Clinging on to a middle class lifestyle...

[Lord Beria3]

The last five years has definately become harder in terms of those 'middle class' lifestyle perks which we used to take for granted.

What I would like to discuss is how have you managed? Secondly, whats aspects of life are a core to being 'middle class' and to what extent are they even desirable or even necessary.

The core of being 'middle class' to me is;

Good education
Home ownership (with land as a bonus) or at least the aspiration for it.
Enjoying cultural and intellectual activities
Regular foreign holidays

The problem is that those four core things are becoming impossible if you are not a banker or a high level professional salary.

[clv101]

I don't think 'regular foreign holidays' are a mark of the middle class. I know plenty of fairly wealthy, professional, real estate owning folk who haven't been on a foreign holiday for years. There are also plenty of relatively poor, non-professional, non-real estate owning folk who manage their week on a Spanish/Greek/Portuguese beach.

I also don't think 'cultural and intellectual activities' need be expensive, and certainly aren't limited to bankers and high level professional salaries! Sure there are some expensive 'cultural and intellectual activities' but many many that aren't!

Education? University applications are up this year - yes there are high fees, but loans are available so no upfront cost and it's expected that a significant number (a quarter?) of the poorest resulting graduates will never pay them back. They (the life-long poor) are getting their education paid for by the richer. Again - education is certainly not limited to those (whose parents are) bankers and high level professionals...

[Little John]

People have become very muddled about what middle class means. There is a classic tripartite structure to any society;

There are those who own the means of production. They are the upper class

There are those who manage the means of production for the owners. They are the middle class.

There are those who operate the means of production. They are the lower class.

Typically, the most extensively educated with be the middle class since they have the most difficult job of both serving their master's interests whilst keeping the lower classes sufficiently motivated and controlled.

As is the case with any middle management tier in any organisation, you tend to find the greatest level of cognitive dissonance there as compared to the other two classes. The upper classes have no dissonance because they d not have conflicting demands on them. The lower classes have less dissonance because they have only the one demand. It is always the middle class that must deal with conflicting demands. They tend to deal with this in a variety of ways. But, they broadly fall into two types;

Either they psychologically affiliate with the lower class and so try their best to manage things in a way that screw those below them as little as possible. They often end up doing so of course because they have no choice if they want to maintain their own class position. I would put most politicians in this category. They mean well but they end up screwing most people just the same. Other obvious candidates include social workers, teachers etc.

Or, they affiliate with the upper class and adopt a supercilious attitude t the lower classes. Marx would have called such people the petty bourgeoisie.

Above all, the main thing that marks the classes apart from each other is their economic status. The upper class do not have to work because they can get other people do do their work for them. They are also very asset rich. The middle class are less asset rich but are have sufficient assets and certainly sufficient earning that they may seek to emulate some of the cultural practices of the upper class. The lower class are primarily identified by virtue of their living from pay check to pay check. That is to say, in the absence of continuous work, they are on the street or at the mercy of state handouts.

All of the other cultural markers of class that people often cite as being clear identifiers are merely (fairly unreliable) effects, not causes, of class. Over the last few years, many people have been bulshitted into thinking that if they read the broadsheets, watch a few foreign film and drink nice wine in a large house they are middle class. However, if they live from pay check to pay check and their "assets" are "owned" largely on the back of debt, they are lower class. That'll be most people then.

[biffvernon]

There are those who own the means of production. They are the upper class

Ah good. I own my shed and the tools therein. I am upper class. I will henceforth look down on the shed-less.

(Well, I suppose I always did.)

[biffvernon]

There are those who operate the means of production. They are the lower class.

Oh, hang on. I operate my tools. I am lower class.

And a bit confused.

(At least I don't take foreign holidays so I can't be middle class.)

[Little John]

My mistake

The primary means of production

[RogerCO]

The distinction between people who own the means of production and people who work for the owners of the means of production (whether as "managers" or "workers") seems a different type of distinction than that between the managers and the workers (the manager/worker distinction is still a useful one, but not as fundamental)

The boundary between managers and workers is more porous than the boundary between owners and those who are owned (wage slaves).

So for me the primary division is between two classes - owners (the <1%) and slaves (the 99%).

The tragedy is that those slaves who acquire knowledge and skills (education and 'leadership' or 'management' skills) which could enable them to lead an overthrow of the upper class get suckered into seeing themselves as distinct from the rest of the working class and either try to become members of the owning class (knocking on a door that never opens legally), or stand aside from the conflict as detached 'professionals' (doctors, lawyers, media types etc etc).

Likewise (or consequently) the workers who are not managers/supervisors are taught (explicitly or by experience) not to trust the managers/supervisors thus depriving themselves of a short cut to revolution. Divide and rule - well done owners

Change may come when the working class (99%) manage to produce an effective fighting force from within their own ranks.

[biffvernon]

I think the whole class thing has become a muddle.

I prefer to divide people into three sets:

those I like
those I don't like
the rest.

[RenewableCandy]

Beria that's a very interesting question. What to me defines the middle-class is our emphasis on education, specifically university. We have been subtly clobbered by Uni fees and the withdrawal of grants. Of course, the "working class" have been clobbered too but not as subtly, by different things, and starting longer-ago (about 1980-ish). Some have been able sort of to "reinvent" themselves: it's not mining and night-school any more, it's call centre and dream of starting own business.

