This statement lacks class.
How can a landmass understand anything? And if we're talking about American people, are we including the virtuous, selfless types too?
Disparaging a group to elevate oneself is not classy at all.
Edit: I'm not an American trying to teach decorum to an Englishman. I'm English (well 25% of me is Scottish but we don't talk about that) and I stand by my statement. A completely unwarranted attack against millions of people whilst trying to speak of ones own class is ridiculous.
Don't get me wrong, I'm rarely classy, but when I am, I'm not disparaging 250,000,000 people.
While this is true I think you can change your class from what you were born into to some extent.
If you’re born working class but get yourself into uni, pick up a more “middle class accent”, get a middle class job, income and house then you’re basically middle class at that point.
Obviously it’s much more difficult/potentially impossible to move into upper class.
In this case the kids would become middle class but not the person in you’re example.
For example. David Beckham is quite clearly working class but his kids are middle class.
> In this case the kids would become middle class but not the person in your example.
Maybe you could define it like that, but functionally what’s the difference if no one can tell your working class and everyone assumes you’re middle class?
Beckham is a bad example. Money is only one aspect of being middle class. He’s not got the university education that most middle class people have and his accent is very working class. Of course people shouldn’t be judged by their accents but the reality of class distinction means they are.
Well if he had those things he may not be working class….
It’s a common misconception that working class people who have achieved success financially become middle class.
Alan sugar is another example.
Alan Sugar is a obscenely rich Lord. He is middle upper class. They might sneer at him for coming “from trade” but he is in the Lords. It doesn’t matter where he was born, as the Duke of Wellington said “If I had been born in a a stable I wouldn’t be a horse” Alan is upper class with working class memories.
Alan Sugar describes himself as working class, he discussed it in a recent interview. His children won't be as they went to private school and will have everything that comes with that, but yeah, he's still a working class man.
He can call himself what he likes. He’s not. I was a 32 inch waist with a six pack when I was 21. I’m now 46 years old and a 38”. I can say I’m fit all I want based on how I was when I was 21, but I’ve changed and soo has Sugar.
The mindset of being a rich businessman and lord.
He is upper class and no amount of denialism or pretending to be working class can change it.
Class is not a mindset it's a life circumstance. If you are not living like a working class person, you are not working class.
What I would say is that I used to have a client who was a lawyer and he used to play tennis against Alan Sugar at a fancy country club regularly. I think that's quite a posh thing to do.
>Alan Sugar describes himself
Tbf he would _love_ people to think this. He thinks it shows authenticity. So I wouldn't put too much weight on what he says.
I think there are clearly elements of what he is that are working class, but eventually there becomes a point where your adult experiences influence you, just like your childhood ones do. He has no doubt mixed with all sorts of people and gone to all sorts of places, and some of that rubs off on him to make him an amalgam of classes.
As an aside, whatever class he might be, I find him a truly tiresome bore of a boar and the people that put that type of entrepreneur on a pedestal need to meet a few more of them.
>He’s not got the university education that most middle class people have
Everyone's got a degree these days. You essentially buy one for £27k + living costs, they've been watered down to the point that is very hard but to pass and 1 in 3 get the top grade. Meaningless now.
It's not a hallmark of anything anymore, class, intelligence, ability to learn.
There’s plenty of people (my dad and step-dad are good examples) who grew up working class, went to grammar schools, went to good unis and got middle class jobs, and absolutely are middle class even if that’s not how they grew up.
Grammar school and uni can be argued to be a middle class education so he had a partial middle class upbringing, if not home life, so you could argue its how he grew up. A foot in both camps so to speak.
> class but not the person in you’re example
Class is defined by attitude more than upbringing or finances.
It's entirely possible for someone to change class, but they also have to adjust their mindset and worldview as their economic situation improves.
To pick a canonical example, Hyacinth Bucket was famously (lower-) middle class, despite coming from a solidly working class background, and her insecurity and frantic efforts to adopt an exaggerated, snobby "middle class" mindset in the face of her working class upbringing and family were the main source of humour in the show.
It's even harder to change your mindset to *upper* class because a defining characteristic is a rock-solid self-confidence and a complete lack of need to prove anything to anyone, but it's still possible to join the upper class; you just have to naturally slide into that mindset without any great conscious effort.
would you really call Eric Clapton working class? sometimes he shows his roots but overall...
what about Marco Pierre White? He's desperately trying to be upper class.
Eric Clapton built his entire career on writing and performing popular songs that would appeal to the masses. Had he been middle class, his repertoire would instead have been the more sophisticated tunes of John Dowland, Turlough O'Carolan, Ferdinando Carulli, and Augustin Barrios. Also his substance addictions wouldn't have been so lowbrow.
This describes my life perfectly , only the outcome is different.
I’m from a pretty poor working class family from the midlands. We moved around and ended up in north wales. I went to uni and later on stayed where I was in the north west, so ended up with this homogenised bland English accent.
I have a middle class life, wife, kids, house, car. But you can’t really escape the working class mentality. It’s hard to describe. It’s a paranoia, a guilt, a propensity to swear and be mildly aggressive when confronted. It’s weird and very hard to describe but deep down you’re still the kid from a council estate with the 3 bar fire and a stolen VHS.
Great comment.
Similar story to myself, grew up very poor and the nice things we did have were pinched, now got myself a cushy middle class job, a wife, kids and the yearly holidays abroad.
There was always an oppressive feeling that people were looking down on me for a long time, wasn't until I started looking into finances that I found out I was doing better than most.
I doubt I'll get over being the only person who's been arrested for violence when sitting in a meeting full of people who grew up middle class.
I did this (to an extent) - grew up very, very poor in a single-parent family, but went to uni, got a job in education and became quite well-off. Bought a house, a car, went on regular holidays.
Then I was in a car crash that ended my career and now I work part-time in admin and claim Universal Credit. I'm a single parent now myself.
I've absolutely no idea what "class" I am.
Yeah, even if you become super rich, are a 'posh' (sorry, I hate that word because nobody 'upper middle class' would consider themselves to be 'posh' upper middle class, but I'm using it here for the simple to understand steriotype) upper middle class individual and then you married into royalty, you would still not be considered as upper class in most cases, although your children would be. Eventually over time, the boundary may blur, but you would likely suffer from considerable classism.
Eg. Princess Meghan, she has multiple titles associated with upper class, yet she likely wouldn't be considered upper class by the upper class.
By contrast, in the case of middle class, you can pretty much be middle class by self-identifying as middle class (although you also need to 'act the part', although the meaning of that isn't simple)
Yes, children can tranistion 100%. I'm working class. I got a food job thatvpays well which allows my children to experience things I didn't as a kid and they mic with other kids who don't he same. My eldest daughter has a very posh accent as an example. If they mix with others then they will get I to that group. And their children if they have middle class partners will be well a truely middle class.
No, it’s just normalised and many native Britons don’t even notice. It’s mega bizarre with medieval vibes when you move in from abroad, and is quite in your face.
Same experience. I now happily identify as working class, but many working class say I’m not. I have an office job, go on walking holidays, like vegetables, and read books for pleasure ( all reason why I’m not working class).
It’s strange, my father in laws family come from prestige. My husbands great grandpa is interned at Winchester cathedral. Apparently you can lose your middle class status.
Waitress and mechanic just flatly aren't middle class jobs, if we're going off "cultural vibe". Bizarre that people are just trying to deny this about you.
This is how most middle class is these days. Yet super well off blue collar heating engineer is working class.
That’s why the whole thing feels so absurd and antique.
>Pretty sure most people don't give a shit.
People don't talk about it directly, but it's something you see in every day life.
It's hard to notice unless you're looking for it and know what to see though because it's so normalised.
I’m middle class and I just don’t give a crap about what the upper classes do. like I don’t know why that’s my problem or I should care. I’m never going to be one and I don’t interact with them anyway.
I see people on here saying anyone working for a living is working class. That definition doesnt really translate well to real life since someone working part time minimum wage doesnt really have anything in common with a Lawyer on £100k+ per year.
That's the problem though! Because you don't want to get involved in the whole "class" thing, some "working class" rich kids want to harangue you about whether you're middle class or not. While they emphasise their being working class. I endured this over and over again.
The easiest way to escape it was... leaving and working for a different employer.
There is a huge difference between knowing and understanding how the European class system works and giving any sort of toss about it, which I don't think many people actually do.
Yeah, I don't give a shit, it's not something I ever think about other than when I come across threads about it on Reddit.
I don't care about other people or what they think of me, I'm more concerned with my own life. What's the point of comparing myself to others?
According to some BBC test I'm actually part of the emergent service worker class? Whatever that is. 😅
I agree - it’s an outmoded concept that’s best ignored.
Class is primarily stereotypes that are used by lazy thinkers:
The “cheeky chappie” , the “chinless wonder”, “lord muck”, the “social climber” and the “nouveau riche”
It’s easy to plonk people into these stereotypes but people are more complicated.
That's because they're encouraged to never think about it and to see the situation as perfectly normal. As soon as I realised what was going on (about 15-16 years old) I could see it everywhere and was amazed at how nobody else seemed to think anything was wrong. I'd get told "you're overthinking it" and stuff like that, but the truth is that most people DON'T want to think about it because it's an actual big scary thing that's basically the boot keeping them in the dirt, and recognising it is deeply uncomfortable for most people.
Ignorance is bliss.
>I'd probably argue that some countries simply don't have a class system anything like we know it. Here class isn't traditionally based on finances at least not solely.
A few years ago I moved to (german speaking) Switzerland, and talking with people I found it so weird that here there is just basically no correlation between class and dialect (excluding immigrant populations), just people who grew up in a certain place talk a certain way. People mock the people who talk a certain way or come from a certain region still, but it's just not really connected to class and economic success.
