Where do you *feel* you stand in society?

[Hamilcar]

Lowest of the lowest.
Right of center.

Siege is a data point adding to the sum total showing that intelligence is highly correlated to success in life.

[Hamilcar]

Zoltan Istvan of the Transhumanist Party is my favourite candidate. Mainly because Augustus Sol Invictus does not run for the President. 

Transhumanists >>> libertarians.

[Razgovory]

Zoltan Istvan of the Transhumanist Party is my favourite candidate. Mainly because Augustus Sol Invictus does not run for the President. 

Transhumanists >>> libertarians.

Airline pilots who fall asleep at work >>> Transhumanists >>> libertarians.

[CountDeMoney]

Zoltan Istvan of the Transhumanist Party is my favourite candidate. Mainly because Augustus Sol Invictus does not run for the President. 

Better Call Sol

[Ed Anger]

Middle class, center-ish.

[crazy canuck]

Well then we have quite a few upper class folks on welfare

*sigh*

If you have to work for your 1% lifestyle, then you're not upper class.

what about a person who earns in the top 1% but spends like he is middle class   

[Eddie Teach]

The middle class typically don't spend a thousand dollars a month at the butcher.

[garbon]

The middle class typically don't spend a thousand dollars a month at the butcher.

Indeed!

[grumbler]

SO the key is whether you "have to" work?

So if you are willing to survive on welfare, you are upper class?

If your parents left you a couple hundred thousand dollars, and you are content to live on the $15,000/year in interest that gives you, you are "upper class"?

But if you have a lavish lifestyle requiring a million a year to support, and you make a million a year to support it, you are NOT upper class, because you are required to work to support the lifestyle you choose?

None of that makes any sense. This idea that "upper class" is defined as the wealthy non-working pretty much disappeared about a hundred years ago or so in western society.

Executives in large companies are upper class in American society at least, whether they "have to work" or not.

Yes, the traditional diving lines are:

Upper class: you don't have to work - you have enough wealth that work is optional.  You can afford luxuries.

Middle class:  you have to work, but can afford some luxuries

Lower class:  have to work, but your income goes almost entirely towards necessities.

I agree with Malthus that the traditional dividing lines don't work very well with modern societies, with all the wealth transfer mechanisms.  But, if you are going to use terms like "upper class," then you have to go with the definitions of those terms, even if you don't always agree with them.

[crazy canuck]

The middle class typically don't spend a thousand dollars a month at the butcher.

True, but with children leaving the CC nest we no longer consume those amounts much to the despair of my butcher. 

[Malthus]

SO the key is whether you "have to" work?

So if you are willing to survive on welfare, you are upper class?

If your parents left you a couple hundred thousand dollars, and you are content to live on the $15,000/year in interest that gives you, you are "upper class"?

But if you have a lavish lifestyle requiring a million a year to support, and you make a million a year to support it, you are NOT upper class, because you are required to work to support the lifestyle you choose?

None of that makes any sense. This idea that "upper class" is defined as the wealthy non-working pretty much disappeared about a hundred years ago or so in western society.

Executives in large companies are upper class in American society at least, whether they "have to work" or not.

Yes, the traditional diving lines are:

Upper class: you don't have to work - you have enough wealth that work is optional.  You can afford luxuries.

Middle class:  you have to work, but can afford some luxuries

Lower class:  have to work, but your income goes almost entirely towards necessities.

I agree with Malthus that the traditional dividing lines don't work very well with modern societies, with all the wealth transfer mechanisms.  But, if you are going to use terms like "upper class," then you have to go with the definitions of those terms, even if you don't always agree with them.

Yup.

The problem with discussions of class divisions is that they are typically attempting somewhat incoherently to stitch together at least three different sets of definitions:

1. The traditional class structure, as you outlined, but also includes other even older concepts like the inherent class dignity of educated work (thus a university professor is always middle class, while a plumber could be "working class" even if he earns the same as the prof.).

2. Relative income ("the 1%" = earning more than 99% of persons in the country).

3. Notions of relative prospects, which is what my preferred system is based on.

These definitions are in conflict in many cases.

[Martinus]

I think it also varies greatly on a country by country basis.

For example in Poland it has traditionally been based much more heavily on something called "cultural capital" than on financial things. This has been changing somewhat since the fall of communism, but generally your home book shelf and whether you have a piano probably tells more about your social class than your bank account.

That is why you can have something like "an impoverished upper class" - something that would be a contradiction in terms under the grumbler's definition.

[Malthus]

I think it also varies greatly on a country by country basis.

For example in Poland it has traditionally been based much more heavily on something called "cultural capital" than on financial things. This has been changing somewhat since the fall of communism, but generally your home book shelf and whether you have a piano probably tells more about your social class than your bank account.

That is why you can have something like "an impoverished upper class" - something that would be a contradiction in terms under the grumbler's definition.

Yup, and even older (here) notion of class. Which still exists to an extent in Canada.

Goes something like this:

- Oldest: class based on dignity of descent. Your parents came from nobility, makes you a noble even if you are an uneducated clod with no money. That hardly exists at all here.

- Newer: class based on dignity of education, manners, and tastes: still used (a remnant of that is statements like "His knowledge of art and music made him very classy").

- Newer still: class based on the dignity of certain kinds of work - using one's education rather than one's hands. The university prof makes the same as the plumber, but is considered higher class. 

These are all somewhat related (the nobility was thought to have the time to cultivate "good taste" and education in manners etc.)

[derspiess]

I think it also varies greatly on a country by country basis.

For example in Poland it has traditionally been based much more heavily on something called "cultural capital" than on financial things. This has been changing somewhat since the fall of communism, but generally your home book shelf and whether you have a piano probably tells more about your social class than your bank account.

That is why you can have something like "an impoverished upper class" - something that would be a contradiction in terms under the grumbler's definition.

Argentina's a bit like that.  With the addition that a good family name still counts for something in some circles.

[Josquius]

The basics seem fairly simple.

Working class - a blue/pink collar family.
Middle class - a white collar family.
Upper class - aristocrats and, these days albeit not traditionally, the really big CEOs and celebrities.

So yes. This does mean a lot of working class people are actually richer than middle class people.

The main confusion comes when you get people of working class background doing well for themselves in middle and upper class roles.