A better metric is homeownership to me. Someone who is middle class is secure and doesn’t have to rent nor pay debt. They only really have to work when it’s mutually beneficial. That is basically impossible to achieve in the modern world with the hundreds or thousands of micro taxes and cartel controlled corporate markets and complete lack of land for the lease it’s to live on without virtual indentured servitude. Even if you did spend your entire life buying a house the state would just take it away from your children with the brutal taxation. Without a home you are always going to be a slave and have to work at any shitty job just to have food and a roof over your head.
Even if you own the house and land outright, you still need to pay real estate taxes, and feed yourself. Either you have the money in the bank to cover those expenses for the rest of your life or you don’t. You can have unexpected medical expenses, houses require maintenance which is generally expensive, and transportation is still an issue.
If you have to work to live, you are working class. Full stop.
I think of class like this, lower class, is people who start with nothing. Their parents can’t save any money for whatever reason. They have to start working as soon as they are out of school. They will probably never own anything.
Middle class is more like. The parents own a home, the child will probably own a home. They can go to college. They can move somewhere that better fits them.
Upper class to me is like “good” families, people who have homes and investments. Where the children don’t necessarily have to work. Where getting some type of education is almost expected.
The ultra wealthy to me are not upper class, they are just criminals.
Just about everybody draws a few lines around themselves, and describes everybody within them as middle class. It’s a meaningless distinction, because it means something different to everybody.
Well sure there isn’t a physical thing like class. It’s just an abstraction that we as humans came up with but I like the idea of owning (not indebted) a home, which to me signifies middle class. This is mainly because it gives you a lot of sovereignty. You can choose not to work continually, if the market doesn’t pay a fair rate. You expenses are relatively low and controllable, since you don’t have taxable income and you can survive, even retire in this ideal society.
These days that’s very difficult with inflated asset prices, fiat currency, property taxation of the common people and things like that.
Yes my definition isn’t anymore or less true then anyone else’s because class isn’t something that exists, but personally this is how I see it. I only think in terms of working class when it comes to labor law versus business and stuff. It doesn’t have much use to me outside of thinking about workers rights. Most more left leaning people that I’m aware of these days don’t particularly care about workers and stuff much these days. They care more about things like welfare or equality which to me isn’t really a working class issue so much as a low class issue. I’m not anti welfare by any means. I just don’t think I have every heard like an American Democrats professional or not, advocate for giving workers time off, or protecting their wages from excessive taxation or forced profit sharing or anything like that.
America isn’t a right wing or left wing system. Democrats are mostly right wing and mostly liberals, they are also hard capitalists. The Republicans are mostly alt right and borderline to full blown Nazi. Workers come nowhere in the equation of political parties or the average worker. Most democratic and Republican voters seem to be mostly interested in building a massive surveillance state, rent capitalism via high taxation on the poor and low taxation on the rich, controlling each other, controlling speech and ideas. This is what most Americans for the past few decades regardless of party has found important enough to vote in. If you want someone to care about the working class you will probably have to somehow get your average American to stop being obsessed with spying on everyone in their society first because that is way higher on your average voters priority list.
plenty of people rent their entire lives are fine. and plenty of people own homes get them foreclosed because they can’t afford the payments, or buy too much house.
owning a home isn’t really a huge economic benefit or security, unless your house massively goes up in value. a house is also a huge liability if it has problems. home owning nearly bankrupted my family at one point because of the crazy expensive repairs.
A better metric is homeownership to me. Someone who is middle class is secure and doesn’t have to rent nor pay debt. They only really have to work when it’s mutually beneficial. That is basically impossible to achieve in the modern world with the hundreds or thousands of micro taxes and cartel controlled corporate markets and complete lack of land for the lease it’s to live on without virtual indentured servitude. Even if you did spend your entire life buying a house the state would just take it away from your children with the brutal taxation. Without a home you are always going to be a slave and have to work at any shitty job just to have food and a roof over your head.
Even if you own the house and land outright, you still need to pay real estate taxes, and feed yourself. Either you have the money in the bank to cover those expenses for the rest of your life or you don’t. You can have unexpected medical expenses, houses require maintenance which is generally expensive, and transportation is still an issue.
If you have to work to live, you are working class. Full stop.
I think of class like this, lower class, is people who start with nothing. Their parents can’t save any money for whatever reason. They have to start working as soon as they are out of school. They will probably never own anything.
Middle class is more like. The parents own a home, the child will probably own a home. They can go to college. They can move somewhere that better fits them.
Upper class to me is like “good” families, people who have homes and investments. Where the children don’t necessarily have to work. Where getting some type of education is almost expected.
The ultra wealthy to me are not upper class, they are just criminals.
The middle class does not exist.
Just about everybody draws a few lines around themselves, and describes everybody within them as middle class. It’s a meaningless distinction, because it means something different to everybody.
If you must work, you are working class.
Well sure there isn’t a physical thing like class. It’s just an abstraction that we as humans came up with but I like the idea of owning (not indebted) a home, which to me signifies middle class. This is mainly because it gives you a lot of sovereignty. You can choose not to work continually, if the market doesn’t pay a fair rate. You expenses are relatively low and controllable, since you don’t have taxable income and you can survive, even retire in this ideal society.
These days that’s very difficult with inflated asset prices, fiat currency, property taxation of the common people and things like that.
Yes my definition isn’t anymore or less true then anyone else’s because class isn’t something that exists, but personally this is how I see it. I only think in terms of working class when it comes to labor law versus business and stuff. It doesn’t have much use to me outside of thinking about workers rights. Most more left leaning people that I’m aware of these days don’t particularly care about workers and stuff much these days. They care more about things like welfare or equality which to me isn’t really a working class issue so much as a low class issue. I’m not anti welfare by any means. I just don’t think I have every heard like an American Democrats professional or not, advocate for giving workers time off, or protecting their wages from excessive taxation or forced profit sharing or anything like that.
America isn’t a right wing or left wing system. Democrats are mostly right wing and mostly liberals, they are also hard capitalists. The Republicans are mostly alt right and borderline to full blown Nazi. Workers come nowhere in the equation of political parties or the average worker. Most democratic and Republican voters seem to be mostly interested in building a massive surveillance state, rent capitalism via high taxation on the poor and low taxation on the rich, controlling each other, controlling speech and ideas. This is what most Americans for the past few decades regardless of party has found important enough to vote in. If you want someone to care about the working class you will probably have to somehow get your average American to stop being obsessed with spying on everyone in their society first because that is way higher on your average voters priority list.
no.
plenty of people rent their entire lives are fine. and plenty of people own homes get them foreclosed because they can’t afford the payments, or buy too much house.
owning a home isn’t really a huge economic benefit or security, unless your house massively goes up in value. a house is also a huge liability if it has problems. home owning nearly bankrupted my family at one point because of the crazy expensive repairs.
People can inherit a house and still be poor. Look at india