How Technology Wrecks the Middle Class | Hacker News Reader

How Technology Wrecks the Middle Class

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

6 pointsctoth6 comments

Articles like this always remind me that here in the UK (or at least I) have a very different view of what 'middle-class' means compared to the US.

This article implies that middle-class means jobs like radiology technician, phlebotomist, nurse technician. Those don't strike me as middle-class whatsoever!

To me middle-class means privately educated, own reserves of money, probably a large house in the country as well as an apartment in the city, two kids, a labrador and a Barbour quilted jacket: bankers, doctors, baristers etc.

Then beyond that people like the Duke of Westminster, Bill Gates, the Kennedys etc are the upper class - not random Google engineers who joined in the last few years like some US people seem to imply!

But the British also have an odd idea of public vs private schooling... :)

People hate on the public schools (for Americans that means the very top end of private schools), but their history is that they were set up before there were any state schools, and provided education for the public, rather than their own people, so the name is apt. You had to pay or get a scholarship, but still like any other school at the time they were open to the (paying) public.

Nurses in the UK are all graduates, why wouldn't they count as middle-class.

Well all new nurses as of last year are graduates - the rest of them are a mix of graduates and non-graduates.

Anyway - I doubt many nurses were privately educated, they aren't well paid and are unlikely to come from families with their own money.

And almost 50% of young people are graduates - they can't all be middle class.

Basically I think Americans think of this as middle class http://bite-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07..., where in the UK we think of this as middle class http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/files/2010/11/middleton-pa....

I'm not saying we're richer or posher than Americans - just that our definition of middle class is different.

I think you'll find that your idea of middle class is closer to what is normally regarded in the UK as upper middle class. See, for example, http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_structure_of_Britain

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