Ongoing poltical struggles, the AFL-CIO rally this saturday which I was proud to attend, even watching baseball games on TV and checking Dodger scores, kept me from  this week's Marxist IQ.  But here it is, with some Marxist insights from the rally, where many speakers spoke about the need to save the American middle class from the corporations, the rich, and their Republican servants.   

1 Marx and most Marxists have seen the "middle classes" as

   a. standing between the capitalist class and the working class

   b. classes made up of small landowning farmers, storekeepers, self employed artisans,  self employed  professionals and salaried managerial professionals

   c. classes that vacillate between the capital class(owners and investors) and the working class(wage workers and most salaried employees) sometimes siding with one sometimes with the other, seeking to protect themselves from the former and not fall to the level of the latter.

  d. all of the above

2. In the U.S. especialy since the end of WWII, capitalist class ideology has portrayed the "middle class " as

   a. taxpayers and homeowners threatened by government spending, trade unions, and minorities

  b. a revolutionary vanguard

  c. a new working class of technical and profressional workers

  d. the beneficiaries of government social programs

3. The AFL-CIO at the rally  and most progressives who use the term contend that the "middle class" in the U.S. today consists of

a. a class of selfish suburbanites

b. a class influenced by white racism

c. a class of workers and consumers who need both strong unions and social legislation to advance in society and produce a more advanced society

d.  The salt of the earth

4,The new Republican Vice Presidential Candidate, Paul Ryan, was criticized at the rally for his

   a. support for legalized marijuana

    b.  support for undocumented workers

   c. leadership  for an "austerity budget" that would reduce the living standards of most  people  in the   AFL-CI0 definition of the "middle class."

  d. failure to pay a lower percentage of his  taxes than Mitt Romney

 5. Most at the rally would agree that the Romney-Ryan ticket will both preach and practice the following dictums

   a. Franklin Roosevel criticism of rightwing policy as "relief for the greedy, not for the needy"

   b. Andrew Carnegie's view that the "more millionaires" a society has, the prosperous and progressive it is.

  c.  Woody Allen's famous film title  " Take the Money and Run"

  d. All of the above

Last week right answers

1. d

2.d

3a

4.d

5.a