to think that "middle class" has become a derogatory term

[hijk]

and actually, most people aren't actually part of any class, really, they are just individuals who make their own way in the world.

It's interesting what is now regarded as middle class. I think that the richer and more educated section of the traditional working class seems to have been revised upwards? Nurses and office workers... My father is from a traditional WC family: growing up on a council estate, his father was often unemployed but worked in the payroll at a factory and his mother worked in an office typing letters. All but one of their dozen children went to grammar school, incidentally, and if you met any of them you'd think they were working class, and they are! They are also literate and creative people, with strong interests in art, music, engineering, and political debate. Those things are obviously traditions of the working class as evidenced by Artisans Libraries and Mechanics Institutes all over the shop.

My mother's family is what I (had previously) envision(ed) as middle class and they were mainly lawyers, soldiers, diplomats, younger sons of younger sons and other people clinging on with a death grip to the bottom rung of the aristocracy. People who work, but do not struggle. Or, well, no I spose some of them don't have to work as they have trusts but they're not upper class - the trusts are from businesses liquidated in the 19th century and other trading sources. They're Isobel and Matthew Crawley, not Lord Grantham.

What neither of the families have is much of this peculiar anxiety about authenticity, which probably means none of them are truly middle class. I can't imagine any of them having strong opinions on towels. Olives and towels and so on are very Molieresque, aren't they?

Anyway, actually I think meaningful class divisions are broadly determined by power and access. Probably you could determine it by assets and connections, with connections (or social power) having the edge over financials in some respects. Or to put it bluntly: there are workers and there are owners, and all the rest is the narcissism of small differences.

The only opinion I have about towels is that certain people in my family mistreat them resulting in me never being able to find a clean dry one to take to the gym despite knowing I've bought loads of the fuckers.

I do however have very strong opinions about marmite (it has to be own brand - much stronger than even XO) and tomatoes (they have to be bullet hard and small like marbles). I susoect this just means I'm wierd rather than giving an insight into the class into which I was born (when I was born there was just one marmite, own brand versions only appeared when I was a teenager - actually, perhaps my preference for them is down to us having them because they were cheaper - but my sister prefers regular marmite).

Marmite is wonderful. You are clearly a maniac and I fear you.

Have you tried own brand, though? It's strong even than XO. It's wonderful. I promise. The HARD STUFF we call it (occasionally we run out and have to have wimpy normal marmite from the corner shop - pale brown and thin and weedy). Own brand is practically black and you could use it to build a house (with bricks, obviously). Thick and strong and very very salty.

I admit I have never tried another brand of Marmite. I didn't even know other brands existed. It's pure prejudice on my part. I'm a yeast extract bigot.

Next time I have occasion to buy Marmite I am branching out!

Well, there are these (XO is the official marmite extra strength one, the own brands are similar but better). I understand Asda and Morrisons also do their own brand but I haven't tasted them. The tesco and sainsburys ones are identical (they are also identical to the lost in the mists of time Safeways, Fine Fare and Boots versions). Don't me mislead by the low salt sainsburys version I've pictured - they do a non reduced salt one too but I couldn't find a picture.

I was brought up in a bad part of London by a single mother in an area that most fits the label of 'underclass'. But my mum had a good job, although we had no money (due to having been left in the shit by my dad).

I was taught by my mum to speak well, I don't sound like I'm from where I'm from. We never went on holiday, food was from Kwiksave, clothes from markets, the house was falling to pieces and we had no car. We got taken to museums and parks and local events. I have no idea what class I was then.

It's easier now I have a degree from a good university, a well paid job, a nice house and partner. I can say I'm middle class. But I don't feel the same middle class as dp's family who I think are very middle class but they think they are working class because they had typical working class jobs.

They went on several holidays a year, had a big house, and concerned themselves with things like gardens being overlooked, needing to upgrade one of their cars, worrying about whatever the daily mail told them to worry about.

And yet they think of themselves as poor, despite the abundance of holidays and stuff. So I don't understand class at all really.

I do prefer tesco own brand Marmite to regular Marmite.

We go to Tesco specially to stock up (we don't shop there for anything else).

I am now seriously considering finding out where the nearest Tesco is. So easily swayed from my convictions.

(Low salt yeast extract bewilders me. How on earth is it made, and why? It's like making low flour bread.)

All this middle-class-trait-spotting is missing one crucial thing, which is that the middle classes are an endangered species.

Thanks to the IT revolution, many white collar jobs are going the same way that blue-collar ones did as factories automated. You can increasingly do the same job with an intelligent algorithm that you paid several clerks a full-time wage for not that long ago.

