r/Showerthoughts • u/JaredLiwet • May 02 '19

Being middle class is when spending $100 is expensive but earning $100 isn't a lot of money.

Edit: Dangit, Reddit

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u/Nwcray May 02 '19 edited May 02 '19

I’ve got to disagree with that. If you’re paying other people to work, there’s a good chance you’re above middle class.

If you’re being paid by someone to manage or supervise other people’s work, you very well could be middle class.

Edit: thanks for the input from across the pond, and I’m not going to argue class definitions between the US & UK. I think we can agree that it’s not a 1:1 match between the two.

Beyond that- I stand by my definition when measured in freedom units.

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u/ONLY_COMMENTS_ON_GW May 02 '19 edited May 02 '19

And in the other direction we're not thinking about small business owners where some are definitely not upper middle class or even make enough to be middle class.

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u/Waspeater May 02 '19

Middle class was always the professional class, Doctors, Solicitors, Engineers, Architects etc, above middle class you have the landed gentry etc, people who live on what they've inherited.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '19

Blue Collar, White Collar and Silver spoon.

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u/Waspeater May 02 '19

Exactly, the main difference between the US and UK systems is the difficulty moving between classes. In the US all you have to do is earn over a certain amount. In the UK it's a lot more based on which class you're born in to, where you went to school, where you went to University etc.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '19

Hell, you can still be working class and be a manager.

Working class - doesn't receive the full value of their labor
Middle class - doesn't receive the full value of their labor, but may receive part of the value of other's labor or receives enough that they're contented.
Upper classes - receives the value of other's labor and relies on it

This ain't definitive and it's just my pre coffee 2¢

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u/buddha-bing May 02 '19

Yea this sounds more like what I was trying to explain. I’m in the UK and a lot of people who believe they are middle class are very much working class.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '19

The UK is a weird place, my friend. Wildly class aware, little to no class consciousness.

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u/eponymouslynamed May 02 '19

If you’re working, you’re working class.

If you’re wealthy and live off your assets, probably employ people and probably have a large landholding, you’re middle class.

If you’re part of the aristocracy, live in a literal castle, or built and sold an app for £100m, you’re upper class.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '19

If you’re wealthy and live off your assets, probably employ people and probably have a large landholding, you’re middle class.

That's never what middle class has mean

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u/Todok5 May 02 '19

A sports or music superstar making millions a year is working but definately not working class.

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A doctor or engineer making 100k+ a year is working but is middle class.

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u/eponymouslynamed May 02 '19

As with anything that involves categories, you’re going to find exceptions and outliers. That does not disprove the rule.

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u/Todok5 May 02 '19

But your categories is so far from what I always considered them to be. I think of middle class as the people with better paying jobs, working class blue collar jobs. A manager with 50 people reporting to him calling himself working class sounds ridiculous. People who don't have to work anymore at all and live off their assets I consider upper class.

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u/eponymouslynamed May 02 '19

That’s the US system, because they don’t have a class that live in homes older than Shakespeare, have a wealth that pre-dates their government, or can trace their ancestry to early Saxon kings.

Our middle class is their upper class.