The changing face of the middle class

Generali

chucknorris wrote: »

Exactly, it is a great area for comedy. I find it can be great fun when people take themselves too seriously with regard to 'class', to be honest I don't really have any class perceptions. You are probably right it is more (if not entirely) a British thing.

I once sat with a couple of otherwise very nice colleagues in a pub in The City each of whom was on £60k+ at the very least, each of whom are now middle managers.

They insisted that they were working class and were highly passionate about it.

It's a bit pathetic IMHO. Just like the person that went to posh school that has utterly failed in adult life but continues to insist that it's all about 'breeding' or some such twaddle.

grizzly1911

Generali wrote: »

There's been some really interesting stuff on FT Alphaville about this and also about the upcoming robot revolution.

Part of the problem for the middle classes is the disappearance of a lot of the entry jobs. Things like being a bank teller or an administrator have been largely IT'd out of existence. In my world, due to computers we can run a lot more money with a lot fewer people than in the past. We have assets of about $150,000,000,000 and including sales staff we can look after that with fewer than 1,000 people. 30 years ago, the same sized book would have needed 10x more people at a guess once you adjust for inflation.

The robot stuff fascinates me but I don't want to drag this off topic. Even the current state of robotics even has an impact on what most countries would consider to be middle class employment such as factory foremen.

Interesting where you pitch the examples.

Middle class has been stretched in meaning but I would never have considered factory foremen as anything other than working class. Anything that ties you to a rigid x hours between y and z isn't really middle class.

To be truly middle class you need to have better real control of your own destiny.

Allowing people to believe they have escaped working class is a clever piece of social, political engineering.

chucknorris

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Interesting where you pitch the examples.

Middle class has been stretched in meaning but I would never have considered factory foremen as anything other than working class. Anything that ties you to a rigid x hours between y and z isn't really middle class.

To be truly middle class you need to have better real control of your own destiny.

Allowing people to believe they have escaped working class is a clever piece of social, political engineering.

What if the (part time) factory foreman also owned the (small) factory and a couple of other businesses too?


EDIT: It is very muddled and unclear who is middle class, the only thing certain of course is that if you don't own your own property then you can't be middle class. That last bit is of course just a wind up, lets see if anyone bites.

I'm sure no one would disagree with that.

Generali

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Interesting where you pitch the examples.

Middle class has been stretched in meaning but I would never have considered factory foremen as anything other than working class. Anything that ties you to a rigid x hours between y and z isn't really middle class.

To be truly middle class you need to have better real control of your own destiny.

Allowing people to believe they have escaped working class is a clever piece of social, political engineering.

It's all about income. Nothing more, nothing less.

Far too many people in the UK affect to be Working Class. I used to know the 18 y/o daughter of the MD of the (very large) company we worked for. She used to bang on endlessly about how she was working class. It's all balls.

A portfolio manager on £500k will be doing 8-6 every day, pretty much. Is he working class?

chucknorris

Generali wrote: »

It's all about income. Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm not so sure about that Gen, for example David Warner is quite wealthy but I heard that he eats burgers (not cucumber sandwiches) during the tea intervals. Perhaps you could point this out to your work colleagues?

wotsthat

Generali wrote: »

I once sat with a couple of otherwise very nice colleagues in a pub in The City each of whom was on £60k+ at the very least, each of whom are now middle managers.

They insisted that they were working class and were highly passionate about it.

I like Thailand where middle class = middle earner - simple.

I earn more than your colleagues but still consider myself working class. When I was a kid there was no doubt that I was working class and my parents definitely still are.

I don't know why but I feel slightly embarrassed about calling myself middle class.

Oh the problems of social mobility!

Generali

chucknorris wrote: »

I'm not so sure about that Gen, for example David Warner is quite wealthy but I heard that he eats burgers (not cucumber sandwiches) during the tea intervals. Perhaps you could point this out to your work colleagues?

I thought I was working class until I met Australians.

chucknorris

Generali wrote: »

I thought I was working class until I met Australians.

LOL, I think you should use that line over there, if you haven't already. I bet it would go down like a lead balloon. I heard that even the posh Aussies don't cut the crust of their cucumber sandwiches.

vivatifosi

Generali wrote: »

It's all about income. Nothing more, nothing less.

I think that's the point that the articles are making. Although we think of the professions mentioned (teaching, architecture, engineering, etc) as the traditional middle class, they are moving apart from the ubers of finance and medicine. This is all about changes in income.

What do these changes mean for future career choices and the make up of the economy?

Generali

vivatifosi wrote: »

I think that's the point that the articles are making. Although we think of the professions mentioned (teaching, architecture, engineering, etc) as the traditional middle class, they are moving apart from the ubers of finance and medicine. This is all about changes in income.

What do these changes mean for future career choices and the make up of the economy?

We come back to the point I didn't want to raise on this thread then, the coming 'robot smog'.

A huge number of jobs are about to be robotted out of existence. Jobs like driving will simply disappear.

Driving a car would have been impossible to automate 10 years ago, now it's being tested on normal roads. In another decade, computing power is likely to have risen a further 32-64 fold according to Moore's Law making it a doddle for a bus to be driven by a robot.

Why would cheffing continue to exist if we continue down this road? Imagine a chef that would never forget that the lobster was about to go out of date and would spend all night cleaning the kitchen. How about a waiter that would always remember my order and wouldn't forget to bring me another glass of red?

This is coming in the next decade to a society near you.