From Precariat to Elite
Discussion
muffinmenace said:
"Emergent service workers
This class group is financially insecure, scoring low for savings and house value, but high for social and cultural factors. According to the Great British Class Survey results, lots of people in this group:
Are young
Enjoy a cultured social life
Rent their home - almost 90%"
Id have thought 20k in savings was not bad for a 25yo... but whatever.
Where does it mention 20k?This class group is financially insecure, scoring low for savings and house value, but high for social and cultural factors. According to the Great British Class Survey results, lots of people in this group:
Are young
Enjoy a cultured social life
Rent their home - almost 90%"
Id have thought 20k in savings was not bad for a 25yo... but whatever.
Twincam16 said:
The 'New Affluent Workers' seem to be absolutely everywhere. If advertising is to be believed they're the only people who buy anything, ever. Unquestioning, brand-worshipping types who fart every last brainsqueak onto social media and judge others by what brands they own. The whole 'young and active' thing seems to be heavy on the sell too - these people supposedly spend their entire lives going on 'city breaks', inevitably to New York or Barcelona, or doing extreme sports, or buying a new phone every three months because Samsung told them to.
And the 'Technical Middle Class' - no wonder they've emerged from nowhere in recent years and don't have the 'contacts' of the traditional 'Elite' - they're the part of that 50% who went to university who actually benefitted out of it. This seems to be the bit that actually represents some degree of education-based social mobility. As far as advertisers are concerned, these people are boring and 'safe' and are best sold to on solidity and traditional values. These people have been inhabiting Volvo and Ikea adverts for years.
Sorry if all this seems damning, but the whole raison d'etre of the marketing sector is to view people as prey.
The "New affluent" argument certainly rings true. Friend of mine challenged me to spot the following featuring heavily in adverts - wearing glasses, black, fat. The minute you start paying attention, you do suddenly notice things that aren't there. Other than adverts for opticians, glasses only seem to appear to make people look intelligent, presumably to send out the message that you the viewer are also therefore intelligent. Interesting, if really rather sinister stuff.And the 'Technical Middle Class' - no wonder they've emerged from nowhere in recent years and don't have the 'contacts' of the traditional 'Elite' - they're the part of that 50% who went to university who actually benefitted out of it. This seems to be the bit that actually represents some degree of education-based social mobility. As far as advertisers are concerned, these people are boring and 'safe' and are best sold to on solidity and traditional values. These people have been inhabiting Volvo and Ikea adverts for years.
Sorry if all this seems damning, but the whole raison d'etre of the marketing sector is to view people as prey.
Not sure about the "Technical middle class" necessarily revolving around university (I got that result and didn't go to one), although based on my peers, you could probably apply it more widely to people who have done some form of higher/professional education generally.
hornet said:
Not sure about the "Technical middle class" necessarily revolving around university (I got that result and didn't go to one), although based on my peers, you could probably apply it more widely to people who have done some form of higher/professional education generally.
I think that's it. It was expanded upon on the news last night, and the suggestion was that the 'Technical middle class' were people from working-class backgrounds who'd got into a middle-class earning bracket through professionalism and specialisation (usually science, engineering or computing), but unlike the 'Elite' didn't go to school with half the cabinet and therefore lacked 'connections', and unlike the 'Established middle class' weren't brought up being dragged round art galleries and stately homes, and therefore lacked 'cultural capital.'A colleague of mine put it best yesterday when he said 'Only the English could spend so much time and effort studying this sort of thing only to come up with four more words for 'middle class'.
My Grandparents on my mother's side were low-skilled factory workers and ended up in the pub trade. They lived in rented accommodation until my nan was awarded a big settlement for unfair dismissal which allowed them to get their own pub. My mum was a junior admin clerk at an life assurance company, gave up work for motherhood and then went back to work behind a bar until retirement.
My grandparents on my dad's side worked in a hat factory. My granddad died before I was born and what I'm told, he spent his time smoking Senior Service, in the pub, in the bookies and at the pawnbrokers. They lived in council accommodation all their life. My dad's first job was as a runner for his uncle, an illegal bookmaker. He used to collect the bets from the pub, stick them in an envelope and push them through a hole in the wall to the back alley. He then did an apprenticeship as a sheet metal worker, which he still does.
I had a state education (albeit in one of the pioneering grant maintanied schools). I did an electrical apprenticeship, worked at the same place until I joined a consultancy. I now work for a loss adjusters advising on commercial building claims.