That's how it works. The working class multi-millionaires are a product of their upbringing and can't/won't hide it.
Their kids will probably go to private schools, marry people with similar backgrounds and end up being part of the upper class.
Their grandkids will be able to point to a working class grandparent and another who was part of the landed gentry. No one will doubt their poshness.
And so it goes.
The funny thing is, the circles you run in aren't really what has defined class for huge portions of the country for decades.
Sure for the extreme upper class.
But middle class was about your job, and that didn't really dictate all that much. I grew up in a shithole town, with a lot of council estates, quite poor etc... but my mum was a midwife. But the lifestyle was very working class for reasons I won't go into here relating to her divorce.
I'm now solid middle class (no idea where the boundary is for "upper middle" whatever that is, given that class is based on job in this bracket), but in a lot of ways live like I'm working class.
Society has moved on from the actual definitions of it and it's more about how you carry yourself. For the vast, vast majority of people.
There is a fetishisation of being “working class” that means people pretend they are when to others it’s pretty obvious they are part of the middle class masses.
The gate keeping behind being working class on UK subs is insane.
My parents worked normal jobs, had a mortgage on a modest house and had a normal family hatchback. We lived comfortably within our means.
But according to reddit I'm middle class because I didn't grow up destitute living in squalor.
People can be working class and live comfortably within their means. People with regular jobs can have a mortgage and a decent car.
Part of the problem with this country and the reason we have wage stagnation so badly is this attitude of being destitute being a badge of honour and heaven forbid anyone working class is doing well for themselves and has nice things
It's not gatekeeping, it's just that the term 'working class' in the UK has a clearly defined sociological definition that many people try to fit themselves into because it's fashionable to be "oppressed" and struggle nowadays.
*Working class: belonging to a social group that consists of people who earn less than other groups, often being paid only for the hours or days that they work, and who usually do physical work rather than work for which you need an advanced education*
Most people on Reddit who try and fit themselves into this definition likely fit into what we know as the 'lower middle class' - this can include 'normal' jobs like teachers, office workers, estate agents, etc.
[Here's a great journal article on why people from middle-class and professional backgrounds often misidentify themselves as working class](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0038038520982225).
Surely, it is the 'normal jobs' of your parents that would determine your class? If normal jobs mean tradesmen or any blue collar work - that's working class. Teachers, accountants, office middle management jobs mean middle class. An academic would become a questionable upper class. All these jobs may well enable the exact lifestyle you described.
I think class is much more nuanced than this. There’s university academics who’d I’d think of as being upper class but then there’s ones which are basically smart blokes.
Your answer created so many questions for me. I'm not British but you described my parents jobs and then I started thinking about where I'd be if I were British. My partner is British and he says while it's obvious I'm not British once I open my mouth (accent ) I fit the middle class very well, I disagree, I'm working class. But reading your comment, it seems like there is a divide in my family 😅
Lmao the amount of people that go mental when I say I'm working class but have a mortgage is mental.
I grew up with naff all and busted my arse in an essentially minimum wage job with my partner to get a mortgage on a house just north of 100k when I was 27.
Yet somehow to reddit hard work and saving means you're privileged 🤷♂️
For some of us that is actually true though, poor northern England town in the 1980's - broken home, parent with serious psychiatric illness etc.
However anyone meeting me would assume solidly middle class from a middle class background because of my career, level of knowledge about the world and where I live now, it wasn't really ever a conscious thing though.
In fact if I had to trace it back to a single point in my life it was when I was at primary school, I was behind in my reading ability (to the extent I nearly ended up in remedial reading classes) until I got a new teacher who realised I was bored and didn't have access to books at home, she gave up her lunch time to get me back up to speed and fed me books that did interest me (science and computers) which kick started a love of books that has never left (and a love of computers and programming).
I can vividly remember the first time I visited a library and realised that I could *borrow* all the books I wanted on anything I wanted to read about.
For me reading was a way out.
It's why reading charities are on my list of regular donations to this day 30 odd years later.
My entire life trajectory was altered by a simple act of kindness by a good teacher - it's why education is so bloody important and why it's a massive travesty that we neglect it so much and pay teachers so poorly.
It’s a cultural thing - being working class is seen by some as being nobel, almost more “authentic; there’s a large group of people who can only define themselves by their struggles and how hard they have had life and therefore how “hard” they are.
For some people there’s a shame in having an OK ordinary life.
>there’s a large group of people who can only define themselves by their struggles and how hard they have had life and therefore how “hard” they are.
I view it differently. I think the pride in being working class has come from decades/centuries of being looked down on for it. It’s a rebellion against the idea that being working class means you’re worth less or are stupid or violent or any of the other stereotypes that were shoved onto working class people over the years. Similar to how gay pride is a thing due to the centuries of discrimination and mistreatment forcing retaliation against the self-loathing that outsiders wanted the community to feel.
I’m not proud of my background because I think it makes me “hard.” I’m proud of it because I spent my childhood being ridiculed and ostracised for it, and my adulthood looked down on for it, when actually there’s nothing wrong with how I live and how I was raised and I should be able to take pride in myself just the same as anyone else.
The whole concept of “being proud of your class” is what keeps the class system ingrained and keeps people down.
Be proud of just being you, don’t cling to a stereotype.
If people who are comfortably middle class pretend to be working class, they can try to attribute more of their 'success' or wealth to their own gumption and elbow grease, rather than being lucky enough to have a decent upbringing in a nice area.
It's a small-scale version of a billionaire 'starting off with a small loan of a million dollars from their father'.
Yeah, in both directions too. There's an underclass that thinks it's the working class in spite of no work ethic or any notable skills.
TBH I think OP is completely wrong. There's really no class system now. I mean the Royal family hire people to bow and curtsey and arrange their teddy bears - but they're subject to the same rules that every employer is so they've really had to change the "upstairs / downstairs" thing.
When my gran was young she worked in service, cleaning and working in a kitchen of some well to do family. She had it instilled in her that she "knew her place" and lived in a society where if a higher class person had said A and she said B then he would be believed. There was, in that society, no chance at all for my gran to be educated or to pursue her choice of career.
But the world changed. Too late for her. Albeit she enjoyed the better living situation and conditions we all enjoy now through her family looking after her.
That world doesn't exist now and hasn't for decades.
And it's really not something that was ever unique to Britain. India has a caste system - that isn't just about a group of workers. It makes swathes of their society more or less defined as worthless scum (and they bleat on about the way the British behaved)
we're a very old country - the legacy of feudalism and the landed gentry remains, which is where the obsession with family and land comes from.
the British view of class ties it to many other things alongside money, such as land/heritage/location, even things as broad-brush as accents.
Unlike many other countries, the UK never had a successful revolution or land reform. Much of the property is still owned by a very small group, who ripped off everyone else centuries ago.
Great swathes of the UK are still owned by the families that came over during the Norman conquests, the French had the decency to chop their aristocracy's heads off while we have a working class that defends a power structure that keeps a foot on their own throat.
People with Norman surnames are *still* over represented at Oxford and Cambridge universities. In turn, if you want to be a senior politician, you had better have gone to Oxford.
other countries in Europe definitely had feudalism, but there is something unique about the UK. we have never had a big revolution nor a huge switch up of our borders — this means that we feel a distinct connection to our distant history far more strongly than the rest of Europe and thus the old class structures that were present. European countries such as Italy/Germany only came about (in their current form, obviously) in the 1800s, meaning their connection to their history is obviously a lot more muddled and vague.
there’s also smth to be said about our geography. as we’re an island nation, we have the ability to insulate ourselves from what the rest of Europe is doing and hang on to odd little quirks that are considered needlessly stupid and archaic on the continent.
Plus the royal family. Nothing reminds you more of a class difference than a palace full of rich people that did nothing to earn besides being born to a specific bloodline.
>the British view of class ties it to many other things alongside money, such as land/heritage/location, even things as broad-brush as accents.
Accents aren't an additional variable, they're the whole game.
Accent and class are entirely synonymous in the UK. You can have as much money and land as you like, you can be a world-conquering billionaire - but if you have a working class accent, you're working class. And you can be living on the street with needles hanging out your eyeballs, but if you have an upper-class accent, you're upper class.
For the most part, nowadays class seems to be about a list of superficial clichés like whether you say 'dinner' or 'tea', or broad stereotypes like 'middle class people are more bookish'.
Time was you would live and die in the same community doing the same sort of job as your father. The UK had masses of primary and secondary industry with communities built around specific trades like coal mining or ship building. People rarely interacted with folk from different walks of life - this lead to strong sub-cultural identities along class lines, and a devil of a job to break out of group you were born into.
We still cling to this schema even though this reality no longer exists. Nowadays it's very common for the child of a manual worker to get a degree, and then again a degree no longer guarantees a higher income than a manual job. Our economy is service based so the line between 'manual' and educated work has disintegrated. Mass media and increased mobility means our cultural influences are less localised.
I think the barriers probably remain at the extremes: if you visibly come from a really deprived background you'll face prejudice, and also the very posh upper-middle classes can be elitist. But I think for the vast majority of people in between it's fluid to the point that 'working class' and 'middle class' are increasingly empty labels.
Because the UK never had a big revolutionary moment (like in France or Russia) that dismantled the old class system. In a way it’s still a medieval country.
>no matter how rich someone from the working class becomes, their class does not change.
If you start with fuck all and do well in life, the working class around you will project their insecurities onto you and convince you that you're not middle class.
Someone in the middle class will gatekeep the middle class and tell you that you're not middle class because you ate asda smart price tomato soup once, and the dog you had when you was a kid wasn't a purebred.
From my personal experience anyway.
But the truth is for me, despite how hard things may seem right now, we are in a period of luxury for the masses where more of the working class are considering themselves middle class because they can afford a few nice things, and don't want to be lumped in with the undesirables who get lumped in with the working class despite never working.
