Does Britain still have a Class system ?

[Mick Mac]

"The term "class" is etymologically derived from the Latin classis, which was used by census takers to categorize citizens by wealth, in order to determine military service obligations.[3]

In the late 18th century, the term "class" began to replace classifications such as estates, rank, and orders as the primary means of organizing society into hierarchical divisions. This corresponded to a general decrease in significance ascribed to hereditary characteristics, and increase in the significance of wealth and income as indicators of position in the social hierarchy"

So, as I said, class has always been interlinked with income, or wealth. Now as regards wealth I have not figured out how anyone could have wealth whilst never having had any income, either generated themselves or generations before them. And the original Roman census did not I assume discriminate between old and new money.

As it says above class exists (and will always exist imo) as a "means of organizing society into hierarchical divisions" and even if we see this as only a sociological tool, that is in fact what it has always been. It's just measured differently.

We may be more "modern" in our thinking in that we try not to discriminate on the basis of class and we provide assistance to those less well off, but there will always be people trying to divide society into groups, whether the normal distribution of income/wealth is wide or narrow.

How do we get there? There is the cycle: Good education = more income = even better education = even more income.....leads to many generations of wealth if pattern uninteruppted by waster offspring. :)

[Huguenot]

That's true Mick Mac, but when most people talk about class in Britain they are explicitly referring to the Victorian landed gentry (the toffs / the aristocracy), the white collar middle classes and the blue collar working classes that are established by birthright and genetic heritage.

What LondonMix and mrsS are referring to is tribalism and on a larger scale regionalism - a particular manifestation of small time British protectionism, but most definitely NOT a class system.

On a grander scale you can see it in anti-Europeanism, and no-one would call this 'class war'.

When a petty home counties fusspot looks down on a regional accent it is not class, because both individuals are cut from the same jib, it's about tribes.

The ED locals complaining about Clapham blow-ins is not class - because the established citizens and the blow-ins do the same jobs and have the same mortgages. It's about tribes and values.

People often want to extend tribal conflicts into class ones, because it's a natural way to extend the size of your army. In this case 'working class' is the most attractive because it's not only the largest group but also the most physical.

However, it's an abuse of reality, the disenfranchised Marxist proletariat is practically no more, and with right-to-buy is being actively empowered out of existence. The landowning aristocracy has been taxed out of existence.

We are all middle class now, but I'm sure that won't stop the haters and the boo boys from finding enemies within prejudices based on skin colour, accent, store selection, and any other differentiating factor.

But it ain't CLASS.

[Mick Mac]

Huguenot Wrote:

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> That's true Mick Mac, but when most people talk

> about class in Britain they are explicitly

> referring to the Victorian landed gentry (the

> toffs / the aristocracy), the white collar middle

> classes and the blue collar working classes that

> are established by birthright and genetic

> heritage.

>

What I thought I had demonstrated above is that class is a means of dividing people into groups, as proven by its original use and definition.

The OP was a bit of a rhetorical question. For anyone to say that class does not exist anymore is a bit like saying statistical analysis is not allowed to exist.

As regards what people determine to be the basis of the division, be it land owning gentry in the 18th century or any other basis, this does not take away from the fact that the divisions continue to exit, whether more or less marked and whether the basis of catagorisation has moved with the times, as it no doubt has.

As regards your other point that these gentry/white collar/blue collar levels of status are obtained by birtright and genetic heritage to some extent is true, but I said above that at the end of the day it all comes back to income. For any family to be wealthy enough to own land there has had to be at some stage a person who generated income.

[Otta]

Just to be clear here, I meant that Working class / Middle Class, as defined probably until the 80s, doesn't exist anymore. I certainly never meant that there are no social divides, I just think that labelling them by class is outdated and lazy.

[Mick Mac]

Was not meant to be aimed at your opinion, it was just your post that made me think about it Otta.

I think its fair to say that, yes its all moved on from middle class, but the socio economic distinctions of low "middle" and upper do exist and often when people are referring to class now they possibly mean the current day understanding of what that is.

When people say middle class these days they seem to mean middle income and people on middle income would mostly fall into the middle socio economic grouping, by income, education etc. But not always.

[the-e-dealer]

"You are all a bunch of plebs you dont run the country we do"

[Jeremy]

Mick Mac Wrote:

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> the socio economic distinctions of low "middle" and upper do exist

> and often when people are referring to class now

> they possibly mean the current day understanding

> of what that is.

Yes you're probably right, but these socioeconomic distinctions exist pretty much everywhere. It's not the same thing as the historical British concept of social class. There is much greater social mobility these days - I'm sure a lot of us know successful people from blue collar backgrounds.

The earlier poster from Sweden claims that there are no socioeconomic divides in her home town - I would say that Nordic countries with elaborate welfare states and sparse populations are the exception rather than the norm.

[Parkdrive]

In answer to the question posed in title of this particular thread, the simple answer is yes as anyone can tell you with a pair of eyes and ears.

[Loz]

Why do you think that, Parkdrive? Do you really think there is no social mobility in the UK?

