Who Are The Working Class?

[naomi24]

Well?

[naomi24]

What constitutes a luxurious lifestyle is debateable, but if they are only able to maintain their lifestyle by working, then in my opinion, yes, they are, tomus.

[tomus42]

Ok thanks. How about someone that has lived their whole life on a council estate, and worked in the local factory who then finds themselves with a load of funds through inheritance, lottery win or whatever. They decide to continue working even though they don't have to. Are they working class?

I'm not being argumentative, just asking your opinion, because it's scenarios like this that I find it hard to define the term working class.

[naomi24]

Tomus, I know you’re not being argumentative, and it’s a very good question. For me, the man who wins the lottery is no longer working class because he is not obliged to work. That said, ‘working class’ is often defined by, as you say, being raised on a council estate, but also by accent, lack of education, a job that involves manual labour, etc., whereas the perceived middle/upper classes, wherever they began life, may be defined as those who rise through the ranks in the business world or are employed in professions that demand formal qualifications, who buy their houses, pay for private health insurance, send their children to private schools, and take very little from the public purse. Those who decry the latter because ‘it’s alright for them’, fail utterly to recognise the effort that goes into achieving, and moreover, into maintaining a lifestyle which very often means that, after all outgoings, those people are, financially, worse off than the man in the council house who makes a good living and has fewer demands on his income.

It’s an interesting subject to toss around and thank you for joining in. Care to have a go at defining it?

[pixie374]

Nouveau-riche seems to be the phrase for that. But this is why it is confusing, as many people could probably belong to many "classes" at the same time. I'm not sure what or why or who still uses these kinds of phrases.
The government is obvious, as it is vague enough for nobody to know who it really includes...

[sevenOP]

'Karl Marx defined the working class or proletariat as individuals who sell their labour power for wages and who do not own the means of production.'

It is a spectrum of small to massive employers, private or public.

[dannyk13]

I think the generally accepted definition is blue collar workers as opposed to white collar.

[pixie374]

I do both... so not sure how this works?

[tomus42]

//It’s an interesting subject to toss around and thank you for joining in. Care to have a go at defining it? //

When I've thought about it, my best definition is pretty much the same as yours - if you need to work to live, you're working class.

However, you then find exceptions to the rule which complicate things, a couple of which I've given. Another thing is what is exactly meant by 'to live' in my definition above. What quality of life are we talking about. If it's very very basic subsistence, then I'm not working class because I wouldn't need to work.

If it's living in a decent house, running a car and having a couple of holidays a year, I'm working class because I'd need to work to fund that.

For me, the 'class' element of it is obsolete. There are just people that work and people that don't. That's why my first answer to this thread was that I have no idea what it means really.