Another thread about class

[bgmnts]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/18/why-professional-middle-class-brits-insist-working-class

It seems actors who went to private school and have architect parents consider themselves working class. Now, considering the middle class truly is kind of a good thing, or at least the idea of it sort of is (the upward social and economic mobility of people who arent nobility) when did it become vogue to pretend to be lower class? Is it purely just vecause victim culture has led people to have to realise they are immensely privileged so want to try and shirk that? God knows.

I don't even know if I can count myself as working class now, as my grandad left school at 16, joined the navy, joined the fire service and managed to get a mortgage and retire at like 48, never properly worrying about money. But yet I'm probably near the bottom of the socio economic ladder so fuck knows.

Do you consider yourself working class? Do you even want to be?

[flotemysost]

I work in an industry which is very very middle class, for the most part, and which has recently (rightly) faced a lot of calls to overhaul its shameful lack of diversity.

A lot of soul-searching has come out of this and I do think there's a level of guilt that comes with realising you've benefited from a system that's designed for people like you (whether that's socioeconomic background, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexuality etc.) - so it's not a huge surprise that people might feel compelled to assuage that guilt by reassuring themselves that they're not actually THAT middle class because of xyz. (Which is why it's unsurprising that many of the people surveyed in the article are also from industries not necessarily known for being great at diversity.)

I'm about as middle class as it gets, no point pretending otherwise. My mum had a pretty deprived and dysfunctional childhood, but ironically I think her family were probably the equivalent of middle-class before they came to this country, at which point they became just another poor immigrant family with loads of kids. Whereas my dad had a reasonably comfortable upbringing, I think, only child as well (compared to my mum being one of eight), but his parents were definitely working class. My mum has spoken a lot about being really ashamed of her upbringing, teaching herself to speak 'posh' etc.

Anyway I'm now reaping the benefits of all their collective strife, so cheers guys.

I understand feeling guilt for your privilege and I'm well aware of how fucking lucky I am, but ruminating on this stuff ultimately doesn't help anyone (which is something I need to remind myself) - there are far more productive things that can be done to help the people who are screwed over by a system that's designed to favour you.

Also privilege is intersectional and "admitting" to being middle class doesn't mean you've never suffered any adversity in life. You can be middle class and BAME, gay, trans, have had an abusive or dysfunctional family, etc. and acknowledging your privilege in one area doesn't necessarily mean you've had an easy ride.

[imitationleather]

This is a guaranteed 100 pager.

[garbed_attic]

Frankly I think the Guardian should have a good long look at itself!

[AllisonSays]

I would urge people to read the actual paper the article's quoting from, rather than just the article or the various Twitter threads about it - I don't think it's paywalled. The Twitter crack has made me feel a wee bit bad for the actor woman, because while she clearly sounds a bit silly in the quote, the subjective/objective nature of class (or the fact that it's something you feel as well as something that can be economically-determined to a fairly precise degree depending on how you do it) means the kind of confusions she feels are not unusual - as you're saying for yourself I guess, BigMints.

Loads of people are making fun of her, which I sort of understand, but which seems to be contrary to the spirit of the paper - which as I understand it isn't just saying 'look at these fucking dicks', which probably wouldn't get past the Sociology journal's peer review process, but is saying 'look at how neoliberal discourses of meritocracy and striving and so on, when they intersect with the actual world of embedded economic and social advantage for certain groups of people, create confusing feelings for people'.

[TrenterPercenter]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/18/why-professional-middle-class-brits-insist-working-class
Do you consider yourself working class? Do you even want to be?

You can "classify" things in different ways.

Marx's approach imo is best; class is about whether you control your own labour and/or how much do you own of other peoples surplus value labour.  It is about the relationship between classes and not the classes themselves that informs you as to what "class" is.

These definitions regarding whether some posho that went to Eton, goes to the theatre but is still salaried are just a distraction.  They are relevant but they are very separate to the real importance of class; we should call it something else really like cultural class or whatever as it really just serves to divide groups that were purposely appealed to start organising under their commonality in Marxian class theory.

[Buelligan]

I don't even know the meaning of it all.  I'm really quite poor.  I clean for a living.  Don't ever have any luxuries or holidays BUT I'm fairly well educated, know better than most which knife to use, could pass for posh, no trouble at all.  Have ancestors that owned people, lots of them, and ancestors that were owned. 

