# The class system in Britain and beyond **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 21, 2015, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177 "2015-04-21T12:26:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Malden\_Capell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malden_capell/32/5274_2.png) [@Malden\_Capell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malden_Capell)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/1 "2015-04-21T12:26:32Z")
Can anyone give examples or their own experiences of how Britain’s class system manifests itself that is different from, say, the US or other countries? I get told by certain quarters that Britain in particular has a strong class system, but how much of that is actually true? I don’t mean things that we have a monarchy and a House of Lords, but more day-to-day interactions. An example, perhaps, could be if promotions and pay rises are a matter of ‘jobs for the boys’, and go to the buddies or social peers of the manager or boss, but really, isn’t this the same in the US and elsewhere? I may be entirely oblivious, but having spent time observing foreigners in Europe and the US, there didn’t seem to be anything obviously different in their behaviour that I don’t see in British behaviour. Happy to be schooled though 😃 ---
**Author:** ![JoshuaSD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f1d935/32.png) [@JoshuaSD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoshuaSD)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/2 "2015-04-21T12:41:02Z")
In my opinion it is very much the same here in the US. I have been in the workforce for 30+ years and have yet to see a workplace where the best candidates are routinely promoted over the bosses buddies. Class probably plays a role in it but its often here as much about socializing with the “right” people as much as being the right class. Also, football (American style) plays a big part. I don’t watch it, follow it or even really understand it and have often found myself left outside the “click” because of this. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/3 "2015-04-21T12:50:33Z")
IME as a foreigner who spent some significant time living in Britain, the modern class system is propped up by the lower i.e working class. There is pride in working class roots and background, which is a good thing… but then it results in reflex dislike of things which are seen as “middle class”, which is amusing when it is displayed in cultural and sporting preferences (“_no opera for me mate, and I won’t play rugger, me’s a football and cricket man_”)quite bad when it manifests itself in suspicion of trying to improve ones qualification ("_why should I study law, thems all middle class_, "_go to Uni, what we is not goiod enough for you"_). Yes, things I actually heard. It gets ridiculous when it is the refrain of politicians, John Presscott, I am looking at you. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/4 "2015-04-21T13:16:10Z")
There is actually more income inequality in the U.S. than in the U.K. and less socio-economic mobility in the U.S. than in the U.K. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/5 "2015-04-21T13:54:24Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > It gets ridiculous when it is the refrain of politicians, John Presscott, I am looking at you. Surely that’s Lord Prescott to the likes of you! ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/6 "2015-04-21T14:09:36Z")
> [@APB](#): > > Surely that’s Lord Prescott to the likes of you! I suppose [he can safely play Croquet](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-388046/Prescott-working-hard--playing-croquet.html) now. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/7 "2015-04-21T14:32:44Z")
**Moderator Action** Since this is basically an informal poll of personal experiences, it is better suited to IMHO. Moving thread from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/8 "2015-04-21T16:36:09Z")
Better to consider how society is divided in other countries. Society in the UK is divided by class cultures, which have quite different sets of tastes, styles, priorities and general attitudes. While the connection between class and undeserved social privilege is unjust, it is not difficult to change your class. Save your money and send your kids to the right schools and they will pick up all the cultural and social baggage necessary to join the elite. Whether that is a good thing or not, is open to question. But the point is that education is the passport to social mobility. This is a fairly recent trend, in the past your future was much more tied to your birth. Other countries divide themselves by race, religion, gender, age, wealth, political affiliation…Things that are very difficult to change. So you might be trapped by reason of birth, which is even more unfair. In my part of London social life is riven with class prejudice. Those who consider themselves to be working class have little time for what they consider the absurd affectations of middle-class new comers. Professionals, Public service heroes, corporate apparatchniks, honest tradesmen, sons of toil, three generations of immigrants, students and persistent underclass that could serve as extras for Breaking Bad or some David Lynch movie. It is a heady mix and we are well practiced at ignoring each others existence. Unlike the US, there is precious little space in the UK, we live on top of each other, rather than carve out territories by dividing cities into neighbourhoods of predominantly one sort. In the US, you have to take care of where you go in a city. Your appearance marks you out. People shake their heads and tell you that it is dangerous. That does not happen so much in the UK. Though if you are improperly dressed for the occasion, you might have difficulty getting into a social event favoured by the gentry, like the Henley regatta. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/9 "2015-04-21T16:41:25Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > In the US, you have to take care of where you go in a city. Your appearance marks you out. People shake their heads and tell you that it is dangerous. That does not happen so much in the UK. Every city I’ve been in in the UK has had its “bad” neighbourhoods that locals warn you about. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/10 "2015-04-21T16:46:52Z")
Never heard anybody in the UK warn me from a neighborhood because of the color of the residents though, but that’s more a matter of “how are classes defined” than of their existence. “Bad neighborhoods” exist everywhere, certainly. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/11 "2015-04-21T22:46:16Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > Every city I’ve been in in the UK has had its “bad” neighbourhoods that locals warn you about. It does? I don’t know anyone else in Brixton who would do that. There’s no reason. The perception of people who’ve never been to these “bad” places is media-led and therefore not helpful. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/12 "2015-04-22T00:28:01Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > There is actually more income inequality in the U.S. than in the U.K. and less socio-economic mobility in the U.S. than in the U.K. I’d question whether that’s true if you exclude everyone below the poverty line. I think it’s likely that poverty, in the US, is a thing that sort of cannibalizes the people in it, preventing them or their children from escaping. And, while the genesis of that may have been founded on class and race, now it’s a sort of self-sustaining eddy that - minus some active and inspired intervention - might continue on as it is for several more generations. But so if you exclude that from the numbers and just look at movement between the middle class and the wealthy, I suspect that the difference between the US and the UK will either be pretty similar or heftily in the US’s favor. But I do think that the modern world (the US and the UK included) has an issue with decreasing social mobility altogether, as the value of physical labor goes down and as women start getting a higher education and marrying their economic equals. So I don’t bring this up to say that the US is in a good position (if we ignore our poverty bucket), I’m just suspecting that the generalization that you have stated is probably lacking some meaningful nuance. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/13 "2015-04-22T01:33:34Z")
