We cannot find out what a home is by looking at actual instances of homes, since we cannot even begin to pick these out as putatively instances of ‘h… - R. W. K. Paterson

Plebeians have in every period been treated as mere means, Their mute part is that of serfs, cannon-fodder, wage-slaves, ‘hands’, political tools as mobs or ‘votes’, economic puppets as potential consumers, purchasers, o borrowers. … The double irony is that those who have exploited and manipulated them have typically been no less plebeian of soul. … If their ends have been of the same kind as those of their victims or subjects their human reality has been the same. The greater scale off their activity makes not the slightest difference. Multiply zero by the greatest of numbers and the results is still zero.

For Marx the tragedy is that the wage worker does not consider the hours he spends ‘weaving, spinning, drilling, turning, building, shovelling, stone-breaking as an expression of his life, as life’. In other words Marx wants us to remain plebeians, only glorified plebeians, plebeians who glory in their status as plebeians, as producers of cloth, metal, and stones. We are to find ourselves, our true identity, not as consumers but as producers. We are indeed to find dignity in our ‘personal worth’ not just in our ‘exchange value’, but our personal worth is held to consist in moving bits of earth from one place to another or altering them in shape or composition. We are to take pride in our dirty hands. If the condemnation of Benthamism is that it preaches the gospel of the satisfied customer, … the condemnation of Marxism is that it teaches the doctrine of the self-satisfied workman.

The history of the plebeians’ ‘struggles’ … is largely a record of mankind’s struggle to obtain plebeian things. Better food and housing, better physical health, greater economic security— … none of this forms any part of real human living, but at most merely the means to real living, the inglorious subsoil, not meant to be seen, which we tolerate and accept as an unexciting necessity if worthwhile activities and modes of expression are to grow and blossom. … The patrician mind does not deny such necessities. What distinguishes the plebeian mentality is that it treats necessary things as if they were sufficient and treats means as if they were ends.