Apparently I am established middle class!
I have always considered myself working class and I always will. What I think has thrown the survey is:
I do not believe the groups are that easily separated. Upper class was quite easy to identify - those born into privileged families. Middle classes used to be professionals. They went to university and were able to do so because their parents could fund them. Their kids were able to do the same. Everybody else was working class.
Little has changed with the upper classes. Middle class and working class have merged into one group, albeit a very diverse one. It is much easier to make something of yourself from humble roots. What we have now is an upper class the same as it ever was, a very diverse working class and a f
king underclass of shiftless, illiterate, Jeremy Kyle watching benefit cheats.
My grandparents on my dad's side worked in a hat factory. My granddad died before I was born and what I'm told, he spent his time smoking Senior Service, in the pub, in the bookies and at the pawnbrokers. They lived in council accommodation all their life. My dad's first job was as a runner for his uncle, an illegal bookmaker. He used to collect the bets from the pub, stick them in an envelope and push them through a hole in the wall to the back alley. He then did an apprenticeship as a sheet metal worker, which he still does.
I had a state education (albeit in one of the pioneering grant maintanied schools). I did an electrical apprenticeship, worked at the same place until I joined a consultancy. I now work for a loss adjusters advising on commercial building claims.
Apparently I am established middle class!
I have always considered myself working class and I always will. What I think has thrown the survey is:
- Income - I get a reasonable income but it is not mega money. Although my salary is much better than it was when I was a spark, I don't get the overtime so my total earnings are probably not much different.
- Social - I socialise with a nurse, teacher, lecturer, electrician, farm worker, software engineer, scientist and lorry driver. All of them have working class family backgrounds. I think the test bumps you up higher if you have a diverse social circle, even if it includes working class professions. The people I ticked I have met through school, from work, at the pub, and my diving club. I didn't meet them at the ballet or the Queen's garden party. I also think the samples are too diverse - electrician could be replaced with skilled trade, there could be a box that covers unskilled workers etc. What about unemployed - there are plenty of them in society?
- Education - This is a big factor in social standing but it doesn't get a mention.
- Cultural - I do partake in quite a wide variety but I do not think there are enough options. I ticked watch sports because I have a season ticket at Manchester City and go to boxing matches - I do not go to Wimbledon or the Henley Regatta. I also selected going to the gym (how many tattooed gibbons in wife-beaters and tracky-bottoms do you see at the gym?). I use Facebook - a pastime shared with illiterate mongeloids.
I do not believe the groups are that easily separated. Upper class was quite easy to identify - those born into privileged families. Middle classes used to be professionals. They went to university and were able to do so because their parents could fund them. Their kids were able to do the same. Everybody else was working class.
Little has changed with the upper classes. Middle class and working class have merged into one group, albeit a very diverse one. It is much easier to make something of yourself from humble roots. What we have now is an upper class the same as it ever was, a very diverse working class and a f
king underclass of shiftless, illiterate, Jeremy Kyle watching benefit cheats.Ganglandboss said:
My Grandparents on my mother's side were low-skilled factory workers and ended up in the pub trade. They lived in rented accommodation until my nan was awarded a big settlement for unfair dismissal which allowed them to get their own pub. My mum was a junior admin clerk at an life assurance company, gave up work for motherhood and then went back to work behind a bar until retirement.
My grandparents on my dad's side worked in a hat factory. My granddad died before I was born and what I'm told, he spent his time smoking Senior Service, in the pub, in the bookies and at the pawnbrokers. They lived in council accommodation all their life. My dad's first job was as a runner for his uncle, an illegal bookmaker. He used to collect the bets from the pub, stick them in an envelope and push them through a hole in the wall to the back alley. He then did an apprenticeship as a sheet metal worker, which he still does.
I had a state education (albeit in one of the pioneering grant maintanied schools). I did an electrical apprenticeship, worked at the same place until I joined a consultancy. I now work for a loss adjusters advising on commercial building claims.
Apparently I am established middle class!
I have always considered myself working class and I always will. What I think has thrown the survey is:
I do not believe the groups are that easily separated. Upper class was quite easy to identify - those born into privileged families. Middle classes used to be professionals. They went to university and were able to do so because their parents could fund them. Their kids were able to do the same. Everybody else was working class.
