Class and Rich people

What, then, defines your class in 2022? Is it your job? Your salary? Your education? area you grew up in? area you live in? Your accent? Where you go on holiday? How you vote? How many steps away you are from destitution? Is it identity? All of above and then some?

Earlier this year, polling by New Statesman found that British public hugely over-estimates how working-class it is, with quarter of people earning £100k or more viewing themselves as “working class”. This suggests that class, rather than being seen as economic status that’s constantly subject to change depending on your circumstances, comes down to personal experiences of absolute minimum and absolute most. If you grew up in post-industrial town but you’re now sat on fat pension with house and two cars, you’re still likely to describe yourself as working class. Whereas younger person who grew up in suburbs with two professional parents, and now spends £850 month on rent, would be more likely to view themselves as middle class.

Clearly, we view class as more than objective socioeconomic status. It cuts across everything. It’s humour, taste and emotion. It’s what’s normal to you and what’s not, how you see yourself and how you see society. It’s expectations you feel, pressures you feel, way you talk to people. It informs how everything – from fashion to food to shops – are coded.

At end of day, British public hate rich. It may not seem like it, based on how much we love to elect them to make life-changing decisions for us, but we’re obsessed with idea of hating them. “Rich” is worst thing you could possibly be, and so nobody wants to accept their proximity to it.

When you go over someone’s house for first time and you thought you had loads in common and then you discover they have tennis court? betrayal.

When you find out that artist you like’s mother has Wikipedia page? scum.

Being working class is romanticised as valorous even though most people living in working-class conditions are constantly striving for better quality of life, and being rich is seen as deeply evil, individualised feature, even though it’s rich people that we constantly celebrate in pop culture across film, TV, music and fashion because they dominate those fields now.

It’s not surprising, then, that under this strange moral binary we’ve seen everyone from artists to multi-millionaires clinging on to their working-class credentials with vice grip. It’s never-ending contest of who’s had it worst, who’s been through most, who’s triumphed against biggest odds. Who has what? And how much do they deserve it?