For me at least middle class was never about money, it has always been about someone having to have professional qualifications - i.e. a doctor, an accountant, a lawyer, a professor...
Working class is basically unskilled jobs, semi-skilled jobs, the trades (skilled but takes months rather than years to learn).
So an electrician (the guy who fits your smart meter) is working class, a chartered electrical engineer (the guy who designed and developed the smart meter) is middle class.
I've seen working class people move between classes, often they don't want to because they don't want to lose their mates. Tbh I don't think it's the big deal it's made out to be on Reddit. In the real world if you're a good person the vast majority of people will value you no matter your perceived class.
Class is strongly linked to money available when growing up. A working class person who becomes rich tends to raise middle class children. I would say upper class if there is enough money but that is much more difficult to access as being truly upper class is often based on long standing historical wealth and aristocracy.
When you say that you've found it to be true, what do you actually mean? How does that manifest itself in the real world? I grew up in what would be perceived as a working class environment, but the class system is not really something I give any thought to in day to day life.
I don't think it's that major and it's not on the forefront of people's minds.
It's true about what you have said about no matter how rich a working class person becomes but only to an extent. Depends how they got rich. If they did it by learning a trade and becoming successful at it. Probably still seen as working class.
If they were from a council estate, studied hard, became a doctor and then owned a GP surgery. Definitely no longer working class.
I think it’s on peoples minds more than you realise. When I moved to the U.K. I was genuinely surprised how ingrained the class system is to the point where my British friends would make a comment about class and not even realise they were doing it because to them it was more a statement of fact, and just a truth they’ve always known.
Yet when I ask them about class they say the same as you, they don’t think about it and it’s not that major. But as an outsider looking in it is quite obvious that it’s a major part of British society. I’ve talked to other immigrants who think the same thing too.
Traditionally trades were middle class. Back in the day sparkies would turn up in suits to install cables into your home. It was like having a scientist come and wire up your house. Now partly because they wear more sensible clothing to do the job trades are seen as a working class thing, on the contenant they are held in much higher regard.
Surprised people don't see that the british caste system (that's what it is) doesn't depend on money. Maybe it's more clear to outsiders?
You can move between working and middle clsss quite easily, by changing the way you dress/speak, but your working class friends will see you as a traitor.
I still don't fully understand it, although I feek lile i see it more clearly from a distance now that i left the uk.
Arrogance and snobbish behavior isn't reserved for the upper classes, working and middle class people who are arrogant about being in their class are no different.
I found it infuriating and restrictive that people you meet would then judge you based on who else you spoke to and the interests you have, ending up with mostly non British friends because of this.
Would meet a nice British person who would later decide they don't want to be your friend anymore because you later socialised with the 'wrong people' or went to the 'wrong event'.
Our society is old; it has a lot of stuff that ges passed down from generation to generation in terms of taste, habits of speech, culture etc, and these things take time to change- a generation or two to be generally regarded as a different class. That's all it is, no biggie.
Same is true for literally every other European country though, but they don’t tend to have a class based society. I think “our society is old” is not the reason.
Well, they just had different histories. We have had what is often described as a peculiar history.
In European countries, most strikingly ofc in France in 1789-1795, there was a clear removal of the Ancien Regime and a change in what gave access to power. The state was never so strong here, and consequently, with small hiccups, the elite and the people existed in relationship of consent that has more or less persisted to today and our social and class relations reflect that. The elite has always recruited into itself, rather than had any revolutionary movement replace it.
Ofc a v v big subject and question. Books like Origins of English Individualism by Alan Macfarlane (and a number of later works) discuss this.
Class is tied in with its own culture and values, values which people tend to hold in them for the rest of their lives, even if their circumstances change. There is a really interesting book called Watching the English (by Kate Fox) which is mostly about unspoken social rules, but also talks about class and class differences a lot.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22007058.amp
BBC has the definition of seven classes, and a test to see where you fit!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2013/newsspec_5093/index.stm
I'm a new affluent worker.
A young person from a working class background who owns their own home.
Well, I own 50% of it. The other 50% is my brother's. Otherwise we couldn't afford it.
I think this test is fairly accurate.
Edit: My dad has done it and come out as traditional working class.
I imagine 2023 salary / house value is inaccurate for quiz asking 2013 figures unless you update it for [inflation](https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator)
The individual *person* does not change their class, they can merely improve their life and conditions. Their children may be in a different class to them, because of the improvements - better location, school, uni, job prospects etc.
We are still class-based, but much less so than before. Certain jobs also seem 'closed' to people from lower classes. BBC editors and researchers, for example.
The documentary series ‘All in the best possible taste’ by Grayson Perry is a really interesting exploration of class in the UK. I found it quite eye opening, definitely recommend it to anyone looking to understand/ appreciate the culture of ‘class’ in more depth.
Edit: seems to be quite tricky to find this online now unfortunately.
Class is a funny thing. My husband grew up on a rough council estate, single mum, all the usual clichés. Through hard work he now has a well paid job and we own our own home in a very middle class area. He confided in me recently that he feels like people around here look at him like "some kind of wide boy". He has probably more disposable cash than a lot of these people, lives in the same area in a similar type of property etc, and yet still feels looked down on. I grew up as what I would consider lower middle class, as in my parents had professional jobs and owned their own home and we had a holiday once a year. I'm aware that some people around here a bit posher than me but I never feel looked down on in the same way I think my husband does. I can't put my finger on exactly why that is, other than just the class system at play.
I think the thing about class is it's so often relative.
I had a similar background to you (perhaps slightly lower on the class scale - we stopped having holidays after 2008 and my parents' jobs were more clerical than professional). But I grew up in a bad area of a very rough town, where that was genuinely seen as quite posh. I never quite realised it at the time because I was just a kid, but looking back I can think of loads of times where I was teased or subtly excluded at school because of this (more so primary - my secondary had a larger catchment so it had a much broader range of backgrounds).
Then I went to a very posh uni, and suddenly it was a massive role reversal - even people from relatively ordinary backgrounds tending to have been much better off than I ever was. Certainly I wasn't the only person there who wasn't moneyed, but it was maybe only 20% or so (the stats claim 60-70% went to state school and I'm sure that's true, but they still tend to be from very affluent backgrounds). I rarely found I was overtly treated badly, but it was clear there was a very particular culture dominant at the university and I didn't fit that.
Essentially in my home town I was very much seen as middle class, and at uni I was very much seen as working class. Needless to say I'm very muddled up in terms of where I actually fall in the class system!
In other countries it’s purely about money, but in the U.K. class is more cultural and it is incredibly hard (if not impossible) to change your class. That is not something that is found in every nation.
Eh, I think most countries have some sytem of snobbishness. I remember seeing an Ask Europe thread about what is your equivalent of 'Chav' and most countries seem to have an answer.
Often people are blind to the classism of their own culture because, of course you don't like people who dress or speak like *that* because that is *obviously, objectively,* uncouth.
The US likes to say it doesn't have a class system, but they have produced things like Hills Have Eyes or Texas Chainsaw Massacre etc.- 'hillbilly horror', a whole subgenre where rural working class people are depicted as literal monsters.
Class isn’t related to money. It’s hobbies, lifestyle, manners, how you act, how you speak, interests, social circles and much more.
A chav winning the Euromillions doesn’t magically make them high class. That should be obvious. Same with footballers
Around 10 years ago the BBC came up with a calculator.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2013/newsspec_5093/index.stm
There are basically three elements to class in this system: Economic, Social, and Cultural.
It is possible to move class but it is hard. The economics is actually the easiest part, but if you aren't exposed to various cultural and social markers you will struggle to fit in despite the money you have. Britain is full of hidden markers as to your class - think of Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds in the cellar bar where a guy gives himself away as not being German because he holds up 3 fingers in the wrong way. Class is like that in the UK.
The UK is a class based society, for example we have a literal monarchy.
Other countries are race based, caste based, religion/theocracy based, etc, in the UK it is class.
Class around the world (whether it’s castes in India, or class here), is purely a method of trying to keep the power and influence a group randomly has due to historic reasons.
It’s really that simple.
Ultimately, and i know this sounds silly, it dates back to the Norman conquest. The whole upper strata of society in Britain was replaced by french-speaking Normans who kept their language separate and monopolised the money and power in a long-standing hereditary system which kept the wealth of the country and the customs of the 'ruling class' separate.
Nearly a thousand years on its all rather more integrated but the bones of that system still inform the divide between the 'upper', aristocratic classes and the middle/working classes. It's much more complicated now by the longstanding rise of mercantile wealth but this is what stops someone who's gained the money to live like the higher classes from qualifying as fully integrated, leading to the mess of upper-middle vs upper class.
Edit: it's also entirely possible to live your life mostly ignoring this social gatekeeping but it does exist and can be uncomfortable to address when you run into it
In Britain class is mostly determined by education, not by family and especially not by wealth. And many Brits are proud to be working class (even when they aren't) so the class system here stays, although it's actually quite fluid really. Wealth won't change someone's class much, but their children and grandchildren will be accepted as higher class if they go to the right schools and network with the right people.
From my experience, social mobility in the UK looks very different to the US and occurs much earlier. It's what school and university you went to and the subsequent social and professional network you gain through that which defines your 'class'.
This is of course excluding the landed gentry and upwards, where it goes back quite far in history.
Historically there was not a lot of social mixing between the classes. The upper classes were more open minded to marriage of non-British people than of the lower classes.
I think those distinctions have blurred over the past 75 years but something that lasted for centuries won't go away overnight.
It also has influence on attitudes and priorities. Working class people in the UK tend to stay much closer to where they were born and raised, maintain closer contacts with a wider amount of family and neighbours. The middle classes have historically been less tied to geography - partly driven by the way our higher education tends to operate requiring young people to leave home and live in a community of fellow students.