Little has changed with the upper classes. Middle class and working class have merged into one group, albeit a very diverse one. It is much easier to make something of yourself from humble roots. What we have now is an upper class the same as it ever was, a very diverse working class and a fking underclass of shiftless, illiterate, Jeremy Kyle watching benefit cheats.
Exactly the point I made earlier. You cannot alter your class with money, only your kids' class.My grandparents on my dad's side worked in a hat factory. My granddad died before I was born and what I'm told, he spent his time smoking Senior Service, in the pub, in the bookies and at the pawnbrokers. They lived in council accommodation all their life. My dad's first job was as a runner for his uncle, an illegal bookmaker. He used to collect the bets from the pub, stick them in an envelope and push them through a hole in the wall to the back alley. He then did an apprenticeship as a sheet metal worker, which he still does.
I had a state education (albeit in one of the pioneering grant maintanied schools). I did an electrical apprenticeship, worked at the same place until I joined a consultancy. I now work for a loss adjusters advising on commercial building claims.
Apparently I am established middle class!
I have always considered myself working class and I always will. What I think has thrown the survey is:
- Income - I get a reasonable income but it is not mega money. Although my salary is much better than it was when I was a spark, I don't get the overtime so my total earnings are probably not much different.
- Social - I socialise with a nurse, teacher, lecturer, electrician, farm worker, software engineer, scientist and lorry driver. All of them have working class family backgrounds. I think the test bumps you up higher if you have a diverse social circle, even if it includes working class professions. The people I ticked I have met through school, from work, at the pub, and my diving club. I didn't meet them at the ballet or the Queen's garden party. I also think the samples are too diverse - electrician could be replaced with skilled trade, there could be a box that covers unskilled workers etc. What about unemployed - there are plenty of them in society?
- Education - This is a big factor in social standing but it doesn't get a mention.
- Cultural - I do partake in quite a wide variety but I do not think there are enough options. I ticked watch sports because I have a season ticket at Manchester City and go to boxing matches - I do not go to Wimbledon or the Henley Regatta. I also selected going to the gym (how many tattooed gibbons in wife-beaters and tracky-bottoms do you see at the gym?). I use Facebook - a pastime shared with illiterate mongeloids.
I do not believe the groups are that easily separated. Upper class was quite easy to identify - those born into privileged families. Middle classes used to be professionals. They went to university and were able to do so because their parents could fund them. Their kids were able to do the same. Everybody else was working class.
Little has changed with the upper classes. Middle class and working class have merged into one group, albeit a very diverse one. It is much easier to make something of yourself from humble roots. What we have now is an upper class the same as it ever was, a very diverse working class and a f
king underclass of shiftless, illiterate, Jeremy Kyle watching benefit cheats.Like you, I'm working class. The survey says I'm established middle but I'm not. Luckily I married someone who was (I was her bit of rough from the council estate), and now we have a few bob, I watch what knife and fork she picks up at the posh restaurants and copy her. My kids are middle class, nice house, nice school, nice area.
Wayne Rooney will always be working class too, regardless of his squillions. The only person I can think of who might just have changed his own class is John Major, but that aside, rich people born poor stay working class.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Wayne Rooney will always be working class too, regardless of his squillions. The only person I can think of who might just have changed his own class is John Major, but that aside, rich people born poor stay working class.
Wayne Rooney will always be underclass. If it wasn't for the fact he had footballing talent (it hurts to admit that), he'd be robbing car stereos and on the dole.TwigtheWonderkid said:
Exactly the point I made earlier. You cannot alter your class with money, only your kids' class.
If there is any point at all to classifying people, it's to learn something about them. Surely their lifestyle tells you more about them than their parents lifestyle would?Does a chartered surveyor with unemployable parents have more in common with someone with a totally different lifestyle but similar parents, or with another chartered surveyor with similar lifestyle to him but CEO parents? I'm sure it's
the latter.
Dr Jekyll said:
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Exactly the point I made earlier. You cannot alter your class with money, only your kids' class.
If there is any point at all to classifying people, it's to learn something about them. Surely their lifestyle tells you more about them than their parents lifestyle would?Does a chartered surveyor with unemployable parents have more in common with someone with a totally different lifestyle but similar parents, or with another chartered surveyor with similar lifestyle to him but CEO parents? I'm sure it's
the latter.
Dr Jekyll said:
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Exactly the point I made earlier. You cannot alter your class with money, only your kids' class.
