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Guardian article - the squeezed middle class?
Comments
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GeorgeHowell wrote: »All class labels are pretty meaningless these days. They are perpetuated by the hard left class warriors who are obsessed with them. If they were to recognise how ludicrous that all is they would have to stretch their tiny little minds to find something else to be angry, aggrieved, resentful, and embittered about.
I would agree that class labels are increasingly meaningless, though I do not necessarily agree with you that they are only used by 'the hard left'. You can look at it two ways: either we have a larger working class or a larger middle class. Ultimately, the real difference is between the rich and the rest of us. Anybody who needs to work for a living is, effectively, 'working' class in economic terms, regardless of whether he speaks like Brian Sewell and was educated at Eton. I believe that class is more of a social and cultural classification rather than an economic one.0 -
You can't call teachers and middle managers 'working class' - this would be absurd - so your definition is fallacious. The fact that 70% of people now consider themselves middle class is because the number of manual workers has declined dramatically since 1970 - the decline in trade union membership reflects this.Ultimately, the real difference is between the rich and the rest of us. Anybody who needs to work for a living is, effectively, 'working' class in economic terms, regardless of whether he speaks like Brian Sewell and was educated at Eton. I believe that class is more of a social and cultural classification rather than an economic one.
Are those two statements contradictory? Don't teachers and middle managers need to work for someone else?
Unless you can self support and don't need to work for anyone else you are not middle class it is just a way of appeasing the lower down the pecking order of life. A bit like the US calling managers Vice Presidents or School Heads directors of education.
Economics must come into play because how else could yo afford to not have to work for someone else."If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0 -
Earl Cardigan is a bus driver or white van man or something these days. Even aristocrats can need employment, or social housing.0
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GeorgeHowell wrote: »
All class labels are pretty meaningless these days. They are perpetuated by the hard left class warriors who are obsessed with them.
George I think you can find class delineation alive and well by for example attending a National Trust property, or NT beach such as Kynance Cove in Cornwall where you will hear only well spoken accents and children with names such as Rollo and Lucas. However, if you venture to the next beach slightly East of Kynance where the static caravans are, the accents are cockney rough Portsmouth and the names are Chantel and Kai.
Next time your'e somewhere like a zoo take note of the food the middle class types are eating and compare it to that which the rougher types are champing down on. There's a very marked difference indeed.
Similarly try comparing queues at airports. Compare the queue for Corsica or Montenegro to the queue for Marbella for example. It's stark.0 -
grizzly1911 wrote: »Are those two statements contradictory? Don't teachers and middle managers need to work for someone else?
Yes - but as I said you can define it as most people being middle class or working class - it depends on the definition you prefer to use.grizzly1911 wrote: »Unless you can self support and don't need to work for anyone else you are not middle class it is just a way of appeasing the lower down the pecking order of life. A bit like the US calling managers Vice Presidents or School Heads directors of education.
Economics must come into play because how else could you afford to not have to work for someone else.
This has never been the definition of being middle class. Look it up on Wikipedia or Britannica.0 -
Yes - but as I said you can define it as most people being middle class or working class - it depends on the definition you prefer to use.
This has never been the definition of being middle class. Look it up on Wikipedia or Britannica.
Another definition equated the middle class to the original meaning of capitalist: someone with so much capital that they could rival nobles. In fact, to be a capital-owning millionaire was the essential criterion of the middle class in the industrial revolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class
I don't know what an industrial revolution millionaire would be worth now but something a lot higher than the middle class of today."If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0 -
I would agree that class labels are increasingly meaningless, though I do not necessarily agree with you that they are only used by 'the hard left'. You can look at it two ways: either we have a larger working class or a larger middle class. Ultimately, the real difference is between the rich and the rest of us. Anybody who needs to work for a living is, effectively, 'working' class in economic terms, regardless of whether he speaks like Brian Sewell and was educated at Eton. I believe that class is more of a social and cultural classification rather than an economic one.
I completely agree with the last sentence, it isn't much about ways of making a living nowadays.Working class could be defined as anyone working for a living but with very limited ability to influence significantly their own remuneration, working conditions, or security of employment.
I don't think there are that many people who don't need to work at all -- excepting retirees who have worked and now live predominantly on pensions.
"The rich" is vary vague unless quantified in some way.No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions. He had money as well.
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.
Margaret Thatcher0 -
George I think you can find class delineation alive and well by for example attending a National Trust property, or NT beach such as Kynance Cove in Cornwall where you will hear only well spoken accents and children with names such as Rollo and Lucas. However, if you venture to the next beach slightly East of Kynance where the static caravans are, the accents are cockney rough Portsmouth and the names are Chantel and Kai.
Next time your'e somewhere like a zoo take note of the food the middle class types are eating and compare it to that which the rougher types are champing down on. There's a very marked difference indeed.
Similarly try comparing queues at airports. Compare the queue for Corsica or Montenegro to the queue for Marbella for example. It's stark.
Yes there's a lot in that. It's all about lifestyle choices, taste and fashion, preferred leisure activities, modes of speech etc. There may be some correlation between those things and income/wealth but it's certainly not a reliable one. Considering that class implies a heirarchy of some sort, is it fair to describe such differences as class ? Is someone who sports a few tattoos and body piercings, prefers the Sun to the Independent, jeans to chinos, lager to wine, burgers to bourguignon, soccer to rugby, and the X-Factor to Panorama necessarily lower down an imagined hierarchy than the person who is the mirror image of all that. Most people feel most comfortable among people similar to themselves in the social and cultural sense. It all then gets mixed and mingled with the political dimension, largely based around income and wealth, and the spurious attempt to classify people in some way by means of what they do for a living.
It's an ill-defined and unholy mess these days, and as a nation we should let it go, take people as they come (or not as the case may be) and stop agonising over it all to our mutual detriment, as we have been doing at least as far back as the Norman Conquest.No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions. He had money as well.
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.
Margaret Thatcher0 -
Tancred, you seem to be convinced that middle class is defined the way you chose to define it and that I am being snobbish.
I do not care what class I am by your definition or any other. I am wealthy enough to be classed as middle class by either of our definitions and I confess I still use a fountain pen and listen to classical music! That said I still think of myself as working class if I ever think of it at all.
My point is that many more people call themselves middle class than previously used to do so. If your definition is based on being non-manual workers you are quite correct, you exclude very well paid plumbers and electricians and include poorly paid secretaries and office workers in your middle class.
If this prolonged recession has taught us anything it should be that so may people who consider themselves to be a cut above the rest because they are "not working class" are kidding themselves that they have the sort of economic empowerment that once was associated with being middle class. They think that because they wear a suit to work, have a large mortgage, a nice car on tick and are still struggling to pay off last year's holidays that they are middle class. So clearly do you (based largely on the fact that some people are poorer and some are very rich so everyone is in the middle).Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are incapable of forming such opinions.0 -
This has never been the definition of being middle class. Look it up on Wikipedia or Britannica.
Maybe he did since it is referred to in Wikipedia!Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are incapable of forming such opinions.0
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