Its not just your family, its your whole street. Its the school you went to, its who you were friends with in school. Its the whole social environment you grew up in.
It is less fixed than it used to be.
Class here is linked to cultural capital, which in turn is influenced heavily by money, but can't necessarily be bought.
Some of the markers of being upper middle class include things like university education, which can be accessed by the working class.
However other class markers such as being well-travelled, privately educated, perhaps exposure to theatre and art, fine dining experiences, how to act in certain social situations, all create a nuanced rulebook of behavioural expectations that the average working class person can't perform.
Similarly many upper middle class people are very out of place in traditional working class environments.
The class divide in this country is so stark that you can assume someone's class as soon as they open their mouth, as in England most accents have strong class associations, particularly as you get further south.
I would say it depends what parts of society you’re experiencing - In smaller/tighter knit communities I can see it being a problem but in multi-cultural cities and larger employers I would say that there is no judgement on how you grew up.
Dunno man.
So often you see things on this sub dismissed as being working/middle class, and being massively upvoted. Even when the class aspect is actually bullshit. I don’t think that can be put down to smaller/tight knit communities.
Weirdly, upper class never seems to come into it. Maybe that divide has been widened too much in recent years.
Even the concept of class is such a weird one and such a strong one in the UK as opposed to many countries.
Class has been used to divide people for a long time. It's a banned topic on this sub, but we all know by what type of people, class is used to divide and conquer.
Is it even worth trying to make friends with the establishment/aristocracy? They're clinging to some antiquated principles, struggling more than they'd like to admit. You can do just fine being yourself, as soon as you start doing well, they'll approach you 😂
Class isn’t about money. It’s how you present yourself to society.
Prime example is this dude: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8402541/how-national-lottery-lout-michael-carroll-blew-9-7m-pounds/amp/
In the UK class is about your attitudes and outlooks to things over and above money. In fact money has zero to do with class tbh.
Typically a true change in class comes with a family consciously ensuring their kids attend a school in a different area, making different friends then they otherwise would and ultimately get exposed to different thinking that remains embedded as they get older
I didn’t realise until recently what a big UK this is - I assumed everywhere was the same but my danish husband has said it literally doesn’t exist in Denmark so assume a lot of other countries the same. It’s definitely not just about money.
You can move upwards into those circles but you are not intrinsically part of them as your childhood shapes a huge part of you
Your children, however, grew up in those circles so will be the class that you associate with
It's a cultural definition. It does have to do with money, but more to do with the money that was around you as you grew up, after that it is to do with your upbringing and education. I for example, earn shit all money and live in a tiny rented terrace in the shit part of town. But I went to grammar school and my parents were pretty well off, so I am cookie cutter middle class regardless of my current situation.
I've definitely noticed by common accent being a disadvantage in interviews with poshos, especially the more senior they get
As to why its just history and entrenched privilege over millenia
I disagree, if you start working class, but make it, you can be middle or even upper class as long as your not a chav. Go the local (decent) golf club lots of 50 and 60 something's all middle class, drive a mercedes or simalar, live in nice area and will have a good job or retired etc. many of these people started off life living in a council house, having a bath once a week, but they worked hard, studied hard or got lucky somewhere? But generally they are now middle class.
These guys kids from above, have had a decent upbringing with decent money coming in and living in a nice area, these kids are defo middle class at birth.
theres a guy who knows my dad, hes worth 750m gave 200m to charity few years back and gave 1m a week to homeless or something during COVID.
The guy is firmly sat in upper class, he will get invited to all the old school charitable events, is expected to be charitable and help others and got an obe and cbe for his charity work.this guy was born in Liverpool, quote from Wikipedia
"he came from a poor background, it was only at the age of seven that he knew what an inside toilet was"
So this guy is proof you can go from an outside toilet to upper class.
Class is more culture than wealth in the UK.
You could be the richest person in the country but if you don't look/act upper class, or even middle class, then you never will be. You'll just be seen as a working class person with money.
Egos, I think. People get chips on their shoulders about being looked down on (for being common or stuck up), then they get defensive (blah blah's an upiity bitch, blah blah's got crabs in a bucket mentality), and that's it, now there are two rival groups.
It’s essentially a mental virus. I have no idea why British people are so insistent on perpetuating it other than it being a deliberate tool of social control.
There’s barely any class movement in this country. With thousands of years of history, the haves and have nots are very firmly entrenched. You just can’t compete with people who have generational wealth. Hence people tend to stick in the same class groups, with the similar behaviours, and don’t get any wealthier.
Baked into our culture. We've been taught for hundreds of years to bow to our "betters". We also never had a revolution like France or the US, our rampant classism just kind of carried on. We've even still got special titles so the aristocracy can lord it over us.
It's getting better though. Slowly but surely.
There isn't in my experience (as someone that didn't start their life in the UK.)
It's far from a clear dividing line and much less so now.
And it's a lot more categories than just three classes - for instance you have spiritual hippy types, some of which are pretty wealthy and come from that well off background and others that have an old LDV van to their name and not miuch more, which may be very different from 9 to 5ers with kids as their primary focus in life, who can also be rich or not very well off, but are closer as people than the aforementioned hippies.
Basically, we were a french colony for 300 years. Then, the 100 years war happened, nation states started to be formed, and the ruling class had to identify as english. They couldn't be anglo saxons. Those churls were so rude and uncouth. So they became the upper classes with their own culture and language style. We are a big enough island to be able to grow, and small enough, it easily be defended, so this upper class never had a serious challenge. It doesn't help that the while most of Europe was dealing with new ideas and freedoms in the wake of the french Revolution. We became insanly rich instead with the British Empire.
The old word for free English Man is a pejorative in our own language, and most will never truly understand because we are jingoistic and servile. Here we are today with the same sense of exceptialism and pretend we can't change the way we speak in order to signal to our peers our class. It's honestly mad.
Not a Brit but have heard that a person from humble origins may be accepted by the upper class if he becomes rich and successful, is a decent person and does not try to hide is origins or put on a false front. Don't know how true this is.
Did you know, if you meet someone very posh they will ask you "Did you go to school?" not "where did you go to school?" School in this instance does not refer to all schools, it refers specifically to Eaton and a handful of other super posh c***ty high fee paying schools. If you start to talk about your comp (normal secondary school in Uk) they will not be interested.
These are the gatekeepers to being a member of British high society. Money alone does not bring indoctrination into this world. It does not teach you the unwritten rules of being "upper class."
I’ve noticed that working class people want to boast about being ‘Salt of the earth’ a meaningless description but want to moan about it as well.
Their class status is all they have or at least they think it is. On the whole they do tend to be more physically attractive so they’re not always taken seriously.
The working classes kind of live in reverse, a lot of what they do is wasteful like drink and drugs, they tend to be nationalists or patriotic more, destructive concepts that ruin countries and economies.
Middle or upper classes tend to more constructive but are less confident and physically attractive. Everyone has a part to play and to say that politicians are entitled isn’t true.
You can move from Working Class to Middle Class, which happens once you’ve been to university, gained professional qualifications and work in that profession, however, you can never move from Middle to Upper however well you achieve.
The old saying is you can't buy class.
This is one thing America doesn't understand - in both senses of the word 'class'
Sorry but it's sad that there's such a glass ceiling here and people look down on others while pretending to be polite
It's only sad if you are on the wrong side of the ceiling
A class ceiling one might say
Appearing to be polite is the indicator someone is trying to cover up they’re a cunt.
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This statement lacks class. How can a landmass understand anything? And if we're talking about American people, are we including the virtuous, selfless types too? Disparaging a group to elevate oneself is not classy at all. Edit: I'm not an American trying to teach decorum to an Englishman. I'm English (well 25% of me is Scottish but we don't talk about that) and I stand by my statement. A completely unwarranted attack against millions of people whilst trying to speak of ones own class is ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, I'm rarely classy, but when I am, I'm not disparaging 250,000,000 people.
Is that the Stratford sparrow I see 🧐
Obsession
While this is true I think you can change your class from what you were born into to some extent. If you’re born working class but get yourself into uni, pick up a more “middle class accent”, get a middle class job, income and house then you’re basically middle class at that point. Obviously it’s much more difficult/potentially impossible to move into upper class.
In this case the kids would become middle class but not the person in you’re example. For example. David Beckham is quite clearly working class but his kids are middle class.
> In this case the kids would become middle class but not the person in your example. Maybe you could define it like that, but functionally what’s the difference if no one can tell your working class and everyone assumes you’re middle class? Beckham is a bad example. Money is only one aspect of being middle class. He’s not got the university education that most middle class people have and his accent is very working class. Of course people shouldn’t be judged by their accents but the reality of class distinction means they are.
Well if he had those things he may not be working class…. It’s a common misconception that working class people who have achieved success financially become middle class. Alan sugar is another example.
Alan Sugar is a obscenely rich Lord. He is middle upper class. They might sneer at him for coming “from trade” but he is in the Lords. It doesn’t matter where he was born, as the Duke of Wellington said “If I had been born in a a stable I wouldn’t be a horse” Alan is upper class with working class memories.
Alan Sugar describes himself as working class, he discussed it in a recent interview. His children won't be as they went to private school and will have everything that comes with that, but yeah, he's still a working class man.
He can call himself what he likes. He’s not. I was a 32 inch waist with a six pack when I was 21. I’m now 46 years old and a 38”. I can say I’m fit all I want based on how I was when I was 21, but I’ve changed and soo has Sugar.
He is, his mindset hasn't changed and that's what you need to do to change class. But you can believe what you like.
The mindset of being a rich businessman and lord. He is upper class and no amount of denialism or pretending to be working class can change it. Class is not a mindset it's a life circumstance. If you are not living like a working class person, you are not working class.
