In the US, you're certainly a member of the working class if you lack health
insurance. But Americans have their heads so far up their asses on this
subject that Warren Buffet's daughter can give an interview in which she
declares with a straight face that she thinks of herself as middle class.
jd
On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 7:54 AM, judy prince <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Much of wot you say, Christopher, translates to my country at this time:
> viz, playing the "Working Class card" by both parties; "immaterial"
> labourers, as you aptly term them, now doing "freelance work of various
> sorts (outsourcing, agency working, what is often figleafed as
> 'consultancy'" [BTW, thank you for "figleafed"!]; and the rankling
> result--"So the 'precaritization' of great chunks of the former 'middle
> class' goes more or less undiscussed whilst the local benefit which some
> members of the former 'working class' have undoubtedly received as a side
> effect of this process is frequently presented as upward class mobility,
> which is something it is not." [Aside: wot in the world is
> "precaritization"?! Before tooth decay? Before gold is alchemically
> materialised? Pre-Unloving the former "middle class"? <meep!>]
>
> Some random thoughts about the USA socio-economy that you've perked by your
> post--- p'raps from _only_ my view, p'raps as a (not yet sussed by me)
> member of some particular socioeconomic class here:
>
> 1) USAmericans seem to think of our classes as: upper (sliding down to
> "upper-middle"), middle (straining upwards to "upper-middle"); and POOR
> (hence, nearly always "working" folk!). [Side note from my son the
> bankruptcy attorney (brill professional choice, don't you think?): Poor
> folk spend an inordinately greater percentage of their income on housing
> than wealthy folk.]
>
> 2) "Working class" now means white males, esp in this rather too-lengthy
> presidential nominating process. Same as Nixon & Company useta mean when
> they courted the "Silent Majority", also called "Hardhats".
>
> 3) Re wot Dave (Bircumshaw) says about those in Great Britain: "an
> increasing amount of people think of themselves as 'middle class' or
> something effectively the same, while the reality is .... " etc----here in
> USAmerica, also, are many who make under-median salaries, yet describe
> themselves as "middle class", taking upon themselves the solid mantle of All
> Virtues. I mention this bcuz of my shocking memory of a social-scientific
> study in GB (largely conducted thru interviews with individuals from
> childhood to young adulthood) in which working class and upper class
> interviewees angrily refused to agree with the interviewers that their
> social class had determined their adult statuses. The upper class were
> indignant, saying that they had worked very hard to achieve their positions.
> The lower class were outraged for the same reason---and certain that their
> "class" had not fore-determined their achieved status. I'm remembering this
> study solely on the basis of a public television newscast some 30 years ago,
> so may've misremembered bits of it. But it obviously made quite an
> impression on me!
>
> Best,
>
> Judy
> _________________
>
> "I seldom fuckup Jello." Jeff Hecker, Norfolk, VA, USA
> _________________
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christopher Walker" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2008 8:12 PM
> Subject: Working Class v Middle Class (was Re: New beats (???))
>
>
> <snip>
>> Anybody out there willing to define, describe---specify---wot "working"
>> class means to them, to any of us, to UK'ers, to USAmericans, to
>> Australians, to Italians, to Finns? [JP]
>> <snip>
>>
>> My serious and considered view is that in Britain 'working class' is now
>> almost entirely a polemical term, when it isn't just an item of false
>> consciousness. With Britain's two main political parties now firmly and
>> indistinguishably neo-liberal in practice if not in preaching, both
>> (though
>> most commonly New Labour because of the history of the party it destroyed)
>> play the *Working Class* card, albeit in different ways, because they know
>> it induces reactions. And *affect* is what is wanted rather than (say)
>> change.
>>
>> But it was always a baggy term, inclusive both of those retaining
>> jealously
>> guarded skills and those progressively deskilled through automation. Now,
>> like 'ethnically British', a card also used by New Labour ('British jobs
>> for
>> British workers'), it asserts something about origins in a rather
>> delimiting
>> way.
>>
>> Although conventional British wisdom holds that the 'middle class' is
>> expanding, I think that this term too now means extremely little. On the
>> one
>> hand freelance work of various sorts (outsourcing, agency working, what is
>> often figleafed as 'consultancy' and so forth) has blurred the distinction
>> between the two erstwhile classes both in terms of economic relationship
>> to
>> an employer and in terms of overall wealth. On the other the shift towards
>> *immaterial labour* has increasingly deskilled the 'middle class'
>> professional in quite fundamental ways.
>>
>> Once again the curious result of all this is that political arguments in
>> Britain (a sort of 'immaterial labour' in itself) are now not about social
>> realities but are matters of pure presentation. So the 'precaritization'
>> of
>> great chunks of the former 'middle class' goes more or less undiscussed
>> whilst the local benefit which some members of the former 'working class'
>> have undoubtedly received as a side effect of this process is frequently
>> presented as upward class mobility, which is something it is not.
>>
>> CW
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>> 'Life is too precious to spend it with important people.'
>> (Harry Partch)
>>
>>
--
Joseph Duemer
Professor of Humanities
Clarkson University
Weblog: sharpsand.net
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