Where and who are America's working class?
Avenger referred to banged-up-truck driving, teeth-missing good old boys as middle class, a few posts down. If they and people like them are middle class, where are the working poor? Inner cities? Boondocks?
No one ever seems to mention them. Is America so rich that everyone (except the one percent) is a facet of the middle classes?

If I have made assumptions in this post with many questions, feel free to point that out.
There is a classic Two Ronnies sketch with John Cleese which I'm sure some of you will be familiar with, that ridicules England's class system as it was in the years after the war.
[www.youtube.com] ...and this is not it!

Try starting here...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/2012 07:46PM by SDGuy.

Thanks. Okay, I'll start reading it and try to learn another topic, but without having read the academic definitions, what do you people think? I was really looking for the opinion of the man on the Clapham omnibus.

Actually having read it (took a few mins break to do so), the standard definition is, well, standard (and non-definitive). So how is it that one never hears in popular culture including the news, of the working class? More or less invisible?
Somewhere between 30 - 45% of people are working class yet no-one seems to classify themselves as such. Are any of you?

Lately the '99%' have been vocal, but they can't all be working class, obviously. It seems there has been a shift, at least in the minds of certain people, into a 2 class society: the 1-5% Capitalists and the rest of us poor, deluded petit bourgeoisie.

But who are the serfs?

From earlier in that wiki-
"Working class majority
Seen from a sociological perspective based on class-cleavages, the majority of Americans can be described as members of the working class."

Some theorists "have data that shows the majority of workers are not paid to share their ideas." -this being one determinant of a person's class.

I am categorically working class according to the lists of the academes...in some respects. In others I am upper middle.

NPR is talking right now (I posted before I heard the radio article) about people marrying 'cross class'.

A professor at Princeton suggests it is rude to talk about class in America. That's just silly.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/2012 08:40PM by Manlove.

I don't think Americans talk about the "Working Class" like the British do. I have a feeling most people think of themselves as Middle Class without breaking it down further.

America, more than any other country , is devoid of a rigid class structure but there are those who insist on imposing classes to fit their own social views. The notion of "working" class goes back to the early labor movement and the left where if you did not use your hands you were not really working. The notion of "working class" in 2012 makes even less sense. Now, who is middle class? I know politicians struggle with this all the time. My definition is that anybody who has $500 left in their checking account on the 5th of the month is middle class!

I think you are right Dennis. People don't break it down much further than that.
I don't want to lead the witness, but perhaps there are a lot of things that don't get broken down in public debate and hence these sorts of divisions become enshrined.
Perhaps if things were talked about more (can you say '@#$%&' in public without offending others of becoming embarassed?), there would be less issue?

I really do have lots of questions about America and I have lived here for a long time, mainly observing the culture, and when I ask a question and then further ones I am not being rude, I am merely trying to figure out what everyone is doing and why.
Rude, is something else entirely!

Quote
Avenger
My definition is that anybody who has $500 left in their checking account on the 5th of the month is middle class!

Nice! I am occasionally middle class then!

This reminds me of a famous quotation that goes something like "taxonomy is the triumph of classification over common sense."

---

"So be proud to be a decent American instead of just a w'anker whipping up fear!" - Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland

I have been middle class for the better part of my life! The kids see to it that I stay there.

-Chuckled reading both the above-

To Avenger- I have, from her birth, convinced my daughter that she needs very little to be happy. Seems to be working so far (10 years)!

To davester, it sounds like something Wilde might have said. Talking of which, my daughter loves his aphorism about fashion: that it is so intolerably hideous that we must change it every six months.

"The notion of 'working' class goes back to the early labor movement and the left where if you did not use your hands you were not really working." - Dakota

Why are you so obsessed with The Left? Give it a rest.

What part of that statement is false?

Quote
Dennis S
I don't think Americans talk about the "Working Class" like the British do. I have a feeling most people think of themselves as Middle Class without breaking it down further.