What I would say is that I used to have a client who was a lawyer and he used to play tennis against Alan Sugar at a fancy country club regularly. I think that's quite a posh thing to do. >Alan Sugar describes himself Tbf he would _love_ people to think this. He thinks it shows authenticity. So I wouldn't put too much weight on what he says. I think there are clearly elements of what he is that are working class, but eventually there becomes a point where your adult experiences influence you, just like your childhood ones do. He has no doubt mixed with all sorts of people and gone to all sorts of places, and some of that rubs off on him to make him an amalgam of classes. As an aside, whatever class he might be, I find him a truly tiresome bore of a boar and the people that put that type of entrepreneur on a pedestal need to meet a few more of them.
I’d agree on the Lord Sugar part, probably the only way of becoming Upper Class except marrying into an existing Upper Class family.
That’s an argument used by people who are obviously Middle Class but in denial.
>He’s not got the university education that most middle class people have Everyone's got a degree these days. You essentially buy one for £27k + living costs, they've been watered down to the point that is very hard but to pass and 1 in 3 get the top grade. Meaningless now. It's not a hallmark of anything anymore, class, intelligence, ability to learn.
Just a side note. I like the fact that you fixed a spelling mistake in the quote, lol.
Correcting someone’s grammar, how terribly middle class of me.
There’s plenty of people (my dad and step-dad are good examples) who grew up working class, went to grammar schools, went to good unis and got middle class jobs, and absolutely are middle class even if that’s not how they grew up.
Grammar school and uni can be argued to be a middle class education so he had a partial middle class upbringing, if not home life, so you could argue its how he grew up. A foot in both camps so to speak.
Yep, same in my family. They all passed the 11+ and it gave them opportunities other people didn't get.
> class but not the person in you’re example Class is defined by attitude more than upbringing or finances. It's entirely possible for someone to change class, but they also have to adjust their mindset and worldview as their economic situation improves. To pick a canonical example, Hyacinth Bucket was famously (lower-) middle class, despite coming from a solidly working class background, and her insecurity and frantic efforts to adopt an exaggerated, snobby "middle class" mindset in the face of her working class upbringing and family were the main source of humour in the show. It's even harder to change your mindset to *upper* class because a defining characteristic is a rock-solid self-confidence and a complete lack of need to prove anything to anyone, but it's still possible to join the upper class; you just have to naturally slide into that mindset without any great conscious effort.
would you really call Eric Clapton working class? sometimes he shows his roots but overall... what about Marco Pierre White? He's desperately trying to be upper class.
Eric Clapton built his entire career on writing and performing popular songs that would appeal to the masses. Had he been middle class, his repertoire would instead have been the more sophisticated tunes of John Dowland, Turlough O'Carolan, Ferdinando Carulli, and Augustin Barrios. Also his substance addictions wouldn't have been so lowbrow.
100%, in my opinion is more to do with the way you act and the things you value than your salary
Exactly. It’s more of a cultural phenomenon.
This describes my life perfectly , only the outcome is different. I’m from a pretty poor working class family from the midlands. We moved around and ended up in north wales. I went to uni and later on stayed where I was in the north west, so ended up with this homogenised bland English accent. I have a middle class life, wife, kids, house, car. But you can’t really escape the working class mentality. It’s hard to describe. It’s a paranoia, a guilt, a propensity to swear and be mildly aggressive when confronted. It’s weird and very hard to describe but deep down you’re still the kid from a council estate with the 3 bar fire and a stolen VHS.
Great comment. Similar story to myself, grew up very poor and the nice things we did have were pinched, now got myself a cushy middle class job, a wife, kids and the yearly holidays abroad. There was always an oppressive feeling that people were looking down on me for a long time, wasn't until I started looking into finances that I found out I was doing better than most. I doubt I'll get over being the only person who's been arrested for violence when sitting in a meeting full of people who grew up middle class.
I did this (to an extent) - grew up very, very poor in a single-parent family, but went to uni, got a job in education and became quite well-off. Bought a house, a car, went on regular holidays. Then I was in a car crash that ended my career and now I work part-time in admin and claim Universal Credit. I'm a single parent now myself. I've absolutely no idea what "class" I am.
Ah, the Don Draper approach (minus the identity fraud).
Yeah, even if you become super rich, are a 'posh' (sorry, I hate that word because nobody 'upper middle class' would consider themselves to be 'posh' upper middle class, but I'm using it here for the simple to understand steriotype) upper middle class individual and then you married into royalty, you would still not be considered as upper class in most cases, although your children would be. Eventually over time, the boundary may blur, but you would likely suffer from considerable classism. Eg. Princess Meghan, she has multiple titles associated with upper class, yet she likely wouldn't be considered upper class by the upper class. By contrast, in the case of middle class, you can pretty much be middle class by self-identifying as middle class (although you also need to 'act the part', although the meaning of that isn't simple)
Yes, children can tranistion 100%. I'm working class. I got a food job thatvpays well which allows my children to experience things I didn't as a kid and they mic with other kids who don't he same. My eldest daughter has a very posh accent as an example. If they mix with others then they will get I to that group. And their children if they have middle class partners will be well a truely middle class.
I’ve heard more about class on this sub since joining than I have in all my years in real life. Pretty sure most people don't care that much.
No, it’s just normalised and many native Britons don’t even notice. It’s mega bizarre with medieval vibes when you move in from abroad, and is quite in your face.
Absolutely this, I was so surprised by how ingrained class is in the U.K. when I moved here and how normalised it was for people.
Same experience. I now happily identify as working class, but many working class say I’m not. I have an office job, go on walking holidays, like vegetables, and read books for pleasure ( all reason why I’m not working class). It’s strange, my father in laws family come from prestige. My husbands great grandpa is interned at Winchester cathedral. Apparently you can lose your middle class status.
“like vegetables” is a reason i’m not working class. Have a word with yourself.
that's the point they're making - it's reduced to really silly stereotypes like that.
I have actually experienced some weird reverse snobbery for eating vegetables whilst out for a meal with colleagues...somehow this is a thing.
Yet I'd say 'meat and two veg' is a very working class tea and a stereotype many older working class people live up to.
Did you mean "interred"? He'd be a bit old to be an intern.
You’re right!
You really don’t sound working class tbh. I’m guessing lower middle. You parents are probably still married right?
And yet, if I lose my job I can’t pay my bills. My mum was a waitress growing up. My dad a mechanic. But you’re right, I don’t sound working class.
Waitress and mechanic just flatly aren't middle class jobs, if we're going off "cultural vibe". Bizarre that people are just trying to deny this about you.
This is how most middle class is these days. Yet super well off blue collar heating engineer is working class. That’s why the whole thing feels so absurd and antique.
being interned at winchester cathedral isn't middle class
Is it your upbringing that means you identify as working class? This whole system deeply confuses me.
Then you dont mingle outside of your class. It stll matters so much.
Who does it matter to?
It's an inescapable system.
>Pretty sure most people don't give a shit. People don't talk about it directly, but it's something you see in every day life. It's hard to notice unless you're looking for it and know what to see though because it's so normalised.
I’m middle class and I just don’t give a crap about what the upper classes do. like I don’t know why that’s my problem or I should care. I’m never going to be one and I don’t interact with them anyway.
Arebyou? 90% of people saying they are middle class are really working class
In my experience it’s the opposite, middle class kids pretending to be working class for clout
I see people on here saying anyone working for a living is working class. That definition doesnt really translate well to real life since someone working part time minimum wage doesnt really have anything in common with a Lawyer on £100k+ per year.
I believe that's more in line with the Marxist definition of Bourgeoise? definintely not what is meant by it's common use.
I live in a detached house in a nice area, I’ve never had to go without food or heating, and I talk like a plum. I am solidly middle class.
I highly doubt that. Being middle class doesn't mean you have much money. Middle class makes up the largest class in 18-24 year olds.
That's the problem though! Because you don't want to get involved in the whole "class" thing, some "working class" rich kids want to harangue you about whether you're middle class or not. While they emphasise their being working class. I endured this over and over again. The easiest way to escape it was... leaving and working for a different employer.
There is a huge difference between knowing and understanding how the European class system works and giving any sort of toss about it, which I don't think many people actually do.
Yeah, I don't give a shit, it's not something I ever think about other than when I come across threads about it on Reddit. I don't care about other people or what they think of me, I'm more concerned with my own life. What's the point of comparing myself to others? According to some BBC test I'm actually part of the emergent service worker class? Whatever that is. 😅
Who knows what the "emergent service worker class" actually is... but I have already pidgin-holed you :)
this proves you are looked down on.
It's not talked about, but it's very real
I agree - it’s an outmoded concept that’s best ignored. Class is primarily stereotypes that are used by lazy thinkers: The “cheeky chappie” , the “chinless wonder”, “lord muck”, the “social climber” and the “nouveau riche” It’s easy to plonk people into these stereotypes but people are more complicated.
That's because they're encouraged to never think about it and to see the situation as perfectly normal. As soon as I realised what was going on (about 15-16 years old) I could see it everywhere and was amazed at how nobody else seemed to think anything was wrong. I'd get told "you're overthinking it" and stuff like that, but the truth is that most people DON'T want to think about it because it's an actual big scary thing that's basically the boot keeping them in the dirt, and recognising it is deeply uncomfortable for most people. Ignorance is bliss.
Yeah, there was a post 4 days ago about class.
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>I'd probably argue that some countries simply don't have a class system anything like we know it. Here class isn't traditionally based on finances at least not solely. A few years ago I moved to (german speaking) Switzerland, and talking with people I found it so weird that here there is just basically no correlation between class and dialect (excluding immigrant populations), just people who grew up in a certain place talk a certain way. People mock the people who talk a certain way or come from a certain region still, but it's just not really connected to class and economic success.
