Attitudes to personal wealth

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I was thinking about this because I am listening to the radio (BBC Radio 6) and find the attitudes to a listener being working class or middle class quite odd, and had the same reaction yesterday listening to someone complaining about being taxed because she was "a working person, and not middle class". Putting aside all the English issues with class, I just find that most people, most of the time, are wholly unappreciative of how wealthy they are. Most people have homes, cars, an income and health care, but they are always complaining about some other group ("the middle classes" say) being better off - and then, because their perception is relative rather than absolute, most people feel poor.

In complete contrast, I have seen a lot of threads on Wrong Planet that indicate a much more absolute view of personal affluence, where people writing on this forum appear to appreciate their absolute wealth and do not seem to care if anyone else is richer.

Class and wealth are very difficult things to talk about because it depends on which country you live in. A long time ago I did exams in Sociology and they came up with a great definition of class which I remember to this day:

The Working Class work with their hands and are not wealthy.

The Middle Class work with their minds and are comfortably well off.

The Upper Class are wealthy and do not need to work.

There are obviously problems with these definitions because of what they use to define class, so opinions on this may vary. As for attitudes to wealth I know three wealthy people. The first was Middle Class then he suddenly came into a large amount of money thanks to some fortunate share dealing, he became an absolute a**hole. The second was working class then he won 1.2 million GBP on the lottery, he quit his job and now works full time restoring canal boats and he is probably the happiest man you will ever meet. The third man worked very hard for years and now his group of companies is worth billions. His staff consistently vote him the best boss in the UK to work for.

Now, are these men Working Class, Middle Class or Upper Class?

Vanilla_Slice

There are really two issues being raised, and I think confused, in your post. First is the idea of relative deprivation, which is the perception of being deprived relative to the percieved wealth of others around us. That is a real issue for most humans in most places. Yes, people do tend to discount what they have if others around them have more. It's rooted in simple jealousy.

The other issue is the perception of differential treatment based upon social class, which is all too real in many cases. This can be a source of tension in any ranked society where status is ascribed by birth rather than acquired by individual effort. Some people are treated better or worse -- expected to work more, expected to be allowed to get away with little infringements, expected to treat others with deference, etc. -- depending upon the status of the group into which they were born. The tension is made worse by living in a society with competing ideals of status -- we generally hold acquired status as an ideal, but our culture tends to also almost unconsciously acknowledge ascribed status. I have a professor who is very impressed with others' ascribed statuses, while I can't imagine why he would be impressed by someone just because their ancestor was a Roman senator, or some such. It doesn't say anything about the person themselves.

As to your topic, I would disagree that there is less prevalence of relative deprivation on this site, but do agree that we tend to be less interested in ascribed status. It's one of the issues we have that we tend not to notice social heirarchies. I got into trouble for this numerous times before I figured out that students weren't supposed to openly correct teachers, that employees weren't supposed to openly criticise management decisions, etc, that there were official channels to use for this that didn't involve calling them out on the spot.

can't speak for england [like the OP] but i can say in america, one is in [at least in small part] the class one was born into, it always hangs like a shadow in the cobwebby backpages of one's psyche and affects [in a reactionary way] one's future decisions despite oneself. social tensions arise due to working/middle-class folk getting "uppity" due to a windfall. upper class JFK infamously remarked to his father about [working class background] richard nixon, "that man has NO class!" and nixon did indeed have typical conservative working/lower middle class opinions on a number of things, which he never outgrew and which influenced his political decision-making. my own [late] parents became financially independent in their later years but since they both were mostly poor from the depression years up to the 80s it affected their views on money and spending 'till the days they both passed.
to answer VS's query about the 3 men, it is impossible to say because social class has a lot of baggage that goes with it, and which in the examples given was not described in depth. IOW it's not merely about money but lots of other intangibles- a state of minds and money. if the canal boat builder bought into the upper class ethos of "noblesse oblige" and "presentation is everything", [and had others do his dirty work and fit-in with the executive denizens of corporate boards and charitable societies] then he might at least resemble a typical upper class person. but if he still ate a sack lunch at the side of his workstation where he used his own dirty hands to construct a boat, and went to the tavern with his coworkers after hours, [and eschewed or was excluded from the hoity-toity] then at least he resembles a working class fella. the former polish leader lech walesa became technically upper class upon his elevation to his country's top post, but upon his retirement, he once again got a job at his old job on the shipyards- so on the surface, i looks like he was still working-class.
but the first example sounds stubbornly middle-class to me, as it sounds like he has only money but not the proper upper-class state of mind. the third fella sounds solidly upperclass to me whatever his background [which wasn't described] due to the fact that he must deal with various corporate boards and with public relations [I.e., the public face of a corporation is its leaders, and some nominal amount of pro forma charity work is de rigieur among the upper class]
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just my 2-cents' worth, adjusted for inflation

