Common People: A lyrical discussion/dissection

Yep - one crucial factor in the case of high-status low-income professions is that most people in those jobs *choose* to do them instead of something better paid.

using dollar amounts is pretty useless when making generalizations about class in America (except at the top and bottom ends) - $30k/yr is way different if you live in NYC, SF, maybe Seattle? - than say Memphis, Baltimore, or Kansas City

doesn't the fact that you have to create these baroque contrivances show that irl these things are usually fairly clear cut?

― nakhchivan, Friday, September 3, 2010 3:16 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

no. i agree with sarah here, though i don't think the drug dealer/computer programmer example works well. class is not a single thing, the product of income and that's that. class is a word we use to talk about a wide range of things that relate to wealth and social prestige, and though the lines can be made to seem fairly clear-cut when look at from on high, down in the muck of actual human social interaction, the gray areas are huge.

anyway, the designations here in the U.S. are way more arbitrary and fluid and debatable than it seems they are in the UK

The median household income in the US is well below six figures - and the curve falls off rapidly as you approach six figures.

― a cross between lily allen and fetal alcohol syndrome (milo z), Friday, September 3, 2010 3:21 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah. making median income doesn't make one middle class. that's an entirely different evaluation system. in most economies, making median income makes one a well-paid member of the working class. working class = most people. middle class = the not inconsiderable number who've begun to break away from working for a living. upper class = ur overloards.

middle class = the not inconsiderable number who've begun to break away from working for a living

huh?

Median household income in SF is only $10-15k more than the rest of the country, IIRC. So it's a little different - but even in those places where costs are very high, you don't need six figures to make you working class by any stretch.

yeah. making median income doesn't make one middle class.

yes it does.

srsly there is no utility to any of these designations if that doesn't hold

all i know is i meet a lot of people who move to the bay area from other places, and they look at how much rents are for rooms in shared apartments and shake their heads, trying to stifle moral indignation, and say, "what? i could rent an entire house with a yard for that back in (where they came from)"

the first part of your sentence explains the second

though the lines can be made to seem fairly clear-cut when look at from on high, down in the muck of actual human social interaction, the gray areas are huge.

― having taken an actual journalism class (contenderizer), Friday, 3 September 2010 23:27 (1 minute ago)

sure but as i said...

the differences between (some fom of) middle class and working class are complex but given enough exposition you'd probably agree w/ any given poster which group [random person] fell into

― nakhchivan, Friday, 3 September 2010 22:50 (38 minutes ago)

clearly only an extremely reductive materialism equates an inidigent country curate w/ a similarly starving peasant

the grey areas become huge when you get into the upper reaches (often narcissism of sd), the basic middle/working class dichotomy is seldom that cloudy

Totes true - that's why I don't live there now. Even if I could make what I make now, I couldn't afford a studio in the Tenderloin. An SRO maybe, but I have some small measure of pride left.

OTOH, in San Francisco I wouldn't need or want my truck, which saves me $427/month in insurance/loan (all my gas goes through work, thankfully, since I drive my own vehicle) - minus $50 or whatever it is for a MUNI monthly pass.

Coackroaches can be a thing of the past with the right bug spray (which can be purchased at an affordable price) iirc.

middle class = the not inconsiderable number who've begun to break away from working for a living.

lol whut?

The only way I could see 'median income' not equalling 'middle class' is if it didn't provide some measure of opportunity just based on how much you make. Which may be close to happening, but AFAICT children of parents making $50-60k/year in middle America still have a good shot at going to a public school and grinding away at a miserable job for the rest of their lives in the hopes that THEIR kids can climb another quarter-rung up the class ladder

well yeah - i'm trying to figure out where contenderizer is coming from with that six figures comment - like, there is a significant disparity between the cost of living in different regions of the U.S.

middle class = the not inconsiderable number who've begun to break away from working for a living.

lol whut?

― i am legernd (history mayne), Friday, September 3, 2010 3:37 PM (20 seconds ago)

i lol whutted that earlier - lol! The only reason my middle class parents are beginning to break away from working for a living is because they're a year away from retirement age.

working class people who are terminally ill can be said to be "breaking away from working for a living" -- these are among our elites, arguably

haha

i think there are a lot of rap songs about "breaking away from working for a living" - i don't think the rappers are middle class though

think contenderizer may be trying to make middle class mean bourgeois, as in ownership of the means of production... these phrases are all p stupid and very approximate, but no-one else thinks of middle-class as meaning 'earns six figs, doesn't work for a living', and given the necessary intersubjectivity involved in linguistic acts... think contenderizer is off the money.

british class system-wise, jarvis doesn't bring up 'people on benefits' as part of the common people.

