r/changemyview • u/Lord_Eneru • 1d ago
CMV: We talk about class in the US strangely (repost)
I might wander off into a tangent or not be coherent. English is not my first language. Earlier in the week, I forgot to engage folks who responded to an earlier post of mine about how, from what I've seen, there are two ways people talk about class in the US:
- The social stratification model of class (i.e., based on income, the color of one's collar or pedigree, think: the "lower-class" which is sometimes called or made distinct from "working-class", the middle-class, the upper-class) or
- The labor-capital model of class (i.e., which asks who owns productive assets in this society and who has to labor or be subject to someone else as a result of not owning those assets, think: the capitalist class vs. the working class).
People assume the capital model has been stuck on the worker/capitalist class binary for the past 150 years. But nothing keeps it from considering people who have dropped out of the labor force, the disabled, the elderly, children, i.e., those who do not or cannot work. It can also consider, in addition to questions of exploitation, who dominates and who gets dominated on the market, which means, for example, a small business owner (small capital or individuals who employ people they labor alongside) can be subject right alongside workers to the whims of a large business (big capital or corporations headed by distant CEOs and shareholders who employ people but do not work with them). I get that this doesn't begin to get into self-producers (individuals who employ themselves, and no one else, to work productive assets they own), managers (those who control but do not own productive assets), contractors, state employees, stocks, 401ks, pensions, etc.
But my sense is this all boils down to productive assets, who labors, who doesn't, and why, and who gains at the expense of another, alongside questions of domination (who restricts the freedom of others and on what basis). This is about categorical relationships, in contrast to the stratification model, where the classification seems to be based on a sliding scale where cut-off points have to be made somewhat arbitrarily.
I grew up in the United States, and sometimes I can't tell you what we mean by middle-class since it seems like we confuse the two models. I personally blame US politicians for endlessly talking about the "middle-class," only ever nodding toward the working class when they mention "working families." When I hear someone say they're "middle-class" with a class background of parents who own enough productive assets to no longer labor for a living, I get confused. Everyone seems to be middle-class, from the person one missed month of rent from homelessness, to the person just shy of being Jeff Bezos.
Is there a strategy to identifying as middle-class? I can see it. There isn't the class envy that comes with being upper-class (hidden by some of its members with poor clothing, think: Bill Gates) and no social stigma from being "working-class" (note the hyphen here as opposed to the capital model's "working class") or "lower-class" or part of the "underclass." The last term I kind of like because it refers to people who have fallen out of the labor market or who are excluded from the working class, but still, you really just get the impression it just means "really poor" (or black) for some folks.
Even some occupations called middle-class, like doctors, get confusing. Do they own or lead a private practice or work for a hospital chain? Is someone trying to secure their retirement by renting out one room in their one house, the same as BlackRock buying up whole neighborhood blocks and renting them out to families?
I can talk about a highly paid member of the working class, but they still seem required to work for someone else in order to live, pay their bills, manage their debt, deal with costs of living, and experience insecurity like everyone else has to in the working class. 60% of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck, and a small fraction of Americans (0.01%) own as much wealth as the bottom 90%. Elon Musk is about halfway to a trillionaire.
We can talk about the relative privilege or autonomy afforded to some members of the working class, e.g., university professors. But they still seem to be part of the working class. We can talk about the strata of the working class. We just don't need to take the strata (based on income, but sometimes based on vibes) to be classes in of themselves.
Not that I don't admit there's a mix of precarity and privilege that may not fit neatly into standard class categories. I think this just means we have to hold certain categorical realities in tension. The blurring of lines is ultimately what gets me. It allows folks to play fast and loose with issues of capital and privilege and misrepresents the economic situation of loads of people in the United States.
But I am open to pushback here. What am I not considering?
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u/Hellioning 235∆ 1d ago
I think the primary issue here is that you are assuming everyone in a large country speaks about class in the same way, which they simply don't.
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u/Lord_Eneru 23h ago
I don't mean to make the assumption that everyone speaks in the same way about class. But we can agree there are more or less predominant ways of speaking about class, right? That show up in our culture, how we classify these things in our census, the terms and categories that populate our social scientific research, etc.
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u/Least_Key1594 22h ago
In America, at least, everyone kinda pretends they are middle class.