I'm very proud to be a working class hero.

It's probably clear by the avatar and user title that I want to be rich. As rich as possible.

I have a few thoughts about attitudes regarding wealth, social status, etc.

My husband is a public school teacher. He has two university degrees and has been teaching for almost twenty years. He has had his current position for 15 years. He earns just over $75,000 per year and has a fairly good benefits package (side note, I was watching Jeopardy, an American game show, and a contestant was mentioning that he was a sub teacher and his per diem rate was $130. I almost fell out of my chair - the wage here in British Columbia is much better). Anyways - some people would think - wow - teachers get really good money!!

Remember - the man has two university degrees and is at the top rate (based on years of experience) of his pay scale. My hubby is lucky - university was significantly less expensive 20 plus years ago. For new teachers - they are entering the profession at a lower pay scale (because they are new) AND are often carrying tens of thousands of dollars to student loan debt!! Their pay would be in approximately $40,000 to $45,000 per year. This is the average wage for my province.

Is the teacher middle class? They have a middle class education. Are they working class? They have a working class income.

I had a teacher twenty years ago tell me a story about a colleague who taught at an exclusive private boys school here in my city. The teacher was asking a Grade 11 student if they had done their assignment (which was due). The student just rolled their eyes at the teacher. The teacher said, in front of the class, that it was his expectation that the assignments be in on time. The student rolled his eyes again and said, "Do you realize that we pay our maid more than you make." Hmmmm. I guess you wouldn't call a teacher upper class . However, this teacher had wayyyyy more real class than this rich, spoiled, insolent dolt would ever have.

Anyway, enough about classes of people (which is very hard to define).

About public policy on taxes and spending of tax money on services...

I think that all kinds of people should be complaining about this. I'll give a few examples..

Lotteries. I hate lotteries. They are a voluntary tax on the poor. I see all kinds of coy ads for the Lotto 6/49 (our national lottery) and they make me sick. People who earn a salary where there needs are all met and there is money left over for investment, savings and pleasure don't buy lottery tickets. It's lower income earners who buy a tickets. This can be a benign "wishing well" philosophy where someone figures "It's like throwing a dollar coin into the wishing well" - no big deal. It can become troublesome when a person spends copious amounts of money with a real belief that they have some sort of chance at winning (I'll leave it to my mathematically inclined co-members of WP to show the odds if they feel like it) - I'll just suffice to say that they are beyond tiny and not worth spending money on.

What is this lottery money spent on (or has been in the past) - amateur sports - the kind of sports that people who make lower than average wages would not put their kids into because of expenses (e.g. hockey). In other words - mostly poor people pay gobs and gobs of money on useless lottery tickets and the money goes to the richer members of society. A regressive tax for sure.

Another example, in my country there were some tax cuts a few years ago. The tax cuts best benefited those with above - average incomes. I best benefited those with high incomes. The people with below average incomes - hardly at all or literally no benefit.

In my province, there has been some massive cuts to social services - those services most needed by the poor and those with around average incomes. These cuts are needed to help pay for the Olympics (or Owe-lympics if you will). The Olympics benefited the elite of the province - those with $$$ and connections. The poor, working poor and average income earners will be paying for this three week party for the elite by cuts to our services.

It's not enough to shout - hey - you're middle class, you're upper class.

It is important to examine specific policy and show, with stats and case studies why these policies are unfair.

This is the only part of this issue that I am interested in - people posting on this site seem to be less resentful that other people might be wealthier than themselves. They seem more appreciative of their own circumstances, whatever they are. I never suggested that there is less deprivation - in fact it is exactly my point that people here are less conscious of or vocal about deprivation (relative or absolute).

