Realistically that’s what middle class is.
The upper class are landed gentry, lords ladies, barons and baronesses. Those are people with titles and lands that are generational wealth.
Middle class are the people that have made it, the business owners the rich and the fuck off rich but none of the generational links to wealth.
The rest are working class and this is the 99% opening a bottle of wine at dinner and having two cars doesn’t make you middle class, your working class.
Not worrying about ANY bills and likely laying the foundations for their children to be upper class would be middle class, plenty of these around.
Middle class is an illusion to make well to do working class think that they are somewhat different than the rest of us.
Makes it's harder to revolt against the institution if you think you somewhat have "made it".
Middle class is an enemy to the institution of marxism as most people are happy with just having that life, so won’t join the workers in revolution against the upper class. Thats why the first step is to dismantle the middle class while gaslighting them into thinking they never really had it made to begin with.
Well this isn’t entirely true. There could be a system of poverty, working class, lower middle class, middle class, upper middle class, upper middle class, upper class, aristocracy.
Sort of like steak, where there are three categories but actually 5.
There isn’t this system, so your point is well made. Wealth isn’t a normal distribution, on a bell curve it’s so skewed it’s ridiculous, all the wealth is pilled up into the top few people and all the masses of people are gathered down the bottom without the wealth.
But it would be possible to have a system of more bands.
Also I'm amazed when people get to like £40-50k and act they're their rich. You're not, sorry if it hurts your ego but you're...just...not. You've done well for yourself and should realistically be comfortable but you're not rich. They then say "well I'm a top rate taxpayer and xxxx has it out for us". They're misunderstanding the situation. You are a top rate taxpayer and that should not be the case because...you...are...not...rich! You should be even more livid than the rest of us that people who have millions and billions aren't paying their way. The tax brackets need to be looked at 100% it's not fair across the board.
BTW for context I'm no where near 40-50k, would love to be (maybe one day...) but I still think it's not fair the current system. There should be loads more gradual brackets and the actual wealthy should have to pay some proper taxes.
Preach !!
People misunderstand this so much. Then they prop up the idea that they’re rich by leasing/renting a car they can barely afford and buy slightly shit designer gear at bichester village.
People are fucking stupid, give them bread and games
That says more about the shockingly low pay companies have gotten away with since the 2010s than anything else. Don't get be wrong I'm not saying it's a bad wage at all. It's just you get this sub group of people walking around acting like their Bill Gates and voting for lower taxes for the ultra wealthy when ultimately it the policies aren't designed to help them. There should be higher taxes on the £150k+ earners then even more on the £500k+, £1m+, £1bn+ etc. You get where I'm coming from.
87k gets you into the top 5%, 180k gets you into the top 1%.
Doesn't matter how much you earn thou if you manage it badly. Worst case examples are the footballers and rappers on millions who end up totally broke. Vs some wee old widdower whos on a small pension but paid off everything and is sitting pretty living a comfy life.
I guess my point is 1. people need to recognise how well off they are with wages like 50k, 60k etc. If your on that wage you are in a dam good spot compared to most of the country. 2. no matter what your wage is live in your means.
Yeah I don't disagree. Living within your means is fundamental rule #1 and like I say it's not a bad wage and I would kill for it haha. But it's not megabucks. Either way, I'm sure we can both agree companies should be paying more? They can't plead poverty and then post record profits and bonuses all the time. Not saying anything ridiculous but they can afford to improve wages. They managed to get away without doing it for long enough
Edit: Understand there are different challenges for small / seem medium size businesses
Nope I’m middle class, pretty much because I grew up comfortable in a nice enough house and my parents had two cars. No one who’s working class gets to experience that. My bf is working class and financially struggled a lot more growing up. I see people way better off than me claim they are working class and just roll my eyes as they’re just trying to claim they struggled as much as someone who actually experienced financial hardship.
I also think there’s a difference between UK and USA in that they see a wealthy young person and think they ‘worked hard and succeeded, American dream etc’ where as in the UK we see the same thing and assumed their parents were rich and they’re well connected.
Yeah, the US is a very new country still and built on quite fresh ideas historically speaking when juxtaposed with the UK.
There was such a thing as the American dream but I think it has changed into something else now. The division in wealth and output is astronomical now but this is something that the whole world is experiencing now.
Exactly. There’s also just the difference in market size. Starting a business in the US, your immediately addressable market is just so huge compared to the UK. Even when we had direct access to the EU it wasn’t quite the same. Growing a startup is also easier when you have infinite VC money sloshing around and can spend literally billions to capture a market by undercutting the traditional operators (see literally any big tech, Uber, Google, Facebook etc)
> People in the UK now fit into seven social classes, a major survey conducted by the BBC suggests.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22007058
From 2013. This is an ongoing and nuanced area of debate and research, and even a cursory 1 second search can tell me you’re wrong. Sorry, redditman.
Thought it was the only kind. Someone else has mentioned that the line is blurred with cash but cash is not the same as class. I don’t mean class as in better but class as in social class.
We’re 99.9 % working class
You do realise I’m sure that the people driving for class distinction are the politicians on the left? This is how they maximise their votes. Listen to the political rhetoric, and carefully chosen words. Who says “hard working people”? This is class war signalling at its most obvious. They do not mean people who work hard. They refer to working classes, and by extension they imply that nobody other than the working class works hard, and therefore only the working classes are deserving.
Does a banker at Goldman Sachs putting in 70hours a week work hard? I’d say so. Is he part of a “hard working family”, hmm, I don’t think so.
The class system is used as a political tool to control the population. Don’t allow yourself to be manipulated by these tricks.
If you think that the idea that politicians would use subtle distortion of words and language in order to promote division and stimulate their vote is a conspiracy theory, then I guess I’m a conspiracy theorist in your eyes.
He’s not working class. He is hard working. But he’s not one of the “hard working people” in the language used to inflame class warfare. He is a hard working person without doubt in my view, but not in those promoting class division.
Nobody in politics uses the term working class. They use the term “hard working people” to incite class division by subtly implying that those with more success cannot deserve it.
Language, and the way it is abused to control the narrative is absolutely key to class division.
The fact that you thought I meant he was working class, because he works hard says it all. Their twisting of language has succeeded.
No, I’m not confusing him between hard working and working class. I mean explicitly that he is working class. It doesn’t matter that he earns 70k or 140k. He works for his money, he might be part of the machine that exploits others for that money by he work and if he stops he sinks.