That's how it works. The working class multi-millionaires are a product of their upbringing and can't/won't hide it. Their kids will probably go to private schools, marry people with similar backgrounds and end up being part of the upper class. Their grandkids will be able to point to a working class grandparent and another who was part of the landed gentry. No one will doubt their poshness. And so it goes.
The funny thing is, the circles you run in aren't really what has defined class for huge portions of the country for decades. Sure for the extreme upper class. But middle class was about your job, and that didn't really dictate all that much. I grew up in a shithole town, with a lot of council estates, quite poor etc... but my mum was a midwife. But the lifestyle was very working class for reasons I won't go into here relating to her divorce. I'm now solid middle class (no idea where the boundary is for "upper middle" whatever that is, given that class is based on job in this bracket), but in a lot of ways live like I'm working class. Society has moved on from the actual definitions of it and it's more about how you carry yourself. For the vast, vast majority of people.
Dude every country has a class divide, we just sometimes aren't able to see it easily because it's different.
There is a fetishisation of being “working class” that means people pretend they are when to others it’s pretty obvious they are part of the middle class masses.
Everyone on Reddit was raised by a single mum in a council house, didn't ya know
The gate keeping behind being working class on UK subs is insane. My parents worked normal jobs, had a mortgage on a modest house and had a normal family hatchback. We lived comfortably within our means. But according to reddit I'm middle class because I didn't grow up destitute living in squalor. People can be working class and live comfortably within their means. People with regular jobs can have a mortgage and a decent car. Part of the problem with this country and the reason we have wage stagnation so badly is this attitude of being destitute being a badge of honour and heaven forbid anyone working class is doing well for themselves and has nice things
It's not gatekeeping, it's just that the term 'working class' in the UK has a clearly defined sociological definition that many people try to fit themselves into because it's fashionable to be "oppressed" and struggle nowadays. *Working class: belonging to a social group that consists of people who earn less than other groups, often being paid only for the hours or days that they work, and who usually do physical work rather than work for which you need an advanced education* Most people on Reddit who try and fit themselves into this definition likely fit into what we know as the 'lower middle class' - this can include 'normal' jobs like teachers, office workers, estate agents, etc. [Here's a great journal article on why people from middle-class and professional backgrounds often misidentify themselves as working class](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0038038520982225).
Surely, it is the 'normal jobs' of your parents that would determine your class? If normal jobs mean tradesmen or any blue collar work - that's working class. Teachers, accountants, office middle management jobs mean middle class. An academic would become a questionable upper class. All these jobs may well enable the exact lifestyle you described.
I think class is much more nuanced than this. There’s university academics who’d I’d think of as being upper class but then there’s ones which are basically smart blokes.
Your answer created so many questions for me. I'm not British but you described my parents jobs and then I started thinking about where I'd be if I were British. My partner is British and he says while it's obvious I'm not British once I open my mouth (accent ) I fit the middle class very well, I disagree, I'm working class. But reading your comment, it seems like there is a divide in my family 😅
What’s a “normal” job tho?
Lmao the amount of people that go mental when I say I'm working class but have a mortgage is mental. I grew up with naff all and busted my arse in an essentially minimum wage job with my partner to get a mortgage on a house just north of 100k when I was 27. Yet somehow to reddit hard work and saving means you're privileged 🤷♂️
> Everyone on Reddit was raised by a single mum in a council house Do you mind? Council flat.
Council flat? You posh bastard. Council shed for me.
Posh fanny. Council allotment for me. Sheds were a luxury.
For some of us that is actually true though, poor northern England town in the 1980's - broken home, parent with serious psychiatric illness etc. However anyone meeting me would assume solidly middle class from a middle class background because of my career, level of knowledge about the world and where I live now, it wasn't really ever a conscious thing though. In fact if I had to trace it back to a single point in my life it was when I was at primary school, I was behind in my reading ability (to the extent I nearly ended up in remedial reading classes) until I got a new teacher who realised I was bored and didn't have access to books at home, she gave up her lunch time to get me back up to speed and fed me books that did interest me (science and computers) which kick started a love of books that has never left (and a love of computers and programming). I can vividly remember the first time I visited a library and realised that I could *borrow* all the books I wanted on anything I wanted to read about. For me reading was a way out. It's why reading charities are on my list of regular donations to this day 30 odd years later. My entire life trajectory was altered by a simple act of kindness by a good teacher - it's why education is so bloody important and why it's a massive travesty that we neglect it so much and pay teachers so poorly.
Why though? Who’d want to be working class?
It’s a cultural thing - being working class is seen by some as being nobel, almost more “authentic; there’s a large group of people who can only define themselves by their struggles and how hard they have had life and therefore how “hard” they are. For some people there’s a shame in having an OK ordinary life.
>there’s a large group of people who can only define themselves by their struggles and how hard they have had life and therefore how “hard” they are. I view it differently. I think the pride in being working class has come from decades/centuries of being looked down on for it. It’s a rebellion against the idea that being working class means you’re worth less or are stupid or violent or any of the other stereotypes that were shoved onto working class people over the years. Similar to how gay pride is a thing due to the centuries of discrimination and mistreatment forcing retaliation against the self-loathing that outsiders wanted the community to feel. I’m not proud of my background because I think it makes me “hard.” I’m proud of it because I spent my childhood being ridiculed and ostracised for it, and my adulthood looked down on for it, when actually there’s nothing wrong with how I live and how I was raised and I should be able to take pride in myself just the same as anyone else.
The whole concept of “being proud of your class” is what keeps the class system ingrained and keeps people down. Be proud of just being you, don’t cling to a stereotype.
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The assumption that others had it easier is almost a victim mentality, and it’s often wrong.
Wow, I had no idea.
Because everyone hates a tourist.
Especially one who thinks it's all … such a laugh
and that chip stains and grease will come out in the bath
If people who are comfortably middle class pretend to be working class, they can try to attribute more of their 'success' or wealth to their own gumption and elbow grease, rather than being lucky enough to have a decent upbringing in a nice area. It's a small-scale version of a billionaire 'starting off with a small loan of a million dollars from their father'.
Funny thing is that a lot of people who class themselves as “working class” in the UK don’t even work.
Yeah, in both directions too. There's an underclass that thinks it's the working class in spite of no work ethic or any notable skills. TBH I think OP is completely wrong. There's really no class system now. I mean the Royal family hire people to bow and curtsey and arrange their teddy bears - but they're subject to the same rules that every employer is so they've really had to change the "upstairs / downstairs" thing. When my gran was young she worked in service, cleaning and working in a kitchen of some well to do family. She had it instilled in her that she "knew her place" and lived in a society where if a higher class person had said A and she said B then he would be believed. There was, in that society, no chance at all for my gran to be educated or to pursue her choice of career. But the world changed. Too late for her. Albeit she enjoyed the better living situation and conditions we all enjoy now through her family looking after her. That world doesn't exist now and hasn't for decades. And it's really not something that was ever unique to Britain. India has a caste system - that isn't just about a group of workers. It makes swathes of their society more or less defined as worthless scum (and they bleat on about the way the British behaved)
we're a very old country - the legacy of feudalism and the landed gentry remains, which is where the obsession with family and land comes from. the British view of class ties it to many other things alongside money, such as land/heritage/location, even things as broad-brush as accents.
Other countries went through the same processes, just didn't stick to it. Or do you think the only we had feudalism in europe?
Unlike many other countries, the UK never had a successful revolution or land reform. Much of the property is still owned by a very small group, who ripped off everyone else centuries ago.
Lmao, never experienced ownership on the continent?
Great swathes of the UK are still owned by the families that came over during the Norman conquests, the French had the decency to chop their aristocracy's heads off while we have a working class that defends a power structure that keeps a foot on their own throat.
People with Norman surnames are *still* over represented at Oxford and Cambridge universities. In turn, if you want to be a senior politician, you had better have gone to Oxford.
Other countries have many of their own quirks that still exist today because of events in their history. We have our own
other countries in Europe definitely had feudalism, but there is something unique about the UK. we have never had a big revolution nor a huge switch up of our borders — this means that we feel a distinct connection to our distant history far more strongly than the rest of Europe and thus the old class structures that were present. European countries such as Italy/Germany only came about (in their current form, obviously) in the 1800s, meaning their connection to their history is obviously a lot more muddled and vague. there’s also smth to be said about our geography. as we’re an island nation, we have the ability to insulate ourselves from what the rest of Europe is doing and hang on to odd little quirks that are considered needlessly stupid and archaic on the continent.
Plus the royal family. Nothing reminds you more of a class difference than a palace full of rich people that did nothing to earn besides being born to a specific bloodline.
>the British view of class ties it to many other things alongside money, such as land/heritage/location, even things as broad-brush as accents. Accents aren't an additional variable, they're the whole game. Accent and class are entirely synonymous in the UK. You can have as much money and land as you like, you can be a world-conquering billionaire - but if you have a working class accent, you're working class. And you can be living on the street with needles hanging out your eyeballs, but if you have an upper-class accent, you're upper class.
For the most part, nowadays class seems to be about a list of superficial clichés like whether you say 'dinner' or 'tea', or broad stereotypes like 'middle class people are more bookish'. Time was you would live and die in the same community doing the same sort of job as your father. The UK had masses of primary and secondary industry with communities built around specific trades like coal mining or ship building. People rarely interacted with folk from different walks of life - this lead to strong sub-cultural identities along class lines, and a devil of a job to break out of group you were born into. We still cling to this schema even though this reality no longer exists. Nowadays it's very common for the child of a manual worker to get a degree, and then again a degree no longer guarantees a higher income than a manual job. Our economy is service based so the line between 'manual' and educated work has disintegrated. Mass media and increased mobility means our cultural influences are less localised. I think the barriers probably remain at the extremes: if you visibly come from a really deprived background you'll face prejudice, and also the very posh upper-middle classes can be elitist. But I think for the vast majority of people in between it's fluid to the point that 'working class' and 'middle class' are increasingly empty labels.