As an America, I've always found this perception of class in the Uk rather odd.

We do have class here, but it is not such a rigid thing as it seems to be there, and is far less of anyone's identity it seems.

When we talk about class here in the US, we call it socio-economic class, but social class, and economic class do not always go hand in hand.

A person could be poor and still be a classy person, with a certain set of values and life philosophies that place them in a higher social class.

A person could be rich and still adhere to a lower set of social values.

I've known both "trashy" rich people and "classy" poor people.

I do know this was much the case at the height of the class system in the UK though, where nobility could be poor in the sense of being severely in debt, while "lower class" merchants could be quite wealthy.

Most of the time people are judged by their social values rather than their economic worth here in the US, and the social class is something a person themselves decides. We do have a very small "elite" groups of people, which the term "old money" or "blue blood" is used to describe, who have their little groups and may have been very classish at one point but I think the younger generations aren't so much so. An example would be the Bush family, the Rockerfellers, the "Rothschilds" and the Vanderbuilts.

I have a lot more experience and I work circles around the other people in my company that do the same job as me. I am the one the bosses come to for answers. The others are all paid more than me because money is important to them. (Socializing and autonomy are important to me). I think NTs have more confusion telling the difference between wants and needs. Wanting more stuff is not a need. Being happy is not about getting things you want, Being happy is about having your needs met and liking what you have. I think confusion about this makes NTs jealous of each other.

I am just a few dollars a year over the poverty line. But this year I will be classifies as being poor. Yay!! !!

Last edited by Todesking on 23 May 2010, 11:30 am, edited 1 time in total.

That is a very common misconception, that people make a lot more than they actually do. I know you're talking about Canadian dollars, so I'm slightly comparing apples and oranges here, but the median individual income in the US is $26,000 a year,( if you include all people over 15, whether or not they have a job). The median income for a household is $50,000 a year. So a $50,000 a year combined income for both spouses places one squarely in the middle of the middle class. And though no one would say so, an individual income of $26,000 a year is actually middle class!

I know I don't care at all about wealth. I'm technically poor (poor enough to have Medicaid), but I have everything I need, and I actually enjoy making do with not a lot. But if I wanted to compare myself to others, compared to the nearly half of the world's population that live in desperate poverty ( on less than $2 a day) I am rich beyond most people's wildest dreams.

I think you're absolutely right about that. Socio-economic class is not just relative wealth but also one's social status in society, which affects how we see ourselves as well as how other people see us.

That's different to Australia, where you rarely (if ever) encounter anyone on a low income that dares have middle-class values or philosophies. If you're in an unskilled job (which is often on an insecure, hourly basis here), or have ended up unemployed because your job's been globalised away, the only areas you'll be able to afford to live in will be outer suburbs full of yahoos with very harsh, mean-spirited attitudes, and a deep suspicion of anything that's different. Making things uncertain and more competitive makes those at the lower end of the income scale fearful and reactionary. If you're not university-educated and in a proper career, you can forget about being gently-spoken, introspective, or inquisitive minded. Those things will soon be intimidated, or beaten, out of you; or if you're fortunate, you'll be treated like some sideshow freak.

In my upbringing; in the USA in a colonial East Coast family, I was taught that class and wealth are unrelated. An upper class citizen may be poor (i.e. a law professor who never earned a high income, but whose family history is well-anchored in the community and is well-educated). He/she must be of high moral values, and must be well educated, well-spoken and well-read. Meanwhile a lower class citizen may be very wealthy (i.e. a rap star born into a blue collar working family, and has struck new wealth). He/she may be illiterate, use poor grammar, be rude, and be boastful of wealth.

Charles

I have no problem with the idea of having lots of money. In some cases, money can make life a lot easier. However, I am a firm believer in the ends not justifying the means and if you have to do things that negatively impact the lives of others just to get your piece of the pie, the pie becomes rancid and bad tasting, fast. There are right ways and wrong ways and if getting a lot of money breached my sense of ethics, I wouldn't do it. Getting a lot of money isn't worth polluting the ocean or predatory lending practices and I wouldn't stoop to such lowness just to be rich. There's more to life than money, but money aquired by helping people, not hurting, is the best kind of money there is.