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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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What do you think stops upper-middle class people from imitating upper class people, and by faking being high status become high status? Shouldn't they be able to imitate that upper class accent and thereby convince people they're upper class and worthy of deference?

I would've thought upper+upper middle would be more than 5% of the population, more like 10-20%. But my question still applies, what stops the closest to upper middle class portion of the population from imitating elite class markers and thereby devaluing them?

UK usage of class terms reflects the way we see the class structure as a pyramid - so there are more working class people than middle class people, and more middle class people than upper class people. "Middle class" as a stereotype implies someone around the 80th percentile of the SES distribution and "Upper middle class" implies someone close to but not in the top 1% - although in both cases the words actually refer to culture and behaviour and not percentile rankings.

According to the definition of class used by the market research industry, 4% of the UK is upper-middle class and the upper class is too small to be included in conventional market research. This feels about right, although the NRS social grades don't quite identify the right people because they rely on what jobs people do.