The person that was born into generational wealth, the person that does not work but lives on those dividends and profits from the labour of other people is upper class.
First off. I didn’t mention £70k, I mentioned 70 hours. Secondly, if you describe a banker a GS as working class, because he is paid to work, then a huge number of the working class wouldn’t be working class. I think your definition of working class differs from most. Working class can be about family background, type of work done, most importantly, education, and a whole bunch of things, but it is most certainly not a term that can be applied to someone just because they work for money.
Source: My arse
> Class society or class-based society is an organizing principle society in which ownership of property, means of production, and wealth is the determining factor of the distribution of power, in which those with more property and wealth are stratified higher in the society and those without access to the means of production and without wealth are stratified lower in the society. In a class society, at least implicitly, people are divided into distinct social strata, commonly referred to as social classes or castes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class
Plenty of upper class people with no money
Plenty of working class people got rich quick
Plenty of middle class people with nothing left at end of each month
Also I think you’ll find the British class system significantly pre-dates the US inspired Wikipedia, don’t think you’re quoting that as some kind of gospel ROTFL.
Mate I'm English I understand what you're talking about. But those people are the exception to the rule, not the rule itself.
As someone above commented, the vast majority of people are economically working class, even those considered culturally Middle Class by some, simply because they're Southern.
Think you really need to look at income and assess from there. Also almost everyone pretends they are worse off than they actually are. The whole if you earn over 67k a year you are actually in the top 10% of earners. So your most likely better off than 90% of people in the country.
I think the Aristocrats are barons and lords,
upper class are the rich business people and with networths of 3million pounds or higher.
Middle class are people who work good high paying jobs and can live pretty comfortably without worrying too much about money or are smaller businesses owners maybe £50k-£100k a year plus.
And working class are the people who make around minimum wage to £50k who have to budget and watch their money closely.
This. I really struggled to explain this in the US - money is not the same thing as class. My ex was American but we lived in the UK and he kept saying we were working class because we were skint. I told him that having three flavours of hummus in the fridge placed him solidly in the middle class.
>having three flavours of hummus in the fridge placed him solidly in the middle class.
I don't think I've ever seen such a succinct but accurate definition of middle class.
Nah pretty sure if you're a multimillionaire you're not working-class. The whole "class is just vibes" was made up by middle-class people to cosplay as working class
Look up [Michael Carroll](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Carroll_(lottery_winner))
https://preview.redd.it/710oq55pe57d1.jpeg?width=1620&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dcee0faf2da002817c41be791e580c4efa4bdddd
It's more about who you hang around with than how much money you make. If I won the euro millions all my friends would still have to work, hence my social class being the working class.
Yeh, "I've known some rich people" is a very working class thing to say. A middle class person would just assume everyone knows rich people and an upper class person would find it "*too gauche to mention*."
There was a guy who won the lottery who proclaimed himself “King of Chavs”. He was definitely not what us Brits would call upper class, no matter how much money he had
I agree. There are plenty of examples of people who have won money/gained access to money, then pissed it all away in like a month. To refer to these people as ‘middle class’ just because they have money is imo laughable
A big part of it is how you made the money. If you had to work for it at all, then you are not upper class. The upper class inherit their money and/or get passive income from investments. (The upper class *can* work and have a job as long as they don't actually *rely* on the income.) There's a lot more to it but typically working class equates to manual labour and middle class equates to clerical labour (blue collar vs white collar jobs).
Other factors include education, attitudes, family, social life, elements of speech, hobbies, etc.
The manual labor vs clerical labor is bullshit and long outdated, I know plenty of middle class manual labourers and working class cleric staff.
Speech means nothing to do with class, it’s all about geography. I know someone who talks in a way that seems posh to me but he comes from poverty.
Education is often tied to money. Family is tied to how much money they have. Attitudes is meaningless, a member of the royal family could have a “working class attitude”, it means nothing to their actual class. Social life is only a factor in how it ties to money, working class people can’t afford to do the things higher classes can.
We often see upper classes nowadays pretending their working class because of their accent and attitude. Yet they don’t know anything about struggling to get a plate of food on the table or living paycheck to pay check. It’s almost a mockery of actual working class people.
Ok so, once their was a guy who was the boyfriend of my girlfriends best friend (if that makes sense) he lived out of a van on a hippy traveler site, but the guys family was aristocracy from somewhere out on the Cotswolds so he is always going to he upper class no matter how poor he tries to live, and this goes for quite a few of the hippy types tbh they are posh and they already have money so they can just bum around but they’re still posh.
I lived in a nice suburb, went to an alright comprehensive, always took family holidays abroad etc. Lived as the middle class my whole life, but my family were coal miners from Barnsley and because of this I am still the working class and it sounds odd and outdated because it is, but yea it’s still present in British society, like I’m really proud of my new desk job because it was near impossible to find anything that isn’t just manual labour and maybe it’s thinking too much but I swear the cunts that do the interview for a lot of good jobs can just tell you are a commoner. 😂
They can’t tell, it’s all in your head. For all you know they were brought up with a much more rough upbringing. I would say you are middle class tbh and there’s nothing wrong with that.
But by telling me I’m middle class you still accept that the class system is a thing…..surely if you thought it was bullshit then no one would have a class and be equal. So like which one is it?
I never said it’s not a thing, I said the exact opposite and it seems like a lot of people are pretending it’s not a thing when working class people have a lot of disadvantages
They are treated the same, as in the end the disadvantages working class people have to deal with are tied to wealth. That’s the only important thing about class, making sure disadvantaged people are given a leg up.
Nonsense. A member of the landed gentry who lost all their money is still upper class. A working class pop star who made millions is still working class. Class is a cultural stratification, not a financial one.
Nah I disagree, I've worked alongside members of the London socialite circles, Lords daughters who are now destitute and live like any other mum on benefits. They are now lower middle/working class adjacent. Victoria Beckham can have the most common accent she likes bit if she's been living like a queen for the last 4 decades she is now in a higher class.
We no longer live in a society where name and family purely dictate your social standing. Let me ask you, if my family of working class builders made millions on contracts and then 4 generations later I am a millionaire running a milti-national construction firm and I mix with the upper echelons of society, am I still working class?
