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Author Topic:   What Social Class Do You Belong To?
Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 31 of 41 (667004)
07-02-2012 7:18 AM
Reply to: Message 25 by Modulous
07-01-2012 3:26 PM


Can you change your "class" by virtue of education alone? I don't know. But it must be a factor. Perhaps "educated working class" fits you....?
It probably suggests that if you have any children they will be raised with what are generally considered middle class attitudes towards education and knowledge.
Perhaps one's education has a more telling effect on the class of one's offspring? I don't know.

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Heathen
Member (Idle past 1283 days)
Posts: 1067
From: Brizzle
Joined: 09-20-2005


Message 32 of 41 (667093)
07-03-2012 5:01 AM
Reply to: Message 14 by Straggler
06-30-2012 4:41 PM


Re: Connotations
Pushily aspirational. Overly obsessed with house prices, living in the right area, getting kids into the right school and that sort of thing. Overly conventional. A bit dull. Either hand wringingly liberal or self-righteously conservative. Polite to the point of ineffectual. A bit obsessed with the minutae of social mobility because there is neither the drive to "get out" that the working class are supposed to display or the presumed-right-to-rule of the upper classes. Being middle class suggests a life of routine commuting from the suburbs into the city to work in a rather dull office. Knowing exactly which train to catch each day (the 7:47 from Paddington) in order to both get to work on time and give one-self the best chance of getting a seat. Living a materially comfortable but rather uninspired existence.
..oh shit...

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Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 33 of 41 (667159)
07-03-2012 1:46 PM


You can get from working class to middle class through education and making money, but you can't get to the real upper class unless you're born into it. You really need a blood line.
It's best demonstrated by this comment from a real toff about a self made multi-millionaire (ie, sniff, from trade) - The Right Honourable, Lord Michael Heseltine CH PC; who was also the deputy Prime Minister.
"The trouble with Michael is that he had to buy his own furniture"

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

  
1.61803
Member (Idle past 1503 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


Message 34 of 41 (667181)
07-03-2012 4:27 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by Straggler
06-30-2012 4:41 PM


Re: Connotations
Straggler writes:
Living a materially comfortable but rather uninspired existence.
That'd be me.

"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs

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onifre
Member (Idle past 2950 days)
Posts: 4854
From: Dark Side of the Moon
Joined: 02-20-2008


Message 35 of 41 (667215)
07-04-2012 10:26 AM
Reply to: Message 14 by Straggler
06-30-2012 4:41 PM


Re: Connotations
Pushily aspirational. Overly obsessed with house prices, living in the right area, getting kids into the right school and that sort of thing. Overly conventional. A bit dull. Either hand wringingly liberal or self-righteously conservative. Polite to the point of ineffectual. A bit obsessed with the minutae of social mobility because there is neither the drive to "get out" that the working class are supposed to display or the presumed-right-to-rule of the upper classes. Being middle class suggests a life of routine commuting from the suburbs into the city to work in a rather dull office. Knowing exactly which train to catch each day (the 7:47 from Paddington) in order to both get to work on time and give one-self the best chance of getting a seat. Living a materially comfortable but rather uninspired existence.
Sounds like the character description for David Brent.
- Oni

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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driewerf
Junior Member
Posts: 29
Joined: 08-14-2010


Message 36 of 41 (667232)
07-04-2012 5:59 PM


marxist view on classes
For marxists there are three classes: the working class, the capitalist class and the small entrepreneurs (including farmers).
The working class - term that causes the most confusion - involves everyone who works for a salary. This includes blue colar factory workers, white collar office workers, everyone working for the goverment etc. To belong to the working class says (for a marxist) nothing about your level of education, nothing about the kind of work you do. You work for a boss who pays you a salary. The working class is also the class that does not own its working tools.
The entrepreneurs are the small shopkeepers, the farmers, the very small businesspeople. The own their working tools, they don't work for a salary, but live from what their business earns them.
The capitalist class is the class that owns the very big majority of the working tools: they own the factories, the offices and sometimes big parts of the farming land. Basically they don't get their income from their work - in contrast with both former classes - they get their income from what they own.
As such I belong to the working class.

Replies to this message:
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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 37 of 41 (667262)
07-05-2012 5:27 AM
Reply to: Message 36 by driewerf
07-04-2012 5:59 PM


Re: marxist view on classes
The working class - term that causes the most confusion - involves everyone who works for a salary. This includes blue colar factory workers, white collar office workers, everyone working for the goverment etc. To belong to the working class says (for a marxist) nothing about your level of education, nothing about the kind of work you do. You work for a boss who pays you a salary. The working class is also the class that does not own its working tools.
This is a distinction of no real practical use, though. If you're a consultant who doesn't bother to open his own practice and does all his work as an employee of the NHS, you can make £100,000 a year, which means you're richer than many capitalists. Yet you would be in the same class as a minumum wage earner stacking shelves at Tesco. I don't see the use of such a classification.

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Replies to this message:
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Jon
Inactive Member


Message 38 of 41 (667282)
07-05-2012 10:04 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Straggler
06-29-2012 3:48 PM


The Poor Rich Man
Poor in America.
Rich in Indonesia.

Love your enemies!

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Jon
Inactive Member


Message 39 of 41 (667283)
07-05-2012 10:07 AM
Reply to: Message 37 by caffeine
07-05-2012 5:27 AM


Re: marxist view on classes
This is a distinction of no real practical use, though. If you're a consultant who doesn't bother to open his own practice and does all his work as an employee of the NHS, you can make 100,000 a year, which means you're richer than many capitalists. Yet you would be in the same class as a minumum wage earner stacking shelves at Tesco. I don't see the use of such a classification.
As the label implies, it's a job-based classification, not an income classification.

Love your enemies!

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ringo
Member (Idle past 411 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 40 of 41 (667291)
07-05-2012 12:08 PM
Reply to: Message 36 by driewerf
07-04-2012 5:59 PM


Re: marxist view on classes
What about a carpenter who owns his tools but works for wages?

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Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 41 of 41 (667365)
07-06-2012 12:38 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by onifre
07-04-2012 10:26 AM


Re: Connotations
I don't think David Brent would consider himself middle class. He would instead think of himself as some sort of working class hero. Someone who (in his view) exemplifies what you can achieve if you work hard and have natural talent.
You too could be a manager in a Slough based paper firm if you just have the talent and desire to succeed in life....

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