Attitudes to personal wealth

Post Reply New Topic

the best explanation of class i have ever read, is in the book "a framework for understanding poverty" by ruby k. payne, ph.d.
this book explains the hidden rules governing each social class [poverty, middle class, wealthy/upper class] in 15 areas of life:

possessions:

poverty class- people
middle class- things
upper class- one-of-a-kind objects, legacies, pedigrees

money:

poverty class- to be used, spent
middle class- to be managed
upper class- to be conserved, invested

personality:

poverty class- is for entertainment. sense of humor is highly valued.
middle class- is for acquisition and stability. achievement is highly valued.
upper class- is for connections. financial, political, social connections are highly valued.
social emphasis:

poverty class- social inclusion of people he/she likes.
middle class- emphasis is on self-governance and self-sufficiency.
upper class- emphasis is on social exclusion.

food:

poverty class- key question- did you have enough? quantity important.
middle class- key question- did you like it? quality important.
upper class- key question- was it presented well? presentation is of paramount importance.
clothing:

poverty class- clothing valued for individual style and personality.
middle class- clothing valued for its quality and acceptance into middle class norm. quality important.
upper class- clothing valued for its artistic sense and expression. designer important.
time:

poverty class- present most important. decisions made for moment based on feelings or survival.
middle class- future most important. decisions made against future ramifications.
upper class- traditions and history most important. decisions made partially on basis of tradition and decorum.

education:

poverty class- valued and revered as abstract but not as reality.
middle class- crucial for climbing success ladder and making money.
upper class- necessary tradition for making and maintaining connections.

destiny:

poverty class- believes in fate. cannot do much to mitigate chance.
middle class- believes in choice. can change future with good choices now.
upper class- noblesse oblige.

language:

poverty class- casual register. language is about survival.
middle class- formal register. language is about negotiation.
upper class- formal register. language is about networking.

family structure:

poverty class- tends to be matriarchal.
middle class- tends to be patriachal.
upper class- depends on who has money.

world view:

poverty class- sees world in terms of local setting.
middle class- sees world in terms of national setting.
upper class- sees world in terms of international view.

love:

poverty class- love and acceptance conditional, based upon whether individual is liked.
middle class-love and acceptance conditional and based largely upon achievement.
upper class- love and acceptance conditional and related to social standing and connections.

driving forces:

poverty class- survival, relationships, entertainment
middle class- work, achievement.
upper class- financial, political, social connections.

humor:

poverty class- about people and sex.
middle class- about situations.
upper class- about social faux pas.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
so who here on WP can place themselves in one of these three classes? or is there some overlap? why do the classes largely isolate themselves from one another? what are the political ramifications? questions, questions.

There is a certain number of dollars that individuals need to be above poverty.
Anything more tends to make living more complicated ,as having the monetary ability to collect more material things means a distraction.
What can you do with a room full of money , other than to look at it?

Overall, that sounds accurate, although to me some things are slightly different:



I've had the impression that poverty-class clothing is less individual in style than what the middle classes wear - at least outside the work realm.


Many underclass types see education as abstract all right, but neither value nor revere it. Instead, they're more likely to say things such as "University teaches ya nothin'... get out into the school of hard knocks!"


My impression is that the poverty class see the world in local and/or national terms, and the middle class in international terms.

That's very similar to what it's like here in NZ, at least in the area where I live.
People tend to "act their class" just because it's what everyone else is doing. The lower income families say that the rich are snobs, the middle income families say the rich are lucky and the rich say that the lower income families are lazy and just don't "want success bad enough". Everyone will always find something to complain about and sticking with your own kind (meaning those who earn similar to yourself) gives people the sense that they are allowed to complain, where as a poor person wouldn't complain about the rich to the rich and a middle class family wouldn't admit to feeling less well off than the rich to the a poorer family.

In anycase, I don't think that those with AS are less jealous. Everyone always wants more for themselves.

The majority of posts in this thread demonstrate that WP users are just as obsessed by class, and as unappreciative of affluence, as anyone else. So not at all what I expected.

I think class is not just defined by money, but also by upbringings, education and the people your family associate with.

I think in Canada most people consider themselves middle class. Definition is if you are not poor or can live off the interest of your money, you're in the middle. Thus almost everybody I know is middle class. I wouldn't mind being upper middle class and have above average amount of money, but I don't think there's any chance at all for us to become "rich". I wouldn't know how to be rich anyway. I think I'm well educated and classy enough to handle being upper middle class. Beyond that, I won't even know how to behave. Just thinking about having maids or gardener in my home makes me feel all stressed out already. "Oh no, other people doing laundry, they'll see the holes in my most comfortable underwear and toss it..." Oh well, it's not like I ever need to worry about that.

I see the ratio between the richest and poorest as being way too high - I gather our coalition government is about to legislate so that the highest salary in the public sector is not more than 20 times the lowest (presumably measured in £ per hour). To me, that's still too high. I have no problem with envy and I see it as a normal and natural feeling when one guy has more money than he knows what to do with while another doesn't even know how he's going to pay his rent.

Tony Blair used to argue that as long as the poor are getting richer, then it doesn't matter if the rich are getting richer at a faster rate. He might have had more of a point before the recession, but now, if you do the sums, you'll see that the money has merely been redistributed upwards. And we were always going to go into recession, because capitalism is like that. Blair must have known that when he said what he did, so he lied to help the fatcats to get more.....I presume obtaining money by false pretences is generally frowned upon? Property is, in that sense, theft.

