Social class composed of those employed in lower-tier jobs
The
working class
, or in
Marxist
terms, the
proletariat
,
includes all employees who are compensated with
wage
or
salary
-based contracts.
[1]
[2]
Working-class occupations (see also "
designation of workers by collar colour
") include
blue-collar
jobs, and most
pink-collar
jobs. Members of the working class rely exclusively upon earnings from
wage labour
; thus, according to more inclusive definitions, the category can include almost all of the working population of
industrialized economies
, as well as those employed in the
urban areas
(cities, towns, villages) of non-industrialized economies or in the rural
workforce
.
Definitions
[
edit
]
As with many terms describing
social class
, working class is defined and used in many different ways. One definition, used by many
socialists
, is that the working class includes all those who have nothing to sell but their labour. These people used to be referred to as the
proletariat
. In that sense, the working class today includes both white and blue-collar workers, manual and menial workers of all types, excluding only individuals who derive their livelihood from business ownership and the labour of others.
[
verification needed
]
The term, which is primarily used to evoke images of laborers suffering "class disadvantage in spite of their individual effort", can also have racial connotations.
[4]
These racial connotations imply diverse themes of poverty that imply whether one is deserving of aid.
[4]
When used in non-Socialist contexts, however, it often refers to a section of society dependent on physical
labour
, especially when compensated with an hourly
wage
(for certain types of science, as well as journalistic or political analysis). For example, the working class is loosely defined as those without college degrees.
[5]
Working-class occupations are then categorized into four groups: unskilled labourers, artisans,
outworkers
, and factory workers.
[
page needed
]
A common alternative is to define class by income levels.
When this approach is used, the working class can be contrasted with a so-called
middle class
on the basis of differential terms of access to economic resources,
education
, cultural interests, and other goods and services. The cut-off between working class and middle class here might mean the line where a population has discretionary income, rather than finances for basic needs and essentials (for example, on
fashion
versus merely
nutrition
and shelter).
Some researchers have suggested that working-class status should be defined subjectively as self-identification with the working-class group.
This subjective approach allows people, rather than researchers, to define their own "subjective" and "perceived" social class.
History and growth
[
edit
]
In
feudal
Europe, the working class as such did not exist in large numbers. Instead, most people were part of the labouring class, a group made up of different professions, trades and occupations. A lawyer, craftsman and peasant were all considered to be part of the same
social unit
, a
third estate
of people who were neither
aristocrats
nor church officials. Similar hierarchies existed outside Europe in other
pre-industrial societies
. The social position of these labouring classes was viewed as ordained by
natural law
and common religious belief. This social position was contested, particularly by peasants, for example during the
German Peasants' War
.
In the late 18th century, under the influence of the
Enlightenment
, 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 their morals and ethics (i.e. excessive consumption of alcohol, perceived laziness and inability to save money). In
The Making of the English Working Class
,
E. P. 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.
[
verification needed
]
[11]
Starting around 1917, a number of countries became ruled ostensibly in the interests of the working class (see
Soviet working class
). Some historians have noted that a key change in these Soviet-style societies has been a massive a new type of
proletarianization
, often effected by the administratively achieved forced displacement of peasants and rural workers. Since then, four major industrial states have turned towards semi-market-based governance (
China
,
Laos
,
Vietnam
,
Cuba
), and one state has turned inwards into an increasing cycle of poverty and brutalization (
North Korea
). Other states of this sort have collapsed (such as the
Soviet Union
).
Since 1960, large-scale proletarianization and
enclosure
of commons has occurred in the
third world
, generating new working classes. Additionally, countries such as
India
have been slowly undergoing social change, expanding the size of the urban working class.
[
page needed
]
Marxist definition: the proletariat
[
edit
]
Karl Marx
defined the working class or
proletariat
as individuals who sell their
labour power
for
wages
and who do not own the
means of production
. He argued that they were responsible for creating the
wealth
of a society. He asserted that the working class physically build bridges, craft furniture, grow food, and nurse children, but do not own land, or
factories
.
A sub-section of the proletariat, the
lumpenproletariat
(
rag-proletariat
), are the extremely poor and unemployed, such as
day labourers
and
homeless
people. Marx considered them to be devoid of class consciousness.
