[Closed] Define "middle class" for me please.

Oh, and the sketch with Messrs Cleese, Barker and Corbett was from The Frost Report, not the Two Ronnies.

Indeed it was.

In song - search youtube for middle class is magical

Middleclass is magical
A safe world free from strife
Let bad things happen to other folk
While you read Country Life

Buy an Aga
Wear a Monsoon dress
Get your food from M&S
Own an iPhone
Watch Bear Grylls
Take anti-depressant pills

Middleclass is magical
Drive a 4x4 to school
Keep three sorts of hummus in your fridge
Make over your downstairs loo

Learn to salsa
Ski in Verbier
Drink too much Chilean Chardonnay
Ignore the homeless
Don’t mind burkahs
Condesend to migrant workers

(WHISTLES TO TUNE)

When all the world is middleclass
They’ll be no poverty or starvation
Cos we’ll all grow our own mange tout
And Mylene Klass will rule the nation!

Because…

Middleclass is magical
Join us and see
You’re already half-way there
Cos you’re not watching ITV

Yes, middleclass is magical
What matters is what we wear
Let’s pay someone else to do the difficult jobs
While we work on our hair

Middleclass is magical, yeah!

Whether middle class is a positive or negative view depends on your perspective:

Why does it have to be a positive or negative thing ? There is nothing good or bad concerning whether you are working class, middle class, or upper class, it's just a fact, like whether you're tall or short.

"it's just a fact, like whether you're tall or short. " is it though ? I know I'm medium height and build and how that can be measured and agreed . I believe I'm middle class but i can make a good case for being working class . At school i was the posh boy because we used butter and drank coffee but in my last employment i was mocked as rough for coming from a terrace in a one time mining town that still had outside toilets in the yards (every one had indoor plumbing by the time i was born.)

The problem appears to be that for some reason middle class is still bandied about like it means something but no body can really define it in a way that differentiates from lower class .

My two working class mates are both financially better off than me have longer and more expensive holidays and one has better pension provision .

The problem appears to be that for some reason middle class is still bandied about like it means something but no body can really define it in a way that differentiates from lower class .

Oh come on, it's easy enough - you're just [i]making[/i] it difficult. A working-class person is a blue collar worker who has had basic level of education, is paid hourly/per shift for doing a manual job, which if he/she is a C2 is normally described as a trade. A middle-class person is typically a white collar worker, often with in a managerial position, who has qualified in further eduction, is salaried, and who's non-manual job is normally described as a profession.

That's the basics, but level of income and property ownership comes into it too - middle-classes tend to have higher levels of income and property ownerships, unsurprisingly.

Obviously it is not always clear-cut and the boundaries are often very blurred, specially when it comes to income, and in the last 30/40 years, property ownerships. But very often it is absolutely clear-cut. It certainly is in my case - blue collar hourly paid manual worker with a trade who received basic level of education. Plus I'm on an average industrial wage and don't own property, ie, extremely typical and very easily characterised.

I have to say it amuses me somewhat how some people appear to feel uncomfortable with the fact that social classes exist and deal with that problem by pretending that they don't. The "it's all outdated nonsense" "everyone is middle class now" stuff. Clearly social classes do exist - a binman and a judge do not belong to the same social class. And whilst boundaries might [i]sometimes[/i] be blurred, generally, by ticking boxes, a reasonable assessment can be made. I'm sure marketing people for example, can characterise people into their individual social classes without any real problem. As the people responsible for this undoubtedly did :

[img] [/img]

Obviously for ease they have grouped everyone into either ABC1 or C2DE, but those further strata within working-classes/middle-classes/upper-classes exist precisely to help deal with blurred boundaries.

Oh come on, it's easy enough - you're just making it difficult. A working-class person is a blue collar worker who [b]has had basic level of education[/b], is often paid hourly/per shift for doing a manual job which if he/she is a C2 is normally described as a trade.

I think that's a salient bit. People (often middle class as classified by you) mistake and substitute the "had a basic level of education" bit for "not very bright" which is quite wrong and I find excruciating in some middle class company . You for example describe yourself as working class through education and job roll but are one of the most articulate contributors here. My family was very working class until my father who was the first to stay at school through A levels and then go to university and now he and my generation are the epitome of middle class despite family roots. I get the impression they were however very intelligent from reading their notebooks and journals as an adult and my memories of them as a child.

Isn't it the difference between "class" (ass) and "class" (arse)?

I can't decide what I am, from the myriad posts above.

