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Working class is a term used in academic sociology and in ordinary conversation to describe, depending on context and speaker, those employed in lower tier jobs as measured by skill, education, and compensation.

As with many terms describing social class, "working class" is defined and used in many different ways. The term typically incorporates references to education, occupation, culture, and income. When used non-academically, it typically refers to a section of society dependent on physical labor, especially when compensated with an hourly wage.

Casual and geographical usage of "working class" differs widely. It is usually contrasted with the upper class and middle class in terms of access to economic resources, education and cultural interests. Its usage as a description can be derogatory, but many people self-identify as working class and experience a sense of pride similar to a national identity. Working classes are mainly found in industrialized economies and in urban areas of non-industrialized economies.

The variation between different socio-political definitions makes the term controversial in social usage, and its use in academic discourse as a concept, and as a subject of study itself, is contentious, especially following the decline of manual labor in postindustrial societies. Some academics (sociologists, historians, political theorists, etc.) question the usefulness of the concept of a working class, while others use some version of the concept.

History

Working class life in Victorian Wetherby, West Yorkshire, UK.

The history of the working class internationally has been defined by two contradictory processes, the emiserisation of traditional communities in order to produce workers, and the vast surplus of production available from industrialisation creating better living standards. Throughout this process workers have taken cultural and political action to create their own cultures and positions within industrial society: many of these responses have emphasised that working class individuals are defined by processes other than work. Working class history is generally accepted to begin with the enclosure of English commons, and the generation of paid industrial labour in manufactories in Holland and England.

Pre working class labouring classes

In feudal Europe, the working class as such did not exist in large numbers. Instead, society conceived of most people as the labouring class, a group which united 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-capitalist societies. The social position of these laboring 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.

Proletarianisation

Statue of a coal miner in Charleston, West Virginia.

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 the morals and ethics of the working class themselves (i.e. excessive consumption of alcohol, perceived laziness and inability to save money — "shiftless and thriftless").

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 laboring classes into a modern, politically self-conscious, working class.

Resistance to working class positions

Through religious and political accommodation such as Methodism; socially acceptable political opposition such as voting reform; socially unacceptable political opposition such as trade unionism, chartism, riot, revolution; and cultural opposition such as the formation of class cultures and habitual slack working class people have disputed their social position as the creators of labour. Some historians, such as Thompson, place this contest as beginning prior to the formation of the working class, others see the contest as having a peak of activity in the early twentieth century before waning off due to consumerism.

Working class wealth in the West and First World

VI Lenin saw the potential for Imperialism to ameliorate the drudgery of working class life in the advanced countries, and argued this had already begun in the United Kingdom in the early 1900s. Access to cheap sports such as boxing and bicycling, expanded food cultures including coffee, chocolate and later junk food, and particularly access to motor vehicles and home ownership transformed the complexion of First World working classes during the twentieth century. A similar process occurred in the Soviet style societies, but at a far slower pace.

The working class in the saddle? The working class in soviet Style societies

From 1917 a number of countries in the world have been ruled ostensibly in the interests of the working class. While arguments over standards of living and potential growth rates have occurred in academic history and sociology, the development indexes of these countries are often higher than other countries of equivalent gross domestic product. However, additional criticisms have been levelled at these countries from authors who criticise the presence of massive human rights abuses which impacted primarily on workers, and for the lack of democracy within and amongst the working class.

Other historians have noted that a key change in these soviet style societies has been a massive a new type of proletarianisation, often effected by the administratively achieved forced displacement of peasants and rural workers. Currently, three major industrial states have turned towards semi-market based governance (China, Vietnam, Cuba), and one state has turned inwards into an increasing cycle of poverty and brutalisation (North Korea). Other states of this sort have either collapsed (such as the Soviet Union), or never achieved significant levels of industrialisation or large working classes.

Working class poverty in the Global South and Third World

Since 1960 large scale proletarianisation and enclosure of commons has occurred in the Third World generating new working classes at the margins of living. Additionally, countries such as India have been slowly undergoing social change, expanding the size of the urban working class.

Definitions

Definitions of social classes reflect a number of sociological perspectives, informed by anthropology, economics, psychology and sociology. The major perspectives historically have been Marxism and Functionalism.

The parameters which define working class depend on the scheme 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.

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 of the Marxists and Anarchists.

In the United States and the United Kingdom, sociologists Dennis Gilbert, James Henslin, William Thompson, Joseph Hickey and Thomas Ayling have brought forth class models in which the working class constitutes roughly one third of the population, with the majority of the population being either working or lower class.^[1][2][3]

As the concept of the working class is important 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 laboring classes.

Marxist definitions

Class War: Workers in battle with the police during the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934.

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 defined them as being responsible for creating the wealth of a society. He asserted that the working class physically build bridges, craft furniture, fix cars, grow food, and nurse children, but do not themselves own land, factories or means of production.

A sub-section of the proletariat, the lumpenproletariat (rag-proletariat), are the extremely poor and unemployed, such as day laborers and homeless people.

In a piece authored to galvanize organizing workers, Marx argued that it was the destiny of the working class to displace the capitalist system with socialism, changing the social relationships underpinning the class system and then developing into a future classless and stateless communist society in which "the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all." (From The Communist Manifesto). Elsewhere, Marx also dissected the ways in which capital can forestall such a revolutionary extension of the Enlightenment. (From "Capital").