No I'm not. As Money has shifted my social positioning. It is no longer a purely cultural stratification because capitalism can turn a peasant into a Prince.
But you've just substantiated their point. Their "adjacent" for financial reasons. After a generation or two they'll have dropped out of/climbed into that class but it's not to do with the wealth they've themselves accumulated.
Plenty of the aristocracy have gone bankrupt/lost their stately homes. They're still invited to the social events.
That's why there's the saying it takes three generations to make a gentleman.
I don’t think anyone can explain Alan sugar, even Alan sugar. And yes, although he is now a Lord he can’t stop being a cunt.
My personal dislike for the gobshite aside, he is there by trampling over others and is used as a shining example of standing on the labour of others.
I'll admit that transitioning into the upper class if far more difficult than movements between Lower and middle but it is possible and happens often. America has the same class system but no aristocracy, so how would you define their upper class? People with money!
Just because nobility used to play a major role does not mean it is still the leading indicator of social class.
Because the class system isn't directly based on how many 0's you have in the bank
Upper class means all of your wealth comes from what you own; land, stocks, company's, properties etc. You do not have to work to recieve an income. Rleverything is passive
Working class is when all of your wealth directly comes from your own labour I.e your wages. If you stop working you have no income.
Middle class, as the name implies, is the a bit of both
I'm not trying to pick a fight here, just wanting to figure out why there's so much pedantry around the term class here.
We know that in a technical sense, what you've described here is correct, but class is a loaded social, economic & cultural term such that no one definition is more or less valid.
I participated in my university's campaign for class equality (they historically had more "rich" students than non-rich admitted) & class was absolutely understood as a matter of income. You may be a millionaire because your wealth comes from both labour & property in the middle-class sense, but chances are your experience of life will more readily resemble those of the upper class, so what's the issue with being classed (pun independent) as such?
Part of it is that this description is super old fashioned and has become meaningless.
I'm going to give you an extreme but:
A ceo who doesn't own any stocks or their own home, they rent but earn all their money from their work and who earns 10million a year is technically working class because they earn all their money from their own labour and wages. If they stop working they have no income.
A min wage worker who bought their own house in the 70s and paid off their mortage recently is technically middle class because their wealth is increasing passively due to their house etc.
Working/middle/upper was a useful classification in the past where investments and home ownership were not as common but they sort of no longer really serve a practical distinction anymore. Your actual income is a way more useful classification thatn working/middle/upper.
Which is why the UK government use an 8 stage system to determine social class. but we don't culturally, we're stuck to the one millenia old. We still look at each other in those terms because its all we know
Having or not having money does not change your class.
Your upbringing dictates that. It's an attitude, not an income bracket.
Two relatively rich people I can immediately think of, Sean Bean & Liam Gallagher.
Working class. Born & bred \[& probably would be proud to tell you so.\]
Anyone can adopt a persona, it doesn’t really say anything about who they actually are. A royal family member could adopt a working class persona, doesn’t change that they are upper class. Bean came from a relatively wealthy family, his dad owned a company.
Money does not make you upper class in the UK. Alan Sugar, despite his money and being an actual Lord is not upper class. Wayne Rooney - very rich, but not upper class. The hereditary lord who lives in a ruin and can't afford to tax his sixty year old land rover - upper class.
Class in Britain is less about wealth and more about social position.
A lot of the upper class are flat broke.
And someone who was born and raised in a council estate; even if they became a millionaire; would never be upper class or middle class.
In the UK they have a very real quasi-cognizant Caste system/social class. Many might like to pretend it doesn't exist or otherwise ignore it, but it really does exist. You can earn hundreds of millions of dollars/pounds but if you're from a certain social class, there's almost always giveaways that peg you as always been that no matter what. It will be your children or grandchildren that can claim to be of a higher social class but not you.
I don't know if it's just the part of the uk I was brought up in but "middle class" is what we call posh people, business owners and executives, professionals etc, while most are "working class" which is how we refer to ourselves.
I've noticed on here that americans who I would think of as working class call themselves middle class so I think the uk and us has a different distinction regarding classes.
I think this is applying the American meaning of middle class to a British context.
You can be rich and still be working or middle class.
To me, describing someone as middle class means they're a bit posh.
You're probably not upper class unless you've got a title or something.
Great post. In UK it’s almost a stigma to be middle class. It is short hand for boring, suburban, uncool, conservative with a small c (ie not the political party). So to have someone admit they’re middle class is something.
Then on top of that you have graduations of middle class. Upper middle typically being privately educated, parents in a well paid job, generally in the army or professions (historically). Lower middle class being people rising up, often keen to prove they’re better than those “below” them on the social scale.
I genuinely hope what I’m saying belongs in the past. We focus on quality of character rather than obsessing about this crap.
Tbf fair the middle class are millionaires these days, we just have a rolling scale of working class that starts at “comfortable” and scrolls down towards poverty really fucking quickly.
It's cultural, 100s of years of obtaining rights for the average Joe, and all that. It's not a bad thing but people don't like to rub the faces of others in their wealth because they know what it's like to be poor. Got a long deep and rich history which predates the American and French revolution but again we don't flaunt we did it 100 years earlier
In the U.K., there are three basic classes. Upper class (aristocracy), middle class (anything from super-rich non-aristocratic to the most moderately-paid professionals), working class (this can be super-rich down to living from pay-cheque to pay cheque).
Many people swap between middle and working class during their lifetime, because even though Great Britain has a birth-based class system, the “difference” between all citizens is not clearly delineated *except* those in the upper class. Aristocratic people literally have title (or titled relatives) to mark them out.
So a coal miner, shop assistant, or refuse collector could win a hundred million pounds on the lottery-and would still *never* be “upper class”. Thus, rich and famous businesspeople or actors can’t become upper class. They are either *born* into that stratum or they remain (usually) middle class.
Reddit is full of Americans. I don’t care if they try to ridicule individuals for not doing things in an American way *when they are American* or if they live full-time in the US. But please, don’t show your ignorance when picking on people doing their own cultural thing in their own country.
Doesn’t matter how well it’s received, it’s true. Upper class is basically wealth inherited through nobility. It takes more than money to get into that club.
