Another thread about class

[Buelligan]

I think it may be more useful, rather that delineating who is and isn't working class, to identify why the question is important.  Why is it being asked?

Why would a neoliberal organ like the Guardian interrogate its audience with this question?

Could it be that convincing more and more people that they're not working class at all is a useful way of cutting an unspoken but primal allegiance?  Socialism and the working class, like peas and carrots but are you buying your veg from Waitrose now?  Vote centrist and cover your shame.

[Sebastian Cobb]

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

I think if I lost my job I'd probably cut some of my non-essential outgoings.

[garbed_attic]

I think it may be more useful, rather that delineating who is and isn't working class, to identify why the question is important.  Why is it being asked?

Why would a neoliberal organ like the Guardian interrogate its audience with this question?

Could it be that convincing more and more people that they're not working class at all is a useful way of cutting an unspoken but primal allegiance?  Socialism and the working class, like peas and carrots but are you buying your veg from Waitrose now?  Vote centrist and cover your shame.

Really good point. Always worth remembering not to read the Guardian on its own terms or play it at its own game.

[JaDanketies]

It ain't just the Guardian that pits the so-called middle class against the working class. In fact it's the whole mainstream media. Perhaps we don't need to play their game, but analysing the terms of the game still has value. We want the middle class to have solidarity with the working class. Being able to afford a year without work doesn't mean that you ought to view working class solidarity as contrary to your best interests.

I know we all hate him, me included, but I associate a lot of the arguments for improving the lot of the working class with Tony Blair - at least early-era Tony Blair. We want an educated populace with plenty of opportunities, and we want a strong safety net. Even from a zero-empathy, selfish viewpoint, it's cheaper to provide poor people with the support they need now than to deal with the crime and health outcomes that might result if you don't. Everyone understands that "a stitch in time saves nine." Also the poor and hungry kid who is struggling at school might be performing open heart surgery on you when you're older if you give them a chance.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I certainly think Kieth is worse in that regard. He's ostensibly working class but what is he doing for them? He's not showing solidarity, let alone trying to help them and and most of his "I came from a working class background" comes with an unspoken "you could be like me if you pulled yourself up by the bootstraps".

[Huxleys Babkins]

It ain't just the Guardian that pits the so-called middle class against the working class. In fact it's the whole mainstream media. Perhaps we don't need to play their game, but analysing the terms of the game still has value. We want the middle class to have solidarity with the working class. Being able to afford a year without work doesn't mean that you ought to view working class solidarity as contrary to your best interests.

I know we all hate him, me included, but I associate a lot of the arguments for improving the lot of the working class with Tony Blair - at least early-era Tony Blair. We want an educated populace with plenty of opportunities, and we want a strong safety net. Even from a zero-empathy, selfish viewpoint, it's cheaper to provide poor people with the support they need now than to deal with the crime and health outcomes that might result if you don't. Everyone understands that "a stitch in time saves nine." Also the poor and hungry kid who is struggling at school might be performing open heart surgery on you when you're older if you give them a chance.

Latching onto that, it's quite noticeable that the media/government narrative of what the working class should be has now narrowed onto white, angry, socially conservative, middle-to-retirement aged, northern men who (and this is crucial) do not want anything better for themselves of their families because it would be a betrayal of their sense of self. They just want to go back to when their way of life was viable.

This media-created "Brexit Working Class Paradigm" has skewed the fuck out of everything now, entirely by design. It disenfranchises anyone who doesn't fit that mould and robs them of a voice. If you're BAME, you can't be true working class. If you've gone onto further education, you can't be true working class, if you're from the south, you can't be true working class, if you're from abroad, you can't be true working class, if you work in an office, you can't be true working class.

If you frame the working class as too proud to want help, to want educating, to want feeding, to want a rewarding career, to want decent housing, then you can cruelly cut away at the most vulnerable in society without much push back. You can frame those who want to help as out of touch and patronising, and those that dare ask for it as scroungers. Not like us proper working class.

[Mrs Wogans lemon drizzle]

You're working class then

Cheers

Cool, thanks for letting me know.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Latching onto that, it's quite noticeable that the media/government narrative of what the working class should be has now narrowed onto white, angry, socially conservative, middle-to-retirement aged, northern men who (and this is crucial) do not want anything better for themselves of their families because it would be a betrayal of their sense of self. They just want to go back to when their way of life was viable.

This media-created "Brexit Working Class Paradigm" has skewed the fuck out of everything now, entirely by design. It disenfranchises anyone who doesn't fit that mould and robs them of a voice. If you're BAME, you can't be true working class. If you've gone onto further education, you can't be true working class, if you're from the south, you can't be true working class, if you're from abroad, you can't be true working class, if you work in an office, you can't be true working class.

If you frame the working class as too proud to want help, to want educating, to want feeding, to want a rewarding career, to want decent housing, then you can cruelly cut away at the most vulnerable in society without much push back. You can frame those who want to help as out of touch and patronising, and those that dare ask for it as scroungers. Not like us proper working class.