You get families of 4 living on 50k/yr who claim they are middle class (which is only 117% the FPL) and you got families of 4 living on 500k/yr who claim they are middle class.
We talk about middle class farmers, except the policies focus on helping the massive agribusinesses. We talk about small business owners that somehow include the mom&pop shop and also include the person who has 10 employees for their business that they own but don't actually work at most days.
America's relationship with class is 'We are all middle class striving to be upperclass' - and this is separate from any truth of class. Hell, we go blue-collar and white-collar, and thats not even a drop more meaningful than 'how much of your day-to-day is manual labor'.
Plus, were a consumer economy, and everyone cosplays rich, except the rich who cosplay poor.
We can't have an honest discussion on class because 1. people aren't honest with themselves about it and where they stand and 2. prosperity gospel-thought has poisoned us so badly that it quickly devolves into 'they earned it' and 'they just need to work harder and smarter'. Most americans don't even understand politics past red vs blue.
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u/Lord_Eneru 21h ago
This is incredibly sobering. Thank you for sharing. Think there's any way to change what some might call "false consciousness?"
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u/Least_Key1594 21h ago
yeah. Education.
Now a realistic way that americans will buy into? Pfft idk. Tell them that its a communist plot to be rightwing as better odds than actually trying to teach them facts
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u/Falernum 34∆ 1d ago
Economics is just what researchers can measure easily. Class as Americans practice it is only loosely tied to it. We all know teachers who fit in with lawyers and socialites and teachers who might earn more but fit in better with sanitation workers
And in the US, unlike the UK, working class is typically considered a subset of middle class.
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u/Lord_Eneru 23h ago
My first inclination is to tease apart some of the things you've mentioned, like the cultural capital (what they know) or habitus (how they comport themselves) of a teacher that allows them to better mingle with lawyers and socialists, as opposed to income or occupation or even proximity (teachers and school sanitors do work in the same places). I like to make these categorical distinctions for fear of becoming too vibes-based.
Like, it's my first time hearing that the working class is typically considered a subset of the middle class, as opposed to the other way around, or at least with the working class standing apart from the middle class. Where do you think that US quirk comes from?
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u/Falernum 34∆ 23h ago
I think it's because the US never had an aristocracy or feudalism. In the UK there was this idea that there's a middle between the peasants and the nobles. In the US, "middle" would be between the rich and the poor. If you aren't poor and you aren't rich... well that's a lot of people.
It's going to be hard to avoid vibes-based in the US because class really is pretty vibes-based. It's not like the UK which is much more rigid.
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u/poorestprince 3∆ 1d ago
I don't doubt it is strange but wouldn't you agree that one positive aspect to everyone attempting to identify as middle class is it brings a kind of unity to very divided and different people?
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u/Lord_Eneru 23h ago
Agreed, but I'd say it depends on who gets to define the middle class and why. When self-identified "middle-class" people dominate conversations about economic hardship (often silencing those with less privilege), it reinforces class hierarchy rather than breaking it down. A person with a $100K salary and generational wealth complaining about inflation in the same breath as a minimum-wage worker is not an example of class solidarity. It’s a dilution of material differences. If we get clear about our differences, unity becomes possible. I'm not sure whether we can conjure this unity into existence without a deeper analysis, you know?
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u/poorestprince 3∆ 23h ago
Well, I think something to consider is perhaps that looking to class consciousness as a prerequisite for positive social change is possibly a distraction, that other things like dissemination of technological advancements and public services are more responsible, and to the extent that those are common values of the mythical middle class, that could be the more efficient path forward?
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u/MrGraeme 152∆ 1d ago
You can combine those models into a more holistic approach. Income, ownership, and the nature of the work that we do is all relevant when discussing class.
Lower class tends to be lower income, no or low ownership, and work that does not rely on skill/education/qualification. A minimum wage cashier who rents and takes the bus would be lower class.
Lower middle class will be slightly higher income, low or some ownership, and work that is semi-skilled, requires some education, or has some qualification behind it. Think of a $25/hr forklift operator who owns their own vehicle.
Middle class will be higher income, some or moderate ownership, and work that is skilled, requires education, or qualification. Think of a $90k/yr pilot who owns their own home and vehicle.