I'd say my class was working because I don't own the means of production or anything even close, I scrabble to pay the bills and am expected to doff my cap to everyone.  But in my head, I'm Queen of the Fucking Universe.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I'm not remotely working class but I still have more in common with people in traditional working class jobs (and service and retail workers) than I ever will with the bourgeois and CEO's.

[imitationleather]

I grew up in a tower block but I post on here.

My class identity is all over the shop.

[Marner and Me]

I grew up in a tower block but I post on here.

My class identity is all over the shop.

Drake considers rewrite

[Mrs Wogans lemon drizzle]

I grew up working class, now I consider myself middle class.  I don't think I know any working class people any more, apart from my mum as everyone I work with is middle class.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I grew up working class, now I consider myself middle class.  I don't think I know any working class people any more, apart from my mum as everyone I work with is middle class.

You're working class then

Cheers

[Dr Rock]

My family were all teddy boys, even my mum. You don't get middle-class teds do you?

[Icehaven]

I've got no idea what I'd be "classed" as. I grew up in a single parent family in a council flat, but my mum was a professional (a nurse, so we still never had any money) and I went to private school (via the assisted place scheme, so my Mum didn't have to pay) and then on to Uni.
Like my Mum I have a profession but it's fairly low paid (librarian) so I live in a cheap albeit privately rented flat, and barring a lottery win I doubt I'll ever own a home. So fuck knows really, it's partly why the whole notion of class eludes me, I'd have no idea what I would be, never mind anyone else.

[Pijlstaart]

Though I never lived in a council house, they were mother's preferred day-drinking locale. The council house children were ghastly to me, one of them had a prostitute mother and they never served meals on plates, they'd gather in the kitchen and pick stuff straight off the baking tray with their hands, I had to fight with them for breaded potato shapes and one of the children scratched me. Another council house child had a loud dog. It was all very arduous and if I'm not working class after that, I'd at least qualify for affiliate status with full privileges.

Now I live in bloomsbury and no-one wants to be working-class, we're all looking up, not down. Though I couldn't stomach buying anything, I've briefly been in a waitrose. A local humphrey, the humphster, taught me that mortgages are called morgos, and if you've been on the bolly you'll get too big a morgo and daddy won't take you to St Moritz. Sounds like the humphster's a fucking pov then, that's bang out of order, chronic landlord shortage and the fucking humphster won't do his part for the nation, going to hire him to clean the swan bones off my banquet hall floor, what an actual shit.

[ProvanFan]

I'm well class

[idunnosomename]

oh, i'm so glad, to be middle class

with my own set of teeth

and fingernails

[PowerButchi]

Underclass, me.

[greenman]

I would say really though the way that article is written is probably more enlightening than the concepts it mentions.

Most obviously the way it uses "middle class" as a catch all term to try and obscure more significant privilege, that someone who lived in a 2 bedroom semi and went to a state school is essentially in the same boat as people who actually come from far wealthier backgrounds and who actually tend to dominate fields like the media.

It all plays into a divide an rule tactic really doesnt it? that you need by far the largest voting block who really arent benefited by the current system spilt in two in order to sustain a system benefiting the ultra wealthy.

[RenegadeScrew]

There is only really working class and upper class.  You don't easily slip between the two.  Middle class is really just working class people who don't wish to identify as working class. 

[willbo]

I grew up in Coventry and moved to Milton Keynes a few years ago, and to be honest, I feel more alienated about class here than I ever thought possible in Cov. I thought of myself as being relatively posh in some ways in Cov, in that I can read and write well, didn't come from a rough estate, etc. But here I feel genuinely crappy compared to a lot of the people in my friend groups.

Like ...they have material things, exotic holidays, flashy expensive flats or secluded village homes outside town, big careers, etc. But it isn't that, it's just their manner. Like ...they're relaxed and self assured in a way that I'd never seen before I came here. Like I thought people in Cov were normal but when I go back there now, a lot of them look wary and shy, looking down when they walk, looking around unsure when they enter a shop/pub, wheras well-off people here just walk into places confidently and start loudly ordering stuff without looking around, etc.

and there's a much bigger division here. Like some days everyone I meet is either well off like that, or really rough, into drugs, etc. And I feel like...what happened to just...normal people? People who live in small houses and are average, not super ambitious or super rough.