No, that’s not true. The U.S. has the highest income inequality among developed countries. This is not caused by the difference between the middle class and the poor so much as between the difference between the rich and the middle class. The proportion of total national income that goes to the top 1% is more than the amount that goes to the top 1% in any other developed country: > **[The U.S. Has The Worst Income Inequality In The Developed World, Thanks To...](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/income-inequality-wall-street_n_3762422)** > > The U.S. Has The Worst Income Inequality In The Developed World, Thanks To Wall Street: Study The U.S. also has the least amount of socio-economic inequality among developed countries: > **[The American Myth of Social Mobility](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/class-mobility_b_1676931)** > > Regardless of political philosophy, few would argue that a society with little social mobility is a good thing. Societies in which there is little opportunity for social mobility will lack incentives for people to strive. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/14 "2015-04-22T01:50:58Z")
AK84 writes: \> IME as a foreigner who spent some significant time living in Britain, the modern \> class system is propped up by the lower i.e working class. There is pride in \> working class roots and background, which is a good thing… but then \> it results in reflex dislike of things which are seen as “middle class”, which is \> amusing when it is displayed in cultural and sporting preferences (“no opera for \> me mate, and I won’t play rugger, me’s a football and cricket man”)quite bad \> when it manifests itself in suspicion of trying to improve ones qualification ("why \> should I study law, thems all middle class, “go to Uni, what we is not goiod enough \> for you”). Yes, things I actually heard. Such things happen in the U.S. too, but we just don’t call it class conflict. We try to pretend that class differences don’t exist here. When I told some fellow students at my high school that I wanted to go to a top-rated college, study math, go on to grad school, and perhaps get a Ph.D. (instead of going to a second-rate state university and coming back to teach at my high school, which was the most that they could ever imagine anyone doing), the reaction of some of them was “Well, then you’re a snob and a traitor.” On the other hand, if I had gone to college on a football scholarship and gone on to play in the NFL, they would have been overjoyed. They were only willing to see someone become rich/famous/well educated through a few unlikely paths. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/15 "2015-04-22T02:36:59Z")
Aaaaaahhhhh!!! What I meant to say was “The U.S. also has the least amount of socio-economic mobility among developed countries.” ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/16 "2015-04-22T04:48:43Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > No, that’s not true. The U.S. has the highest income inequality among developed countries. This is not caused by the difference between the middle class and the poor so much as between the difference between the rich and the middle class. The proportion of total national income that goes to the top 1% is more than the amount that goes to the top 1% in any other developed country: > > [The U.S. Has The Worst Income Inequality In The Developed World, Thanks To Wall Street: Study | HuffPost Impact](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/15/income-inequality-wall-street_n_3762422.html) > > The U.S. also has the least amount of socio-economic inequality among developed countries: > > [The American Myth of Social Mobility | HuffPost Impact](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-steven-friedman/class-mobility_b_1676931.html) “Inequality” and “social mobility” are not interchangeable terms and neither of your cites answers the specific question I asked. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/17 "2015-04-22T07:12:14Z")
I didn’t say that income inequality and social mobility were the same thing. If you’ll notice, I specifically in each post talked first about income inequality and then about socio-economic mobility. I gave a separate citation for each of them in my previous post. What is your specific question? State it for me in one sentence. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/18 "2015-04-22T10:02:36Z")
Here in the U.K., class is a distant third to money and friends / contacts. And after the first generation or two money = class. Higher social class will, however, give you opportunities to make more of the first two, but it’s up to you to make those opportunities and then take advantage of them. ---
**Author:** ![kferr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/19 "2015-04-22T13:05:10Z")
In the UK the pub is the great social equalizer. Yesterday evening I was sitting in the sunshine outside my local. On the table were a laborer, a tree surgeon who owns his own company, someone who works in education, and a couple of what I’d call professionals. Then a Knight came up and started chatting to us. OK, it was the local MP doing a bit of campaigning, but still it was a wide range of social classes getting along together. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177/20 "2015-04-22T13:34:16Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Here in the U.K., class is a distant third to money and friends / contacts. And after the first generation or two money = class. Higher social class will, however, give you opportunities to make more of the first two, but it’s up to you to make those opportunities and then take advantage of them. My experience with Brits is that class is sort of something separate from money. It has to do with education, manner of speaking, certain values. I found the view of class different than what Americans think of as class; it is sort of part of a person the way maybe minority status is here in the US, in the sense that it is something you are born with and it sticks with you; but that is a very crude analogy. I think in that regard; there is a different sort of class tension. People do not feel as down on themselves for being lower class, they do not feel like failures or that they deserve poor treatment for being failures; but they do want to be respected for what they are. In America, the expectation is that you should rise above the station you were born to; in Britain, although success is something people strive for, the expectations and pressures are different. That’s just my take. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-class-system-in-britain-and-beyond/718177.md?page=2)