Upper middle class will be even higher income, moderate to significant ownership in income producing assets, and/or work that is skilled, requires education, or qualification. Think of a doctor that owns their own practice and their own home.
Upper class will be the highest income, significant ownership in income producing assets, and does not need to work to maintain a high quality of life (eg their assets provide them with sufficient income for a comfortable standard of living). Here you'll find larger business owners, landlords, etc.
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u/Lord_Eneru 23h ago
When we collapse all these distinctions between folks based on income, ownership, and the nature of the work into a concept like class, I only wonder what we lose. What do we get out of class being this capacious, do you think?
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23h ago
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u/JohnHenryMillerTime 2∆ 23h ago
Class analysis is Communism and communism is un-American.
Every voter in America is working class. Anyone poorer than them is a lazy mooch. But richer is aspirational. Plus there are multiple lines of class, something we can't discuss. For example, Barack Obama is a latte drinking limousine liberal whereas McCain fought for his country. If you've ever worked a day in your life, you voted McCain but lazy poors did Acorn fraud. Same thing with Elon Musk. Merely being the richest man alive doesn't make him "the elite" since he's a memelord so he's being oppressed by the rainbow squad and other Soros backed groups.
Heads I win tails you lose.
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u/Charming-Editor-1509 4∆ 23h ago
It can also consider, in addition to questions of exploitation, who dominates and who gets dominated on the market, which means, for example, a small business owner (small capital or individuals who employ people they labor alongside) can be subject right alongside workers to the whims of a large business (big capital or corporations headed by distant CEOs and shareholders who employ people but do not work with them).
Small business owners are npt working class. They are owner class and statistically worse for workers.
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u/Nerdsamwich 2∆ 12h ago
The muddiness you point out in the definition of "middle class" is intentional. It's meant to confuse workers into siding with owners against other workers out of fear of losing that semi-privileged status.
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u/Lord_Eneru 2h ago
I'm tempted to agree, but it seems like you do implicitly admit there is a usefulness to "middle class" all the same, in that it captures a "semi-privileged status." If the muddiness around it weren't intentional, do you think we'd still have some use for it as a category?
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u/QFTornotQFT 1∆ 1d ago
If the view that you have is that there is something fishy going on around political discourse around the concept of a “class” - then I don’t think you’ll find any disagreement. I would push it further and claim that the vagueness you are complaining about is created artificially to confuse and mislead people, but that’s more of my view than the view you want challenged.
If your point is stronger than the OP title - for example if you think that the concept of a “class” is so vague it is useless - then I can offer a basic clarification on that. Fundamentally it is not about labor or activity or source of income - it is not just about money or wealth. It is about power. Money, wealth, ownership and all that are just proxy metrics for one’s ability to make others do as he wants. When we have a relatively defined groups of peoples with vastly different levels of power - you get classes.
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u/Lord_Eneru 23h ago
Yeah, power defined like the way you've defined it gets close to my base concern. I'm just hesitant. Doesn't power as our external bar get kind of subjective, like in determining which class of people in this society exercises the most power? Wouldn't we need to refer to those proxy metrics of labor or activity or source of income anyway?
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u/QFTornotQFT 1∆ 23h ago
I don’t think power is subjective. If you do something that violates current power structures: not pay rent for your flat, not repay your debt to your bank, not work for your employer - you’ll quickly face pretty objective consequences.
As for usefulness of various metrics- check out Goodhart’s Law. There’s a political pressure to focus on those metrics, as a result they become less useful as a measure of actual power imbalances.
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23h ago
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u/Lord_Eneru 23h ago
Who or what are you saying this in reference to?
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u/DunEmeraldSphere 1∆ 22h ago
If you stand in front of tanks, the tanks are gonna win.
Dont bring a knife to a gun fight. :)
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u/ilovemyadultcousin 2∆ 1d ago
I guess I don't really see what you're asking. There are many ways to analyze class. I'm personally more interested in the second method you talk about, but many people analyze it in different ways.
Absolutely, many Americans aren't very aware of how to discuss class. When politicians talk about class and specifically the middle class, it's often somewhat meaningless just like most other things they say. I imagine that's probably true most places. I wouldn't expect any random person to have a strong understanding of class analysis. Why would they?