Defining "Upper Class", "Middle Class" and "Lower Class"

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Hi all. I just thought of something.

I've noticed that some people use the terms "upper class", "middle class" ect. without really thinking about what these terms mean. We will never achieve a high level of discourse until these terms are strictly defined.

How Most People Define The Terms
Lower Class: apartment/homeless
Middle Class: "normal" house
Upper Class: mansion

I'm starting to think that this form of classification needs to be abolished in order to truly reflect the current state of the West. For example, it makes no sense to place all people who live in mansions in the same economic class. Some wealthy people are so wealthy that they have the ability to manipulate democratic elections. These sorts of people should be put in a separate class from other wealthy people.

We need to redefine the class terminology in order to better reflect the problems with today's world. For example, the fact that some people have bigger houses than other people is not a significant issue. When liberals and socialists focus on this, they are just making socialism and liberalism look bad.

The biggest problem facing the world today is the corruption of democracy. Therefore, we should use the term "upper class" sparingly. In my opinion, we should save the term "upper class" for people who can manipulate elections to a significant degree. For example, the Koch Brothers are definitely in the upper class, since they are highly sucessful lobbyists. George Soros is also a member of the upper class, since he does hold tremendous influence over the Democratic Party. Of course, not every wealthy celebrity is in the upper class.

In my opinion, someone who lives in a mansion, but still has little influence over the democratic process, is still in the middle class.

What is the lower class? In my opinion, you are a part of the lower class if you make just enough money to live, meaning that you cannot save money effectively. I'm not sure how comon this is in the modern West, but this sort of thing is still common in the world as a whole. For example, many big businesses rely on the third world as a source of cheap labor. In other words, globalization is now a part of everyday life and we need to rethink our class terminology in order to reflect this.

I'm essentally saying that many people in the third world are part of the Western lower class even though they do not technically live in the West.

Now I'd like to talk about orthodox Marxism for a second, and talk about why I am not an orthodox Marxist. Most orthodox Marxists still insist that there are only two classes - employees and employers. I think that this is an outdated classifiaction that needs to be abolished. Nowadays, many actors and sports stars (which are technically employees) are more wealty than small business owners, so the old Marxist classification system needs to be abolished. I just want to get that out of the way.

I always thought class distinction was based on material wealth and buying power first and foremost, while subcultural groups that grow around people in those economic situations, regarding values and mores, came in secondly.
Interestingly, the status Americans aspire to is not upper class, but middle class. Lower class people often describe themselves as middle class to avoid the perception of being poor, while upper class people attempt to pass themselves off as middle class to avoid being called elitists. Middle class standing is seen as essentially American, as everyone in that class is more or less equal, and living above poverty. Trouble is, the middle class in modern America is becoming more of a self designation than something that describes one's actual economic status.

DEFINITIONS OF SOCIOECONOMIC CLASSES FROM UNDER TO OVER-
*underclass= people under the socio-economic radar, IOW folk who are homeless/living with friends, living in some kind of shelter for people down on their luck, in DSHS-subsidized housing, on welfare or disability pension or with sporadic unskilled employment- generally struggling on the margins, with pervasive poverty of income as well as in ready access to cultural amenities.

*working class= low/semi-skilled worker bees in general- tradesman, truckers, longshoreman, janitors, mechanics, repairmen, sanitation workers, enlisted military members, aides of various stripes [home health/nursing/teachers' aides], LPNs, assembly-line workers, phone bank workers, sub-GS-09 civil servants, most salespeople- you get the picture. usually below 6-figure income. some of these folk have college degrees but they are not profiting from having them. most are "getting by" and some are fairly comfortable [with quasi-middle-class lifestyles such as the house and 2 cars], albeit with many dual-income families.

*the lower-middle class= higher-skilled folk whose ancestors were from the working-class [some with college degrees applicable to their field of work] who did exceptionally well [like successful commissioned salespeople], bachelors-level teachers and professors, social workers, RNs, supervisors of various stripes, semi-professionals such as specialist hospital technicians and journeyman tradesmen, military officers, post-GS-09 civil servants, small business people [mom and pop operation, for example], most professional musicians, and the like. the luckier/exceptionally talented among these folk may have incomes somewhat above $100k.

*upper-middle-class= professional class- people with professional/advanced university degrees/fellowships- doctors, lawyers, engineers of various stripes, especially those with a few decades in [with their student loans all paid off], administrators of various stripes, established [large-firm] business people, midlevel government officials, masters/doctoral-level educators. mostly 6-figure income.

*upperclass/overclass [leisure class]= show business/entertainment, artists with wealthy patrons, trust fund swells, rich families [old money], people who hit the jackpot in general [new money], government and corporate bigwigs - know what i mean? mostly well-educated, with university degrees the social rule rather than the exception. usually 6-figure [and above] income.

I hate how people use the term class to mean wealth.

Here in Britain Class is your family background and how you were raised.

The upper class is Royalty, the aristocracy and the gentry.

The upper middle class is wealthy families that have been wealthy for generations and may have upper class connections

The middle class are people who come some established comfortable families that have owned property for a few generations, went to good schools have no poor family, don't have a strong regional accent.

The working class is basically normal people who are not middle class.

Wayne Rooney is worth £80m yet he remains working class even though he is richer than Prince William.

in amuuurica there is precious little actual class, there is just old money, new money, and no money.

From an outsiders perspective I think America is more about race than class.

From an outsider's perspective I view America and UK as a one same culture. Their few differences are semantic.

there have long been wealthy colored folk, albeit rare in the early 20th century [new money] but in the 21st century there is a broad [if thin] black upper-middle/upper class, primarily celebs but also technocratic Brahmins who are the descendants of working-class/lower-middle class 20th century ancestors. but a lower-class amuuurican colored person in general has a steeper climb out of poverty than a working class white person, as racism is amuuurica's original sin, and precious amuurican white folk generally don't appreciate the competition.

Yeah I can imagine people in the middle east lump the west together like we in the west lump the middle east together.

class is a most depressing subject. at this rate we'll never become a class 1 [kardachev scale] civilization.

Nope, I don't think most of us lump the west together (except radicals perhaps). We see Italians are so different from let's say, Britains, and French too...

But to me, I view the US/UK/Australia/English Canada/NZ as one same Anglo mega-civilization.

Last edited by The_Face_of_Boo on 13 Mar 2018, 4:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

As a Brit I agree with Daniel89's posts in this topic. It confused me at first to see people talking about "middle class" as the norm when I imagine them to be quite posh and rich.

Would it even be possible to define a useful global class system considering the varying conditions in different countries?

In marxist theory, you have only two classes in a capitalist society; the bourgeoisie and the rest of the people.

No I mean even homeless people in the west would be considered rich by global standards as they would make more money begging than lots of workers in poorer countries and would always have the option of going to prison and having a roof over their head and free food.

Which is just another reason to hate Marx the idea that a prince or a duke who is wealthy because their family stole land and oppressed people is the same as someone like Bill Gates is plainly stupid. I wonder if Marx never existed would we have had class based revolutions instead of wealth based revolutions how much better off the world would be?

I guess not. Here in Eastern Europe social classes are fairly disconnected from income, they depend more on education and family cultural background. I even once decided that "it's not about how much money you get, it's about what you spend your money on".

I once found this text about Lithuania, it explains social classes there and how they don't fit the western concepts. Poland is very similar.
http://www.truelithuania.com/tag/easter ... al-classes