In
The Communist Manifesto
, Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels
argued that it was the destiny of the working class to displace the
capitalist
system, with the
dictatorship of the proletariat
(the rule of the many, as opposed to the "
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie
"), abolishing the social relationships underpinning the class system and then developing into a future
communist
society in which "the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all." In general, in Marxist terms
wage labourers
and those dependent on the
welfare state
are working class, and those who live on
accumulated capital
are not. This broad dichotomy defines the
class struggle
. Different groups and individuals may at any given time be on one side or the other. Such contradictions of interests and identity within individuals' lives and within communities can effectively undermine the ability of the working class to act in solidarity to reduce
exploitation
, inequality, and the role of
ownership
in determining people's life chances, work conditions, and political power.
Informal working class
[
edit
]
The
informal working class
is a sociological term coined by
Mike Davis
for a class of over a billion predominantly young urban people who are in no way formally connected to the
global economy
and who try to survive primarily in
slums
. According to Davis, this class no longer corresponds to the
socio-theoretical
concepts of a class, from Marx,
Max Weber
or the
theory of modernization
. Thereafter, this class developed worldwide from the 1960s, especially in the southern hemisphere. In contrast to previous notions of a class of the lumpen proletariat or the notions of a "slum of hope" from the 1920s and 1930s, members of this class are given hardly any chances of attaining membership of the formal economic structures.
[15]
[16]
Higher education
[
edit
]
Diane Reay
stresses the challenges that working-class students can face during the transition to and within higher education, and research intensive universities in particular. One factor can be the university community being perceived as a predominately middle-class social space, creating a sense of otherness due to class differences in social norms and knowledge of navigating academia.
[17]
Laborer
[
edit
]
A
laborer
(or labourer) is a skilled trade, a person who works in
manual labor
types, especially in the
construction
and
factory
industries. Laborers are in a working class of
wage-earners
in which their only possession of significant material value is their
labor
. Industries employing laborers include building things such as roads, road paving, buildings, bridges, tunnels, pipelines civil and industrial, and railway tracks. Laborers work with
blasting
tools,
hand tools
,
power tools
,
air tools
, and small
heavy equipment
, and act as assistants to other trades as well
[18]
such as operators or cement masons. The 1st century BC engineer
Vitruvius
writes that a good crew of laborers is just as valuable as any other aspect of construction. Other than the addition of
pneumatics
, laborer practices have changed little. With the introduction of field technologies, the laborers have been quick to adapt to the use of this technology as being laborers'
workforce
.
See also
[
edit
]
Working classes in different countries
References
[
edit
]
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Abendroth, Wolfgang
(1973).
A Short History of the European Working Class
.
- Doob, Christopher B. (2013).
Social Inequality and Social Stratification in US Society
. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey:
Pearson Education
.
ISBN
978-0-205-79241-2
.
- Gutkind, Peter C. W., ed. (1988).
Third Worlds Workers: Comparative International Labour Studies
. International Studies in Sociology and Social Anthropology. Vol. 49. Leiden, Netherlands:
E.J. Brill
.
ISBN
978-90-04-08788-0
.
ISSN
0074-8684
.
- Kuromiya, Hiroaki (1990).
Stalin's Industrial Revolution: Politics and Workers, 1928?1931
.
- Lebowitz, Michael A.
(2016).
Beyond Capital: Marx's Political Economy of the Working Class
.
Palgrave Macmillan
.
- Linkon, Sherry Lee (1999). "Introduction". In Linkon, Sherry Lee (ed.).
Teaching Working Class
. Amherst, Massachusetts:
University of Massachusetts Press
. pp. 1ff.
ISBN
978-1-55849-188-5
.
- McKibbin, Ross
(2000).
Classes and Cultures: England, 1918?1951
.
- Rubin, Mark; Denson, Nida; Kilpatrick, Sue; Matthews, Kelly E.; Stehlik, Tom; Zyngier, David (2014).
"
'I Am Working-Class': Subjective Self-Definition as a Missing Measure of Social Class and Socioeconomic Status in Higher Education Research"
(PDF)
.
Educational Researcher
.
43
(4): 196?200.
doi
:
10.3102/0013189X14528373
.
ISSN
1935-102X
.
S2CID
145576929
.
[
permanent dead link
]
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Benson, John (2003).
The Working Class in Britain, 1850?1939
. London:
I.B. Tauris
.
