like regular employees and if the employer is doing so to avoid paying overhead (i.e., they may subcontract through a firm that pays the overhead on the employees, but they may not pass that overhead along to the employee).

[stacymckenna]

No, we're talking short-term contract work - usually more than day-labor extra work, but less than a year's employ. Definitely independent contractor stuff.

[jimkeller]

I debated creating a separate class for freelancers and artists, but, ultimately, because our government's tax structure lumps them into that category, I feel like they've got more in common with the mom-and-pop business owner than they do with the W-2 crowd. This *does* assume that they earn a living at it, though, because otherwise they're in the "unemployed / underemployed" class, sort of by definition.

Obviously, though, this is a draft posted for public input, so I appreciate your views.