I pronounce 'class' as 'clarse'.
I don't watch ITV.
I like houmous.

But:
I go to work.
I don't have ski-ing holidays.
I don't drive a 4x4.
I don't take my children out of school so that I can save a few bob on a holiday.
I don't pay more for my vegetables because they have mud on, because I grow them myself.
I have a shower both before *and* after work.

I suspect most people haven't got a clue what it means. And the rest of us really don't care.

I have not read the whole thread but I am constantly amused by people claiming to be working class when they are so obviously middle class - working class background you might have had but once you get your degree and work in a salaried job you become middle class.

"Money doesn't buy you class..."

Too many people are obsessed with this class malarkey. I know people who thrive on being upper class, who don't have a pot to pi$$ in...

I don't know where I'd put myself? I used to work as a labourer for my brother-in-laws construction company, did 9 years in the RAF, producing ministerial level products, and now work for the family business (holiday and leisure sector) which has been valued at quite a few million squids.....

I'm now driving around in Phantoms and Ferraris, but I'm still the same clown that was chuffed to bits after putting his hard earned savings towards his Citroen AX GTi...

Oh come on, it's easy enough - you're just making it difficult. A working-class person is a blue collar worker who has had basic level of education, is paid hourly/per shift for doing a manual job, which if he/she is a C2 is normally described as a trade. A middle-class person is typically a white collar worker, often with in a managerial position, who has qualified in further eduction, is salaried, and who's non-manual job is normally described as a profession.

Salaries are a largely a con and have permeated thought companies as some sort of social status because of there association with middle class jobs that you talk about. When infact many salaried jobs are now at a low level but its a convenient way to get out of paying people overtime.

I have to say it amuses me somewhat how some people appear to feel uncomfortable with the fact that social classes exist and deal with that problem by pretending that they don't.

If there was only one person in the universe, social class would not exist - it is a means of describing and catagorising multiple people into groups.

Social class does not exist to me if I do not compare myself to others. It can be applied to me by other people, but I do not apply it to myself, as it involves comparisons with other people which ultimately leads to either envy or smug self-satisfaction, neither of which acheive anything.

I am not denying social class exists, I just don't feel this obsessive need to compare myself to others and catagorise my place in the world. I'm too busy living for that.

I'm now driving around in Phantoms and Ferraris, but I'm still the same clown that was chuffed to bits after putting his hard earned savings towards his Citroen AX GTi...

middle class (upper)

how can you not see this..?

Because the size of your house or the car you drive does not define your 'class'...

For example; Chavvy lottery winners. Do they instantly become upper class? I think not.

Doing manual labour for a few year does not make you working class either. Having a multi million pound family business to go work in is more defining, towards the upper-middle class range as yunki points out.

Well I believe it's more about your roots. We're not old money.

As a boy, my father used to have sugar on bread as a treat. Is this middle class?...

We've gone from nothing to what we have now over the past 10 years. We're still the same people with the same work ethic etc. Same friends, same family. Life is just that little bit easier now.

The thing which annoys me now is peoples jealousy and how they change their perception of you as soon as you do well.

I don't drink Petrus, I like Guinness!

I don't see how what your father did as a boy is relevant.

ryanw - a classic of what I said above - you may have working class roots, you are not working class now

I don't think its about manual jobs, working in an office now is the same as working on a factory floor in the 60's, or university education.

Its about the control you actually have over your own life (whether you understand your level of control or not), do you get to choose a career or just get the best job you can find, do you get to choose where you live etc.

People who post 100!

I see your point Jeremy.

Those very roots are something I hold close to my heart and which I shall pass on to my children.

I think todays society are so eager to pigeonhole people and stereotype them into this 'class ladder', really gets on my tits.

I think there should be two groups: MPs and normal people... lol

I'm classless. This man told me so.

[img] [/img]

He was bang on too. I have absolutely no class at all

So basically class is entirely fluid and is measured by education and employment status . Given that educational achievement can be obtained at any stage in life and employment for any one can change overnight then the concept of class is next to meaningless. That is why the graph above refers to socio economic groups and then has to fragment and subdivide them .

Well I believe it's more about your roots. We're not old money.

As a boy, my father used to have sugar on bread as a treat. Is this middle class?...

My dad grew up in a house with no electricity and a midden in a shed outside for a toilet. He passed his eleven plus, got a scholarship to a boarding grammar school, and is now a university professor. I'm as middle class as they come.

So, wot crankboy sed basically.

As a boy, my father used to have sugar on bread as a treat.

+1 for what crankboy said.