'traditional working class' has been a dog-whistle for 'white' used by far right groups like the BNP and UKIP for yonks, it became legitimised by the brexiteer arm of the tories and also enveloped by their culture war bullshit since.

Akala got a Tory plant good with that on QT - could only find a Skwakbox link: https://skwawkbox.org/2018/05/11/akala-owns-tory-plant-on-bbcqt-but-look-at-the-woman-to-his-right/

[TrenterPercenter]

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.

Yes I like this test.

If you grow up working class and consider yourself working class and feel proud of this - then you are working class

If you grow up working class yet consider yourself middle class somehow then you are still working class just one that wants to identify as middle class and for some reason looks down on working class people - middle class people (lols it doesn't even exist)  that don't own their own labour are just deluded snobby working class people.

I grew up working class; and I've tried to make a good fist of being successful but remaining morally intact; I've got some money now (well relative to growing up in a very poor household) been to uni (a few times) got lots of letters after my name etc.. but I still consider myself working class (I am regardless of what I think anyway) and I wouldn't want to be anything other than this until my dying day.

[TrenterPercenter]

'traditional working class' has been a dog-whistle for 'white' used by far right groups like the BNP and UKIP for yonks, it became legitimised by the brexiteer arm of the tories and also enveloped by their culture war bullshit since.

Akala got a Tory plant good with that on QT - could only find a Skwakbox link: https://skwawkbox.org/2018/05/11/akala-owns-tory-plant-on-bbcqt-but-look-at-the-woman-to-his-right/

Another good modern day Marxist - class separation is exactly what the bourgeois want so that white working class people don't see black working class people as their brothers in class oppression.

[Buelligan]

Or sisters, Reg.

[TrenterPercenter]

Or sisters, Reg.

Yes or sisters, Loretta

[Buelligan]

Judith.

[JaDanketies]

middle class people (lols it doesn't even exist)  that don't own their own labour

I'm self-employed - does this make me upper-class? What about the window cleaner? He's self-employed too.

I can get behind the idea that there are working class people and upper class people. The proles and the bougies.

[TrenterPercenter]

I'm self-employed - does this make me upper-class? What about the window cleaner? He's self-employed too.

Petite bourgeois depending on your relationship to how much of other peoples surplus labour you own.  It is only about owning other peoples labour not your own.  Owning your own labour is what Marxism advocates.

[AllisonSays]

In my opinion, the lived experience of class is much more complicated than the algorithmic application of Marx's thing about who owns the means of production. While that kind of simplification might be helpful for some kinds of political organising, I think any kind of organising that ignores lived experience is going to fail in the end.

[TrenterPercenter]

In my opinion, the lived experience of class is much more complicated than the algorithmic application of Marx's thing about who owns the means of production. While that kind of simplification might be helpful for some kinds of political organising, I think any kind of organising that ignores lived experience is going to fail in the end.

Why do you think this ignores lived experiences? genuine question.

[AllisonSays]

Because people's lived experiences aren't reducible to their relationship to the means of production, even if that has an important bearing on various aspects of their lives. An example might be the difference between working as an industrial labourer in Britain in the '50s or '60s and working in a call centre in Britain now - those are both classic examples of the proletariat as Marx understands it (I think!) but for all kinds of reasons those are very different subjective experiences of work, and produce very different kinds of people.

[TrenterPercenter]

Because people's lived experiences aren't reducible to their relationship to the means of production, even if that has an important bearing on various aspects of their lives. An example might be the difference between working as an industrial labourer in Britain in the '50s or '60s and working in a call centre in Britain now - those are both classic examples of the proletariat as Marx understands it (I think!) but for all kinds of reasons those are very different subjective experiences of work, and produce very different kinds of people.

I agree.  I don't think it is necessary to reduce things down; class(es) are a mode of classification it it just way of organising what you are looking at.  Systems as such just need something to place an individual in broadly but that doesn't mean someones life experience is not considered (I mean I just put in a a bit of my life experience up the page), it is just not necessary (i.e. you can have life experiences and still have Marx's classifcations) in relation to the classification aspect.

Your example is actually an argument for this:

Working as a labourer in the 50s and 60s and working in a call centre now are united in their "class" but not their entire lived experiences; there are commonalities between the two in regards to the social hierarchies at either time point but as you say material differences in the work being done; just because someone else owns their labour doesn't mean they don't have individual lived experiences that shape them both.

I think you might be talking about something a bit different here - which is really interesting but I don't really see how it contradicts these notions of class

[Paul Calf]

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.

You're wrong, but that's fine. A lot of working class people own their own homes. A loy of them are paying off mortgages and have a shit asset-debt ratio.

If you've got significant assets kicking around doing nothing but waiting in case you can't work for a while, you might have to consider the possibility that you're at least approaching the middle classes.

