Working class - definition
Updated: 21 May 2008, 23:59
The working class is people dependent upon a wage or salary. This includes:
- Dependent children of a worker.
- Dependent spouse of a worker.
- Retired workers.
- Students who will need employment upon graduation.
- Teachers, university professors.
- Workers receiving a disability allowance.
- Workers receiving any kind of welfare or wage supplement (such as welfare or unemployment insurance).
Class is determined by one’s relation to the means of production. If one owns a factory, one is a capitalist. Those who work in the factory are workers — members of the working class.
Some examples of working class occupations often thought not to be working class:
- Doctors, Engineers, other “professionals”.
- Managers.
- Military - all personnel, including all officers.
- Police officers.
- Self-employed tradespeople.
- Students.
- Teachers, university professors.
Consider the following “gray area” example.
A self-employed plumber employing two other plumbers, probably does not receive enough income, by employing the other two plumbers, to live entirely off that income. The self-employed plumber must still work for a living. So, although the plumber does have a source of “capitalist” income, it is insufficient and the earnings from his own work are necessary.
That plumber has much more in common with the two clearly working class plumbers, than with the clearly capitalist owner of a company with after-tax profits of $250,000, a retail store, employing 50 plumbers, 5 store clerks, and a manager to run the business. That owner need not work.