My grandad was a removals man, my father started as an apprentice in a local factory and was born in a council house. With that Im now "upper middle" class, with my dad having worked to pay for an "upper middle" class upbringing. Shoot me.

Perhaps Upper class is "hereditary", but the rest is your own..

We're all middle class, just some maybe not yet 😉

exactly.. you define your class by your own actions..

not by a note from your mum

not by a note from your mum

Someone who lives in an area where people mostly drive silver cars.

Stoner - Member

+1 for what crankboy said.

............. With that Im now "upper middle" class

If you agree with crankboy that class definitions are meaningless then why are you categorising yourself into a class ? Or was that a joke lost on me ?

.....it involves comparisons with other people which ultimately leads to either envy or smug self-satisfaction, neither of which acheive anything.

Why would it do that ? It certainly doesn't do that for me, I feel neither smug nor envious. I simply accept that we live in a society with different social classes - an undeniable fact. And I don't understand why some people appear to be so defensive, as if categorising them into a social class somehow represents an attack on them. As I said previously, there is nothing good or bad concerning whether you are working class, middle class, or upper class, it's just a fact.

Now what I do accept is an issue is the relationships between the different social classes - perhaps that's the reason for the apparent defensive mode of some people ? But that issue has absolutely nothing to do with smugness or envy, it is about what constitutes legitimate rights, privileges, and power.

If you are seriously bothered about the existence of different social classes then strife to build a classless society. If however you think a classless society is pie in the sky unachievable nonsense, then fine - say so. But don't pretend that you live in one, it makes no sense at all.

I can't be arsed to even attempt to define middle class. It means nothing to me.

Anyone who is actually bothered about this sort of thing is a superficial prat. "Ohhhh I'm so middle class because I drive a audi, went to a red brick uni and am a professional". Sod off.

I pity people who actually think this sort of thing is important, in a similar way to those who think money, looks or power are really important.

I don't think its about manual jobs, working in an office now is the same as working on a factory floor in the 60's, or university education.

Its about the control you actually have over your own life (whether you understand your level of control or not), do you get to choose a career or just get the best job you can find, do you get to choose where you live etc.

I reckon this is the best description.

There are plenty of people who have a degree and have a salaried job but have no more control over their lives than a factory worker from the 50/60s.

If you own your house and have some savings/pension your probably not working class anymore even if you have a manual job. Because you have a level of control over your life and could stop working and live in your house.

However if you have a degree and work a big city paying rent the your basically a slave to your wage and this would make you working class in my book.

this blue collar manual job / degree white collar thing came in when white collar jobs generally used to pay more, but this is no way guaranteed now.

I pity people who actually think this sort of thing is important, in a similar way to those who think money, looks or power are really important.

middle class angst

Bbsb beat me to it but here's the link to the brilliant "middle class is magical" song from the mongrels tv series (flash required)

[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/clips/p0096fwm/mongrels_middle_class_is_magical_song/ ]Middle class is magical[/url]

middle class [s]angst[/s] W**k

According to the majority of that up there I'm middle class. Aye right!!!

I don't think its about manual jobs, working in an office now is the same as working on a factory

Defiantly true. There are plenty of poor prospect low / semi-skilled office jobs, just as there are low / semi-skilled factor or manual jobs now, just as there are skilled office jobs and skilled factory / manual jobs. The difference is the office worker will be on con that is a salary because that's the way office work has evolved.

If "class", however defined, is no longer an issue or, at best, an irrelevant one, how do we get almost 120 posts and three pages of comment on it? And why the anti-middle class sentiment (which appears to only come from one direction.)?

Is it like the weather, something that the Brit culture is merely pre-determined to talk/obsess about?

As some US judge remarked whe trying to distinguish between art or porn. "You know it when you see it"

"Shameless" is a comedy not a documentary.

See also "The Royle Family"

This subject has been done to death on here plenty of times...

The old fashioned "class" descriptions are totally different to the more recent "socio-economic groupings"

The best definition I have seen for "class" relates to the [u]means[/u] of making a living, not how much £££ that living comprises.

[b]Upper class[/b] - Easy to define - hereditary, can trace family line back to 100s years before anyone else could read or write... May have huge wealth (principally property) or not a lot.
[b]Makes a living[/b]... probaly doesn't need to - independent means

[b]Working class[/b] - Again, [u]should[/u] be easy to define, but commonly confused with pay / salary / earning level / job type... in essence
[b]Makes a living[/b] - through sale of their labour

[b]Middle class[/b] - trickier in modern times, but only if sidetracked by "earnings".
[b]Makes a living[/b] - through working of their assets or sale of others labour, i.e. NOT through sale of their own labour.

