Every class society’s smaller classes extract value by controlling the dominant factor of production

Evidence

6.1 Class – A group of persons in a community identified by their location within a system of social production in which some class (or classes) succeed in appropriating part of the product of the experiential labour of members of another class (or classes). … 6.3 Class society – Any society built around a class system is a class society. It is in the nature of every class society that one or more of the numerically smaller classes, by owning and controlling the dominant factor of production, manage to extract value from the other classes; and, thus, to accumulate wealth and power. … 6.4 Capitalism’s class system – A capitalist class system comprises capitalists and proletarians (waged labourers), plus a middle class (shopkeepers, salaried skilled workers, etc.) that is squeezed with every capitalist crisis or technological revolution. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 828

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the core definitional vocabulary — class, class society, capitalism’s class system — that the chapter’s argument about technofeudalism’s new classes will depend on. Also notable: Varoufakis plants his signature term ‘experiential labour’ in the very definition of class.
• XREF: The ‘squeezed middle class’ point directly echoes Naomi Klein or Marx’s immiseration thesis, and sets up the later argument that platforms squeeze users as much as workers. — connects to: Class membership is defined by control over the means of production; Every surplus-producing society develops arbitrary-set hierarchy; Hegemony explains class domination without reducing it to narrow class-interest exposure. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 527 (+14 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 828

Broader Connections

• Class membership is defined by control over the means of production #corroborates (0.95)
• Material forces of production determine the superstructure and drive social revolutions #qualifies (0.95)
• Economic surplus reliably produces arbitrary-set systems of social hierarchy #expands (0.90)
• Every surplus-producing society develops arbitrary-set hierarchy #complicates (0.85)
• Mass culture’s technical rationality masks class domination as consumer demand. #qualifies (0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 94
• Capitalism’s division of labor yields ruling ideas controlled by the dominant class #complicates (0.85)
• Hegemony explains class domination without reducing it to narrow class-interest exposure. #contradicts (0.80) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 527
• Capitalism subordinates social values to economic value via a rogue value paradigm #complicates (0.80) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 561
• Hegemony is achieved by more than mere class dominance #complicates (0.80)
• Standardized production forces a compensating pretence of individualism #complicates (0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 82
• Each era produces its own distinct capitalist class #complicates (0.75)
• Social hierarchy is maintained by dominants and subordinates cooperatively #complicates (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3212
• Dominant classes survive crises by out-maneuvering subordinate groups #complicates (0.75)
• Hegemony explains class rule as cultural and political sway, not just economic interest #complicates (0.75)
• Individualization is institutionalized and reshapes class inequality analysis #complicates (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1725