Maybe not quite like the British, but Americans do make distinctions. Think of "blue collar" versus "white collar" as but one example of many. "Most" people may think of themselves as Middle Class, but it seems almost a social imperative here to do so without regard to actual circumstances. That includes many that fall in that "1%" category, but have only a limited connection with others of the middle class. About the only groups that do not feel that need as a whole seems to be "old money" and the very rich.

You might try reading George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier to get a feel for how different the class system is in England vs the US.

Thanks, I hadn't heard of The Road to Wigan Pier, although I am acquainted with other of his works, and of the history of the British worker in general.
From the wiki (what, read a whole book!?)-

Part Two

In contrast to the straightforward documentary of the first part of the book, in part two Orwell discusses the relevance of socialism to improving living conditions. This section proved controversial.

Orwell sets out his initial premises very simply

Are the appalling conditions described in part 1 tolerable? (No)
Is socialism "wholeheartedly applied as a world system" capable of improving those conditions? (Yes)
Why then are we not all socialists?

The rest of the book consists of Orwell’s attempt to answer this difficult question. He points out that most people who argue against socialism do not do so because of straightforward selfish motives, or because they do not believe that the system would work, but for more complex emotional reasons, which (according to Orwell) most socialists misunderstand. He identifies 5 main problems.

Class prejudice. This is real and it is visceral. Middle class socialists do themselves no favours by pretending it does not exist and—by glorifying the manual worker—they tend to alienate that large section of the population which is economically working class but culturally middle class.
Machine worship. Orwell finds most socialists guilty of this. Orwell himself is suspicious of technological progress for its own sake and thinks it inevitably leads to softness and decadence. He points out that most fictional technically advanced socialist utopias are deadly dull. H. G. Wells in particular is criticised on these grounds.
Crankiness. Amongst many other types of people Orwell specifies people who have beards or wear sandals, vegetarians, and nudists as contributing to socialism's negative reputation among many more conventional people.
Turgid language. Those who pepper their sentences with “notwithstandings” and “heretofores” and become over excited when discussing dialectical materialism are unlikely to gain much popular support.
Failure to concentrate on the basics. Socialism should be about common decency and fair shares for all rather than political orthodoxy or philosophical consistency.

In presenting these arguments Orwell takes on the role of devil's advocate. He states very plainly that he himself is in favour of socialism but feels it necessary to point out reasons why many people, who would benefit from socialism, and should logically support it, are in practice likely to be strong opponents.
-

I grew up in the 80's when the Red Wedge of artists and literati were calling for revolution against years of Thatcherism (and Reaganism). I watched as the union's were ripped apart and the govt. sold off everything to private investors.
Please don't confuse my seemingly naieve question for wanting a lesson in history.
I know these questions (and all discussions) boil down to a definition of words, and until we have agreed what a word means we are chasing each others tails, but I am seeking your opinions, not what history books or other academics say. I've worked in inner city New York. I've been on the subway at 4:30 am with the office cleaners and garbage collectors streaming down from the Bronx. I've seen at least some of America's working class, and have worked among them.
My own background is realistically upper middle class- grandparents were engineers and scientists, with a few (lower middle class) teachers and nurses thrown in. My accent is definitely not working class, though I can fit in when it seems appropriate. I do not 'cor blimey' and 'apples and stairs' all over the place, but I know the lingo. I've lived here long enough that I know the American language and how it is used (abused!), and there are certain ways of speaking that are associated with certain classes.

So far, I've heard that some of you are middle class and that's about it. Where are the 'proud to be working' Americans that are eulogised in popular mythology?

Quote
Manlove
...Where are the 'proud to be working' Americans that are eulogised in popular mythology?

I think most Americans would equate that to Blue Collar folks - who are not all that uncommon...

Quote
SDGuy

Quote
Manlove
...Where are the 'proud to be working' Americans that are eulogised in popular mythology?

I think most Americans would equate that to Blue Collar folks - who are not all that uncommon...

They're just ignored by today's politicians except for sound bites.