[Paul Calf]

'traditional working class' has been a dog-whistle for 'white' used by far right groups like the BNP and UKIP for yonks, it became legitimised by the brexiteer arm of the tories and also enveloped by their culture war bullshit since.

Akala got a Tory plant good with that on QT - could only find a Skwakbox link: https://skwawkbox.org/2018/05/11/akala-owns-tory-plant-on-bbcqt-but-look-at-the-woman-to-his-right/

Haha. He thought that was going to be easy. Look at his little face when he realises he's going to have to work for his corn and he's been caught on national TV making a racist talking point.

[TrenterPercenter]

If you've got significant assets kicking around doing nothing but waiting in case you can't work for a while, you might have to consider the possibility that you're at least approaching the middle classes.

Why? What is the difference in paying national insurance (or other forms of health insurance); this is money you are putting somewhere in order something happens to you and you can't work/need medical care?


I agree homeownership doesn't make you middle class though; owning someone else's home is interesting though as you could be extracting someones labour value indirectly in rent.  This all gets into something very different though - a broad simple class is much better there is no reason why subtitles etc can't exist under this broad distinction, this is how superstructures work.

[Kankurette]

I'm a freelance translator, I own my own home and I went to uni, as did my parents. Definitely middle-class. Not saying i don't want to be called working class or that I'd find it shameful. I just don't see how I am, not least because of all the class markers. I got the impression my colleagues in my last job thought I was up myself and a posh girl.

[JaDanketies]

Definitely landlords can't be counted as working class, but I really do think that the moniker 'upper class' is reserved for the Jacob Rees-Moggs of this world. Someone who has a buy-to-let in Coventry likely has more in common with a brickie in London than with the members of the upper class.  You might call them the 'landlord class'.

Actually, we associate bricklayers, painters and decorators and other manual traders as working class, but many are more well-paid than many office-based university-educated 'professionals' nowadays. Especially when you get into skilled workers like plumbers and electricians. Not to besmirch bricklayers, that's a skill too.

The Working / Middle / Upper class distinction is too blunt for the modern age, as is arguably the proletariat and the bourgeoise. At least the proles and the bougies are well-defined though.

Definitely when you're a homeowner, a big chunk of your money is going to an asset you own. When you're a renter your money goes to some other guy's pockets. But a wealthy person could easily rent a swish city centre apartment and not own their own home.

[Kankurette]

'traditional working class' has been a dog-whistle for 'white' used by far right groups like the BNP and UKIP for yonks, it became legitimised by the brexiteer arm of the tories and also enveloped by their culture war bullshit since.

Akala got a Tory plant good with that on QT - could only find a Skwakbox link: https://skwawkbox.org/2018/05/11/akala-owns-tory-plant-on-bbcqt-but-look-at-the-woman-to-his-right/

It is pretty telling how the Old Labour/'Gillian Duffy was right and Labour are too woke these days' crowd always conveniently forget black and Asian areas where Labour have a lot of votes. And that not all working-class people are white.

[Zetetic]

Definitely when you're a homeowner,

And more importantly, a large part of your income derives from capital.

That's the relevant distinction, and covers off "wealthy" people who happen to have all of their capital outside of housing[nb]This is a trivial number of people in the context of the UK, of course.[/nb].

[Pink Gregory]

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

with my own set of teeth

and fingernails

cultivating wheat, to have for my tea

[AllisonSays]

I think you might be talking about something a bit different here - which is really interesting but I don't really see how it contradicts these notions of class

I guess I'm just pointing out that sometimes the categories obscure as much as they show.

[TrenterPercenter]

I'm a freelance translator, I own my own home and I went to uni, as did my parents. Definitely middle-class. Not saying i don't want to be called working class or that I'd find it shameful. I just don't see how I am, not least because of all the class markers. I got the impression my colleagues in my last job thought I was up myself and a posh girl.

As mentioned depending on how much you own other peoples labour in your work then you could be petite bourgeois if you really wanted but most freelancers and self-employed are only really own their own labour on paper; usually they are working/being paid by someone; they just don't have contract of work.

going to uni does not make someone middle class
owning your own home doesn't make someone middle class
being self-employed doesn't make someone middle class

You are not describing anything about work other than self-employed you seem to just being saying working class is the same as being poor - which isn't the case.  Also there always appears a big onus on people to prove what working class is but not middle class; there is a myriad of classes in middle class that essentially renders it pointless other than for people to just say "I'm not the same as these poor people" (in my opinion).

[Endicott]

Would it be fair to say there are two competing definitions?

1. The Bosses - they say for example, that (extreme example) the Queen is upper class, by virtue of birth, and that a brickie is lower class, also mainly by virtue of birth. There's an idea you can do a bit of social climbing but it's thin gruel and difficult to get accepted by the uppers.

2. Marx - which Trenter's already expressed clearly enough for me.

The two don't really mix. The first one is there to define your servility. The second one is there to show you how to change it.