lsn peep dis i got more money than alla y'all but y'all don't see me spendin' them ends on somethin phat and swizzy and uploading jpgs of it for everyone to get jealous of rite?

fuk u all and ur class shit.

yeah - i think he's trying to emulate the bourgeois, petit bourgeois, prole taxonomy

there is no utility to any of these designations if that doesn't hold

― horseshoe, Friday, September 3, 2010 3:32 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

sure there is. if you wanna say "making median income", then just say that. we often use "middle class" in political rhetoric to talk about some imaginary "average american", but i think that's a lousy way to conceptualize it. i equate the middle class to marx's petit bourgeois, those who exist alongside the working classes but have begun to assume a quasi-upper-class relationship to personal wealth. business owners and wealthy professionals in marx's eyes, but he was overly attached to the idea of ownership, imo. the owner of a very small business is much more working class than an investment banker making high six figures.

i.e., yes, what i'm doing is exactly what others say - importing marxist taxonomy.

but i'm also trying to insist that far, far more americans are really "working class" than many people think. there are well-to-do working class people and desperately poor working class people, and i'd argue that the vast majority of americans fall into this spectrum somewhere.

This might be a bit flippant but maybe it explains the failure of communication here between US and UK: People in Britain understand class, and class relations, in their guts, the way Americans do race - its the open wound that needs to be kept open if you are to understand how stuff 'really' works. Whereas British people tend to be quite literal and guileless about race, the way Americans are about class.

lsn peep dis i got more money than alla y'all but y'all don't see me spendin' them ends on somethin phat and swizzy and uploading jpgs of it for everyone to get jealous of rite?

fuk u all and ur class shit.

― spidermark, Friday, September 3, 2010 3:41 PM (3 minutes ago)

A+++++

this confusion occurs cuz in american political rhetoric 'middle class' does usually mean something like median income

'the middle class' especially, literally those in the normal income distribution range, no marxist connotations no siree

median is just 50th percentile though - someone can be making the median national income in the US but living in NYC or SF and not enjoy the comfortable lifestyle of the middle class

if we say regional median, then yeah

i think the "middle class" = average american = "YOU, dear voter" rhetorical equation is lame and should be done away with

in America none of us are average, we are all special snowflakes

is cntndrzr doing that thing where he makes up new definitions to suit his arg?

he's using definitions that aren't the most relevant or appropriate to the discussion, but this one he got from Marx

okay, so maybe my terms are weird, but the middle = median = you thing just creates bogus high/low tension between the "lower" & blue-collar "working class" and the white-collar but still working & job-dependent "middle"

proposal

poor
working/middle class
rich

nobody disagrees with you about the bogus invocation of "middle class" by American politicians, i don't think

xp

it's just kind of irritating when working class people perceive themselves as that "middle class" voter and end up voting against their best economic interests because of weird class aspirations, and it's also irritating when people who grew up middle class are in denial about it - either positing that they are higher or lower than what they are.

I don't think that's a very common problem in america? pretty much everyone who isn't bill gates or homeless claims to be middle class.

it's just kind of irritating when working class people perceive themselves as that "middle class" voter and end up voting against their best economic interests because of weird class aspirations

unpack?

cuz i think self-identified "working class" voters tend to vote against their best interests due more to religious pressure than due to class aspirations...

I think a lot of working class people believe that the american federal income tax system overburdens them - but that's partly because we have a country where anyone who has to pay any tax ever believes that they're overtaxed.

i think i'm still caught up in this argument i was having with some friends about why California has gone to shit, and how the biggest problem is because of Prop 13 - and working class people voting for it, and the result is that tuition at state colleges - where they used to be able to afford to send their kids to college - is now often out of reach.

what were they arguing?

they just weren't aware of the impact of Prop 13

but how as their opposition to prop 13 a product of class aspiration? you mean they just wanted to keep more of their hard-earned so that they might ascend?

home-ownership is an huge part of class aspiration

This might be a bit flippant but maybe it explains the failure of communication here between US and UK: People in Britain understand class, and class relations, in their guts, the way Americans do race - its the open wound that needs to be kept open if you are to understand how stuff 'really' works. Whereas British people tend to be quite literal and guileless about race, the way Americans are about class.

― sonofstan, Friday, 3 September 2010 23:45 (Yesterday)

this is well put, though the affective component can be understood

the essex office worker from a wc background is obviously lower middle class, but unless they become wealthy enough that any pretence of proletarian bona fides is rendered absurd, they and their neighbours will persist w/ saying they're working class

but wanting to cut yr property taxes seems more like short-sighted self interest blinding itself to long term consequences - not class aspiration as such