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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34392 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023

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The Devil in the Definitions:

We talk about class a fair bit, but it's hard to define many of them. Most of these terms are relative, and the exceptions numerous. I've been thinking about what the "working class" is, and how to distinguish it from the middle classes. It can't just be money, a successful plumber might make four times what a librarian or a teacher makes, but he is working class and they are some sort of middle class. An artist might be much poorer than most working class, but they are not working class.

My current formulation is something like this: In the west, the Working Class are those workers whose jobs do not require any college, and which do not raise their social status among the educated middle classes.

What do you think separates the classes? Am I off base here?

Working class: does skilled or semi-skilled work requiring non-college post secondary learning, whether that be on the job training or formal trade school. Butchers, auto mechanics, and hvac installers are about the middle here, while electricians and cops are at the top and painters and commercial cooks are at the bottom.

Middle class: does work requiring either a college degree or the ability to convincingly fake having one(like lots of sales jobs which don’t require a college degree per se but need someone who talks and acts like a college graduate). Secretaries, call center people, and claims adjusters seem like they define the bottom here while doctors, lawyers, and lower executives define the top. Teachers and accountants seem like they’re in the middle.

Substantially agree, but I think any definition of working class has to recognize unskilled labor as well. At least at the hiring phase, obviously everyone learns some things on the job.

There’s a distinction between working class(skilled or semi skilled labor) and the lower class(unskilled labor) that looks artificial to people on the outside of it, but is very very real to both types.

I agree, just as there is more than one middle class, there's more than one working class (and more than one underclass). The working class are doing all the things the middle and upper classes are doing. Ingroup signaling, coalition building, policing the upper and lower boundaries, enforcing social norms, etc. The issues and the politics change a bit, but the fundamental structure is the same.

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