Here in America the only thing that I’ve ever heard indicate what class you belong to is your income. Although most people identify as middle class, even poor and rich people.
As for England, a few months ago when watching Graham Norton on BBC America, clips were shown of him talking candidly about various topics and he mentioned the class structure in England and said a lot of people would make judgments about other people based on their accent (what part of England they’re from), but since he’s from Ireland he’s outside of the class system.
Not so. No professional* is ever upper-class in Britain, unless, say, his dad is the Duke of Portland. Upper-middle, certainly. For example, my parents were doctors, and made enough money to send my brother and me to top public (private) schools, like this one, and were members of the local golf course, and so on, but we were always stuck where we were, aspirationally.
Richard Branson has a private island and is still not upper-class.
*excluding civil servants, who automatically get honours anyway.
Nope, in England class (except upper class) is about aesthetic choices and education (which ties in to profession) more than money or anything else.
Working class people are no more likely to be spendthrift than middle class people are.
I’ve heard that from a couple of Irish people before too, and it’s frankly bollocks. Anyone living in England roughly fits into the class system, no matter where they’re from originally. Accents are one way some people make assumptions about class, but they’re often wrong - there are plenty of middle class Northerners.
The class system isn’t rigid, though. You can’t move into upper class, but, frankly, I don’t think many people would want to. You certainly can move between middle and working class, and I know loads of people who have, myself included.
Agree totally. Everyone I have ever been out with has come from a working class background but, through intelligence, education and ambition, would be defined now as middleclass. And the same goes for my father, in fact.
Interestingly, my partner feels somewhat guilty for earning so much money and therefore letting down her working class routes.
Could you marry into upper class? Or would you always be destined to be “Lord So-and-So and his working class wife”?
And back on the American side, I know money is related to class but money is hardly the only thing. It’s the whole Beverly Hillbillies trope. Everyone knows someone whose money and class don’t quite match. Lottery winners are an extreme example, but it also happens when you have neighbors complaining about someone putting a car up on blocks in the front yard, or too many lawn ornaments. The car/lawn ornament owner certainly has the money to live in that neighborhood, but their actions are still firmly associated with a lower class.
Food can be a big indicator of this as well. Education and income-wise, I’m middle class, but my parents came from working class homes and we continued to eat that way growing up because it never occurred to anyone to change that. I’m talking about things like casseroles with Frito topping, or serving slices of Wonder Bread as the bread and butter on the dinner table. A fancy dinner.
I think class is how you behave. In the past it was probably education and whether you worked with hand or mind but there was always the working-class gent. Now, money and education appear to be creeping back to some extent that the old working class is mostly middle-class in the old way of thinking but now there’s a workless impoverished semi-criminal semi-literate underclass developing more reminiscent of Dickens than the 20th century. Their habits draw on a mixture of Jamaican and Gangsta images but they are just as likely to be white or Asian as black.
What about the idea of being underclass or working class with a lot of money? Imagine your stereotypical trailer trash family wins the lottery. Are they instantly middle class? No, because they’re still trailer trash and that is unlikely (though not impossible) to change.
It happened in the UK with Michael Carroll and his sudden funds didn’t make him an better.
With all this talk of the class structure in the UK, I’m surprised nobody has mentioned this Monty Python sketch:-
Of course it’s a take-off of Sons and Lovers by D.H Lawrence which was about somebody who wanted to better himself and move away from his working-class origins.
You might change to upper middle class (if you weren’t that already), but you wouldn’t be upper class. However, your children might be, or at least their children.
In many ways the upper class have more in common with the working class than with the middle class. Aspirational middle class people might think it’s terribly improper to bet on the horses, wear clothes you’ve had for decades, save food in tupperware and let your dogs jump all over the soft furnishings, but the Queen does all of that.
That’s true in Northern Virginia, and would be in NY or San Fransisco as well I’d think. Until last year $200,000 was barely enough to own a townhouse, much less have an actual yard. . .
When I think of someone’s “class” it’s usually in the context of their charity work. People who come up from nothing tend not to think of themselves as responsible for helping others. Whereas those raised in good homes (of whatever income) are taught early on to make donations or use their skills to help others. I think the English call it “Noblesse Oblige”. Not quite the same thing, but close.
Kate Middleton’s family is worth millions, yet is still middle class (her mother comes from a working class background). If she and Prince William marry she’ll be the first woman from outside the “upper class” to marry senior royalty (& one day be crowned queen). Diana may have been a commoner, but she was the daughter of an earl and pure upper class (ditto for the Queen Mum).
Class in America is commonly identified with income or career, but the most generally reliable indicator of an American’s class is how they treat the waitstaff when they go out to eat. Middle class people are not generally polite, often giving orders and refusing to make conversation. Working class and upper class people will be much more friendly, but there’s a distinct difference in the sort of friendliness–the working class person will be interacting with the waiter on a personal level, whereas the upper class person is just being nice because that’s the way it’s done. These behaviors tend to be pretty consistent throughout a person’s life, regardless of how much money they make or what their job is.
