"Mr P.A. Van Heusden" wrote:
> Politics - from 'Class War' to the 'Socialist Worker' - which is focussed
> on how 'we're not middle class wankers' is more and more a posture in a
> society where the working class look, and think, like middle class wankers
> anyway.
>
> 'Working class'ness is not an obvious trait to the people I work with. I
> can walk around and point to people and say 'this one is working class'
> and 'this one isn't', but that doesn't make a bit of difference unless
> that distinction is somehow filled with meaning by the people themselves.
May I suggest as a starting point that one assume (a) "Middle Class" never did have any meaning except as an introduction to bourgeois sociology and the replacement of Marx by Weber. (b) If you can point to someone (rather than just see his/her name in the paper or on an organizational chart) the overwhelming probability is that he/she is working class -- and we'd better start to base our political thinking on an accurate conception of the working class of 1999 rather than 1899. (c) Even so described, the bulk of the working class is rather less well off than appearances as you describe them (a car, a job and a fucking big TV) might indicate.
Carrol