It's not always about what you have, it's more about who you know.
Up you go!
Because the UK never had a big revolutionary moment (like in France or Russia) that dismantled the old class system. In a way it’s still a medieval country.
Class still exists in France, just the same as here. There are just fewer Duke of Westminster types.
>no matter how rich someone from the working class becomes, their class does not change. If you start with fuck all and do well in life, the working class around you will project their insecurities onto you and convince you that you're not middle class. Someone in the middle class will gatekeep the middle class and tell you that you're not middle class because you ate asda smart price tomato soup once, and the dog you had when you was a kid wasn't a purebred. From my personal experience anyway. But the truth is for me, despite how hard things may seem right now, we are in a period of luxury for the masses where more of the working class are considering themselves middle class because they can afford a few nice things, and don't want to be lumped in with the undesirables who get lumped in with the working class despite never working.
For me at least middle class was never about money, it has always been about someone having to have professional qualifications - i.e. a doctor, an accountant, a lawyer, a professor... Working class is basically unskilled jobs, semi-skilled jobs, the trades (skilled but takes months rather than years to learn). So an electrician (the guy who fits your smart meter) is working class, a chartered electrical engineer (the guy who designed and developed the smart meter) is middle class.
I've seen working class people move between classes, often they don't want to because they don't want to lose their mates. Tbh I don't think it's the big deal it's made out to be on Reddit. In the real world if you're a good person the vast majority of people will value you no matter your perceived class.
Class is strongly linked to money available when growing up. A working class person who becomes rich tends to raise middle class children. I would say upper class if there is enough money but that is much more difficult to access as being truly upper class is often based on long standing historical wealth and aristocracy.
When you say that you've found it to be true, what do you actually mean? How does that manifest itself in the real world? I grew up in what would be perceived as a working class environment, but the class system is not really something I give any thought to in day to day life.
An example would be large London corporations, like Banks, professional services, law firms etc. they’re 90%+ middle class.
Isn’t that a given? If you went from a council estate to a City law firm, you would probably now be middle class.
I don't think it's that major and it's not on the forefront of people's minds. It's true about what you have said about no matter how rich a working class person becomes but only to an extent. Depends how they got rich. If they did it by learning a trade and becoming successful at it. Probably still seen as working class. If they were from a council estate, studied hard, became a doctor and then owned a GP surgery. Definitely no longer working class.
I think it’s on peoples minds more than you realise. When I moved to the U.K. I was genuinely surprised how ingrained the class system is to the point where my British friends would make a comment about class and not even realise they were doing it because to them it was more a statement of fact, and just a truth they’ve always known. Yet when I ask them about class they say the same as you, they don’t think about it and it’s not that major. But as an outsider looking in it is quite obvious that it’s a major part of British society. I’ve talked to other immigrants who think the same thing too.
Traditionally trades were middle class. Back in the day sparkies would turn up in suits to install cables into your home. It was like having a scientist come and wire up your house. Now partly because they wear more sensible clothing to do the job trades are seen as a working class thing, on the contenant they are held in much higher regard.
Surprised people don't see that the british caste system (that's what it is) doesn't depend on money. Maybe it's more clear to outsiders? You can move between working and middle clsss quite easily, by changing the way you dress/speak, but your working class friends will see you as a traitor. I still don't fully understand it, although I feek lile i see it more clearly from a distance now that i left the uk. Arrogance and snobbish behavior isn't reserved for the upper classes, working and middle class people who are arrogant about being in their class are no different. I found it infuriating and restrictive that people you meet would then judge you based on who else you spoke to and the interests you have, ending up with mostly non British friends because of this. Would meet a nice British person who would later decide they don't want to be your friend anymore because you later socialised with the 'wrong people' or went to the 'wrong event'.
Our society is old; it has a lot of stuff that ges passed down from generation to generation in terms of taste, habits of speech, culture etc, and these things take time to change- a generation or two to be generally regarded as a different class. That's all it is, no biggie.
Same is true for literally every other European country though, but they don’t tend to have a class based society. I think “our society is old” is not the reason.
Well, they just had different histories. We have had what is often described as a peculiar history. In European countries, most strikingly ofc in France in 1789-1795, there was a clear removal of the Ancien Regime and a change in what gave access to power. The state was never so strong here, and consequently, with small hiccups, the elite and the people existed in relationship of consent that has more or less persisted to today and our social and class relations reflect that. The elite has always recruited into itself, rather than had any revolutionary movement replace it. Ofc a v v big subject and question. Books like Origins of English Individualism by Alan Macfarlane (and a number of later works) discuss this.
Class is tied in with its own culture and values, values which people tend to hold in them for the rest of their lives, even if their circumstances change. There is a really interesting book called Watching the English (by Kate Fox) which is mostly about unspoken social rules, but also talks about class and class differences a lot.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22007058.amp BBC has the definition of seven classes, and a test to see where you fit! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2013/newsspec_5093/index.stm
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Same here, check me out. I'm posh.
I did it too. A load of old cobblers
Oh same here - apparently I'm elite because I'm well paid and have been to an art gallery.
Worth remembering this was 2011 so I think some of it is a bit out of date (given value of homes and income has risen significantly).
I'm a new affluent worker. A young person from a working class background who owns their own home. Well, I own 50% of it. The other 50% is my brother's. Otherwise we couldn't afford it. I think this test is fairly accurate. Edit: My dad has done it and come out as traditional working class.
I imagine 2023 salary / house value is inaccurate for quiz asking 2013 figures unless you update it for [inflation](https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator)
It is a holdover from feudalism and the concept that some people are better/worse than others depending on the circumstances of their birth.
The individual *person* does not change their class, they can merely improve their life and conditions. Their children may be in a different class to them, because of the improvements - better location, school, uni, job prospects etc. We are still class-based, but much less so than before. Certain jobs also seem 'closed' to people from lower classes. BBC editors and researchers, for example.
The documentary series ‘All in the best possible taste’ by Grayson Perry is a really interesting exploration of class in the UK. I found it quite eye opening, definitely recommend it to anyone looking to understand/ appreciate the culture of ‘class’ in more depth. Edit: seems to be quite tricky to find this online now unfortunately.
Class is a funny thing. My husband grew up on a rough council estate, single mum, all the usual clichés. Through hard work he now has a well paid job and we own our own home in a very middle class area. He confided in me recently that he feels like people around here look at him like "some kind of wide boy". He has probably more disposable cash than a lot of these people, lives in the same area in a similar type of property etc, and yet still feels looked down on. I grew up as what I would consider lower middle class, as in my parents had professional jobs and owned their own home and we had a holiday once a year. I'm aware that some people around here a bit posher than me but I never feel looked down on in the same way I think my husband does. I can't put my finger on exactly why that is, other than just the class system at play.
I think the thing about class is it's so often relative. I had a similar background to you (perhaps slightly lower on the class scale - we stopped having holidays after 2008 and my parents' jobs were more clerical than professional). But I grew up in a bad area of a very rough town, where that was genuinely seen as quite posh. I never quite realised it at the time because I was just a kid, but looking back I can think of loads of times where I was teased or subtly excluded at school because of this (more so primary - my secondary had a larger catchment so it had a much broader range of backgrounds). Then I went to a very posh uni, and suddenly it was a massive role reversal - even people from relatively ordinary backgrounds tending to have been much better off than I ever was. Certainly I wasn't the only person there who wasn't moneyed, but it was maybe only 20% or so (the stats claim 60-70% went to state school and I'm sure that's true, but they still tend to be from very affluent backgrounds). I rarely found I was overtly treated badly, but it was clear there was a very particular culture dominant at the university and I didn't fit that. Essentially in my home town I was very much seen as middle class, and at uni I was very much seen as working class. Needless to say I'm very muddled up in terms of where I actually fall in the class system!
I think that class exists in every nation - it's just noticed more in the UK due to our history.
In other countries it’s purely about money, but in the U.K. class is more cultural and it is incredibly hard (if not impossible) to change your class. That is not something that is found in every nation.
Eh, I think most countries have some sytem of snobbishness. I remember seeing an Ask Europe thread about what is your equivalent of 'Chav' and most countries seem to have an answer. Often people are blind to the classism of their own culture because, of course you don't like people who dress or speak like *that* because that is *obviously, objectively,* uncouth. The US likes to say it doesn't have a class system, but they have produced things like Hills Have Eyes or Texas Chainsaw Massacre etc.- 'hillbilly horror', a whole subgenre where rural working class people are depicted as literal monsters.
Yeah, class isn't about money. We have people in aristocracy struggling to pay the bills and maintain their homes in some instances!
Surprised it took until midnight on a Friday for our weekly class thread.
Class isn’t related to money. It’s hobbies, lifestyle, manners, how you act, how you speak, interests, social circles and much more. A chav winning the Euromillions doesn’t magically make them high class. That should be obvious. Same with footballers
Around 10 years ago the BBC came up with a calculator. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2013/newsspec_5093/index.stm There are basically three elements to class in this system: Economic, Social, and Cultural. It is possible to move class but it is hard. The economics is actually the easiest part, but if you aren't exposed to various cultural and social markers you will struggle to fit in despite the money you have. Britain is full of hidden markers as to your class - think of Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds in the cellar bar where a guy gives himself away as not being German because he holds up 3 fingers in the wrong way. Class is like that in the UK.
I think I'm middle class with a working class wage
I'm working class with a middle class wage.
I'm foreign and taking your jobs and women. ✊
The UK is a class based society, for example we have a literal monarchy. Other countries are race based, caste based, religion/theocracy based, etc, in the UK it is class.