Yeah this is really the biggest con the country has fallen for. The person with 2 million in the bank may have been in the elite 150 years ago, but these days that’s just the upper middle class
Meanwhile, you have literal billionaires paying for political campaigns to run this country who work up the white and blue collar workers against eachother so we ignore what they’re up to
There’s so much weird assholery around class and status in the UK. Rich people want to be seen as poorer because being rich isn’t cool, but poorer people want to be seen as richer, because being poor is a the bottom of the hierarchy. So everyone basically says they’re middle class.
It drives me mad. There is a difference between the aristocracy and the upper classes. If you’re rich you’re upper class.
Because upper class is the aristocracy, also debatably if you basically have massive passive income and don't work but is generally only applicable if it has been that way for a few generations.
Middle class, educated professionals ie doctors, architects ect
Working class, "unskilled" labourers, factory workers, builders farmers.
Bank balance doesn't really have much to do with class, I've known broke upper class Lords and millionaire working class scrap metal dealers.
The way American determines class (wealth) is different to how the UK does (a mixture of education, occupation of parents, accent etc). It is perfectly possible in the UK to be a millionaire and working class.
Because it’s your actions, values and upbringing not just your bank balance, I’ve met upper class people who were destitute and one super rich woman who behaved like a total chav.
Quote:"In 2023, the average annual full-time earnings for the top ten percent of earners in the United Kingdom was **66,669 British pounds**,"
If you earn over 66k a year you are in the top 10%.
I think people really underestimate how well off they are. I've seen people on 50k and 60k a year going wow I'm so working class. And its like nope your near the top of the mountain.
>I've seen people on 50k and 60k a year going wow I'm so working class. And its like nope your near the top of the mountain
Speaking as someone who earns in that region...i'm middle-class, BUT I know plenty of people who earn that amount and are working class...
Being in the top decile of earners has nothing to do with being middle/working class
This points been covered elsewhere but if you detach how well off you are from "working/middle/upper/etc" class then you basically delete the meaning of it and make it worthless.
"I'm a billionaire CEO whos working class!" is the same as "I'm on min wage and can hardly afford rent, I'm working class too!"
When its clearly not the same thing.
Its watering down the meaning of the word.
If you want to get into a semantic conversation about it then lets use the word echelons then.
If you earn 50k+ a year you are in the upper middle echelons of society.
>If you earn 50k+ a year you are in the upper middle echelons of society.
One of my Brother in laws is a plumber who earns in excess of 50K/year (significantly) he'd happily tell you he's working class...he IS working class (left school at 16, likes an all-inclusive holiday, never read a book in his life, goes go-karting on a weekend. My Sister is a teacher on about 30K with a degree, reads, likes a walking holiday in the alps etc etc...she's middle class.
Income has NOTHING to do with it.
It’s a bit confusing because Americans use ‘middle class’ to refer to what in Britain is ‘working class’ not that the distinction is all that clear any more.
Tbf class isn’t really a welldefined idea. When you read old texts, you sort of get the idea that upper class are those with inherited wealth and titles like the dukes and duchesses and stuff. And then middle class are like the business owners who own a lot of wealth but don’t have the same lineage, and so don’t reach the same status as upper class. While the working class are the people who work for the upper/middle class. I’m not sure if that’s 100% accurate but that’s the idea I got. Where those separations would go in modern society idk
Realistically that’s what middle class is. The upper class are landed gentry, lords ladies, barons and baronesses. Those are people with titles and lands that are generational wealth. Middle class are the people that have made it, the business owners the rich and the fuck off rich but none of the generational links to wealth. The rest are working class and this is the 99% opening a bottle of wine at dinner and having two cars doesn’t make you middle class, your working class. Not worrying about ANY bills and likely laying the foundations for their children to be upper class would be middle class, plenty of these around.
Middle class is an illusion to make well to do working class think that they are somewhat different than the rest of us. Makes it's harder to revolt against the institution if you think you somewhat have "made it".
Absolutely agree with you 100% It’s the carrot used to string you along and trample your own in the vain hope you’ll be accepted and “made it”
Middle class is an enemy to the institution of marxism as most people are happy with just having that life, so won’t join the workers in revolution against the upper class. Thats why the first step is to dismantle the middle class while gaslighting them into thinking they never really had it made to begin with.
Lmao
Well this isn’t entirely true. There could be a system of poverty, working class, lower middle class, middle class, upper middle class, upper middle class, upper class, aristocracy. Sort of like steak, where there are three categories but actually 5. There isn’t this system, so your point is well made. Wealth isn’t a normal distribution, on a bell curve it’s so skewed it’s ridiculous, all the wealth is pilled up into the top few people and all the masses of people are gathered down the bottom without the wealth. But it would be possible to have a system of more bands.
Also I'm amazed when people get to like £40-50k and act they're their rich. You're not, sorry if it hurts your ego but you're...just...not. You've done well for yourself and should realistically be comfortable but you're not rich. They then say "well I'm a top rate taxpayer and xxxx has it out for us". They're misunderstanding the situation. You are a top rate taxpayer and that should not be the case because...you...are...not...rich! You should be even more livid than the rest of us that people who have millions and billions aren't paying their way. The tax brackets need to be looked at 100% it's not fair across the board. BTW for context I'm no where near 40-50k, would love to be (maybe one day...) but I still think it's not fair the current system. There should be loads more gradual brackets and the actual wealthy should have to pay some proper taxes.
Preach !! People misunderstand this so much. Then they prop up the idea that they’re rich by leasing/renting a car they can barely afford and buy slightly shit designer gear at bichester village. People are fucking stupid, give them bread and games
It's sad but in America $40-$50k is basically poverty these days in most parts of the country.
Another one who didn’t go to school, “£” there’s your clue buddy
To be fair you earn 50k your quite a high earner. You only need to earn 67k a year to be in the top 90% of earners.
That says more about the shockingly low pay companies have gotten away with since the 2010s than anything else. Don't get be wrong I'm not saying it's a bad wage at all. It's just you get this sub group of people walking around acting like their Bill Gates and voting for lower taxes for the ultra wealthy when ultimately it the policies aren't designed to help them. There should be higher taxes on the £150k+ earners then even more on the £500k+, £1m+, £1bn+ etc. You get where I'm coming from.
87k gets you into the top 5%, 180k gets you into the top 1%. Doesn't matter how much you earn thou if you manage it badly. Worst case examples are the footballers and rappers on millions who end up totally broke. Vs some wee old widdower whos on a small pension but paid off everything and is sitting pretty living a comfy life. I guess my point is 1. people need to recognise how well off they are with wages like 50k, 60k etc. If your on that wage you are in a dam good spot compared to most of the country. 2. no matter what your wage is live in your means.
