[uoaei]

A truck is useless without a route. In the case of trucking, "the means of production" includes customer lead generation, driver dispatch, etc. Owning their truck only gives them the flexibility to switch employers more easily.

[ddoolin]

Agreed. But just as a thought experiment: what about a truck driver who owns their own trucking company, employs around a dozen other drivers, and also drives as one of its drivers?

I would guess, theoretically, this is impossible past a certain size of enterprise, but in the meantime I would imagine that they would be both. A capitalist laboring as part of their own means of production.

[thiagoharry]

If the trucker is the owner of the trucking company, he do not get his money because of the labour, but because of capital. He could even pay someone to run the business, and as the capital owner, he would keep receiving money and profits. Even if he thinks that it is fun to drive the company truck and work with this, it does not change the fact that his means of income is not labor, but capital. Compare with a regular truck driver that if does not work, gets no money.

[int_19h]

This thought experiment doesn't have to involve trucks: most small businesses involve owners working in some capacity, even if it's only managerial (but productive management is labor same as any other component that is required to produce the final product).

Thus, they're being a laborer when they perform productive work, and they're being a capitalist when they pocket the wealth that business as a whole (i.e. all employers collectively, rather than just themselves) have generated. And if they don't actually do the latter, there's no economic exploitation involved.

[uoaei]

You said it better than I. I don't think I made my point about "context" sufficiently clear above. A person's capital can be earning more capital at the same time as they are employed in productive work, but not in the same context. An owner of a small business may "pay themselves a salary" in accordance the salaries of their employees, but that doesn't make them "not a capitalist" at any point in time insofar as they own the company and employ people to work at that company who do not own it.