ISBN
978-1-86064-902-8
.
- Blackledge, Paul (2011).
"Why Workers Can Change the World"
.
Socialist Review
. No. 364. London. Archived from
the original
on 10 December 2011
. Retrieved
20 November
2018
.
- Connell, Raewyn
; Irving, Terry (1980).
Class Structure in Australian History
. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire.
- Engels, Friedrich
(1968).
The Condition of the Working Class in England
. Translated by Henderson, W. O.; Chaloner, W. H. Stanford, California:
Stanford University Press
.
ISBN
978-0-8047-0634-6
.
- Jakopovich, Daniel (2014),
The Concept of Class
(PDF)
,
Cambridge Studies in Social Research
, No. 14.,
Cambridge University Press
,
archived
(PDF)
from the original on 24 September 2021
, retrieved
30 July
2021
- Leon, Carol Boyd. "The life of American workers in 1915,"
Monthly Labor Review
(U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, February 2016)
https://doi.org/10.21916/mlr.2016.5
- Miles, Andrew;
Savage, Mike
(1994).
The Remaking of the British Working Class, 1840?1940
. London:
Routledge
.
ISBN
978-1-134-90681-9
.
- Moran, William (2002).
Belles of New England: The Women of the Textile Mills and the Families Whose Wealth They Wove
. New York: Thomas Dunne Books.
ISBN
978-0-312-30183-5
.
- Raine, April Janise (2011).
"Lifestyles of the Not So Rich and Famous: Ideological Shifts in Popular Culture, Reagan-Era Sitcoms and Portrayals of the Working Class"
.
McNair Scholars Research Journal
.
7
(1): 63?78.
Archived
from the original on 20 November 2018
. Retrieved
20 November
2018
.
- Rose, Jonathan (2010).
The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes
(2nd ed.). New Haven, Connecticut:
Yale University Press
.
ISBN
978-0-300-15365-1
.
- Rubin, Lillian B.
(1976).
Worlds of Pain: Life in the Working Class Family
. New York:
Basic Books
.
ISBN
978-0-465-09724-1
.
- Rowntree, Seebohm
(2000) [1901].
Poverty: A Study of Town Life
. Macmillan and Co.
ISBN
1-86134-202-0
.
- Sheehan, Steven T. (2010). "
'Pow! Right in the Kisser': Ralph Kramden, Jackie Gleason, and the Emergence of the Frustrated Working-Class Man".
Journal of Popular Culture
.
43
(3): 564?582.
doi
:
10.1111/j.1540-5931.2010.00758.x
.
ISSN
1540-5931
.
- Shipler, David K.
(2004).
The Working Poor: Invisible in America
. New York: Knopf.
ISBN
978-0-375-40890-8
.
- Skeggs, Beverley
(2004).
Class, Self, Culture
. London:
Routledge
.
ISBN
978-0-415-30086-5
.
- Thompson, E. P.
(1968).
The Making of the English Working Class
(rev. ed.). Harmondsworth, England:
Penguin Books
.
- Turner, Katherine Leonard (2014).
How the Other Half Ate: A History of Working-Class Meals at the Turn of the Century
. Berkeley, California:
University of California Press
.
ISBN
978-0-520-27758-8
.
- Zweig, Michael (2001).
Working Class Majority: America's Best Kept Secret
. Ithaca, New York:
Cornell University Press
.
ISBN
978-0-8014-8727-9
.
External links
[
edit
]
- The Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University
- International Labor and Working-Class History Journal
(archived 12 January 2009)
- Images of the working class between 1840 and 1945
from the McCord Museum's online collection (archived 23 February 2006)
- BBC Archive collection of TV & Radio programmes about Working Class Britain
- Caring too much. That's the curse of the working classes
.
David Graeber
for
The Guardian
. March 2014.
- US millennials feel more working class than any other generation
.
The Guardian.
March 2016.
- Labor in Europe and America A Special Report on the Rates of Wages, the Cost of Subsistence, and the Condition of the Working Classes in Great Britain, Germany, France, Belgium and Other Countries of Europe, Also in the United States and British America By Edward Young, United States, Department of the Treasury, Bureau of Statistics, 1875
(Includes information on the living and working conditions of working-class people in various countries during and before the 19th Century)
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