What class are you?

[Princeps]

damn double post. delete

 

[Luckymoose]

Doctors may be paid a lot but they work a lot more than some lower or middle class people do. Money earning brings stress.

 

[Fifty]

I'm a student, but my family is probably upper middle class.

Typical limousine liberal.

Spoiler :

j/k

 

[Love]

My parents are in middle class.

 

[Rambuchan]

One big problem with the British term "working class" for Americans here in this thread is that far too many are taking the term "working" too literally. I mean, you don't wonder whether a "blue collar" worker's collar is actually blue...

Working class 'til I die.

Would you care to expand on the non-monetary aspects of what constitutes a working class identity please? I've got a good idea, but I'd be interested to hear what you've got on the matter.

 

[RedRalph]

Would you care to expand on the non-monetary aspects of what constitutes a working class identity please? I've got a good idea, but I'd be interested to hear what you've got on the matter.

Education, outlook, upbringing (I think personally thats the most important, if you grow up as a miners son or factory workers daughter your working class outlook will unlikely change even if you become financially middle class, ditto middle class people who have lower paying jobs than their folks), sad to say but accent in Ireland is a big determinant (Is that a word) of how people percieve your class. Job you work in to an extent too, you have plenty of electricians, plumbers, builders etc who make a bomb, but very very few would be middle class.

 

[Bast]

Education, outlook, upbringing (I think personally thats the most important, if you grow up as a miners son or factory workers daughter your working class outlook will unlikely change even if you become financially middle class

Oh, don't tell that to Barry Lyndon or Becky Sharp!

 

[RedRalph]

Oh, don't tell that to Barry Lyndon or Becky Sharp!

Unlikely but not impossible. but its rare in my experience. Kath and Kim may be doing alright but theyre hardly Sally and Brad now are they?

 

[bhsup]

Would you agree with my assessment that income isn't as big a factor as whether you get your hands dirty as part of the job in determining class?

Not really. I know some extremely wealthy farmers around here. I know it isn't necessarily the norm, but it's not rare enough to be some bizarre aberration.

 

[El_Machinae]

With regards to income and future prospects, I'm upper-middle class moving to upper class.

With regards to lifestyle, I'm upper-lower class.

My career is currently in the process of shifting from into more hands-on work.

 

[RedRalph]

With regards to income and future prospects, I'm upper-middle class moving to upper class.

With regards to lifestyle, I'm upper-lower class.

My career is currently in the process of shifting from into more hands-on work.

that sounds pretty ominous, like youre about to get made or something

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

I'm still wondering how the middle and upper class have all this money if they don't work. Can someone help me out?

Historically, the upper classes were the nobility who never did a day of work in their lives. The working classes were labourers and the like. The middle classes were rich, and may have worked, but certainly wouldn't have been getting their hands dirty.

To understand the original, and in Europe to a large extent, the current meaning of the classes, you have to abandon the American notion that your class is determined purely by income.

First, Upper class = noble elite, working class = everyone else. Then the social order got thrown into confusion with the industrial revolution, and the middle classes were born. The three exist today mostly as a cultural distinction born out of a history that the US never had and never understood. You're much better off without it in any case.

I'm pretty sure nobody posting here is upper class. Not unless we're totally abandoning the meaning of the word. It has nothing to do with money.

 

[Rambuchan]

Education, outlook, upbringing (I think personally thats the most important, if you grow up as a miners son or factory workers daughter your working class outlook will unlikely change even if you become financially middle class, ditto middle class people who have lower paying jobs than their folks), sad to say but accent in Ireland is a big determinant (Is that a word) of how people percieve your class. Job you work in to an extent too, you have plenty of electricians, plumbers, builders etc who make a bomb, but very very few would be middle class.

Outlook being the interesting one there. There is quite a bit going on with that. In my humble experience "a working class outlook" concerns itself with power relations more than anything else. To simplify it for brevity, those power relations are best seen at work on the picket line. To be truly working class and be a manager, for example, is an uneasy existence.

Of course, the nature of employment and power structures in society have changed somewhat recently (but not all that much really imo). Today, for example, one can be one's own manager, running one's own business. But to manage others, to order them around, to take a mark up on their service and to have your survival better served on the other side of the picket line from the workers, is not quite in accordance with "a working class outlook".

And I reckon position on the picket line is illustrative of the other class values here too. The middle class are typically cosy, pragmatic and self serving. They'll side whichever way suits them best, regardless of partisan loyalty. The upper classes, who will hardly ever find themselves amongst the labour force, will of course side with the bottom line, which best serves them. This is partly coincidental to their ideology and programmed outlook, and partly rooted in their interests.

 

[El_Machinae]

that sounds pretty ominous, like youre about to get made or something

.

 

[Photi]

Historically, the upper classes were the nobility who never did a day of work in their lives. The working classes were labourers and the like. The middle classes were rich, and may have worked, but certainly wouldn't have been getting their hands dirty.

To understand the original, and in Europe to a large extent, the current meaning of the classes, you have to abandon the American notion that your class is determined purely by income.

First, Upper class = noble elite, working class = everyone else. Then the social order got thrown into confusion with the industrial revolution, and the middle classes were born. The three exist today mostly as a cultural distinction born out of a history that the US never had and never understood. You're much better off without it in any case.

I'm pretty sure nobody posting here is upper class. Not unless we're totally abandoning the meaning of the word. It has nothing to do with money.

part of america's fixing 'class' on income instead of social status may have something to do with the myth of america being a classless society, a place where everyone has an opportunity to make it big. land of opportunity may or may not be true, but we still have classes in the social sense.

 

[Princeps]

Typical limousine liberal.

Spoiler :

j/k

Limousine anarchist: I'm using my dad's credit card to go and play revolution in the next G8 meeting.

 

[angeleyes]

I'm in paria-class

 

[RedRalph]

Outlook being the interesting one there. There is quite a bit going on with that. In my humble experience "a working class outlook" concerns itself with power relations more than anything else. To simplify it for brevity, those power relations are best seen at work on the picket line. To be truly working class and be a manager, for example, is an uneasy existence.

Of course, the nature of employment and power structures in society have changed somewhat recently (but not all that much really imo). Today, for example, one can be one's own manager, running one's own business. But to manage others, to order them around, to take a mark up on their service and to have your survival better served on the other side of the picket line from the workers, is not quite in accordance with "a working class outlook".

And I reckon position on the picket line is illustrative of the other class values here too. The middle class are typically cosy, pragmatic and self serving. They'll side whichever way suits them best, regardless of partisan loyalty. The upper classes, who will hardly ever find themselves amongst the labour force, will of course side with the bottom line, which best serves them. This is partly coincidental to their ideology and programmed outlook, and partly rooted in their interests.

Good analysis. Its interesting to that your kids dont neccasarily inherit your class outlook. you could make yourself a millionaire form humble beginnings, always be working class in manner and outlook (it happens) but youre going to have an impossibly hard time instilling those values in your kids (although rich working class people almost always make it a point of pride to attempt to do so).

 

[Rhymes]

I'm a level 23 multi-class Cleric-Ranger..... oh wait

 

[Imrahil91]

(upper) Middle class, Norway. Grandparents started as working class, but became middle class.
Aiming for upper middle class or higher