Working class

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The working class is a social class found mainly in industrialised capitalist societies or in urban centres. While some writers dispute the existence of a working class, many sociologists, historians and political theorists make use of the concept in their academic writing.

The main defining characteristic of the working class is its dependence on wage-labor (or salaried employment) as the main or only source of income, because of lack of capital assets or land that could provide an alternative source of livelihood.

The average amount of capital assets required to free people permanently from the nececessity to work for a living, and live independently, differs from country to country. In the USA, typically one requires about $1 million in order to never have to work again.

In wealthier countries, the working class may also own mortgages or stocks, but usually such assets are not large enough to free them permanently from the necessity to work for a living.

Due to the central role of the concept of the working class in Marxist, Anarchist and Socialist thought, there is a great deal of political interest in the precise definition of who the working class is. Key points of commonality amongst various ideas include the idea that there is one working class, even though it may be internally divided. The idea of one single working class should be contrasted with 18th century conceptions of many labouring classes.

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Debate over meaning

Due to the political interest in the working class, debate has been raging over the nature of the working class since the early 19th century. Two broad schools of definitions emerge, those aligned with 20th century sociological stratum models of class society, and those aligned with the 19th century historical materialism economic models developed by Marxists and Anarchists.

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Non-Marxist sociological definitions

The parameters which define working class depend on the schema used to define social class. For example, a simple stratum model of class might divide society into a simple hierarchy of lower class, middle class and upper class with working class not specifically designated.

A more finely divided stratum model such as that of Paul Fussell breaks out three categories of blue-collar workers which he designates as "high prole" skilled blue-collar workers; "mid prole" workers in factories and the service industry; and "low Prole" manual laborers. He places office workers in the "middle class" and professionals in the "upper-middle class." At the lower end he places the homeless in a class he terms the "destitute."

Identification of a person as a member of the working class is often based on the nature of the work performed (Blue collar/White collar) by the person, the income of the person, or the extent of formal education that the person has completed. However, studies of social class generally focus on other traits, such as the basis for the person's access to the means of production, or amount of control that the person has over his work environment.

Working class people are generally paid wages, usually on a weekly or monthly basis. In popular American political discourse, medium-income skilled laborers and tradesmen are termed "middle class" despite having minimal investment income as are college-educated white collar workers.

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Marxian definitions

Karl Marx defined the "working class" or proletariat as the multitude of individuals who sell their labor power for wages and do not own the means of production, and he believed them responsible for creating the wealth of a society.

For example, the members of this class physically build bridges, craft furniture, and grow food, but do not themselves own the land or the factories. The proletariat are further subdivided by Marxists into the ordinary proletariat and the lumpenproletariat (rag-proletariat,) who are extremely poor and cannot find legal work on a regular basis. These may be prostitutes, beggars, or homeless people.

As Marxist definitions of class hinge around paid labour and lack of property, key issues in Marxist arguments about working class membership include:

  • Temporary and permanent unemployment
  • Domestic labour, particularly the children and spouses (historically wives) of workers who do not themselves work
  • Ownership of personal property
  • Ownership of housing
  • Ownership of non-economically effective tools (tradesmen etc.)
  • Self-employment
  • The class position of students in society
  • Workers who are also engaged in petit-bourgeois production, for example, part-time workers who also run a retail shop.
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Views of the working class

Explanations for the situation of the working class have varied dramatically over the centuries and are still hotly contested. The main points of contention are what causes an individual to be a member of the working class, and what are the causes for the troubles faced by the working class.

In feudal Europe, and other pre-capitalist societies, the working class as such did not exist in large numbers. Instead, society conceived those engaged in manual labour as labouring classes, a group which united different professions, trades and labours together. In Europe, a lawyer, craftsman and unskilled peasant were all considered to be part of the same social unit, a "third estate" of non-nobles who were not church officials. Similar hierarchies existed outside Europe. The social position of these labouring classes was viewed as natural and ordained by deities. This social position was contested, particularly by peasants, for example during the German Peasants War.

In the 18th century in Flanders and England more and more labourers subsisted only on the basis of their labour. They ceased to own tools, land or feudal privileges. Additionally, the dispossession of large numbers of peasants created wandering bands of vagabonds. These members of society were dispossessed by the wealthy in order to produce marketable commodities. This process, where traditional social and political roles are destroyed, and capitalist commodity relations are substituted, is bound up with the generation of working classes across the world and is commonly known as proletarianisation.

In the late 18th century, the European society was in a state of change, and this change could not be reconciled with the idea of a changeless god-created social order. Wealthy members of these societies created ideologies which blamed many of the problems of working-class people on the morals and ethics of the working class themselves (i.e. excessive consumption of alcohol, perceived laziness and inability to save money).

These processes were identified in English history by E.P. Thompson in his book The Making of the English Working Class. Thompson argues that the English working class was present at its own creation, and seeks to describe the transformation of pre-modern labouring classes into a modern, politically self-conscious, working class.

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Working class culture

As the working class is divided among nations, and internally divided along very broad lines of rural, blue collar and white collar occupations, there is no one unitary culture. Working class cultures tend to be identified on national and occupational bases, for instance, Australian rural working class culture or New Zealand white collar working class culture.

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American working class culture

In the United States, the working class is divided between blue-collar workers and white-collar workers.

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Social and emotional life

According to Rubin (1976) there is a differential in social and emotional skills both between working class men and women and between the blue-color working class and more sophisticated college-educated workers. Working class men are characterized by Rubin as taking a "rational" posture while women are characterized as being more emotional and oriented towards communication of feelings. This constellation of issues has been explored in the popular media, for example, the television shows, All in the Family featuring Archie Bunker and his wife Edith Bunker and Roseanne. These popular television programs also explored generational change and conflict in working class families.

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Sexuality

According to Rubin, who cites as sources Kinsey (1948) and a national survey in Playboy magazine twenty-five years later, working class sexuality has increased considerably in sophistication during the last decades of the twentieth century: duration of foreplay has increased from near zero to an average of 15 minutes; the percentage of married men who have engaged in cunnilingus was reported at 15% in 1948 and at 56% 25 years later. This increase of sophistication has resulted in some dissatisfaction, especially among working class women, who may not enjoy or participate willingly in such practices as fellatio.

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See also

Social class, Proletariat, proletarianization, Bourgeoisie, Ruling class, Unfree labour, Underclass, Middle class, Upper class, Blue collar, White collar, Globalisation, Illegal immigrant, Minimum wage, Living wage, Wage slavery, Trade union, Knowledge workers.

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External links

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Further reading

  • Engels, Friedrich, Condition of the Working Class in England [in 1844], Stanford University Press (1968), trade paperback, ISBN 0804706344 Numerous other editions exist; first published in German in 1845. Better editions include a preface written by Engels in 1892.
  • Ernest Mandel, Workers under Neo-capitalism

http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/19xx/xx/neocap.htm

fr:Classe ouvrière zh:工人阶级 de:Arbeiterklasse