Quote:
Originally Posted by Joan.of.the.Arch
Well I'm not willing to accept that definition anyway. The term has too many usages over time to just lay that one out as the official definition.
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I agree. As I said, it is not how I have always thought of the term either. I just thought it was interesting to see it defined in print and thought back to that thread.
Out of curiosity, I did a little searching online, here are a couple of definitions from dictionary.com:
1. those persons working for wages, esp. in manual labor.
2. the social or economic class composed of these workers.
The socioeconomic class consisting of people who work for wages, especially low wages, including unskilled and semiskilled laborers and their families.
a social class comprising those who do manual labor or work for wages
And from Wikipedia:
Working class is a term used in academic sociology and in ordinary conversation.
In common with other terms relevant to social class, it is defined and used in many different ways, depending on context and speaker. The term incorporates references to education, to occupation, to culture, and to income. When used non-academically, it typically refers to a section of society dependent on physical labor, especially when remunerated with an hourly wage.
Casual and geographical usage differs widely; in extreme cases, well-paid university-educated professionals in the United Kingdom may self-identify as working class based on family background, while many semi-skilled and skilled laborers in the United States are characterized as middle-class. 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 pejorative, but many people self-identify as working class and experience a sense of pride analogous 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 very 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.