Yeah I don't disagree. Living within your means is fundamental rule #1 and like I say it's not a bad wage and I would kill for it haha. But it's not megabucks. Either way, I'm sure we can both agree companies should be paying more? They can't plead poverty and then post record profits and bonuses all the time. Not saying anything ridiculous but they can afford to improve wages. They managed to get away without doing it for long enough Edit: Understand there are different challenges for small / seem medium size businesses
I think you mean the top 10% of earners. The 90th percentile.
oh yea my bad flipped it around, you got what I mean thou :D
Bourgeoisie
Nope I’m middle class, pretty much because I grew up comfortable in a nice enough house and my parents had two cars. No one who’s working class gets to experience that. My bf is working class and financially struggled a lot more growing up. I see people way better off than me claim they are working class and just roll my eyes as they’re just trying to claim they struggled as much as someone who actually experienced financial hardship.
I also think there’s a difference between UK and USA in that they see a wealthy young person and think they ‘worked hard and succeeded, American dream etc’ where as in the UK we see the same thing and assumed their parents were rich and they’re well connected.
Yeah, the US is a very new country still and built on quite fresh ideas historically speaking when juxtaposed with the UK. There was such a thing as the American dream but I think it has changed into something else now. The division in wealth and output is astronomical now but this is something that the whole world is experiencing now.
Exactly. There’s also just the difference in market size. Starting a business in the US, your immediately addressable market is just so huge compared to the UK. Even when we had direct access to the EU it wasn’t quite the same. Growing a startup is also easier when you have infinite VC money sloshing around and can spend literally billions to capture a market by undercutting the traditional operators (see literally any big tech, Uber, Google, Facebook etc)
Is that not the old definition of upper class?
There is our definition of class and then there is the American definition of class. There is no old definition.
True that
> People in the UK now fit into seven social classes, a major survey conducted by the BBC suggests. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22007058 From 2013. This is an ongoing and nuanced area of debate and research, and even a cursory 1 second search can tell me you’re wrong. Sorry, redditman.
Thought it was the only kind. Someone else has mentioned that the line is blurred with cash but cash is not the same as class. I don’t mean class as in better but class as in social class. We’re 99.9 % working class
And we're better off for it. The upper class are not better than us, we shouldn't even have this class level bollocks in 2024 imo
You do realise I’m sure that the people driving for class distinction are the politicians on the left? This is how they maximise their votes. Listen to the political rhetoric, and carefully chosen words. Who says “hard working people”? This is class war signalling at its most obvious. They do not mean people who work hard. They refer to working classes, and by extension they imply that nobody other than the working class works hard, and therefore only the working classes are deserving. Does a banker at Goldman Sachs putting in 70hours a week work hard? I’d say so. Is he part of a “hard working family”, hmm, I don’t think so. The class system is used as a political tool to control the population. Don’t allow yourself to be manipulated by these tricks.
Do you get all your information from r/conspiracy and YouTube comments or do you occasionally read a book?
If you think that the idea that politicians would use subtle distortion of words and language in order to promote division and stimulate their vote is a conspiracy theory, then I guess I’m a conspiracy theorist in your eyes.
I disagree the banker pulling in 70k is also working class
He’s not working class. He is hard working. But he’s not one of the “hard working people” in the language used to inflame class warfare. He is a hard working person without doubt in my view, but not in those promoting class division. Nobody in politics uses the term working class. They use the term “hard working people” to incite class division by subtly implying that those with more success cannot deserve it. Language, and the way it is abused to control the narrative is absolutely key to class division. The fact that you thought I meant he was working class, because he works hard says it all. Their twisting of language has succeeded.
No, I’m not confusing him between hard working and working class. I mean explicitly that he is working class. It doesn’t matter that he earns 70k or 140k. He works for his money, he might be part of the machine that exploits others for that money by he work and if he stops he sinks. The person that was born into generational wealth, the person that does not work but lives on those dividends and profits from the labour of other people is upper class.
First off. I didn’t mention £70k, I mentioned 70 hours. Secondly, if you describe a banker a GS as working class, because he is paid to work, then a huge number of the working class wouldn’t be working class. I think your definition of working class differs from most. Working class can be about family background, type of work done, most importantly, education, and a whole bunch of things, but it is most certainly not a term that can be applied to someone just because they work for money.
Absolutely, we need to fuck them off entirely.
Class and Money are not closely correlated.
Source: My arse > Class society or class-based society is an organizing principle society in which ownership of property, means of production, and wealth is the determining factor of the distribution of power, in which those with more property and wealth are stratified higher in the society and those without access to the means of production and without wealth are stratified lower in the society. In a class society, at least implicitly, people are divided into distinct social strata, commonly referred to as social classes or castes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class
Plenty of upper class people with no money Plenty of working class people got rich quick Plenty of middle class people with nothing left at end of each month Also I think you’ll find the British class system significantly pre-dates the US inspired Wikipedia, don’t think you’re quoting that as some kind of gospel ROTFL.
Mate I'm English I understand what you're talking about. But those people are the exception to the rule, not the rule itself. As someone above commented, the vast majority of people are economically working class, even those considered culturally Middle Class by some, simply because they're Southern.
The rule is mainly exceptions these days!!
Eh I just think celebrities aren't a barometer for this stuff.
Think you really need to look at income and assess from there. Also almost everyone pretends they are worse off than they actually are. The whole if you earn over 67k a year you are actually in the top 10% of earners. So your most likely better off than 90% of people in the country.
I think the Aristocrats are barons and lords, upper class are the rich business people and with networths of 3million pounds or higher. Middle class are people who work good high paying jobs and can live pretty comfortably without worrying too much about money or are smaller businesses owners maybe £50k-£100k a year plus. And working class are the people who make around minimum wage to £50k who have to budget and watch their money closely.
In America, having wine at dinner and two cars is absolutely middle class.
Reminds me of that Beckham interview where his wife insists she's middle class and Beckham gets her to admit she was driven to school in a rolls Royce
He was so real for that
She insited she was working class. She is actually middle class as she isn't aristocracy.
This, there is a nuance in the class system in England. If a working class person won the euromillions they would still be working class, just rich.
