The class system in your country

[King of Kensington]

How do you define working class, middle class (and whether there's lower and upper sections etc.) in your country? 

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Yuppies, hipsters, locals, and suburbanites.

[Torie]

Yuppies, hipsters, locals, and suburbanites.

You missed the urban cosmopolitan gentry, which has become a very influential class.

[RINO Tom]

I get where they're coming from, but (in an almost self defense-type way) I have to chuckle at some goony-lookin' grad student in Starbucks who smells like onions and doesn't enjoy any more things about life than I do looking down on me for my lack of "class" because I don't do the things they do.  The idea that class is ... well, about however "worldly" or whatever ridiculous metric this "urban gentry" or whatever the hell they like to call themselves ... is just kind of ridiculous.  If that's "class," then it's not an enviable thing.

[Torie]

I get where they're coming from, but (in an almost self defense-type way) I have to chuckle at some goony-lookin' grad student in Starbucks who smells like onions and doesn't enjoy any more things about life than I do looking down on me for my lack of "class" because I don't do the things they do.  The idea that class is ... well, about however "worldly" or whatever ridiculous metric this "urban gentry" or whatever the hell they like to call themselves ... is just kind of ridiculous.  If that's "class," then it's not an enviable thing.

Being a member of a so called class on the theory that the categorization scheme has some use in separating cohorts of persons based on their values, preferences and world view, does not necessarily mean that somebody has "class," as in being person who comports themselves in an estimable way that deserves praise. But then you already knew that I'm sure.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Yuppies, hipsters, locals, and suburbanites.

You missed the urban cosmopolitan gentry, which has become a very influential class.

"Aged yuppie".

[justfollowingtheelections]

My definition of working class: people who have to work in order to get by.

[King of Kensington]

I think this is pretty apt:

http://monthlyreview.org/2006/07/01/six-points-on-class/

[palandio]

Class is complex. I just wanted to propose two observations.

1. While in Germany the percentage of self-employed people and enterpreneurs among the total workforce is relatively low (slightly over 10%, if I remember correctly), in Italy it is much higher: About one third is either self-employed or employed by a family member. This also seems to have profound consequences for politics.

2. The next observation is much less straight-forward, much more perception-based and probably also more contentious. Some Western European countries seem to have a more prominent "autochthoneous under-class" than others. By under-class I mean specifically persons and families that have been poor and will remain poor for a foreseeable time. For example in some almost entirely Italian quarters of Southern Italian cities most people don't have legal, regular or stable jobs (and there are no long-time unemployment payments). Also the immage of an English de-classed white ex-working class is quite strong, maybe stronger than the reality? On the other hand you here much less of an autochthoneous under-class in Western Germany and France. Is there some trugh to this?

[RINO Tom]

I think this is pretty apt:

http://monthlyreview.org/2006/07/01/six-points-on-class/

Interesting article, thanks.

[King of Kensington]

The "minimalist" definition of working class I would say is non-supervisory manual workers.

There's a good case for including routine nonmanual (clerical and retail sales), given their pay and lack of power and autonomy.  However sometimes they're excluded on the grounds that they have low levels of class consciousness and have a wide mix in terms of social origins and destinations.

Blue-collar supervisors rarely have college degrees, come from the ranks of workers, often live in working class neighborhoods and socialize with working class friends.  Perhaps they fit in the lower middle class.  The lower middle class according to some definitions sometimes takes in non-professional white collar workers and small proprietors as well

People with a profession and most managers are middle class.

[King of Kensington]

The UK class system:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_structure_of_the_United_Kingdom#Working_class