To wonder why we are happy to define middle class but not working class?

[Argos]

This is continued from another thread but I felt it deserved it's own because it is something I would like to get views on! There was a thread on MN earlier this week along teh lines of what makes someone middle class and posters wrote long lists of their ideas on this.

Why when people define working class in the same way do they recieve lots of 's and patrionising comments?

I am not class obsessed, I just want to know why this is.

Ds1 tells us that we are middle-class. His teacher told him so because of our jobs.

DH harrumphs a bit at this as he likes to think of himself as working class through and through.

MIL refuses to see anyone in her family as working class because her mum worked at East Ham town hall. She had aspirations! But sadly her dad worked at St Katherines dock and wore boots to work

My mum is quietly upset that any should suggest we were anything but upper-middle

My dad looks vaguely askance that anyone should be common enough to even discuss class definitions.

Both capitalists and marxists would say that if you don't own the business but sell your labour to it, you are working class :)

CATGIRL as you infer CLASS is not easy to pin down. It is said to be foreign visitors who notice our class system ....I suppose accent is is big/obvious part of it. Geordies do not read BBC TV national news. Nor do brummies. So I suppose any real social climber poshes up the WC accent. I speak much better than my parents did; but I have tried to avoid going really posh; because it seperates you from many people. And one does not wish to be seperated does one?(As the Queen might put it.)

But please pdont forget the humour in our divisive class system. It is a gift
from the gods. Did anyone hear that radio 4 broadcast when the Beeb let Arthur Mullard front Libby Purvis,s middle class midweek prog. It was a hoot.

Incidentally Radio 4 is bril; with largely middle class speilers. Their research suggests MC listeners too....the BBC know the score and how to play the game

except if your the chief exec of a not for profit/public sector earnng 90k

then clearly the term 'working class' is loose at best

AKMD You have missed out the most important period of history when the new 'underclass' was resurrected and that is through the Thatcher government.

If we're 'hung up on class' it's because we are a species that is obsessed with comparing ourselves with others. One definition of happiness is thinking you've got a bit more than the next guy. Defintion of misery is that the next guy's doing a bit better than you. The old TW3 sketch with Barker, Corbett and Cleese looking up or looking down on each other is the whole thing in a nutshell.

Me? I know my place.

Earning over £100k a year does not make you upper class.

BTW... chilli1243 or Gabbyloggon as you used to be. Stop being such a prejudiced tit. 'Geordies do not read BBC TV national news'.... wtf???

I'm more than ever convinced that those people who feel they have to talk of 'class' are really missing something in their own lives.

I hate labels for people, there's no place for them. Labels belong on tins and jars - or not - if you're the adventurous sort.

except if your the chief exec of a not for profit/public sector earnng 90k

There is a subcategory of the working class, "agents" who are put in place to run other workers for the principals, but they are still selling their labour, its just that they are a better paid form of working class :)

Apologies Jazzicatz, I didn't realise there were no criminals or barefott urchins before Thatcher .

Thankyou StrandedBear :)

Thats why I said resurrected

catgirl agreed, hence the 'professional' bit. I was a bit when the McCanns were described as upper class but that seems to be a fairly common perception nowadays. I have to say I didn't have much sympathy for the banker's wife who wrote an article for the Times (?) during the recession about how hard her life was now that her husband was in prison for fraud and she had to write to earn enough money to keep their servants and penthouse apartment in Manhattan!

it pains me that no-one wants to be working class anymore.

it seems to go straight from underclass to middle class.

the definition most people self define IME is owning their own house is equivalent to being automatically working class. which is ofcourse bollocks in and of itself.

there is also a huge cultural element which is hard to quantify. you can have all the money in the world and still not fit into middleclassdom

similarly many MCs are skint.

so money isn't the only or even most important measure imo

I hate all this categorising of people.

Don't put me in a box man

My parents have loads of money. Own their own home and fancy cars the lot. They are solidly, or even proudly, working class. Although they live in Australia where we don't class obsession like we do here.

"You have missed out the most important period of history when the new 'underclass' was resurrected and that is through the Thatcher government"

Yes. They all got jobs in the city!

I disagree akmd A GP would be a professional and earn more than £100k a year but there is no way a GP would be upper class - only ever middle. I do not believe you can become upper class - in my understanding you must be born in to it. I may be wrong but thats always been my view.

I agree with custardo that class is largely cultural and I do not think it is closely linked ot income

Gap. Year.

Two words not commonly used in a working class household?

Bah! You would think we would have moved on from that old three classes sketch nearly 50 years ago.

I blame Cameron 3)

Perhaps eople are unwilling to define WC because they fear that more people would be offended to find themselves defined as WC than middle ? Not saying that's right or they should be, just a thought. That's why I'm not saying, anyway!

Working class = THOSE WHO WORK

Anybody who works should refer to themselves as working class because that is what we are!

Don't care about class.

I was born on the outskirts of Glasgow, in a very deprived working class area, however I travelled most of my life between England and Germany. We never struggled for a nice home or area because we were in army quarters, but we sometimes struggled for money. I went to boarding school, learned an instrument, went horse riding, and on expeditions to Bavaria and Austria where we did adventure sports. I played with schemies from Glasgow and officers children alike. I'd never heard of benefits until I was in my twenties, but here I am on them, a single mother. I have middling qualifications and live in (someone else's) nice house. My friends range from upper middle to the "underclass" or "criminals" as some like to call them and there's really not much difference between any of them now but maybe the things they have and the work they do, which essentially do not make a person.

I know we like to have labels to belong to a group and identify ourselves, but I think class is not really all that relevant these days.

the birth of middleclassdom came on the back of industrialist expansion with new management positions clerks etc - people who managed a process rather than handled a product.

these people were known as the middling sort, not wquite cutting it in high society, but certainly faring much better than the poor operating looms/working down pits.

so even during the industrial revolution there was a recognition that a middling body of people was coming into existance.

of course today, that definition no longer holds true, as imo lots of people handle lots of processes without any tangible products. we cannot say ' i work in an office therefore i am middle class' as this is in itself reductive

As I understand it, working class are the people who do manual jobs. Eg electricians, builders, till operators
Middle class people are professionals eg teachers, doctors, lawyers.
Upper class are nobility and royalty and people are born into it.
Classes have nothing much to do with money, it's what your job is and what your father does/did.
I am firmly mc as I teach, my father was a physio and my grandpa was an accountant. We don't have piles of money or huge houses but we are all professionals and are educated at and beyond degree level.