Marxist reverence for the proletariat has been an enduring concept. The problem is that nobody has actually defined who the prols are - are they the factory workers? Entrepreneurs? Teachers? Accountants? Lawyers? Engineers? Civil servants?

The US economy is crazy diverse. There really is no such thing as a unified working class struggling against "the man".

If you're just talking about Marxian definitions, it's simple:

Owns means of production: bourgeousie

Works without owning means of production: proletariat

Where do all the workers who have 401k plans composed of shares of all the public companies in the US fit?

I'm not sure what you're trying to do. Do you want to have a sincere discussion or do you want to just debate semantics and pull out exceptions?

Do those workers have say in their economic situation? Can they change the direction of their company without losing their jobs? Do they have economic and political power?

Stop equating stock ownership in a fund as if it is "owning the means of production." You know that it is a mere extension of the word "own" and it probably doesn't refer to what Marx talked about, so stop trying to twist definitions and thinking it counts as sincere argument.

Owning part of a fund is equivalent to owning part of their holdings, which includes owning the means of production owned by those companies in which they hold shares. I don't agree that it's semantics to point out that the divide between "owners" and "workers" is not at all clean in the US.

I think there were other classes than just capital and prole, for example the Kulaks. So blue collar workers with enough wealth to participate in the capital market but not enough to take it easy forever would probably be some other class. Maybe "middle," class: something which was very small and weak in every country that turned communist.

Weren't the Kulaks essentially massacred?

They don't. I'm not even sure what the "means of production" are in a service economy like the US.

What about prostitutes?

Or Uber drivers...

Actual tax rates as a percentage of total income are remarkably flat in the US. It is commonly stated that the rich pay almost everything, but this is done by examining only the federal income tax and ignoring all the other taxes we pay.

I didn't say that they paid a large proportion of their income, I said they paid almost all the tax. That's because their incomes tend to be much much larger than those of the poor.

I was responding to "because all taxes will be paid by workers.", which is complete nonsense.

That’s not true either. The top quintile accounts for a slight majority of income in the US, and someone at the 20% mark, while doing quite well, is far from rich.

When people talk about the top 1% owning almost all the wealth, they're typically referring to the global top 1% (at least that's the case with this article). The top quintile of the US is certainly considered rich globally, even if they don't feel like they are.

I'm interested to see your source for the US tax receipts by quintile, though. I could definitely believe I was wrong about the richest portion paying "the vast majority". I probably should have said the top half.

If you want to count the entire world for wealth then you need to count the entire world for taxes too. I strongly doubt that the super rich are paying the vast majority of taxes worldwide.

For US taxes, see: https://itep.org/wp-content/uploads/taxday2017.pdf

The rate is definitely lower for poorer people, but nearly as much as the standard punditry, focusing only in federal income tax, would have you believe.

Unless I'm reading your source wrong, it looks like it says that the top 10% pays 50% of taxes?

I feel like I should make it clear that my personal opinion is that top marginal tax rates should be much higher than they are, especially on capital gains, but I don't think it's fair to say that the working class is paying all the taxes, given the breakdown.

Almost 50%. Add in the next 10% and you get a majority, but not a huge one.

49.8%, I think we can call that 50%.