Isn’t middle simply confusing?
Are we not working folks and wealthy-ruling folks that generate wealth via assets?
Edit: thank you all who’ve helped me gain a better understand of the concept from many different angles
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Exactly how the classes are defined can also depend a bit in where in the world you are. I get the impression that in the States it largely goes by your own wealth/economic power and it’s more a measure of how personally successful you’ve been?
Here in the UK it’s much more based on traditional class roles, and your class is largely set by your family and upbringing rather than your own life path.
Upper class is the aristocracy. They’ve got noble titles in the family, own a country estate going back hundreds of years, don’t really work etc. They’re often asset rich but cash poor – those big country houses are really valuable but it’s unthinkable to sell them and they cost a fortune to run and maintain. Meanwhile it’s unseemly to work, and their traditional income streams from the people working on their land have fallen away. Their family all go to private schools and talk posh. You can’t get into the upper class just by being rich – it’s all about the blue blood.
The middle class is the top rung for the ‘normies’. Their family typically have prestigious careers that would be termed ‘professionals’ (doctors, lawyers, academics, engineers, managers, bankers etc) and usually have university education. This typically means being raised in a stable household with a comfortable lifestyle, but it’s quite possible to be a traditionally middle class person and be down on your luck. Might be expected to have more high-brow interests.
The working class is the majority. Going back to the middle ages, these would be the peasants. From families of blue collar and unskilled workers with limited education, traditionally the poorest part of society. Often expected to have ‘cruder’ interests (e.g. going to the football rather than the theatre). Some can stereotypically mistrust formal education as a sort of betrayal of your class.
There’s a lot more social mobility between the working and middle classes nowadays, particularly with the push in recent decades to get more young people going to university. Though you still hear plenty of tales even now of people from traditionally working class families who are “the first person in my family to go to uni”. But your class doesn’t just change because you got a degree – you could have somebody with a good degree and a professional career – but they grew up on a council estate with working class parents, they’re probably still going to identify with (and be shaped by) those origins.
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