If there is any point at all to classifying people, it's to learn something about them. Surely their lifestyle tells you more about them than their parents lifestyle would?Does a chartered surveyor with unemployable parents have more in common with someone with a totally different lifestyle but similar parents, or with another chartered surveyor with similar lifestyle to him but CEO parents? I'm sure it's
the latter.
munky said:
Class was never determined by what one does for a job (or even income - money doesn't buy class, as footballers so amply demonstrate), no matter what the beeb's mickey mouse survey says. There are many jobs carried out by lower and upper classes alike, although the class boundaries have become ever more blurred. Indeed one of the signs of upper class used to be not having to work at all, but these days some of them have to work and some choose to. Class is, or was, also about other, perhaps less easy to measure qualities, such as accent, titles, manners and etiquette, like whether you know the polite way to eat a banana, or how to use an apostrophe. Those things would be determined to a very large extent by one's parents - i.e. which class they are from, and to a lesser extent what they did for a living, if anything, and what education they could afford. It would also depend on who your social set is - who do you hang out with, and what do you do with them? Do you go to the polo at Windsor Great Park, or the dogs at Walthamstow? Do you shoot pool or grouse? A member of the Cefn Coed Working Men's club, or the Hurlingham Club? And so on.
Class is about whichever signifiers are necessary to define "us" and "them". If what used to be considered important becomes an ineffective means of discrimination, it is replaced. The actual signifiers are worthless. otolith said:
munky said:
Class was never determined by what one does for a job (or even income - money doesn't buy class, as footballers so amply demonstrate), no matter what the beeb's mickey mouse survey says. There are many jobs carried out by lower and upper classes alike, although the class boundaries have become ever more blurred. Indeed one of the signs of upper class used to be not having to work at all, but these days some of them have to work and some choose to. Class is, or was, also about other, perhaps less easy to measure qualities, such as accent, titles, manners and etiquette, like whether you know the polite way to eat a banana, or how to use an apostrophe. Those things would be determined to a very large extent by one's parents - i.e. which class they are from, and to a lesser extent what they did for a living, if anything, and what education they could afford. It would also depend on who your social set is - who do you hang out with, and what do you do with them? Do you go to the polo at Windsor Great Park, or the dogs at Walthamstow? Do you shoot pool or grouse? A member of the Cefn Coed Working Men's club, or the Hurlingham Club? And so on.
Class is about whichever signifiers are necessary to define "us" and "them". If what used to be considered important becomes an ineffective means of discrimination, it is replaced. The actual signifiers are worthless. 
Ganglandboss said:
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Wayne Rooney will always be working class too, regardless of his squillions. The only person I can think of who might just have changed his own class is John Major, but that aside, rich people born poor stay working class.
Wayne Rooney will always be underclass. If it wasn't for the fact he had footballing talent (it hurts to admit that), he'd be robbing car stereos and on the dole.
Oh, he does that regardless of the fact he's elite according to that survey
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Exactly the point I made earlier. You cannot alter your class with money, only your kids' class.
Like you, I'm working class. The survey says I'm established middle but I'm not. Luckily I married someone who was (I was her bit of rough from the council estate), and now we have a few bob, I watch what knife and fork she picks up at the posh restaurants and copy her. My kids are middle class, nice house, nice school, nice area.
Wayne Rooney will always be working class too, regardless of his squillions. The only person I can think of who might just have changed his own class is John Major, but that aside, rich people born poor stay working class.
The sociologists seem to have been left behind by society here. What we knew as the "working class" isn't the working class any more - it now includes poor saps like me who went to university, got a degree, and work in a low status job in a "contact centre" with hundreds of similar people. Telling people like me we're middle class just because we have pretensions is silly. And as it turns out, embourgeoisement is a word. Wikipedia says so.Like you, I'm working class. The survey says I'm established middle but I'm not. Luckily I married someone who was (I was her bit of rough from the council estate), and now we have a few bob, I watch what knife and fork she picks up at the posh restaurants and copy her. My kids are middle class, nice house, nice school, nice area.
Wayne Rooney will always be working class too, regardless of his squillions. The only person I can think of who might just have changed his own class is John Major, but that aside, rich people born poor stay working class.
People like to think they can make good through hard work but if anything it's less likely you'll be able to elevate your standing in life today than at any time since the end of WW2. Still we pretend it's all working fine and this will have no social or economic consequences now or in the future.
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