| (This is a set of notes for future reference, not something anyone should read, ever) my apologies. Intuitively I agree - but what struck me was what do we mean by "class"? I can sniff some circular reasoning here. If we say class is culture - and it's easier to hold a certain set of views (liberal market based, empirical lead?) if one is independnatly wealthy and educated in the above market/science combo. Then upper middle class is probably the "top" of the tree. Economic is easy - the UK aristocracy is generally marked out by independant wealth - certainly a number of titles gambled their way out of the aristocracy whereas a title is not needed to be considered upper class (see Branson etc). Perhaps a better term is "establishment" The upper middle class perhaps is those in the 1% still who must work for income. Doctors perhaps? I would suggest anyone who has seen their wages increase in real terms in past thirty years gets to stay middle class after that and those stagnating can be "working" class. (Quotes are sarcastic) If I then suggest that the existence of a billionaire is a symptom of a market failure somewhere, then I am probably arguing that the "upper class" is now a fiction created by market failures - that we can and should erode it till the top of the tree is upper middle class. For example - is a daughter of the revolution, with a Park Avenue address or two upper class? Or is Barack Obama? I would argue that a new driver for social mobility would then be the compulsory draft - military or civilian. |
Two families are of the same social class if a marriage between them would be unsurprising. Money is a sideshow.