I can see how a reclusive Aspie might not notice the stinking rich, and I see the logic in the idea that as long as I'm financially comfortable on my own terms, it shouldn't matter if the rest of the world is lighting its cigarettes with £50 notes. But for anybody who interacts with others, it can be very different. It's painful, for example, to work hard for a paltry income only to see part of the wealth you've created get syphoned off into the pockets of those who just don't need it. Was it OK for that MP to spend our money on his duck house? Logically it hardly matters, but emotionally it's a biggie for millions of people.

When I was a child my mother would not let me have any friends over, because we were very poor, and my friends were not. She said that if they saw my house, they would not be my friend anymore. I didn't have a friend over until my 12th birthday. It didn't make any sense to me then, and it still doesn't now.

I don't care who has what, and how that reflects on me. I don't compete with status symbols, or keep up with the Jones's. If I can pay my bills every month, eat, and maybe have enough left over to spend on a little entertainment, then it's enough for me.

It was a very nice duck house, a snip at £1,645. And of course "Sir" Peter Viggers is no longer an MP.


(from my collection of Famous Buildings, my most recent entry being Milan Cathedral...)

I am not quite sure where I fall on this scale.

I partake in symphony concerts, theater, art exhibits, lectures, $50 a plate dinners, etc. I am also a small time philantrophist. This is all on a lower middle class income that I make working in a call center. I would think that based upon my income, I would have interests different than I have. I was brought up in a middle/upper middle class home.

I agree to an extent that how class is portrayed is skewered. At best, the differences in class are subtle. The place I see the most class division is at my place of work. Moreso than income, I see a division based upon trust and accountability. If you work at a entry level position, you are not allowed access to certain systems or to partake in certain procedures. You are constantly being monitored. For people with higher status positions, I do not see them have to undergo the scruitny or be on the front lines that those in entry level positions are.

I often wonder how AS affects our class position? Even though many with AS work at low wage jobs or are on public assitance, I notice that some may spend time or money on higher class pursuits, especially if it related to their special interests.

A lot of "poor" people seem to find money to blow on alcohol and cigarettes, its a joke. Those sort of people just take take take and give nothing in return.

Class is an education thing. I was brought up in a family of academic snobs so it's engrained into me, and I also find people of other classes (high and low) harder to relate to than upper-middle class people.

In a lot of countries, including my one, you can have a lot of money and still be lower class or "common". A lot of trades people who do really well fall into the "new money" category.

Wow, that's an awfully judgmental thing to say. People (rich and poor) try to cope with their lives as best they can. Sometimes alcohol and cigarettes are their only respite from their problems.

And from a strictly economic standpoint, rich people take a lot more than poor people from society. The exorbitant salaries of CEOs for instance are not earned but taken from the wages of the people working beneath them who do the lion's share of the actual productive work but are compensated far less.

Some epidemiologists studied the issue and found that more equal societies are healthier societies, and even, that rich people in more equal societies are healthier and happier than those in more unequal societies.

So if a "poor" person spent what little money they had on opera cds - would this make them less of a "joke."

If the "poor" person - the waitress, the retail clerk, the janitor, the seasonal labourer, the person collecting social assistance due to circumstance or disability, etc - enjoys a beer and a cigarette instead of whatever it is you think that poor people are suppose to spend their money on - they "give nothing in return."

Give your head a shake!!

Auntblabby, I found your post on the class difference very interesting. Although by my personal experience, lots of people are mixed classes. If they come from a lower class background and managed to climb up, they might still have lower class habits and preferences. My parents both came from very humble backgrounds and worked themselves into upper middle class. They have upper middle class expectations for my brother and me, but their ways of raising us were so different it feels like they had to let their lower class personal experience come through.

They scolded my brother everyday, told him to behave, follow orders, and spanked him regularly for misbehavior. They never hit me at all, praised me all the time, sent me to music lessons, art classes, swimming club, bought tons of books for me and I even had a private tutor for a few years. Well both my brother and I managed to complete university, but we have totally different personality and lifestyles. He's been chronically underemployed, did physical labors, swore and talked crude jokes with co-workers and lived paycheck to paycheck with no savings. It seems my upper-middle parents managed to raise their son a lower class person by treating him like dirt. And I know his IQ is well above average. Sometimes I think raising children is like raising bees, if they're fed royal jelly, they develop into queen bees, if fed honey, they develop into worker bees.

it sounds as though they didn't give your brother any honey at all. that is very sad. my sister's hubby was raised in the same harsh manner but managed to succeed in spite of it somehow, retiring as a mid-level industrial manager. his younger brother was given the royal jelly treatment and is now a CEO of a major NASDAQ-listed firm and is "entry-level" upper-class. but my own oldest brother was raised harshly and never got any help from his father but still managed to finesse his way through life and is now comfortably retired. i was raised only slightly less harshly and always struggled just to get by. i don't know how i would have turned out if i got the royal jelly treatment. the difference between my oldest brother and me is his marine corps discipline as well as being smart enough to qualify for MENSA, and me being slow and addled and dysfunctional. i do feel i was also stunted from a general lack of early experiences and emotional warmth from my totally stressed-out parents, but they themselves got it tons worse from their parents.
so it may not always take a village, but it does take a properly functioning family structure with parent or parents properly prepared for dealing with their difficult children.