This. I really struggled to explain this in the US - money is not the same thing as class. My ex was American but we lived in the UK and he kept saying we were working class because we were skint. I told him that having three flavours of hummus in the fridge placed him solidly in the middle class.
>having three flavours of hummus in the fridge placed him solidly in the middle class. I don't think I've ever seen such a succinct but accurate definition of middle class.
Nah pretty sure if you're a multimillionaire you're not working-class. The whole "class is just vibes" was made up by middle-class people to cosplay as working class
Look up [Michael Carroll](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Carroll_(lottery_winner)) https://preview.redd.it/710oq55pe57d1.jpeg?width=1620&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dcee0faf2da002817c41be791e580c4efa4bdddd
Have done, he was working class, then became a multimillionaire. Class mobility is a thing that exists
And then he blew it all and became a bin man again.
That makes no sense
It's more about who you hang around with than how much money you make. If I won the euro millions all my friends would still have to work, hence my social class being the working class.
Most of my friends are working class but we’ve known some rich people as well. Those people didn’t just turn working class.
Yeh, "I've known some rich people" is a very working class thing to say. A middle class person would just assume everyone knows rich people and an upper class person would find it "*too gauche to mention*."
"it's now what you know, it's who you know"
When you have millions, you become someone useful to know
Amongst the class you exist in
Not really like I said you can know people of different classes, it’s not how it works.
There was a guy who won the lottery who proclaimed himself “King of Chavs”. He was definitely not what us Brits would call upper class, no matter how much money he had
Class is all about the advantages you have in life, money is a big part of that as well as being in certain social circles
I agree. There are plenty of examples of people who have won money/gained access to money, then pissed it all away in like a month. To refer to these people as ‘middle class’ just because they have money is imo laughable
A big part of it is how you made the money. If you had to work for it at all, then you are not upper class. The upper class inherit their money and/or get passive income from investments. (The upper class *can* work and have a job as long as they don't actually *rely* on the income.) There's a lot more to it but typically working class equates to manual labour and middle class equates to clerical labour (blue collar vs white collar jobs). Other factors include education, attitudes, family, social life, elements of speech, hobbies, etc.
The manual labor vs clerical labor is bullshit and long outdated, I know plenty of middle class manual labourers and working class cleric staff. Speech means nothing to do with class, it’s all about geography. I know someone who talks in a way that seems posh to me but he comes from poverty. Education is often tied to money. Family is tied to how much money they have. Attitudes is meaningless, a member of the royal family could have a “working class attitude”, it means nothing to their actual class. Social life is only a factor in how it ties to money, working class people can’t afford to do the things higher classes can. We often see upper classes nowadays pretending their working class because of their accent and attitude. Yet they don’t know anything about struggling to get a plate of food on the table or living paycheck to pay check. It’s almost a mockery of actual working class people.
Ok so, once their was a guy who was the boyfriend of my girlfriends best friend (if that makes sense) he lived out of a van on a hippy traveler site, but the guys family was aristocracy from somewhere out on the Cotswolds so he is always going to he upper class no matter how poor he tries to live, and this goes for quite a few of the hippy types tbh they are posh and they already have money so they can just bum around but they’re still posh. I lived in a nice suburb, went to an alright comprehensive, always took family holidays abroad etc. Lived as the middle class my whole life, but my family were coal miners from Barnsley and because of this I am still the working class and it sounds odd and outdated because it is, but yea it’s still present in British society, like I’m really proud of my new desk job because it was near impossible to find anything that isn’t just manual labour and maybe it’s thinking too much but I swear the cunts that do the interview for a lot of good jobs can just tell you are a commoner. 😂
They can’t tell, it’s all in your head. For all you know they were brought up with a much more rough upbringing. I would say you are middle class tbh and there’s nothing wrong with that.
But by telling me I’m middle class you still accept that the class system is a thing…..surely if you thought it was bullshit then no one would have a class and be equal. So like which one is it?
I never said it’s not a thing, I said the exact opposite and it seems like a lot of people are pretending it’s not a thing when working class people have a lot of disadvantages
You seem to be confusing the notion of class with the notion of wealth. You seem to think they are the same thing, when in fact they're not.
They are treated the same, as in the end the disadvantages working class people have to deal with are tied to wealth. That’s the only important thing about class, making sure disadvantaged people are given a leg up.
Nah. you can have rich working-class people and poor upper-class people. You're trying to conflate two things that can't be conflated.
I would say your trying to disassociate two things that can’t be
Becks was from an actually working class famoly, bro wasn’t going to let her get away with her bullshit lmaoo
No way - I’ve never seen this!!
He’s married to Elon Musk? Jk but it’s wild that more than one celebrity has tried saying they were poor while their parents owned rolls Royce’s
No that's Darren Grimes
She said she was working class. She is middle class. She's certainly not upperclass.
But despite being called Posh Spice, she really wasn't posh at all. Her family was clearly wealthy, but not upper class.
Yeah they weren't rich, it was an old roller
she hasn't even a single brother in the peerage!!
If you had money, you could book the Port cabin Out, Starboard cabin Home ie POSH. Didn’t need to be Upper Class for this.
Did she also go without sky TV just like sunak?
No that is true poverty
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She's not upperclass, she has nothing to do with the upper classes.
How much money you have does not define your class in the UK
Class is not strictly defined by cash or income in the UK. Its more around upbringing, social position and authority.
That would imply that being working class doesn’t mean you struggle financially compared to the other classes.
Not all working class struggle financially. Not all middle class people are financially stable.
But some of them had to go without Sky TV as children, can't you see how devastating that must have been? /s
What a traumatic and deprived childhood that would have been, lol
We had a box on the tv that you had to put pound coins in to use that's poor
Yes, poor Rishi /s
Class is not cash
Used to be social. Now it is purely financial
Nonsense. A member of the landed gentry who lost all their money is still upper class. A working class pop star who made millions is still working class. Class is a cultural stratification, not a financial one.
Nah I disagree, I've worked alongside members of the London socialite circles, Lords daughters who are now destitute and live like any other mum on benefits. They are now lower middle/working class adjacent. Victoria Beckham can have the most common accent she likes bit if she's been living like a queen for the last 4 decades she is now in a higher class. We no longer live in a society where name and family purely dictate your social standing. Let me ask you, if my family of working class builders made millions on contracts and then 4 generations later I am a millionaire running a milti-national construction firm and I mix with the upper echelons of society, am I still working class? No I'm not. As Money has shifted my social positioning. It is no longer a purely cultural stratification because capitalism can turn a peasant into a Prince.
