A New Class Consciousness

Workers have spoken this summer. Now, it's time for all of us to speak up.

Join me for a workshop on Breaking the Self-Sabotage Cycle
on Thursday, August 24 at 12:30pm ET/9:30am PT. You’ll identify your triggers, determine the root cause, and make a plan to break the cycle.
This workshop is included with your Premium Subscription to What Works.
Upgrade today for just $7/month!

Photo by Corey Agopian on Unsplash

Hot Strike Summer strikes again.

Reality TV stars are talking about unionization.

[Reality TV] is a rough and tumble job.
—Bethenny Frankel

In July, Bethenny Frankel, former star of Real Housewives of New York and founder of Skinnygirl, called out the reality TV industry for exploiting its stars. Echoing the frustrations of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA unions, Frankel pointed out how networks and production companies are profiting from underpaid labor and harmful working conditions. She also called out those same companies for continuing to profit from the licensing and distribution of the shows themselves with no mechanism for passing on profit to the people who did the work.

It's easy to think that this rich and famous lady is out of her lane talking about unionizing and workers' rights.

After all, isn't she an owner, too?

Yes, Bethenny Frankel is an owner. And she's also been a worker. Yes, Frankel is incredibly privileged. And she's also been exploited.

In the 21st-century economy, these things are not mutually exclusive.

The lines between worker and owner have been intentionally blurred. And they’re only getting blurrier. Frankel seems to be aware of how her success is leveraged to blur those lines further—and she's pushing back. When Frankel joined the original cast of RHONY, she was privileged and well-connected but not wealthy. She seemed rich with access but had little in her bank account (or so the story goes). She used her visibility on the show to launch Skinnygirl, which became a huge financial success.

"I had the same opportunity to monetize [the visibility] as hundreds of other people [who tried] and failed," Frankel explained in an Instagram post.

This—in a weird way—is class consciousness.

Frankel is saying that, yes, she succeeded, but she could have easily failed as others did. There was no safety net, no meager protections—not even a minimum wage for her labor.

Her success doesn't separate her from those who have been and still are exploited in the bizarre work arrangement that is reality TV. Instead, her success is used as a justification to continue the exploitation. She is arguing that others—who may or may not succeed in the same way she has—be protected from predatory interests.

The question of justification is central to how we understand the blurred lines between owner and worker today.

By its nature, capitalism is a system in which a few people (owners) accumulate vast wealth while most people sell their time to cover the cost of living. We can have a principled debate about whether the relative harms of capitalism are outweighed by the relative good it's done (I'll argue the "no" side). But it's objectively true that vanishingly few people win at capitalism while almost everyone loses (albeit by varying degrees).

Capitalism is unbearable and yet, mostly, it's borne. For lifetimes, and by millions.
— China Miéville, A Spectre Haunting

So why would billions of people the world over sign up for such a system?

One reason, of course, is necessity—if you want to eat, you gotta work. But it's not only that. Today, capitalism requires our "active engagement." We're expected to go above and beyond, take initiative, and work for the success of the company that employs us (whether someone else's or even our own).

...duress is insufficient to overcome actors’ hostility or indifference, especially when the commitment demanded of them assumes active engagement, initiative and voluntary sacrifices, as is ever more frequently the case not simply with cadres but with all wage-earners. Thus, the hypothesis of ‘enforced commitment’ under the threat of hunger and unemployment does not seem to us to be very plausible.
— Eve Chiapello and Luc Boltanski, The New Spirit of Capitalism

To accomplish that, capitalism requires propaganda. Justification. A story we can all feel we're a part of.

Frankel is the sort of hero that capitalists love to tell tales about.

Executives and producers can evoke her success when they recruit new talent: 'Look what you can do if you sign on to this show, make us a ton of money, and accept little to no pay for your work!' It seems she's had enough of being used in this way.

I'm not saying Bethenny Frankel is a working-class hero. But I suppose I'm not saying she isn't, either.

In one way or another, the capitalist story encourages us to see ourselves as heroes. We're always just a short journey away from the throne, magic ring, or super yacht.

It's why the business section of any bookstore is full of books encouraging us to think like an entrepreneur or executive. It's why publications like the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Fast Company treat their readers as if they were already or soon-to-be capitalists. It's why companies like Uber and Lyft spend gobs of money advertising their work as "side hustles" and "opportunities"—not to mention gobs more beating legislation that would protect their workers as employees rather than "small business owners."

Growth capitalism is by its nature inimical to the craftsman and the artist.
— Ursula K. Le Guin, Words Are My Matter

It's not hard to see the appeal of this story, this justification for actively participating in a bad system.

But the appeal isn't the only problem.

The big problem, in my opinion, is how the story erodes our solidarity. We're too wrapped up in our own heroic story to see ourselves as members of an exploited class.

No, we're "knowledge workers," "intrapreneurs," and executives-in-training. We're writers, actors, creators, and tech workers. We're temporarily embarrassed millionaires. It's a privilege to do the work we do—it's our vocation. We're following our passions and finding our purpose.

The working class isn't made up of people like us, right?

Wrong. We may not all suffer the same indignities, the same levels of exploitation, the same types of harm—but, nonetheless, this system chews each of us up and spits us back out.

We don’t need to stop fighting for the dignity of the most exploited to acknowledge that the system doesn’t work for us either.

Bethenny Frankel—complicated as she may be—reminds us that “worker” is a broad category. While capital has spent the last 50 years or so attempting (and largely succeeding) to recruit us to its side, now is the time to remember who we are and what we have in common.

To be a worker, you don't have to punch a clock or break your body on the factory floor. Anyone who trades their time, talent, or skill to pay the cost of living is a worker.

We are the working class.

And it's time for a new class consciousness.