Who do you think's going to win the US presidential election?

[Josquius]

Could've fooled me - it's one of the most expensive places around. :p

Well yeah. A street cleaner from Canada is a king in Mali.
But Switzerland isn't a great country in which to be poor.

How long has Josq been affluent?  10 years?  20?  He's an out of touch white guy who wants to think of himself as poor because the poor are more moral than the rich.

Me, I'm solidly middle class.  While I live on social security and dwell in the cheapest apartment in town, 16 generations ago one of my ancestors owned a grocery store.  So, you know, I still keep to my roots.  That doesn't change the second you change your economic standing.

I don't want to think of myself as poor. I'm not poor. I'm working class. Different thing.

I've been in the higher tax bracket for 3 years on which I'm supporting 4 people.
 I live in a two bedroom house in a neighbourhood ranked in the top 5000 out of 33,000 in the country for deprivation - and it's the nice bit of this part of the city, some top 1000 areas a few minutes walk away.
I'm doing alright. I'm not struggling with bills. But I'm far from rich.

Most importantly through my childhood and early adult years. Ie the formative years which make you as a person. Where your attitudes are formed. I ranged from getting by to dirt poor, always overdrawn and seeing having a bag of crisps every so often as an extra special treat.
Research backs me up on this. There's a huge divide between those who grew up middle class and those who grew up working class even when they are able to go to the same unis and crack into the same careers.

But again this is the problem with this sort of trumpian attitude in working people. The crabs in bucket mentality. Anyone who manages to break out and crack on with life? They're not one of us anymore. They're to be hated. Efforts are to be made to knock them down.
Somebody else having something means you miss out.

[Razgovory]

Sorry, the working class are more moral than the affluent.  My mistake

Yeah, this is a British thing.  I kinda thought you guys grew out of this rigid social class thing, but I guess not.  In American an affluent person does not typically think of themselves as still part of the trailer park.

[HVC]

Again, under that criteria Jeff Bezos is middle class.  Maybe even lower class since his daddy abandoned him and he lived rough until his step dad came along.

[Josquius]

Sorry, the working class are more moral than the affluent.  My mistake

What does this even mean? What does this have to do with anything I said?

Yeah, this is a British thing.  I kinda thought you guys grew out of this rigid social class thing, but I guess not.  In American an affluent person does not typically think of themselves as still part of the trailer park.

British and, you know, science.
Eg. https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/24/poorer-children-twice-as-likely-to-be-out-of-work-in-later-life

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/6-ways-growing-poor-impact-170042913.html

Again, under that criteria Jeff Bezos is middle class.  Maybe even lower class since his daddy abandoned him and he lived rough until his step dad came along.

He's 60 and has been a big shot businessman for nearly 30 years - with the 10 before that looking like he quickly became pretty senior.
Then to consider he is stratospherically wealthy. The more you progress in that direction the stronger the tug away from your upbringing is.

If he'd had a normal working class childhood that would be long gone in the rear view by now. Though it seems he had a pretty well off family albeit with messed up relationships?

[Razgovory]

Yeah, I don't know what your article proves.  That people who are poor grow up to be poor?  That's true in the US as well.  Of course that's not YOU.  You worked overseas for God sakes.  Working class people only work overseas when they are in the military.

So in America, we have white guilt.  Do they have class guilt in Britain?

[Sheilbh]

Yeah, this is a British thing.  I kinda thought you guys grew out of this rigid social class thing, but I guess not.  In American an affluent person does not typically think of themselves as still part of the trailer park.

Ish - I mentioned this to Tamas as I think there's something to the American critique. As I say according to polls of how people identify we are a more working class society now than we were in the twentieth century. Which is not true.

But in some ways I think it's just the British version of "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". Americans perhaps emphasise how far they've gone in doing that (and anyone else can too!), while Brits emphasis that it hasn't changed them (and it was them, uniquely, that did it!).

[Razgovory]

We do have politicians like, like Vance who try to emphasis their working class upbringing.  Which is what I think of when Josq talking about being working class.

[Josquius]

Yeah, I don't know what your article proves.  That people who are poor grow up to be poor?  That's true in the US as well.  Of course that's not YOU.  You worked overseas for God sakes.  Working class people only work overseas when they are in the military.

So in America, we have white guilt.  Do they have class guilt in Britain?

Read the articles again.
Even with the same educational outcomes, the same jobs, in theory all being the same as middle class peers, there's still noticeable differences in how people from working class backgrounds perform.
Your upbringing absolutely does impact on your adult life.

And sure. Working class people never work overseas. It's not like people wanting to do this is one of the big issues of our age is it?

Again you're playing the crabs in a bucket game. You have a degree don't you? You can go teach in Asia too if you can peel your arse out of your chair. It's not some super priveleged opportunity locked away for the rich.

