Working or Middle Class?

[WedTheBed]

What’s the difference between them? As in.. what does one have to be middle class that working class don’t have?

I was talking to my friend, and I made a comment about being working class which she looked at me in shock and said I’m not working class, I’m middle.. but I don’t know how. I feel like we don’t really have anything to show to be middle class?😂

light hearted* I’m just interested to see what people interpret.

This is the crux of it.

The signifiers (theatre choices, rugby Vs football, etc) are all just fluff really. Pretty much anyone can call their child Hector and sign him up to rugby or whatever. As we've seen on this thread - if it matters people can pretty much obtain all the signifiers over night, if that's what matters to them . But they are surface layer stuff.

Class really is about the power lies -capital, and the ability to generate it. And while everyone scrabbles around squabbling over minutiae (rugby Vs football) they take their eye off how much more unites the MC and WC (eg the impact Tories screwing over the country) than divides them

@SweetSakura
I agree. I find this thread infuriating and sad . People really do get their knickers in a twist over who is or isn't a certain class and care about all these silly class signifiers. But also the 'middle class' (if we think of it roughly as being well educated 'financially comfortable') is being eroded anyway as it's becoming less and less about your salary or job title and more about the assets you own. Many of those with 'middle class' jobs such as doctors or teachers can't get on the property ladder. They are stuck with university debt and are renting paying off the mortgage or someone else instead. All the while the ruling elite who hold the money and power in the U.K. can sit back and get richer by doing very little. The ever growing inequality in this country is a huge problem.

@SweetSakura Agree with everything you say. I get sick of people telling me that I'm MC now because I've got the education, the house and the salary. But, what they don't want to acknowledge is that I'm still a worker who can be made redundant, need sick pay when I can't work, can join a union, strike, and that the 'salary' is nothing more than me selling my intellectual as opposed to physical labour in exchange for my soul money. You can dress it up any way you like but my relationship to the means of production as a professional isn't much different to when I was a cleaner. I have some savings and would have more security in a crisis but without a job I'm fucked.
Cultural signifiers are the biggest red herrings in any debate about class. I like art galleries and I like watching crap telly. I like Debussy and I like the Happy Mondays. It's the same with books, food, even friends. Working class does not mean uneducated, poor or ignorant.

Working class people wear flat caps and live oop north

😂 what a load of nonsense!

There are plenty of civil servant roles that require education and stature greater than an accountant.

I think DH and I are probably quite averagely middle class. Quite high household income, home owners, both went to university, savings to fall back on, only debt is the mortgage. But not upper middle class as we didn't go to private school and nor do our children and we both have to work full time to afford mortgage and household bills. I have a professional qualification as well as my under graduate and post-graduate degrees We will both likely inherit money.
Dh is more established MC than me - his dad went to university to PHD level and his mum to boarding school. His dad was a lecturer and mum a social worker.
My parents left school at 14 and 16 to work in the local factory (though not in manual jobs - one went into finance and one into personnel dept). My mum was definitely solidly working class - dad mixed more with different people and his career took off which put us in more middle class circles.
My mum's parents worked manual jobs and went to the Working Men's Club, and were Methodists. So definitely traditional working class.
My dad's mum didn't work, and my dad's dad was a salesman - so maybe lower middle class/working class.

@SweetSakura excellent point about generating wealth.

Just read this in 2025. It told me - don't have your kids bother with sociology. Of those two examples there is alot in between. Of my two neighbours, one is a self employed builder who has a small property portfolio and the other is a civil engineer/builder. Both require indepth knowledge and are physical hands on jobs . Of the wives, one lives off inherited money, not sure what the other does but she's a trained chef . Their children are doctor, lawyer and marine biologist respectively. One of the kids has a bit of a personality issue and struggles socially, so does a few hours in a charity shop . Just to muddy the waters with another prejudiced cliché, one couple has Brummie and Scouse accents and the others are RP and very pronounced upper middle class accent.

Good post. Truth is not many people know what class some folks are in - just the ones they say people are in and ones they want to be in . Most class obsessions are disturbing . Anybody who recoils at being mistaken for working class ( whatever that's supposed to be these days ) and immediately corrects with " oh no , I'm middle class , " has got a problem .

This.

Modern farming is not manually intensive I'd say farming tends to span middle class to upper class, with the gentleman farmer being an emblem of the British elite.

Can’t be doing with all this class nonsense. To me anyone that has to work to pay the bills is working class 😂.

💯

Obviously things were different pre-Agricultural and Industrial Revolution