In contrast, we Brits find the idea that class = money to be odd, too. Class is about heritage and experience, not how much is in your bank account. But then this opens up a whole wider debate about attitudes towards money – to us, it seems money is the only marker of success or social standing in the US, which we regard as rather crass, to be honest. Money has a rather grubby reputation in many ways, hence the loathing of bankers. Being able to make it rich on the back of your poorly paid workers isn’t treated as anything glorious or particularly admirable.
Nor is accident of birth.
Let me guess: rum, sodomy and the lash?
That’s exactly why taking pride in being anything upwards from working class is frowned upon. Actually, I can’t even say it’s frowned upon, it’s pretty much unheard of.
Dressing like that is dressing like you’re poor, in the UK at least. And you could be a wigga and a chav. Black people can only be chavs, obviously (or rich, or middle-class - I meant that they can’t be wiggas), but there are plenty of chavs whose ancestors came from other parts of the world.
I actually feel a bit wrong typing chavs so often. It’s used so insultingly that it feels a bit like typing the n-word and acting as if it’s normal. Some people have started to “reclaim” the term, but that adds to my feeling, because you can’t “reclaim” a term that was neutral.
Sadly, one of the shows I mentioned was on the BBC. Another was on Channel Four, which started out being quite left-liberal. It’s not limited to one channel.
Another policy from the current govt, that is only just coming into force, is charging single parents who use the Child Support Agency to claim money from from absent parents. Rich people tend to use lawyers instead; this will not affect them. It’s just another trickle in the deluge of laws that will affect the poorest the most.
(BTW, I did try to find a link for this but just can’t. I read about it being proposed about a year ago, and heard on the radio today that it’s going through. My googl-fu is very weak).
I’ll admit I laugh at the people who lose their family wealth.
But you can be “poor”–that is, work at a job that pays a small salary–and still be upper class. Your parents and the friends you grew up with might have money, but you don’t have personal money, unless you’ve been given a trust fund.
But you’re still upper class if you can crash at your upper class buddy’s place.
Or you could own a nice house you’re not paying for. With the cost of property here, someone with neither to pay could live quite nicely on a fraction of the salary of renters or those who had to borrow to buy.
Or you could spend a bit of money to buy a pair of high quality boots and have them last the rest of your life, as opposed to spending far more in the long run to buy a cheap new pair of cardboard boots every year that fall apart after a couple of heavy rains. It was a policeman that pointed that out to me.
This isn’t always true. As I’ve seen and heard the term used, it can also allude to what one chooses to spend their money on should they happen to enjoy a windfall or otherwise stop being poor–lots of bling or expensive vehicles with garish paintjobs and add-ons might be good examples.
I don’t use the phrase myself because I consider it racist.
Given the way inheritance works among the Peerage I suspect this is typical for most members of the family except for the current holder of the titles. The eldest son and his eldest son have the prospect of one day succeeding to the title, but even for them, that often won’t happen until they are far into middle age. On the other hand, these younger children remain “fully qualified” members of the aristocracy, and in many cases must enjoy enormous advantages by virtue of connections or family wealth, or both.
Yeah, but with a cheap pair of boots you can tell where you are in town just by the feel of the cobblestones.
British ‘upper class shabby aristocracy’ are probably going to be several generations removed from when the family was wealthy, however. If your parents were rich and you somehow managed to loose all that money in the very next generation, you would doubtless be held in a good deal of contempt in Britain, too. (You would still be upper class, if your rich parents had been, but as people in this thread keep telling you, that has zero to do with how much respect you get as an individual.)
I really have no idea what this means.
That class just*** is***, it has nothing to do with respect, or being better. It’s not cool, it’s not clever. It just is.
Yes. Although most people probably feel a bit more comfortable in mixing with people of their own class, because they are likely to have more in common, there is very little feeling, these days, that one class is inherently better or worse than another. Certainly, very few middle or working class people believe that the upper classes are better than they themselves are, and if the upper classes do think they are better (and I am not saying they do), they will keep it to themselves for fear of ridicule and opprobrium. The notion that the ‘higher’ classes are better than those below them has been unacceptable (in the sort of way that racism is) since, probably, the 1960s at least. (Of course the terminology of “upper”, “middle”, and “lower” comes from a time when “upper” really was widely thought to be better, but those days are long gone now.)
Why are you Americans finding this so hard to grasp? Is that you really do think your rich people are inherently, morally better than your poor and middle classes?
No, to my mind at least this whole thing of “class” is artificial and actually a bit childish in my mind. Issue all the disclaimers you like, but why pay attention to it at all is my question. Take nine out of ten rich people in the US and some will be admired, some will be loathed, but the common element is that most people have absolutely no idea who the rich peoples’ parents were. Who is Bill Gates’ dad? Who was Steve Jobs’ mom? Who were the parents of Warren Buffet? I have no idea, and it never would occur to me to ask.
Now I don’t understand what you mean. I don’t know who anybody’s parents are either. But even when meeting Americans I can often tell what position their parents likely hold in society. You can deduce from behaviour and other cues if they are likely to be people who have books in the house, if they travelled abroad, if they took their kids to art classes and sports or not. You can get it wrong, but often you’ll be right.
Of course it’s artificial; it’s not like class is determined by some natural order. It’s just a tradition. You seem to want to be imbued with meaning it doesn’t actually hold (anymore). And even if everybody in the UK were to agree with you it wouldn’t make it go away. People will still have accents and habits and circles they move in. But the days that we made value judgements about those accents are long gone.
See, that’s the difference. To me and many other Europeans it is a naturally occuring pattern. You don’t have to pay attention intentionally. I know that things work differently in America to certain degree, but for me it is seriously difficult to believe it is as different as you and many others claim.
We are not sitting around reviewing résumés or pedigrees. We just naturally gravitate towards people with similar stories more than chance explains. You may say that those are just neighbors, colleagues, friends of friends, people with shared hobbies, interests or views or those facing similar challenges etc., but all those things are simply part of how class works.
But I bet you know something about Paris Hilton’s family. Or the previous president’s.
Actually, I just had a look at Forbes’ list.
#4 is Charles Koch. #5 is David Koch.
#6 is “Christy Walton & family”. #7 is Jim Walton. #8 is Alice Walton. #9 is S. Robson Walton.
Wealthy families most certainly do exist in America, and the way both our countries work makes it easier for rich people to stay rich than it is for poor people to become rich. You just need enough time for them to forget what it was like to not be rich and you have your very own pseudo-aristocracy.
ETA: Also, as previously pointed out, wealth alone doesn’t make class. The reverse is also true. You wouldn’t know the parents of most of the richest people in the UK, either. In fact, there seems to be a lot more family going on in the US list than the UK one.