How do you know what class you are e.g. salary, home etc...?

Question

In the UK class is a major issue, i believe that it's more of an issue than in any other country because there is such a divide between working class and middle class.

My question is though what puts you in a certain class. How big does your salary have to be to be classed as middle class. I always thought of middle class in the past as people like doctors who had "posh" accents but in recent years i feel that the middle class boundary as becoming lower.

Answer 1

Where you live.

What you earn.

What school you go to.

What holiday you take.

What qualifications you have.

What you do on the weekends.

What you wear.

All these things decide your class. Im middle working class. That means I live in an Ok estate, we are ok for money but not rolling in it etc ...

Answer 2

I'm in the US and class is a much looser concept....theres no real boundaries....most people think they're in the middle class.

but uh, you think class is a bigger issue in England than in India? They take that **** pretty seriously there...even had to learn all about it severl times throughout school....the english class system was never brought up though.

Answer 3

class is about where you stand in 1)production and hense the 2)stratification system.

1) What i mean by production is wether you work for a wage producing a distributing some sort of socially useful good such as if you work in a factory, supermarker or even a bank or if you own the means of production such as the factory, supermarket or bank etc.  Marx called these the workers and the capitalists. the workers work or sell their labour to owners of production for a wage and the capitalists own production and extracted a profit from it. Marx believed since capitalists always wanted a profit they tried to make workers work longer hours without having to pay them much marx thought and it did and does become a point of conflict and workers and capitalists would struggle and mediate there opposing interests. Marx thought this would end in the workers  eventually taking power and owning and working in production without capitalists.

2) Stratification is a little more complicated than this in reality each of these groups i identified are stratified and in fact these strata more or less represent classes in themselves especially in western societies. For example there are workers who are payed a lot of money such as professionals like lawyers, Doctors, lecturers. And their skills are in low supply and in high demand so capitalists can really afford to ask them work for less. They are sheilded from this struggle and they are relatively well off so in reality thier experiences and perceptions about reality are a lot different from the other strata of people who work for a wage. On the other hand their are capitalist who own small bussinesses and invest labour and energy in it themselves to a much greater degree than shareholders or something like that. These have a different experience than large capitalists and would probably be more aligned with those who work for a wage but are in high demand and low supply. But to an extent they might even relate(depending how small there bussiness is) with those who work for a wage. A unique feature of these smaller capitalists is that they represent older more competative models of capitalism where there where high levels or competition and less levels of monopoly. They in a way are opposed to large capitalists who run monopolies which block their success in the market. I think these to alternative strata of marx's classes can be jointly called the middle class.

However there are also people who work for a very low wage and/or are intermitantly or permanently unemployed or involved in casual labour. Again they are those who suffer high levels of  poverty/deprivation and often seen little rise in living standard in boom periods. They are like a permanant army of casual labourers and unemployed people present more or less in every society.

I think taking all this into account you should ask do I(or do my parents/partner)

1)Work for a wage in a job which has skill which is in ample supply with resonable demand.(working class)

2) Work for a wage in a job which is on high demand low to relatively low supply.(Professional or middle class)

3)Own and control the means of production such as a large company(or own shares and use as a principle means of subsistence)(Capitalist class)

4) Own and control the means of production which is small enough that A) Labour is invested in it and B) That interests clash with large monopolistic firms that exist today.(Middle class)

5) Who are socially disenfranchised and have little or no permanent work or means of subsitence except maybe state or charitable handouts.(underclass)

I realise within all these groups there are even more strata which live very different lives from each other such as a person who works in casual labour vs someone who is homeless.

Also executives in corporations are wage workers who to a certain extent control the means of production at the behest of shareholders. Do they consitute a class? certainly they are a major social force as they manage TNCs etc..

Answer 4

Working class are usually classified as manual/day labor jobs, which typically don't pay very well.  Middle class is commonly considered to be "white collar" jobs, where you spend most of your time behind a desk, on the phone, or in a supervisory position.  The class line is dynamic and changes from year to year.  Depending on the region, American middle class is typically around $60,000 annual family income.