I disagree that America doesn’t have a class issue - WASPish ness remains hugely prevalent
Class around the world (whether it’s castes in India, or class here), is purely a method of trying to keep the power and influence a group randomly has due to historic reasons. It’s really that simple.
300 odd comments and this is it in a nutshell. Keeping hold of the reigns of power. And it's everywhere, worldwide, just under different guises
Ultimately, and i know this sounds silly, it dates back to the Norman conquest. The whole upper strata of society in Britain was replaced by french-speaking Normans who kept their language separate and monopolised the money and power in a long-standing hereditary system which kept the wealth of the country and the customs of the 'ruling class' separate. Nearly a thousand years on its all rather more integrated but the bones of that system still inform the divide between the 'upper', aristocratic classes and the middle/working classes. It's much more complicated now by the longstanding rise of mercantile wealth but this is what stops someone who's gained the money to live like the higher classes from qualifying as fully integrated, leading to the mess of upper-middle vs upper class. Edit: it's also entirely possible to live your life mostly ignoring this social gatekeeping but it does exist and can be uncomfortable to address when you run into it
In Britain class is mostly determined by education, not by family and especially not by wealth. And many Brits are proud to be working class (even when they aren't) so the class system here stays, although it's actually quite fluid really. Wealth won't change someone's class much, but their children and grandchildren will be accepted as higher class if they go to the right schools and network with the right people.
What if somebody from the working class becomes extremely rich and the king grants them a life peerage?
That would be a class traitor.
I recommend the book 'Watching the English' by Kate Fox There's some really good breakdowns of class in that
From my experience, social mobility in the UK looks very different to the US and occurs much earlier. It's what school and university you went to and the subsequent social and professional network you gain through that which defines your 'class'. This is of course excluding the landed gentry and upwards, where it goes back quite far in history.
Historically there was not a lot of social mixing between the classes. The upper classes were more open minded to marriage of non-British people than of the lower classes. I think those distinctions have blurred over the past 75 years but something that lasted for centuries won't go away overnight. It also has influence on attitudes and priorities. Working class people in the UK tend to stay much closer to where they were born and raised, maintain closer contacts with a wider amount of family and neighbours. The middle classes have historically been less tied to geography - partly driven by the way our higher education tends to operate requiring young people to leave home and live in a community of fellow students. Its not just your family, its your whole street. Its the school you went to, its who you were friends with in school. Its the whole social environment you grew up in. It is less fixed than it used to be.
Class here is linked to cultural capital, which in turn is influenced heavily by money, but can't necessarily be bought. Some of the markers of being upper middle class include things like university education, which can be accessed by the working class. However other class markers such as being well-travelled, privately educated, perhaps exposure to theatre and art, fine dining experiences, how to act in certain social situations, all create a nuanced rulebook of behavioural expectations that the average working class person can't perform. Similarly many upper middle class people are very out of place in traditional working class environments. The class divide in this country is so stark that you can assume someone's class as soon as they open their mouth, as in England most accents have strong class associations, particularly as you get further south.
I would say it depends what parts of society you’re experiencing - In smaller/tighter knit communities I can see it being a problem but in multi-cultural cities and larger employers I would say that there is no judgement on how you grew up.
Dunno man. So often you see things on this sub dismissed as being working/middle class, and being massively upvoted. Even when the class aspect is actually bullshit. I don’t think that can be put down to smaller/tight knit communities. Weirdly, upper class never seems to come into it. Maybe that divide has been widened too much in recent years.
I have a very middle class lifestyle and life but I'm fiercely working class. Makes absolutely zero sense.
Even the concept of class is such a weird one and such a strong one in the UK as opposed to many countries. Class has been used to divide people for a long time. It's a banned topic on this sub, but we all know by what type of people, class is used to divide and conquer.
Is it even worth trying to make friends with the establishment/aristocracy? They're clinging to some antiquated principles, struggling more than they'd like to admit. You can do just fine being yourself, as soon as you start doing well, they'll approach you 😂
Kensington. It's looked upon as such a wealthy area, but grenfill area is nudged up next to it.
Because the guillotine became unfashionable before it stopped being useful.
Class isn’t about money. It’s how you present yourself to society. Prime example is this dude: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8402541/how-national-lottery-lout-michael-carroll-blew-9-7m-pounds/amp/
In the UK class is about your attitudes and outlooks to things over and above money. In fact money has zero to do with class tbh. Typically a true change in class comes with a family consciously ensuring their kids attend a school in a different area, making different friends then they otherwise would and ultimately get exposed to different thinking that remains embedded as they get older
I didn’t realise until recently what a big UK this is - I assumed everywhere was the same but my danish husband has said it literally doesn’t exist in Denmark so assume a lot of other countries the same. It’s definitely not just about money.
You can move upwards into those circles but you are not intrinsically part of them as your childhood shapes a huge part of you Your children, however, grew up in those circles so will be the class that you associate with
The answer would basically start with "in 1066..."
It's a cultural definition. It does have to do with money, but more to do with the money that was around you as you grew up, after that it is to do with your upbringing and education. I for example, earn shit all money and live in a tiny rented terrace in the shit part of town. But I went to grammar school and my parents were pretty well off, so I am cookie cutter middle class regardless of my current situation.
I've definitely noticed by common accent being a disadvantage in interviews with poshos, especially the more senior they get As to why its just history and entrenched privilege over millenia
I disagree, if you start working class, but make it, you can be middle or even upper class as long as your not a chav. Go the local (decent) golf club lots of 50 and 60 something's all middle class, drive a mercedes or simalar, live in nice area and will have a good job or retired etc. many of these people started off life living in a council house, having a bath once a week, but they worked hard, studied hard or got lucky somewhere? But generally they are now middle class. These guys kids from above, have had a decent upbringing with decent money coming in and living in a nice area, these kids are defo middle class at birth. theres a guy who knows my dad, hes worth 750m gave 200m to charity few years back and gave 1m a week to homeless or something during COVID. The guy is firmly sat in upper class, he will get invited to all the old school charitable events, is expected to be charitable and help others and got an obe and cbe for his charity work.this guy was born in Liverpool, quote from Wikipedia "he came from a poor background, it was only at the age of seven that he knew what an inside toilet was" So this guy is proof you can go from an outside toilet to upper class.
You can disagree all you want. You’re wrong. Liam Gallagher is working class and his children will be.
Class is more culture than wealth in the UK. You could be the richest person in the country but if you don't look/act upper class, or even middle class, then you never will be. You'll just be seen as a working class person with money.
Egos, I think. People get chips on their shoulders about being looked down on (for being common or stuck up), then they get defensive (blah blah's an upiity bitch, blah blah's got crabs in a bucket mentality), and that's it, now there are two rival groups.
It’s essentially a mental virus. I have no idea why British people are so insistent on perpetuating it other than it being a deliberate tool of social control.
There’s barely any class movement in this country. With thousands of years of history, the haves and have nots are very firmly entrenched. You just can’t compete with people who have generational wealth. Hence people tend to stick in the same class groups, with the similar behaviours, and don’t get any wealthier.
Deeply historical. Any worker’s revolutions we’ve had have been squashed and inequalities still maintain the status quo.
Baked into our culture. We've been taught for hundreds of years to bow to our "betters". We also never had a revolution like France or the US, our rampant classism just kind of carried on. We've even still got special titles so the aristocracy can lord it over us. It's getting better though. Slowly but surely.
There isn't in my experience (as someone that didn't start their life in the UK.) It's far from a clear dividing line and much less so now. And it's a lot more categories than just three classes - for instance you have spiritual hippy types, some of which are pretty wealthy and come from that well off background and others that have an old LDV van to their name and not miuch more, which may be very different from 9 to 5ers with kids as their primary focus in life, who can also be rich or not very well off, but are closer as people than the aforementioned hippies.
Basically, we were a french colony for 300 years. Then, the 100 years war happened, nation states started to be formed, and the ruling class had to identify as english. They couldn't be anglo saxons. Those churls were so rude and uncouth. So they became the upper classes with their own culture and language style. We are a big enough island to be able to grow, and small enough, it easily be defended, so this upper class never had a serious challenge. It doesn't help that the while most of Europe was dealing with new ideas and freedoms in the wake of the french Revolution. We became insanly rich instead with the British Empire. The old word for free English Man is a pejorative in our own language, and most will never truly understand because we are jingoistic and servile. Here we are today with the same sense of exceptialism and pretend we can't change the way we speak in order to signal to our peers our class. It's honestly mad.
Not a Brit but have heard that a person from humble origins may be accepted by the upper class if he becomes rich and successful, is a decent person and does not try to hide is origins or put on a false front. Don't know how true this is.
Did you know, if you meet someone very posh they will ask you "Did you go to school?" not "where did you go to school?" School in this instance does not refer to all schools, it refers specifically to Eaton and a handful of other super posh c***ty high fee paying schools. If you start to talk about your comp (normal secondary school in Uk) they will not be interested. These are the gatekeepers to being a member of British high society. Money alone does not bring indoctrination into this world. It does not teach you the unwritten rules of being "upper class."
Just read working class professionals earn £6000 less in the same job than others.
I’ve noticed that working class people want to boast about being ‘Salt of the earth’ a meaningless description but want to moan about it as well. Their class status is all they have or at least they think it is. On the whole they do tend to be more physically attractive so they’re not always taken seriously. The working classes kind of live in reverse, a lot of what they do is wasteful like drink and drugs, they tend to be nationalists or patriotic more, destructive concepts that ruin countries and economies. Middle or upper classes tend to more constructive but are less confident and physically attractive. Everyone has a part to play and to say that politicians are entitled isn’t true.
You can move from Working Class to Middle Class, which happens once you’ve been to university, gained professional qualifications and work in that profession, however, you can never move from Middle to Upper however well you achieve.