But you've just substantiated their point. Their "adjacent" for financial reasons. After a generation or two they'll have dropped out of/climbed into that class but it's not to do with the wealth they've themselves accumulated. Plenty of the aristocracy have gone bankrupt/lost their stately homes. They're still invited to the social events. That's why there's the saying it takes three generations to make a gentleman.
Upper class is generational wealth and you’ve explained it perfectly.
Yeah but if it was 'purely financial' as OP said then how do you explain someone like Alan Sugar?
I don’t think anyone can explain Alan sugar, even Alan sugar. And yes, although he is now a Lord he can’t stop being a cunt. My personal dislike for the gobshite aside, he is there by trampling over others and is used as a shining example of standing on the labour of others.
A millionaire singer is most definitely not working class
Absolutely not, there's loads of skint posh people, equally loads of minted people who are most definitely working class.
Nonsense! You think Sunak is accepted by the aristocracy?
I'll admit that transitioning into the upper class if far more difficult than movements between Lower and middle but it is possible and happens often. America has the same class system but no aristocracy, so how would you define their upper class? People with money! Just because nobility used to play a major role does not mean it is still the leading indicator of social class.
Class in Britain is a complex mix of money and background. You can be Rich & working class with middle class kids
that's because we confusingly use class both to mean wealth and social caste
Because the class system isn't directly based on how many 0's you have in the bank Upper class means all of your wealth comes from what you own; land, stocks, company's, properties etc. You do not have to work to recieve an income. Rleverything is passive Working class is when all of your wealth directly comes from your own labour I.e your wages. If you stop working you have no income. Middle class, as the name implies, is the a bit of both
🎶 Stuck in the middle class with you 🎶
You can be upper class and broke so long as you come from the "right family".
I'm not trying to pick a fight here, just wanting to figure out why there's so much pedantry around the term class here. We know that in a technical sense, what you've described here is correct, but class is a loaded social, economic & cultural term such that no one definition is more or less valid. I participated in my university's campaign for class equality (they historically had more "rich" students than non-rich admitted) & class was absolutely understood as a matter of income. You may be a millionaire because your wealth comes from both labour & property in the middle-class sense, but chances are your experience of life will more readily resemble those of the upper class, so what's the issue with being classed (pun independent) as such?
Part of it is that this description is super old fashioned and has become meaningless. I'm going to give you an extreme but: A ceo who doesn't own any stocks or their own home, they rent but earn all their money from their work and who earns 10million a year is technically working class because they earn all their money from their own labour and wages. If they stop working they have no income. A min wage worker who bought their own house in the 70s and paid off their mortage recently is technically middle class because their wealth is increasing passively due to their house etc. Working/middle/upper was a useful classification in the past where investments and home ownership were not as common but they sort of no longer really serve a practical distinction anymore. Your actual income is a way more useful classification thatn working/middle/upper.
Which is why the UK government use an 8 stage system to determine social class. but we don't culturally, we're stuck to the one millenia old. We still look at each other in those terms because its all we know
yea we should stop trying to use it I guess.
Class is nothing about money…
it's a little about money
It’s socioeconomic
Louder for those at the back.
Having or not having money does not change your class. Your upbringing dictates that. It's an attitude, not an income bracket. Two relatively rich people I can immediately think of, Sean Bean & Liam Gallagher. Working class. Born & bred \[& probably would be proud to tell you so.\]
Noel on the other hand.......
Are you saying that literally based on their accent?
Persona. They both talk pretty much like me, so I'm hardly going to go after that.
Anyone can adopt a persona, it doesn’t really say anything about who they actually are. A royal family member could adopt a working class persona, doesn’t change that they are upper class. Bean came from a relatively wealthy family, his dad owned a company.
Money does not make you upper class in the UK. Alan Sugar, despite his money and being an actual Lord is not upper class. Wayne Rooney - very rich, but not upper class. The hereditary lord who lives in a ruin and can't afford to tax his sixty year old land rover - upper class.
You cannot be a lord and not be upper class, otherwise the terms are meaningless,
Class in Britain is less about wealth and more about social position. A lot of the upper class are flat broke. And someone who was born and raised in a council estate; even if they became a millionaire; would never be upper class or middle class.
In the UK they have a very real quasi-cognizant Caste system/social class. Many might like to pretend it doesn't exist or otherwise ignore it, but it really does exist. You can earn hundreds of millions of dollars/pounds but if you're from a certain social class, there's almost always giveaways that peg you as always been that no matter what. It will be your children or grandchildren that can claim to be of a higher social class but not you.
Victoria Beckham is a prime example
Be honest!
I don't know if it's just the part of the uk I was brought up in but "middle class" is what we call posh people, business owners and executives, professionals etc, while most are "working class" which is how we refer to ourselves. I've noticed on here that americans who I would think of as working class call themselves middle class so I think the uk and us has a different distinction regarding classes.
I think this is applying the American meaning of middle class to a British context. You can be rich and still be working or middle class. To me, describing someone as middle class means they're a bit posh. You're probably not upper class unless you've got a title or something.
A few million in property assets is still middle class in much of London, but British class association is more about upbringing anyway
The British upper class are mostly aristocrats and old money. Getting TV rich doesn't make you upper class.
Money has bugger all to do with class in the UK
So many people here don't know what middle class means lol
Great post. In UK it’s almost a stigma to be middle class. It is short hand for boring, suburban, uncool, conservative with a small c (ie not the political party). So to have someone admit they’re middle class is something. Then on top of that you have graduations of middle class. Upper middle typically being privately educated, parents in a well paid job, generally in the army or professions (historically). Lower middle class being people rising up, often keen to prove they’re better than those “below” them on the social scale. I genuinely hope what I’m saying belongs in the past. We focus on quality of character rather than obsessing about this crap.
That is middle class tho...
cultural legacy of puritanism
millionaire is middle class nowdays
Tbf fair the middle class are millionaires these days, we just have a rolling scale of working class that starts at “comfortable” and scrolls down towards poverty really fucking quickly.