Though there does tend to be a big lack of awareness about the opportunities available amongst working people - which brings me back to the core issue of how your upbringing defines you into adulthood.
It's not that middle class people are especially capable of getting a job abroad. It's that they're more likely to know what opportunities are out there and for various reasons have the mindset to do it.

(And lest you forget the reason I originally went to Japan was I couldn't afford to do an internship)

[Barrister]

Yeah, I don't know what your article proves.  That people who are poor grow up to be poor?  That's true in the US as well.  Of course that's not YOU.  You worked overseas for God sakes.  Working class people only work overseas when they are in the military.

So in America, we have white guilt.  Do they have class guilt in Britain?

Read the articles again.
Even with the same educational outcomes, the same jobs, in theory all being the same as middle class peers, there's still noticeable differences in how people from working class backgrounds perform.
Your upbringing absolutely does impact on your adult life.

No one disagrees that your upbringing impacts your adult life.

But what sounds very bizarre to North American ears is your insistence that you're "working class" just because that's how you grew up, when your finances very clearly aren't.

Please just accept this and move on.

[HVC]

Don't think it's a continental view either. Might be purely British (or Josquish )

[Sheilbh]

I get what you're both saying - and I'm 90% with you.

But I also think a lot of what Jos and Brits mean when they're talking about class in that way is basically what Americans (and maybe Canadians?) call cultural capital.

Think Nixon or LBJ v the Kennedys, or (Bill) Clinton's pitch as a boy from Hope who feels your (economic) pain v Bush. In the UK I think all of that would be described in class terms. As is often the case in the US I think there's often a similar but more racial discourse about this - say the impact your upbringing has on someone who later reaches university and feels alienated, not welcome, unsure of how to behave etc - in the UK that's often class-based.

[HVC]

I get what you're both saying - and I'm 90% with you.

But I also think a lot of what Jos and Brits mean when they're talking about class in that way is basically what Americans (and maybe Canadians?) call cultural capital.

Think Nixon or LBJ v the Kennedys, or (Bill) Clinton's pitch as a boy from Hope who feels your (economic) pain v Bush. In the UK I think all of that would be described in class terms. As is often the case in the US I think there's often a similar but more racial discourse about this - say the impact your upbringing has on someone who later reaches university and feels alienated, not welcome, unsure of how to behave etc - in the UK that's often class-based.

But Josq says there a time limit (30 years of affluence at the upper limit) where one can no longer claim an original class. So at what point in time does one switch class?

We also have a term for newly affluent. "New Money", I'm sure you have it too. Upper class cash with lower class vulgarity . But I'd never classify them as lower or middle class.

[crazy canuck]

I get what you're both saying - and I'm 90% with you.

But I also think a lot of what Jos and Brits mean when they're talking about class in that way is basically what Americans (and maybe Canadians?) call cultural capital.

Think Nixon or LBJ v the Kennedys, or (Bill) Clinton's pitch as a boy from Hope who feels your (economic) pain v Bush. In the UK I think all of that would be described in class terms. As is often the case in the US I think there's often a similar but more racial discourse about this - say the impact your upbringing has on someone who later reaches university and feels alienated, not welcome, unsure of how to behave etc - in the UK that's often class-based.

We would say, "comes from a working class background" not "he is working class"

[Barrister]

I get what you're both saying - and I'm 90% with you.

But I also think a lot of what Jos and Brits mean when they're talking about class in that way is basically what Americans (and maybe Canadians?) call cultural capital.

I'm not trying to tell Jos he's "wrong" for calling himself "working class" - but that he would be wrong in many parts of the world and it's only a particularly English sort of notion of class that he's using.

[Razgovory]

I get what you're both saying - and I'm 90% with you.

But I also think a lot of what Jos and Brits mean when they're talking about class in that way is basically what Americans (and maybe Canadians?) call cultural capital.

Think Nixon or LBJ v the Kennedys, or (Bill) Clinton's pitch as a boy from Hope who feels your (economic) pain v Bush. In the UK I think all of that would be described in class terms. As is often the case in the US I think there's often a similar but more racial discourse about this - say the impact your upbringing has on someone who later reaches university and feels alienated, not welcome, unsure of how to behave etc - in the UK that's often class-based.

But Josq says there a time limit (30 years of affluence at the upper limit) where one can no longer claim an original class. So at what point in time does one switch class?

We also have a term for newly affluent. "New Money", I'm sure you have it too. Upper class cash with lower class vulgarity . But I'd never classify them as lower or middle class.

It's amusing.  I pointed out J.D. Vance, who on the campaign leaned heavily into his working class background, but is a venture capitalist.  So he would certainly be "working class" or even poor by Josq's reckoning.  In the US he simply a rich bastard in a suit.  You pointed out Jeff Bezos but we could also put in John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie.