What makes someone Upper rather than Middle class?

[Blarg]

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Wealth != Income. You can be upper class and rich and make $0 a year. That said, most theorist connect class with wealth and not income.

from what I gathered from my SOC class, there is no real definition but a few prospectives depending on from which socialogical viewpoint you have

K. Marx didnt even think middle class existed, but just upper and lower (includes middle), with the upper class owning the means of production, and the lower providing the labour.

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Bourgeois.

[Big Poppa Smurf]

I've always just gone with this distinction:

If you have to work, you're middle class. If you don't have to work (and pretty much because your family was so loaded you don't need to, regardless of lifestyle) you are upper class. Winning the lotto or being a celebrity doesn't count though.

[Blarg]

I don't think this works, Poppa, because "have to work," at least where the dividing line really starts to become a question, is defined completely differently and entirely on outlook. We have this question in OOT regularly, and the last one we had, people were saying that even if you had several million, you weren't rich. They said you "had to" work, but defined it as having to work because you wanted X level of luxuries and/or security.

Now, some people are very happy not being ultimate ballers and just being independent. For some, independence is nowhere near good enough. You MUST have the Bentley, you MUST be able to not only go on vacations regularly, but long expensive ones at the best places with the best accomodations, and over and over again during the year. Strangely enough, these same can also angrily insist everyone else has exactly the same standards and, if not, they're retarded or drug-bloated hippie communist degenerates or something.

People often choose how much to work once they have some real money. It's not a necessity any more at all. It's just that you can make lifestyle choices that make virtually any amount of money look paltry compared to your "needs." And you can justify almost any level of high living or wasteful spending as a "need."

[GreywolfNYC]

Simple answer. The upper class take the dishes out of the sink before they piss in it.

[mrkilla]

[ QUOTE ]
middle class:




upper middle class:




upper class:



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This is all relative to where you live, that lower class house in a place like Greenwich CT would be the same as that mansion in a place like Buffalo NY

[fluffpop62]

Max Raker,

Nope, I lived in Northern Virginia, and went to high school in Alexandria. Full of old money and verrry old, beautiful houses, boarding schools, churches, and obviously politics.

Tagtastic & Britspin,

I think that your's is very accurate Tag, unless you live in an area of the country with a lot of old houses (i.e. Alexandria), your mansion is probably going to look like that. We don't have houses like that in America, Brit! Maybe as people's country homes in places I've never been? And I think that your M/C -> U/M/C distinction is perfect, because I would describe my family as UMC and our house is relatively similar, same with NLS and my best friend back home's.

[RJT]

Based on your descriptions I’d say the upper class know if they are or not. If any doubt then it seems that one has not yet arrived.

Here in the states things work a bit differently. There is old and new money sure. But there are all kinds of layers of lists. E.g. Donald Trump – it would be hard not to describe him as upper class; but then what is the point of the term if he fits the bill?

[Blarg]

There is no point for most purposes in America. Then again, the upper class probably don't care about anyone's purposes but their own.

America views itself as a classless society with the perfect political system. Even the poor and lower middle class often feel that money and virtue are more or less the same thing and proof of each other.

By that outlook, new money may be gauche, but even gaucheness can be worshipped as simply being expressive with one's freedom or ignoring convention after having earned the right to do so. It's our own version of "the noble savage."

There is a strong admiration of new money in America as a signal that the system is working the way it should and that the fellow with new money is working the way he should, too. This gives him automatic high moral standing. There is even a contrasting resentment, occasionally, of old money as "unearned" and less of a ringing moral endorsement.

There is a consciousness in America of great fortunes being obtainable within a single lifetime, even starting out from poverty, that is so central to the American take on life that it's probably hard for others to picture, and may even seem a bit absurd. The American Dream has not only internalized this possibility, but exaggerated its relevance to the daily lives of its citizens. Americans are much more likely to think they'll hit the lottery, or that doing so is possible, so to speak, than are other people in equal circumstances. Then again, it is typically American to think there are no equal circumstances, as we are the endpoint of moral and social evolution. So we can find ourselves and our possibilities exceptional without hesitation, whereas others would cast a more rueful eye.

[britspin]

[ QUOTE ]
Max Raker,

Nope, I lived in Northern Virginia, and went to high school in Alexandria. Full of old money and verrry old, beautiful houses, boarding schools, churches, and obviously politics.

Tagtastic & Britspin,

I think that your's is very accurate Tag, unless you live in an area of the country with a lot of old houses (i.e. Alexandria), your mansion is probably going to look like that. We don't have houses like that in America, Brit! Maybe as people's country homes in places I've never been? And I think that your M/C -> U/M/C distinction is perfect, because I would describe my family as UMC and our house is relatively similar, same with NLS and my best friend back home's.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ahh that's partly my point. i don't think that there is anyone who can easily be described as "upper class" in America. Maybe, maybe, a few families in the NE of the US who trade mostly on inherited land wealth and familiy name. The Astors and so forth, people like that.

For clarity, I think that this is a very good thing for America. Not having a landed gentry is a wonderful thing.

[Blarg]

We do have a lot of legacy and trust fund kids, though. It's our invisible upper class. The best jobs still go to Ivy League legacy kids and friends of friends, same here as anywhere.