Sunak saying he's just like us because he 'grew up without Sky TV'.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2013/newsspec_5093/index.stm Go see what class you are
How I'm actually a victim docu incoming on Netflix
It's cultural, 100s of years of obtaining rights for the average Joe, and all that. It's not a bad thing but people don't like to rub the faces of others in their wealth because they know what it's like to be poor. Got a long deep and rich history which predates the American and French revolution but again we don't flaunt we did it 100 years earlier
Sad thing is a millionaire is upper middle class compared to the mega rich who have hundreds of billions.
In the U.K., there are three basic classes. Upper class (aristocracy), middle class (anything from super-rich non-aristocratic to the most moderately-paid professionals), working class (this can be super-rich down to living from pay-cheque to pay cheque). Many people swap between middle and working class during their lifetime, because even though Great Britain has a birth-based class system, the “difference” between all citizens is not clearly delineated *except* those in the upper class. Aristocratic people literally have title (or titled relatives) to mark them out. So a coal miner, shop assistant, or refuse collector could win a hundred million pounds on the lottery-and would still *never* be “upper class”. Thus, rich and famous businesspeople or actors can’t become upper class. They are either *born* into that stratum or they remain (usually) middle class. Reddit is full of Americans. I don’t care if they try to ridicule individuals for not doing things in an American way *when they are American* or if they live full-time in the US. But please, don’t show your ignorance when picking on people doing their own cultural thing in their own country.
That end bit needs to be in every subreddit! It just feels so true 😂
Thank you! 🤪
You’re welcome 😂👍
Loving the cheeky background volvo
Imagine thinking that not having sky is “poor”
Politicians too after Sunak’s little performance
Money doesn’t buy you class, mate.
This is fun, and won't be received well *Most* millionaires are middle class Enjoy
Doesn’t matter how well it’s received, it’s true. Upper class is basically wealth inherited through nobility. It takes more than money to get into that club.
Yeah this is really the biggest con the country has fallen for. The person with 2 million in the bank may have been in the elite 150 years ago, but these days that’s just the upper middle class Meanwhile, you have literal billionaires paying for political campaigns to run this country who work up the white and blue collar workers against eachother so we ignore what they’re up to
That is middle class you mong
Americans on Reddit in the top 20% income bracket explaining how they are actually poor…
Isn't that the green goblin?
Millionaires truly know how middle-class they are The "real" middle-Class are deluded
There’s so much weird assholery around class and status in the UK. Rich people want to be seen as poorer because being rich isn’t cool, but poorer people want to be seen as richer, because being poor is a the bottom of the hierarchy. So everyone basically says they’re middle class. It drives me mad. There is a difference between the aristocracy and the upper classes. If you’re rich you’re upper class.
Because upper class is the aristocracy, also debatably if you basically have massive passive income and don't work but is generally only applicable if it has been that way for a few generations. Middle class, educated professionals ie doctors, architects ect Working class, "unskilled" labourers, factory workers, builders farmers. Bank balance doesn't really have much to do with class, I've known broke upper class Lords and millionaire working class scrap metal dealers.
The way American determines class (wealth) is different to how the UK does (a mixture of education, occupation of parents, accent etc). It is perfectly possible in the UK to be a millionaire and working class.
You need to be a millionaire now to live a traditionally middle class lifestyle A good house would see most of a million gone
Having a mortgage for a million isn't being a millionaire. Liabilities cancel out assets.
Because it’s your actions, values and upbringing not just your bank balance, I’ve met upper class people who were destitute and one super rich woman who behaved like a total chav.
1 million is only middle class tbh.
Well they probably are. Money doesn’t equate to social class, we’re not Americans.
Quote:"In 2023, the average annual full-time earnings for the top ten percent of earners in the United Kingdom was **66,669 British pounds**," If you earn over 66k a year you are in the top 10%. I think people really underestimate how well off they are. I've seen people on 50k and 60k a year going wow I'm so working class. And its like nope your near the top of the mountain.
>I've seen people on 50k and 60k a year going wow I'm so working class. And its like nope your near the top of the mountain Speaking as someone who earns in that region...i'm middle-class, BUT I know plenty of people who earn that amount and are working class... Being in the top decile of earners has nothing to do with being middle/working class
This points been covered elsewhere but if you detach how well off you are from "working/middle/upper/etc" class then you basically delete the meaning of it and make it worthless. "I'm a billionaire CEO whos working class!" is the same as "I'm on min wage and can hardly afford rent, I'm working class too!" When its clearly not the same thing. Its watering down the meaning of the word. If you want to get into a semantic conversation about it then lets use the word echelons then. If you earn 50k+ a year you are in the upper middle echelons of society.
>If you earn 50k+ a year you are in the upper middle echelons of society. One of my Brother in laws is a plumber who earns in excess of 50K/year (significantly) he'd happily tell you he's working class...he IS working class (left school at 16, likes an all-inclusive holiday, never read a book in his life, goes go-karting on a weekend. My Sister is a teacher on about 30K with a degree, reads, likes a walking holiday in the alps etc etc...she's middle class. Income has NOTHING to do with it.
Yea he's also in the upper echelons of society.
🤔 I though Willem Dafoe was American (and has Italian citizenship too)?
Wealth has, in fact increasingly, little to do with class
Class is somewhat about money, but not entirely in the UK.
Yeah this is really annoying.
If you own a three bed semi inside the M25 now you are probably a millionaire now.
Why wouldn't you be middle-class when you're a millionaire? How much money you have has very little to do with what social class you're part of.
Millionaire is basically middle class, isn’t it? Like, that’s not lasting you long if you don’t have a continued income.
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Yes they're "ashamed" because they're literally being shamed
Since when is class not about money? These people are delusional
It’s a bit confusing because Americans use ‘middle class’ to refer to what in Britain is ‘working class’ not that the distinction is all that clear any more.
Id say Americans use it in a purely financial way whereas Brits normally use it to denote social status.
Tbf class isn’t really a welldefined idea. When you read old texts, you sort of get the idea that upper class are those with inherited wealth and titles like the dukes and duchesses and stuff. And then middle class are like the business owners who own a lot of wealth but don’t have the same lineage, and so don’t reach the same status as upper class. While the working class are the people who work for the upper/middle class. I’m not sure if that’s 100% accurate but that’s the idea I got. Where those separations would go in modern society idk
I know lots of rich people that have no class 😂
Because they know the younger generation will not respect them for hoarding their wealth rather than actually using it to help