Breaking the class ceiling

[Swinglowandslow]

I disagree with these guidelines that are being used to define class. IMO they were once relevant but are now so blurred they are meaningless.

I understand what he's saying but just disagree with it. If we wish to take a literal view of what middle class means then the Cambridge Dictionary is as good as any:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/middle-class

I think people are singing from the same hymn sheet, just looking in different places on it ?.
Your first sentence indicates something like that. Is the “class you mean ,when someone is defined in commendable terms as being a good person, thoughtful ,caring and well mannered, as having “class”? V is not talking about that “class”.
He is talking about how Upper class is defined, and same with Middle class and Working Class .
In those three strata there are good and bad people, clever and idiotic, caring and selfish.
But history and convention has merely labelled their (economic mainly) status as being in one of those three bands. That’s all.

 

[WGCRider]

I suggest that anyone posting on this thread during work hours would struggle to define themselves as working class.

 

[IanM]

I suggest that anyone posting on this thread during work hours would struggle to define themselves as working class.

Browsing the Net Class is much a less divisive label!

 

[SocketRocket]

I think people are singing from the same hymn sheet, just looking in different places on it ?.
Your first sentence indicates something like that. Is the “class you mean ,when someone is defined in commendable terms as being a good person, thoughtful ,caring and well mannered, as having “class”? V is not talking about that “class”.
He is talking about how Upper class is defined, and same with Middle class and Working Class .
In those three strata there are good and bad people, clever and idiotic, caring and selfish.
But history and convention has merely labelled their (economic mainly) status as being in one of those three bands. That’s all.

Of course I'm not referring to whether people are 'classy' or not, I thought I made it clear I'm referring to socioeconomic status. I posted a link from the Cambridge Dictionary explaining how middle class is normally defined which is at variant how @Voyager EMH defines it. He seems to be mixed up between Middle and Upper class.

 

[Swinglowandslow]

Of course I'm not referring to whether people are 'classy' or not, I thought I made it clear I'm referring to socioeconomic status. I posted a link from the Cambridge Dictionary explaining how middle class is normally defined which is at variant how @Voyager EMH defines it. He seems to be mixed up between Middle and Upper class.

Well,it looks to me a matter of whether the definition has been modified over the years in that the Cambridge one is emphasising the modern view , I.e spectrum of earnings from work, whereas V’s ( and my ) definition is more historical where Middle Class had no need to work.
In any event, it’s unimportant…….I’m sure we agree that what matters is a person’s character and morals.
Wherever his origins.?

 

[2blue]

Yes, class is very difficult to nail down

 

[Mudball]

If you play golf… assume you are middle class .. ??

Football is in many ways still as a working class sport while Rugby/ rowing as a posh middle class sport. Equestrian (polo) more middle to upper class sport.

(Flame suit & exit)

 

[sunshine]

I used to have a colleague/friend .. born and raised somewhere up north. Working class background. All his siblings live around where they were born. He got his education and joined the army as a ticket out. Travelled the world and Served a few operations before leaving and becoming an expert in cyber defence in the city. Has done very well for himself. House in leafy Surrey.

During the big B event of 2016, he said he could not speak to his family. They would say things like ‘why should you southern t*ffs have everything!!’ Even though he was family.

I guess money does decide some opinions and class lines

Your friend travelled the world and now works in a cosmopolitan city, so now has different views from his family who have stayed in their northern working class enclave. I'm not sure how your story demonstrates money defines class?

 

[sunshine]

In the 1913 UK Registrar-General's report, the statistician T.H.C. Stevenson identified the middle class as those falling between the upper class and the working class. The chief defining characteristic of membership in the middle class is control of significant capital while still being under the dominion of the elite upper class.

This is an extremely vague and wishy washy definition. Middle class = people who aren't upper class or working class. That doesn't define anything at all

What are the boundaries? When does working become middle, or middle become upper?

 

[SatchFan]

Middle Class - people who shop at Aldi but use a Waitrose carrier bag.

 

[Fade and Die]

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;

 

[Voyager EMH]

The job of dictionaries is to reflect common usage, the colloquial.
I do not agree with the modern view that the 3 classes can be defined by job description.

A middle class person (owner of capital) can be a painter and decorator if that is what such a person chooses to do. Their job does not make them working class.
Doctors are working class unless they own enough capital to put them in the middle class bracket.

A doctor and a refuse collector are doing the same thing in the economy - working and receiving income for their work - no significant difference to categorise them in a different class.

The modern view is a result of a great many working people who have wanted to see themselves as something better than working class. Hence the satirical Cleese, Barker, Corbett sketch.

 

[Voyager EMH]

I think your reaction to the dress code at New Zealand or Rye defines your class!

If you object, you're working class

If you comply, you're middle class.

If you just arrive properly dressed, without any need to check it, you're upper class!

Thread closed!

... or whether you are directed to the locker-room for "gentlemen" or the one for "artisans".

 

[Voyager EMH]

This is an extremely vague and wishy washy definition. Middle class = people who aren't upper class or working class. That doesn't define anything at all

What are the boundaries? When does working become middle, or middle become upper?

The chief defining characteristic of membership in the middle class is control of significant capital.
Upper class is aristocracy, nobility and royalty.

 

[Slab]

The chief defining characteristic of membership in the middle class is control of significant capital.
Upper class is aristocracy, nobility and royalty.

I always assumed that the royalty/aristocracy were classless?

 

[sunshine]

The chief defining characteristic of membership in the middle class is control of significant capital.
Upper class is aristocracy, nobility and royalty.

But where is the boundary? What is significant?

 

[Swinglowandslow]

But where is the boundary? What is significant?

Surely the boundary is ..Can you live a comfortable life on your Capital alone, not having had to work for it in the first place.?
Probably handed down to your family from the nobility…..What is/was called
’old money’

Victorian England is where the boundaries were most obvious… now , of course, the situation has changed ( for the better). We have now a meritocracy, though lately I’m beginning to believe it’s more of a ‘connocracy ’

 

[SocketRocket]

Surely the boundary is ..Can you live a comfortable life on your Capital alone, not having had to work for it in the first place.?
Probably handed down to your family from the nobility…..What is/was called
’old money’

Victorian England is where the boundaries were most obvious… now , of course, the situation has changed ( for the better). We have now a meritocracy, though lately I’m beginning to believe it’s more of a ‘connocracy ’

Can you show some links to support this. I can't find anything suggesting your criteria for Middle Class.

 

[Swinglowandslow]

Can you show some links to support this. I can't find anything suggesting your criteria for Middle Class.

Can you show some links to support this. I can't find anything suggesting your criteria for Middle Class.

Offhand no, Not that bothered to look?, though from my observation of history , and portrayals of Victorian society, there are numerous residences in London ( streets of them) and the Shires where “ gentlemen of leisure” lived tended by domestic servants.
They didn’t work, they weren’t aristocracy, but they had a very comfortable position.
Other examples depicted in fiction were Sherlock Holmes etc,
You would have to be somewhat ignorant of history not to have noticed what I am talking about.
If you are still not sure, watch various (old) films this Xmas on TV. Plenty on there portraying Old England?

 

[WGCRider]

If you are still not sure, watch various (old) films this Xmas on TV. Plenty on there portraying Old England?

Funny you should invent this criteria. So when I watch Mary Poppins this Christmas. Both the bloke with the cool accent who sweeps the chimney and the guy that works in the bank (hilariously called Mr Banks) with the huge house and nanny are working class?