As a result lots of professions that used to be well-paid and solidly the preserve of the middle classes are rapidly vanishing or becoming underpaid commodities. Journalism is a good example, with the pool of people working for free getting larger as paid journalism jobs get scarcer and salary levels stagnate. Another example - the pay for solicitors is tanking at the moment as the industry is increasingly deregulated, allowing all kinds of players to compete for work that was previously the preserve of a highly-trained elite.

What we have increasingly is an underclass (the former industrial working class, now jobless and dependent on increasingly stingy and punitive state handouts) then a huge working class, then a tiny rich elite.

All this obsessing over whether something like White Company towels or private schooling makes one middle class is a sort of hysterical reaction to the reality no-one is facing up to now, which is that Tony Blair lied. We're not all middle class now.

In fact anyone with a job and a household income of less than £150,000 (in the South at least, in my estimation) is working class. Anyone who doesn't have a job at all is underclass. I'd categorise a meaningful middle-class income as £150,000-£5m pa and an upper-class income as one where someone is living off capital rather than working as such, which only becomes possible above that level.

I agree with you, Manatee. In fact I'd go further and say that the delusion of class is just like the sold to the crackers to prevent them from joining forces with the slaves.

But that may not play well to this crowd, hahaha.

Sits back and waits for the screams of horror as scores of MNers realise that somebody thinks they are working class.

The underclass definitely exists, and isn't really tge same as working classes. Working classes generally have a roof and (barely) enough food, and are mostly capable of finding and keeping work, at least when social conditions are good. The underclass are the truly deprived. It includes those who live in the gutter, the homeless people, the sex workers, those who have always or nearly always lived on benefits, in and out of hostels and refuges, or care where kids are concerned. The ones who barely survive at the bottom of the net and those who slip through it. There are strong links to crime, and, yes, race, immigrants, disability / mental illness can play a part, etc.

Someone said something once about how the lower layers of society are all very close together and the boundaries very carefully maintained. Might have been Terry Pratchett.

I am from the underclass, I have managed to work my way up to being a showy and vulgar form of working class.

It always amuses me that people assume the middle classes have no sense of humour. Or irony.

Cockbill Street, TwiceForked? (the dread of falling back)

Agree with Manatee and Catotanca here. The only meaningful class divisions are political and economic. All these discussions about ham and marmite, while amusing, are red herrings and cultural differences are often intentionally presented to distract from the real issues. I would also add that there is a large intersection between the "truly deprived" underclass as TwiceForked describes them and the traditional working class, namely the precariat - the ever growing number of people with little to no job security, people working on zero hour contracts, a large number of freelancers, etc.

It will be interesting to see what develops. The UK has overtaken France as the 4th biggest economy on the planet. We have just had the first year for something like 50 y ears with deflation particularly with food and petrol prices dropping. More people are in employment albeit it many in low paid jobs than in a good while and some wages are rising (a bit). It is certainly a very interesting time. Women are 70% of graduates and female millionaires are increasing much faster than male so that is all very good new for women, particularly those who carry on with full time work.

Class is a bit of fun in the UK, nothing more. Most of us treat others well whoever they are. it's one of the defining characteristics of being British - tolerance, humour and self deprecation.

The statistics some produced to suggest a bigger gap between rich and poor had emerged were wrong. Things truck on as ever in up and down market cycles. All will be well as long you don't vote Labour this year.

Class is a bit of fun in the UK, nothing more. Most of us treat others well whoever they are. it's one of the defining characteristics of being British - tolerance, humour and self deprecation.

now I am an adult with the hide of a rhino I can find it amusing. However it is not amusing that I was told at school that children like me did not go to university. It isn't really amusing that I have had to often work twice as hard as everyone to get to the same point. It isn't amusing that I was treated as some kind of oddity at university and that my education had not prepared me to compete with other students. It isn't amusing that most of my family are permanently pissed, high, mad or in prison. It isn't amusing that I can only really remember one other working class person from university - and I married him - that in itself tells a story. It isn't amusing that in my first proper job the other women would meet to snigger about the way that I spoke, dressed, where I lived etc.

Class is funny if you are on the right side of it.

I agree with Manatee.

Many people I hear refer to themselves as MC are clearly WC to me.

Having a degree certainly does not make you MC.

I wouldn't consider anyone who couldn't afford to send their children to private school (whether they chose to do so or not) to have several overseas holidays a year, to buy a new car every year, and who had a good standard of education to be MC.

I read posts on here from people who think they are MC because they can buy a bit of Boden for the DC and get their groceries from Waitrose

I am working class and very proud of it. I work hard, have a degree, a professional job, speak BBC English and have a good standard of living, but I am certainly not MC.

Philoslothy, that's a powerful post.

Agreed philoslothy.

Class is funny if you are on the right side of it

Being on the right side, yes. I have also been treated badly because of a perceived posh voice, add in shyness and suddenly one is haughty, rude and thinks she is better than the rest of us.

Class is often easier when you are surrounded by people like yourself.