Many farmers are very good examples of "middle class" (excluding the gentlemanly estates and big business units - ie the smaller family farms that were once so common in the UK countryside. Very high asset value wealth, which has to pass between generations to maintain the business. Often very, very low "earnings" / cash, and for a lifetime of very hard, often manual graft. By the work they do, absolutely working class, but they don't make their living by selling their time.

What about someone who say programs computers? In principle no different to being a builder, but I don't consider myself working class.

I think disposable income comes into it too.

But you do work for a living?

If you didn't work, you'd have no living.

After a while of "not working" would the bailiffs be around to take back things that are "not yours" - eg car on lease / loan, house on mortgage etc...?

These topics seem to confuse "work" for "manual work"

Admittedly, at higher salaries, professionals can, in time, move from "working class" to "middle class" based on the outright acquisition of assets.

So a banker on a £1M bonus might be considered "working class" whilst working (in the loosest sense 😉 ) for a living. Within a period of time (6 months, say), the banker could buy a property outright and invest a fund to allow living by independent means, ie without the need to sell his / her labour. Would then be "middle class"

In Ireland you were middle class if you didn't own a horse.

Middle class - whining about poverty when you earn more than most of the population does 🙂

A question asked today that may be gone by tomorrow.

With 41% of the youth going to uni, governments that failed to get 50% in, the drive for social mobility combined with turning us from a manufacturing industry to service industry is going to turn a lot of people into middle class believers.

There could be a sharp division though, with those who didn't get into HE. Although A levels are the new GCSE's, and degrees the new A levels, no one is willing to admit it yet. The 'underclass' of the future may be everyone who didn't go into HE. So it's a race for the government to socially mobilise half the country before the examination system falls flat on its face.

Us, and Them! That may be how it becomes. Anyone lower than HE educated will be chavs, hopeless losers, socially excluded from the middle classes. Society may fragment along that dividing line. We're already seeing (via Joseph Rowntrees Foundation) worrying signs that the lifestyles of the middle class in future may not be middle class at all, but working class labelled as middle class. Average wage in my city is £12,400. JRF working groups believe you need £14,400 here as a single person, working, no car, renting a room in a shared house, mobile phone, money to keep in clothes/shoes and a little bit of money to spend in society. And these people will misguidedly think they are middle class!

This Octobers fresh students come into uni and a BA will leave them borrowing £42-44,000 with interest from day one, possibly paying back £70,000 over their lifetime. I had the displeasure to deal with Aaron Porter myself when he stated to my face that those taking a BA in English Language/Linguistics at my uni would earn £24,000 more than an A level leaver over their entire working lifetime. That's not the £100,000 the government tits said. It's a lot less than the debts this years entry students are going to accumulate.

My view is that the 'middle class', once the division kicks in, will become the new working class, but more worringly a 'grey class'. Too bloody apathetic to do something about the hole they've allowed themselves to be led to and buried in. Calling people names and discluding them from conversation in a bullying manner because it's the easier option to them, instead of engaging. Whilst they suffocate to death, somewhere along the line they'll maybe realise being human is more than this, but will they step forward and acknowledge? No, let the bullying and name calling begin. It's far easier. Just hope your kids don't come under the same treatment when they are out of your sight, because this is the world you've enable. I've seen parents tell their kids to bully other kids to avoid falling to the bottom of the pile, watched a guy hand his 7 year old kid a knife to take to school to prove he's a man. I've seen parents baseball batting each other in the playground because of bullying. And the worrying thing is, they had to learn it somewhere and it's from their parents.

I'm working class, from parents who broke out of dire working class backgrounds to eventually become middle middle class. This June I finish education and should go into a career that will class me as middle middle class, with a pathway to go further to upper middle. The labels aren't terribly worrying to me, but it's how those around you behave that is the most disturbing part of it all, particularly when you start thinking about the steering of social mobility in recent times and the real state of work, housing and society here in the UK.

I don't really know where to start with that.
But I want to point out:

those taking a BA in English Language/Linguistics at my uni would earn £24,000 more than an A level leaver over their entire working lifetime.

On average.

Having a degree does not automatically entitle you to any more earnings than not having a degree. A degree is neither sufficient nor necessary.

after just getting home from a shopping trip I think can tell you what middle class definitely [i]isn't[/i]..

and that's buying a 60 quid suit from Matalan.. result.!! 😀