What do we mean by "Class"?

 The UK remains one of the most overtly class divided countries in the world. All countries have class divisions, but class remains a very confusing and elusive thing. Mostly we don't talk about it directly, but we are effected by class every day of our lives.

Beverley Skeggs, one of the UK's foremost writers on class, describes the two separate - but intimately related - ways that class can be viewed...

"There are two major theoretical/political trajectories to the development of class as a concept in the UK. The first, marxist, prioritizes the role of exploitation and struggle in the making of classes and hence social relations more generally; the second focuses on class hierarchies and status without reference to struggle and exploitation. For marxists, class has a number of distinctive features: class is a relationship always relative to other groups and the relationship is antagonistic because it is always based on exploitation and control. Therefore class is about the struggle between groups in which exploiters and exploited fight it out. This perspective could not be more different to the other major trajectory which concerns itself with the precise nature of classification, employment ‘aggregates’, status, and how to best conceptualize occupational groups in a hierarchical order. It began in 1665 with William Petty, who set out to calculate the value of the ‘people’ of England for taxation purposes, devising what is now known as the ‘political arithmetic’ tradition of class analysis. The person was conceptualized as a quantifiable, knowable, hence governable object tightly linked to national concerns.

As the category of class developed in popular usage, morality became central to its recognition, categories such as the deserving and undeserving poor euphemised class relations, but were as Lynette Finch documents often premised on the surveillance of women’s behaviour.114 Ann mcClintock suggests, however, that is was not just women but more generalizable ‘others’, who were known through the moral concept of degeneracy, a term applied as much to classifying racial ‘types’ as to women and the urban poor.115 It is this moral and discursive positioning of all types of the working-class with degeneracy that leads to one response – the claim for respectability, which is never an issue for those who are not positioned at a distance from it."

It should be clear from Bev's description that, whichever way you look at it, class is both culturally and economically damaging to those considered to be of a 'lower' class and that we must tackle each aspect of class in order to alleviate impoverishment. And yet contemporary debates about class seem muddled to say the least. Some people consider themselves to be living in a "classless" society, some think of everyone except for a few lucky ones at the "top" or unfortunate ones at the "bottom" as "middle class."  Class can evade any attempt at categorization or simplistic definition. One person's definitions may not make sense to another. We present the following definitions (as originally proposed by Class Action) in the hope of starting a dialogue about class and how it impacts on us.

 A class consists of a large group of people who occupy a similar economic position in the wider society based on income, wealth, property ownership, education, skills, or authority in the economic sphere. Class affects people not only on an economic level, but also on an emotional level.

Class identity - A label for one category of class experience, such as ruling class, owning class, middle class, working class, poor.

Class Indicator - A factual or experiential factor that helps determine an individual's class or perceived class. The criteria for determining class membership or identity can be easily debated.

Examples:

Class Continuum - There are no hard and fast divisions between class groups. Income, wealth, and occupational status are part of a spectrum, and most of us will move a little up or down the spectrum during our lifetime. Immigrants can change class status from their country of origin to their new country. Some people grow up in one class and live as adults in another. Class operates along a continuum or hierarchy.  

Lines may be drawn at different points along this continuum, and positions can be labelled differently. Class is a relative thing, both subjectively (how we feel) and objectively (in terms of position or resources). Our felt experience often varies depending on whether we look up or down the continuum. However, it is clear that everyone at the top end is mostly dominant with respect to class and derives substantial benefit and privilege, while everyone at the bottom end is mostly subordinate and has limited access to benefits.The following visually demonstrates this:

DOMINANTS		Ruling Class Owning Class	"Have Mores"
Mostly DOMINANTS		Middle Class	"Haves"
Mostly SUBORDINANTS
		Working Class
SUBORDINANTS		Poor/ Low-Income	"Have Nots"

The following has been added by the UK's Action Against Classism and may not reflect the views of Class Action or class experience in the U.S...

Class Segregation - The possibility for movement along the continuum gives rise to the argument that there is also the possibility for social mobility throughout society and this, in turn, means that class is not the issue of concern that it once was. Unfortunately the reality remains that social mobility takes place largely in a relatively narrow margin of the spectrum for each individual. Although there was some expansion of the middle class as the UK moved from a production based (with jobs that were traditionally seen as working class) economy to a service based (with jobs that are perceived to be middle class) economy - and as the credit era generated an illusion of individual wealth - we are now in a position where there is almost no social mobility between the working class and the middle class. Social mobility as it presently exists is about working class individuals fighting against personal impoverishment and middle class individuals fighting for greater privileges – each within their own class (the middle class also have to cope with the ever looming threat of impoverishment, but due to classism it is harder for middle class children to fail than it is for working class children to succeed); this breaks down both the popular myth that we're somehow all 'middle class now' and the belief in a 'culture of poverty' which would suggest that the poor are responsible for their own impoverishment. In reality classism – in both its cultural and economic forms - is dividing society and intensifying poverty. In effect we are living in a two tier society, the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' - the 'dominant' and the 'dominated'. The division is not cut-and-dry, but all of us - whatever our 'class' - must understand the privilege we yield over others if we are to bring about real and lasting social equality.

The divide in socio-economic equality is now greater than it has ever been, which means that class is singularly the most important issue we have in terms of social justice even though the issue is largely ignored by our media and politicians - and nothing will change until they are forced to address this important issue.