Your Class and Knowing Your Place

[brewster]

Where Europeans have an edge is in the mobility from the working to middle class, imo, not in and out of the top percent of wealth holders. .

you're moving the goalposts by making it exclusively about the top 1% instead of about the wealthy or "upper class", which would at least be the top quintile.

[Speaker to Animals]

Where Europeans have an edge is in the mobility from the working to middle class, imo, not in and out of the top percent of wealth holders. .

you're moving the goalposts by making it exclusively about the top 1% instead of about the wealthy or "upper class", which would at least be the top quintile.

I am not moving any damned "goal posts", and don't dishonestly cut out what I wrote to pretend that is so.

The wealth distribution says you are wrong about that. Far more of your top wealthy families inherited it rather than earned it, and your turnover whereby new rich rise and old rich fall is much lower.

Recent studies report economic mobility to be higher in Europe than the US.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detai ... ir-country

People are playing statistical games to pull the wool over your eyes at the Economist.

The top wealthy families of Europe are the same people they have been for centuries. In Florence, for example, the same medieval families hold all the wealth.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... -700-years

Where Europeans have an edge is in the mobility from the working to middle class, imo, not in and out of the top percent of wealth holders. Not even remotely so. They enforce strict privilege for the existing wealth and the people from those families basically look at the wealth as generational property they are responsible to maintain. The reason they don't have as much huge innovation as us is that for something like Google to have happened, the wealthy would simply hire the guys who developed the initial pagerank algorithm. In America, those guys sought venture capital and became billionaires themselves by taking risks and creating a huge corporation from scratch. The incentive structure in Europe is fucked up.

[brewster]

I am not moving any damned "goal posts", and don't dishonestly cut out what I wrote to pretend that is so.

You used the term 1% like 4 times in your 2 consecutive posts whereas it had not been used in the thread at all, and the article I linked used quintiles. Do you think Bjorn the OP defines Upper Class only by 1%ers?

[Speaker to Animals]

I am not moving any damned "goal posts", and don't dishonestly cut out what I wrote to pretend that is so.

You used the term 1% like 4 times in your 2 consecutive posts whereas it had not been used in the thread at all, and the article I linked used quintiles. Do you think Bjorn the OP defines Upper Class only by 1%ers?

You are so dishonest.


This is what I replied to:

Aside from Britain, and even there it's not to the same degree as a couple of generations ago, Europe doesn't define class by heritage and education is only factored into class based on job status. An long term unemployed disabled college graduate can easily be lower class.

It's my impression that the way we used to treat class here, three or four generations ago, is still alive in the States. That is, people looking to the rich, the famous, the outwardly succesful elites for guidance and direction.

My point, which is backed up by actual evidence, is that class in Europe very much is defined by heritage where it comes to the 1%. They treat class exactly the way he accused us of doing it.

[brewster]

I am not moving any damned "goal posts", and don't dishonestly cut out what I wrote to pretend that is so.

You used the term 1% like 4 times in your 2 consecutive posts whereas it had not been used in the thread at all, and the article I linked used quintiles. Do you think Bjorn the OP defines Upper Class only by 1%ers?

You are so dishonest.


This is what I replied to:

Aside from Britain, and even there it's not to the same degree as a couple of generations ago, Europe doesn't define class by heritage and education is only factored into class based on job status. An long term unemployed disabled college graduate can easily be lower class.

It's my impression that the way we used to treat class here, three or four generations ago, is still alive in the States. That is, people looking to the rich, the famous, the outwardly succesful elites for guidance and direction.

My point, which is backed up by actual evidence, is that class in Europe very much is defined by heritage where it comes to the 1%. They treat class exactly the way he accused us of doing it.

1% is just that, a tiny minority rather than the actual upper class. Plus the 1% in Europe is simply not as wealthy as the US nor are the lower quintiles as poor. This makes mobility easier.

Today, the top 1% in Europe take 12% of income (in the US, 20%) while the bottom 50% have 22% (in the US, 10%).

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -us-europe

[Speaker to Animals]

It is you who is moving goal posts.

What we were actually discussing: does heritage define class in Europe?

Demonstrable fact: at least in the wealthiest class it most certainly does, whereas in America it does not.

[Montegriffo]

Class has less to do with money and more to do with status in the UK (as Bjorn suspected).
Members of the aristocracy are often fairly broke, the upkeep of their crumbling stately homes being one of the main reasons for this. They are still considered upper-class.
You can also have a working-class job and income but still be considered middle-class due to the way you speak or the level of your education.
Conversely, you can be rich but still working class.
A working-class millionaire is not an oxymoron in the UK. Many soccer players fall into this bracket.
Most would consider me middle-class but I have a working-class job and am generally pretty broke.

[Speaker to Animals]

Class has less to do with money and more to do with status in the UK (as Bjorn suspected).
Members of the aristocracy are often fairly broke, the upkeep of their crumbling stately homes being one of the main reasons for this. They are still considered upper-class.
You can also have a working-class job and income but still be considered middle-class due to the way you speak or the level of your education.
Conversely, you can be rich but still working class.
A working-class millionaire is not an oxymoron in the UK. Many soccer players fall into this bracket.
Most would consider me middle-class but I have a working-class job and am generally pretty broke.

Did you ever watch BBCs Shakespeare Retold version of Taming of the Shrew?

[brewster]

It is you who is moving goal posts.

What we were actually discussing: does heritage define class in Europe?

Demonstrable fact: at least in the wealthiest class it most certainly does, whereas in America it does not.

Uh huh. And the wealthiest without heritage are what, chopped liver? If its a demonstrable fact please demonstrate it with facts rather than unsupported opinions.

[Speaker to Animals]

It is you who is moving goal posts.

What we were actually discussing: does heritage define class in Europe?

Demonstrable fact: at least in the wealthiest class it most certainly does, whereas in America it does not.

Uh huh. And the wealthiest without heritage are what, chopped liver? If its a demonstrable fact please demonstrate it with facts rather than unsupported opinions.

I just linked you to an article that explains it, but you didn't read it. Fuck off. I grow tired of the dishonesty from you.