A frustrated and largely rhetorical question.

[wemyss]

WHY do people persist in describing the Weasleys, not as skint, which they are, but as 'working class'?  WHY?

Comments

[rakugan]

To save <lj user=wemyss> the bother of answering

[ellie_nor]

Class is based on occupation/social standing, not on wealth. You can be an aristocrat (upper class) and be very poor, or you can be working class and very rich.

My personal understanding of the British class system:

lumpenproletariat = unemployed or illegally employed / self-employed
working class = blue collar - manual labour, whether employed or self-employed
middle class = white collar - desk-based work, from clerical to senior management, or 'professions', like lawyer, doctor, priest, teacher, etc.
upper class = land-owning families - largely the aristocracy

additional thoughts

[ellie_nor]

But you can be middle class and unemployed - a lot has to do with the class culture in which you're raised, expectations, aspirations, etc.

Re: additional thoughts

[sollersuk]

There are gradations of unemployed, from currently out of work to long term. A lot depends on what you are not employed as, and indeed whether you have ever worked.

[alexia75]

Because "people" do not understand the class system but persist on using it as though they do.

[ellie_nor]

Perhaps because 'people' are largely American / otherwise non-British and assume that class relates to money, as it usually does in their own culture?

[eagles_rock]

OK, I guess not what you're looking for but...

..because Molly's as common as muck, Fred&George are chavs, Percy's in a rebellion against his parents by being middle-class and Ron cares about money to the extent of admitting so. Bill and Charlie are the sterortypical working-class grammar-school pupils who emigrate to get away from home.

But yes, Arthur's middle-class.

[eagles_rock]

But more than anything - Molly and Arthur don't *aspire*. Not an ounce. And I daresay Ron's very existence depended on that.

[titti]

Priceless and so very true. *giggles*

[themolesmother]

I agree with you about Molly, she's definitely a couple of rungs down the class ladder from Arthur.

As for Fred and George - chavs is to kind a word for those two.

MM

[kaskait]

The Weaseleys are "working class", since when?

The family always struck me as a family that were prior big deals in the WW and now are just holding on by their finger nails. If they weren't then Malfoy would have been able to crush Arthur into dust in the MOM and Molly wouldn't be so concerned with isolating her children from "lesser" families.

That was my impression.

Quite.

[wemyss]

Well stated.