[Huguenot]

T-e-d, one idiot doesn't define a country.

The reason his comment made headlines was because it was exceptional rather than everyday. To some extent the fuss that comment caused is PROOF that traditional class prejudices are not ubiquitous in Britain.

[Chillaxed]

As a foreigner, my view is that class (however defined) infects an awful lot of what goes on in the UK. Just look at how many threads on this forum descend into 'class warfare', regardless of the original, intended topic. So maybe no tangible system, but a system in many people's minds for sure.

[Mick Mac]

Loz Wrote:

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> Why do you think that, Parkdrive? Do you really

> think there is no social mobility in the UK?

Acknowledging that 1) class groupings exist and 2) saying there are boundaries to social mobility would be different things.

Over time, even when we had landed gentry, middle class, working class, families would have moved between these classes over time, or generations, as a gradual process, just not overnight.

People can move more quickly between modern day socio economic groupings, based upon education and income. I guess that's progress.

[Huguenot]

Again Chillaxed, I think you're confusing class warfare with tribalism. It's understandable that you would try and slot undeserved prejudice and snobbery into a picture postcard version of Britain - we all do the same thing to foreigners too ;-)

Class distinctions are an outdated cliche regarding the British that has as much relevance as claiming that 'Roast Beef' is the nation's favourite dish in a country that gorges on Chicken Tikka Masala.

The proletariat - the vast Victorian block of society whose only wealth was their children - is no more.

All we are left with is banal justifications for small minded behaviour.

[Chillaxed]

Huge, so when various posters refer to the working or middle or even upper class on this forum, they're simply assigning outdated names to what are better described as 'tribes' or 'whatever vague social group the person associates themselves with at the time'?

[Otta]

Yep, that's pretty much it.

[Chillaxed]

Thing is, you and I may think that, but I doubt the person using these terms does. Hence my earlier post - no system, but for in people's minds.

[red devil]

Ignore the bloke at the start...

 

[DaveR]

You have to distinguish between a 'class system', where you can obviously link power, money and status to an identifiable social class, and what H calls tribalism, but where the hallmarks of a particular tribe look uncomfortably like class based norms.

100 odd years ago, the very idea of social mobility was unthinkable to lots of people, and the barriers were just as rigid between the upper and middle class as between the middle and working class.

Now it's all all a lot more vague, but still pervasive. Take an imaginary 40 year old man living in ED. He drives a VW Golf, has a son called Charlie (whose hair is long and untidy), takes holidays in rural French gites, reads a broadsheet newspaper, bakes his own bread at the weekends, has a 'real' tree at Christmas, and has Mumford and Sons on his (old, battered) Ipod. If you had to predict whether he is an assistant producer at the BBC or a self-employed builder, which would you choose?

[red devil]

Trick question...Mumford and Sons is a dead giveaway...he's actually a social worker

[Jessie]

Mumford and Sons are posh though

[Huguenot]

DaveR, it doesn't matter whether he's an assistant producer at the BBC or self employed builder, he's still middle class. As self-employed he's in control of the means of production - manifestly not a working class pursuit.

Your description trys to define middle class as being an artistically inclined educated liberal. That's a much more tightly demarcated tribe, not a 'social class' but undoubtedly as Maxxi would have it, a 'classification'.

Additionally, I spent much of my youth working with arty liberals doing up property in France for witless yuppies - we were all self employed builders, but I don't think anyone on here would suggest I was 'working class'?

On the EDF, 'working class' is defined as having lived in ED when it was shit, and not liking grotesque caricatures of people from Clapham.

That's not a social class, it's a local tribe.

[Mick Mac]

Huguenot Wrote:

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>

> Additionally, I spent much of my youth working

> with arty liberals doing up property in France for

> witless yuppies - we were all self employed

> builders, but I don't think anyone on here would

> suggest I was 'working class'?

>

Why of course not Hugs - who would dare insult you in this way...

[The ED Wilberforces]

On the EDF, 'working class' is defined as having lived in ED when it was shit, and not liking grotesque caricatures of people from Clapham.

You forgot 'and defending the community against Tory cuts!'

*Are these like 'Tory boom and bust'?

[the-e-dealer]

Ah good to see you back UDT

[DaveR]

H, it wasn't a definition but an example (and a deliberately cliched one). The point is not to ask whether a self-emnployed builder is middle class, but whether there is an association between lots of bits of apparently unrelated behaviour, on the one hand, and stereotypically class related occupations on the other i.e. whether 'tribes' or classifications' still have an unmistakable whiff of class about them. Put it another way, if you suggested to my stereotyped dude that instead of holidaying in a cottage in the Ardeche he might want to think about going all-inclusive to Tenerife, what would his reaction be? And how would he justify it?

Also, you say the self-employed builder is middle class, applying a Marxist analysis, but how relevant is that to modern British society and in particular to concepts of power and status?

PS - you're obviously middle class because you remember nostalgically when you were a 'builder' - but you're not a builder.