The middle class will have to reinvent itself too as time goes by. Part of what Transition is about, it seems to me, is trying to cultivate among us middle class eejits the (as we see it) working-class ability to stick together as a community and look out for each other. That's why transition can seem so artificial at times: too many people are trying to "manage" projects, too few are simply trying to make friends. But we shall have to become more practically-minded, and we shall also have to realise that once the working class and then the sick-and-disabled portion of the populace have been trashed, we are next in line. We are professional educators and managers: will we learn in time, and how will we manage??

[Little John]

The distinction between people who own the means of production and people who work for the owners of the means of production (whether as "managers" or "workers") seems a different type of distinction than that between the managers and the workers (the manager/worker distinction is still a useful one, but not as fundamental)

The boundary between managers and workers is more porous than the boundary between owners and those who are owned (wage slaves).

So for me the primary division is between two classes - owners (the <1%) and slaves (the 99%).

The tragedy is that those slaves who acquire knowledge and skills (education and 'leadership' or 'management' skills) which could enable them to lead an overthrow of the upper class get suckered into seeing themselves as distinct from the rest of the working class and either try to become members of the owning class (knocking on a door that never opens legally), or stand aside from the conflict as detached 'professionals' (doctors, lawyers, media types etc etc).

Likewise (or consequently) the workers who are not managers/supervisors are taught (explicitly or by experience) not to trust the managers/supervisors thus depriving themselves of a short cut to revolution. Divide and rule - well done owners

Change may come when the working class (99%) manage to produce an effective fighting force from within their own ranks.

Actually, this is precisely my view. Though, you have spelled it out far more eloquently than I. The primary division is indeed between two classes - owners (the <1%) and slaves (the 99%). The "middle class" is merely a special type of slave that has been given a few extra crumbs from the top table sufficient for them to delude themselves that they are anything other than they really are. In that sense, the very notion of a "middle" class is, itself, a delusion.

[BritDownUnder]

One of the many reasons that made me leave the UK was the realisation that house prices where getting out of reach for my budget.

When I graduated in the early 90s I lived in Cambridge and the house prices were about 60,000 pounds for a mid-terrace and I really should have bought one but I did not. I discovered that over the 90s the prices had tripled to nearly 200,000 for a similar house by year 2000. I got a good exchange rate of 3 Australian dollars for one pound, now is about 1.5 Australian dollars so the pound has halved in about 15 years relative. It helped that in the UK I had a philosophy that I save half of what my net earnings were. I always had a reasonable job so that is not always possible for all people but at least the money I accumulated chasing house prices up could be used to buy somewhere in a (at the time) relatively cheaper country.

I suppose you could say that I tried to stay middle class by leaving the country and taking a permanent holiday.

BTW there was an interesting Daily Mail story about the new Royal parents and how they led an enviable middle class lifestyle. I guess if you have the resources of a country behind you then you can lead a pretty good lifestyle.

I think that upper/middle/working class divisions are very blurry these days. I think it would more be like super-rich/employed/welfare-dependent in todays Britain. It is difficult to tell where the boundary between working and middle class is these days but I guess the descriptions given by Steve are the best I have seen.

[adam2]

The traditioal class structure has largely broken down, which may be a good thing.

There will allways be the rich at the top, different political or economic systems may influence how many are at the the top, and just how rich they are, but there will allways be those at the top.

A bit lower down though, the traditional working class/middle class divide has become indistinct.
In years gone by, a bank clerk would have been middle class and a railway track worker working class.
These days though, the bank clerk is probably a minium wage call center worker, and the railway track worker a highly paid, skilled worker on a wage several times that paid in a call center.

Also in years gone by, the clothing worn was a very good guide to the wearers social status, but not now.
Basic but fairly smart clothes are now very cheap, and many of the well of favour tatty jeans and t shirts.

As recently as 20 years ago, a railway ticket inspector in a first class cariage would have a very good idea as to who belonged there and who did not, simply by how they dressed.
Not now ! the chancer without a first class ticket might be wearing a chain store suit, and the upper middle class passenger with a first class season ticket might well wear jeans and a polo shirt.

Many working class people can afford a foreign holiday, when the upper classes would detest budget air lines and probably cant afford afford first on a good airline.
A budget flight to Spain is now much cheaper than a rail ticket to Penzance.

[emordnilap]

The core of being 'middle class' to me is;

Good education
Home ownership (with land as a bonus) or at least the aspiration for it.
Enjoying cultural and intellectual activities
Regular foreign holidays

Interesting definition. Of course everyone reading it will see if they fit. Here goes:

1) I was a dropout from school.

2) I finally got my own house by buying somewhere cheap and run down.

3) Surely everyone enjoys 'cultural and intellectual activities'? Suited to their own tastes, of course.

4) I stay in my own county to holiday.

Yet, I think I'm 'middle class', though by other definitions.

[woodburner]

I went to school.

I bought house

I listen to radio 4

Since leaving home I have been on one foreign holiday, unless you count Wales and Scotland as foreign, then I have been on five foreign holidays.

I don't delude myself as most people seem to, I have to work for a living, therefore I am working class. Like wot most of the rest of you are, even if you have the idea you are something different.

[Little John]

I went to school.

I bought house

I listen to radio 4

Since leaving home I have been on one foreign holiday, unless you count Wales and Scotland as foreign, then I have been on five foreign holidays.

I don't delude myself as most people seem to, I have to work for a living, therefore I am working class. Like wot most of the rest of you are, even if you have the idea you are something different.

Precisely