[Paul Calf]

Bears repeating:

If you lost your job tomorrow, how long would it be until you ran out of money? If the answer is less than a year, you're working class.

[The Mollusk]

I consider myself to be twerking class. I twerk my arse to the bone every day to put food on the table.

[RenegadeScrew]

Bears repeating:

If you lost your job tomorrow, how long would it be until you ran out of money? If the answer is less than a year, you're working class.

I agree with them, but people are going to get tired of the bears just repeating the same mantra over and over.

[Paul Calf]

People don't tire of bears shitting in the woods though. You can't trust people.

[JaDanketies]

Bears repeating:

If you lost your job tomorrow, how long would it be until you ran out of money? If the answer is less than a year, you're working class.

What if I've got £20k in savings but I live a lifestyle that costs more than that?

Soon, according to that definition, I won't be working class any more. Does that mean I get the guillotine?

[Buelligan]

Is your name Antigonus?

[garbed_attic]

I'm with Cocker's position on 'Common People'. I've worked my fair share of years in minimum wage call centre and retail jobs, but I'm middle class because I've always known that - if push absolutely came to shove - my middle-class Boomer parents would be able to support me. My mum's dad was a plumber, but worked his way up to run a plumbing business, but folded... so I guess he was working-class who failed at being petit-bourgeoisie. My mum's mum worked in an insurance office... can't remember if she was a typist or an agent or started off as one and became the other. My dad's parents were teachers, which is definitely a petit-bourgeoisie profession, albeit an often under-paid one.

That said, my partner's also squarely middle-class, but while her parents would be technically able to support her, they've been outright neglectful over the years, at best.

I think some of the difficulties of applying Marx today are that:

1.) Working class folks in Britain now, as with middle-class folks, largely consume the labour of the "wretched of the earth"... shopping being people's primary job under neoliberalism.

2.) Marx is generally concerned in Das Kapital with physical factory labour. Today, in the West, with increased automation this largely doesn't resemble the factory work of the late Victorian period. Also Marx, generally not interested in women as political subjects, doesn't consider emotional labour. Personally I felt far, far more drained and exploited after a day of being sworn and shouted at by posh home insurance customers over the phone than a day moving boxes and shelf stacking at the supermarket.

3.) People make money in a much more varied and fluid ways. Someone might work a couple of days as a cleaner, sell home-made badges on Etsy, receive credit for caring for their disabled kid and have an OnlyFans page. According to Marx, none of these would be the labour of the kind of working class subject he believes can be empowered, politically enlighted, or seize the means of production. Crafting and selling badges is artisanal and thus the province of the petit-bourgeoisie or peasant (both of which are suspect at best; counter-revolutionary at worst). Cleaning is domestic work, which Marx doesn't seem to give any mind to. Receiving Universal Credit would make someone a member of the lumpenproletariat who Marx depicts as unthinking and basically without value. Finally, having an OnlyFans page would make someone a sex worker. According to Marx (and Henri Lefebvre, to memory) sex workers sell themselves as commodities rather than their labour as commodities. Thus they aren't labourers. I often wonder if the way that second wave feminism sometimes tips into contempt for sex workers mixed with pity comes from the fact that its more traditionally Marxist than fourth wave feminism.

In short, I get why middle-class folks profiled in The Guardian get themselves in a muddle about class.

[greenman]

There is only really working class and upper class.  You don't easily slip between the two.  Middle class is really just working class people who don't wish to identify as working class.

I think "middle class" is also used to fit in some people who are really more upper class but really talking about "privilege" with people who arent in poverty but are not wealthy either is just playing into right wing fear tactics isnt it? That commie Corbyn is coming for your pension when in reality his Labour would have benefited them economically.

The only thing the Tories have done for people in that situation is not fucked them over as hard as they have those even less well off.

[JaDanketies]

To me, upper class is the aristocracy. Someone who has £100k equity on their house might have enough 'money' to survive a year without work, but they're hardly upper class.

Really I think a big boundary between the working class and the middle class is home-ownership. It's a boundary between those who don't have any assets or 'wealth' and those who do. When I rented, the most expensive thing I owned was an ounce of weed, followed by my laptop, my telly and a big bag of mixed nuts.