Some issues in Marxist arguments about working class membership have included:

• The class status of people in a temporary or permanent position of unemployment.
• The class status of domestic labor, particularly the children (see child labor), and also traditionally the wives of male workers, as some spouses do not themselves work paying jobs outside the home.
• Whether workers can be considered working class if they own personal property or small amounts of stock ownership.
• The relationships among peasants, rural smallholders, and the working class.
• The extent to which non-class group identities and politics (race, gender, et al.) can obviate or substitute for working class membership in Enlightenment projects, where working class membership is prohibitively contradictory or obfuscated.

Some answers to some of these issues, as argued, analyzed, and formulated over the centuries, are:

• Unemployed workers are proletariat.
• Class for dependents is determined by the primary income earner.
• Personal property is clearly different from private property. For example, the proletariat can own houses; this is personal property.
• The self-employed worker may be a member of the petite bourgeoisie (for example a highly paid professional, athlete, etc.), or a member of the proletariat (for example, a contract worker whose income may be relatively high but is precarious).
• Students' class status depends on that of their family, and also on whether they remain financially dependent on them.
• Race, gender and class are overlapping social stratification categories. It is possible for capitalists to strategically substitute the members of race, class, and gender groups to attain capitalist objectives; but once these stratification categories are formed and deployed, membership balkanizes experiences and interests.

In general, in Marxist terms, wage laborers and those dependent on the welfare state are working class, and those who live on accumulated capital and/or exploit the labor of others 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. For example, retired factory workers are working class in the popular sense; but to the extent that they live off fixed incomes, financed by stock in corporations whose earnings are profit extracted from current workers, retired factory workers' interests, and possibly their identities and politics, are not working class. 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.

Of course, class does not end with the working class in capitalism. Examining the capitalist class can help us better see the contours of working class membership. In contrast to the working class, the position of core capitalists is not nearly as contradictory within a capitalist system. Capitalists get their income, wealth, status, and power from owning the means of production, and they will have it managed for their own aggrandizement. From the capitalist perspective, it would be silly to manage production (or build political resources that could influence economic relationships) for the benefit of, as they see it, one of their "factors of production"--that is, workers. (To the extent that workers sometimes, in some places benefit in some ways from capitalism, it is not a central goal, but a byproduct, although a much-beloved byproduct.) Thus, operating with less class interest contradiction and less identity contradiction, and more resources for political coordination, capitalist class members can often coordinate and prosecute their interests with a great deal of efficacy, over and against workers.

Functionalist definitions

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), the income, and the extent of formal education. However, studies of social class generally include 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 workers and tradespeople are termed "middle class", despite having minimal investment income, as are college-educated white-collar workers.

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 troubles faced by the working class.

The working class in the United States

In the United States, the concept of a working class remains vaguely defined and is especially contentious. Since many members of the working class, as defined by academic models, are often identified in the vernacular as being middle class, there is considerable ambiguity over the term's meaning.

Working class cultures around the world

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. There are, however, many stereotypes of the working class. These and other stereotypes of working class are studied in painstaking detail by sociologist Isaac Ogburn in "Life at the Bottom."

See also

• Apprentice
• Embourgeoisement
• Globalization
• Household income in the United States
• Knowledge worker
• Proletarian literature
• Living wage and Minimum wage
• Social class
  • Blue-collar worker and White-collar worker
  • Bourgeoisie
  • Middle class
  • False Consciousness
  • Proletarianization
  • Proletariat
  • Ruling class
  • Reserve army of labor
  • Underclass or Lumpenproletariat
  • Upper middle class
  • Upper class
  • Working poor
• Social mobility
• Trade union
• Unfree labor
• Vocational education
• Wage slavery
• Working class culture
• Working Class Hero

References

Further reading

• Engels, Friedrich, Condition of the Working Class in England [in 1844], Stanford University Press (1968), trade paperback, ISBN 0-8047-0634-4 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 [1]
• Moran, W. (2002). Belles of New England: The women of the textile mills and the families whose wealth they wove. New York: St Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-30183-9.
• Rubin, Lillian Breslow, Worlds of Pain: Life in the Working Class Family, Basic Books (1976), hardcover ISBN 0-465-09245-4; trade paperback, 268 pages, ISBN 0-465-09724-3
• Shipler, David K., The Working Poor: Invisible in America, Knopf (2004), hardcover, 322 pages, ISBN 0-375-40890-8
• Skeggs, Beverley. Class, Self, Culture, Routledge, (2004),
• Thompson, E.P, The Making of the English Working Class - paperback Penguin, ISBN 0-14-013603-7
• Zweig, Michael, Working Class Majority: America's Best Kept Secret, Cornell University Press (2001), trade paperback, 198 pages, ISBN 0-8014-8727-7

External links

Look up working class in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• The Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University
• International Labor and Working-Class History Journal
• Images of the working class between 1840 and 1945 from the McCord Museum's online collection
• libcom.org Working Class History page
• The Working-Class poetry of Gerald Massey
• Definition of "Working Class", Dictionary.com
• An introduction to the working class, Prole.info
• Bibliography - WORK, WORKERS AND THEIR WORKPLACES
• List of Working Class Literature
• List of Working Class Videos — Movies, and Documentaries
• Paulo Freire Research Center–Finland