I’m confused about the definition of working class in anglophone western countries.
Are Home Owning Financially Secure HOFS individuals – like plumbers/electricians/tradespeople – called the “working class” because they work for the homes they own?
Even though they usually earn much more money than Tenancy Insecure Gig Economy Renters TIGERS who often have far less choice about the work they do, and really do have no choice but to sell their physical or mental labour in order to survive?
In: Economics
I think you are combining a few terms that aren’t actually related.
The term working class is pretty old and not really descriptive of modern society. When the term came into use working class meant the unskilled people working on farms or in factories either doing manual labor or operating machinery. The people you listed as “working class” are skilled trades people – they have always been more valuable (meaning better paid) than regular working class.
The term working class doesn’t apply as well any longer since the culture has changed. Working class when used in the modern context is mostly a way of saying people who aren’t quite middle class but aren’t like homeless poor.
In the modern world skilled trades men, especially plumbers and electricians, are comfortably middle class. Some trades aren’t as financially lucrative others are much more so.
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