i think the point of this "classless" society is not that there aren't inequalities and stratification, but that having broken the mold of industrial societies people don't fit the old molds.

it used to be that working class you worked in a factory, middle class you were the management, and upper class you were the owner. nowadays? there are the mega-rich, the ultra-poor, and the mess in between. where does one belong is difficult to know.

i for example make less money than a skilled factory worker would, so does that make me working class or underclass? then again, i was raised middle class and probably behave like one. that would be 3rd-world middle class, which is different.

then there's the issue that in countries like the u.s. your social class doesn't depend on your upbringing but on your current salary, which can vary from year to year. it's a very complex porridge. so by "classless" what it's meant is that there are no class "blocks". a woking class person attends night classes and suddenly lands on the middle class. then you have rednecks with money. what are they?

economic classes we definitely have, social ones, it's a bit trickier-- especially in america i think.

yes but implicit in what you just said is that class still exists but it is harder to place people into those particular classes because of economic and social standing in their particular communities.

I think we can all agree that a "classless" society is a crock of shit, and that the class boundaries of the past 100 years are still nicely in vogue, by and large. And so forth.

maybe in england. certainly not in the united states. the working class was DESTROYED during the reagan era. what is left is a small core of auto & industrial workers, but certainly not a majority of the population. there is a huge service economy where people get paid minimum wages, get no benefits or security of any kind, have no unions to represent them, and spend most of the time in front of computers, at the phone, etc. that i think does not qualify as "classic" working class--- though it's working. it's more of a working underclass because it has no cohesiveness or power of any kind. (and now even those jobs are being outsourced to india & so on).

on the other hand you have the rise of a creative class which, though mostly bourgeois in its economic role, has bohemian tastes and lifestyles-- those people starved 100 years ago, and now are the ones driving the information economy. this used to be a contradiction maybe in the XIX century but not any more.

the reason i say this is because social classes depend on the economy. during agrarian times, we had the serfs and the aristocracy and the city people. with the rise of trade and industry, the aristocracy wanes, the city people consolidate their power, the serf becomes the proletarian, and production and consumption become disloged-- you no longer produce what you consume, but you produce for a market.

today i am not sure where we are going but it's evident that the industrial model no longer applies. we don't have too many "company towns" built around factories anymore, at least not in developed countries.

however, in economic terms, there are still the fuckers and the fuckees, and you can call that whatever you want, but that's the part that doesn't change.

I always saw working class as one defined by physical labor and, therefore, generally (but not always) lower class.

My father is a small-case lawyer so we're middle class.

that's exactly my point, that used to be working class, but what about telemarketers? no physical labor, yet awful wages, awful working conditions... you get the idea. then again, take a small case lawyer, middle class, but give him 7 children and some debts and no help from the state-- can you live like middle class really? in america, you can jump from middle class to homelessness in a matter of months.

This is certainly not the case for the telemarketers I know. They are pampered at work, and make decent money.

really? wow.
uau. i learn something every day.... even those who sell subscriptions????

More on subscriptions in a PM coming your way.

I can't be too sure what it is these individuals are selling, or who they are being contracted by, and could give a shit less to be honest. I've never got a clear answer from them about what it is they do when they are calling or being called, I suspect this is because they could also give a shit less.

Working-middle.
I myself am, technically, classless... but my family is the above.

My parents in their own country were dirt poor. My mom who was indigenous lived of what she grew, my dad lived on what he grew as well, and stole the lands from the rich in what now is a big town over there.

wow, in australia telemarketing is lower pay than factory work, my friends do it when they need to inbetween acting jobs

fucking telemarketers!
i play them songs on my guitar when they answer, its quite nice..other times i fall in love *sigh*

That's right. Most likely I will make a higher income than my parents do. I prefer the term "jurist" though. I don't think I'll become an attorney, if this points out the difference.

I'm almost but not quite lower-middle class. I base this on the horror my uni friends expressed when I said I've been abroad 5 times in my life (as opposed to their 3 a year minimum). I've often been called "posh" because of my reletive lack of accent and the words I use.
Anyone for a spot of class warfare?

There is simply not a classless society. Fullfuckingstop.

i grind my heel on the face of the working classes!

You'll be tortured accordingly, Toilet & Bowels.

the mere thought of plebians with their hideous visages and uncouth and unruly behaviour is already torture enough!

Sadly enough, that's too true. Don't mistake us for farmers though, they are the worst.

I was once taught that class distinction was based on what job your parents had, so accordingly teachers were on a par with doctors when in fact they are paid considerably less.
Anyhow i think im lower-middle class.

Please don't make me type about the real meaning or definitions of classes, because it's boring, and it's been done way better by other people. Interesting thread, though.

middle-working