Leslie

Platitudes are so HILARIOUS.

cindyabs

Hereditary wealth exists here, although not due to the peerage. We only had a few folks come over here with titles and obviously those went away. The people that came over here and "made good" were not members of the aristocracy, but more likely either dirt poor or middle class. The Kennedy family harks back to an immigrant saloon owner, plenty of those type of stories.

We have Boston Brahmins, FFVs of Virginia, the 400 hundred of New York City and so on. Being from New England myself, I always laugh when I think of this little ditty-

And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots,
And the Cabots talk only to God."

so yes indeed there is an upper class, but based on money, the bloodline bit comes along later. That might be based on money, might be based on "how old" the family is, and the two aren't necessarily the same.

kimilseung

Its always based on money, really what influence would an old aristocratic family get if they lived in a two up two down?

Aristocratic influence was surpassed because the emerging industrial middle class ended up with more money and thus more influence than the aristocrats.

Cuthbert Rizla

Almost as funny as sweeping generalisations.

UkWinds5353

Remove the factor of money from bloodline upperclass and all there is left is history. But in todays world, appreciation for all things from the past is not held in high esteem by the general public.That is what seperates the Royals from most Monarchs.They are rich,they have the history and people like them.But take away their money and..........thats all folks.That is a big reason why some people with Titles have less than a good opinion of world famous stars.Many Monarchs feel entitled and believe they deserve to be wealthy and treated better. And many of them don't like famous stars because of jealousy and hate playing second fiddle to anyone. I personally have more respect for the sports athlete and movie and music stars.At lease they earned their lot in life.

Manc

don't feed the troll boys and girls, it just encourages more spastic mongs.

Cuthbert Rizla

Hello, I thought you were off ?

Anyway, this is an interesting discussion about whether there's a class system in the US or not.

You're more than welcome to join in.

Wikipedia is not normally a research tool I use but it has some interesting stuff on the whole concept of social class, not least the fact that there is widespread disagreement on the very question of class itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_..._United_States

FWIW I was Skyping my neighbour yesterday. He has three homes in the States and made his millions when he set up a canning factory to re-process tomatoes that had nearly reached their sell-by dates for export to 3rd world countries.
I asked him what class he was and he said blue collar originally but would probably be considered white collar by the time he retired.

Manc

so your mate lives here but you don't

well aren't you just the authority on life here then.

Cape Blue

Many people want to, and have, moved to the UK - millions over the past few years. Perhaps we can say that the UK is the land of opportunity and people are moving to the UK to partake in "the British Dream"?

Yes, I know, judging by your posts to-date, the reason for people wanting to move to the UK will be due to the huge benefits on offer.

Cuthbert Rizla

He's my neighbour.
I own homes in the UK,Ireland and the US and spend time in all of them depending on where I am conducting my business.
So I have an opinion on all three countries.
And fortunately I'm able to express that opinion without using terms such as knobhead and spastic mong.

Cuthbert Rizla

It's slightly different in the UK because of the expanding membership of the EU which allows many more people the right to move there.

Likewise because of Britain's colonial past.

But I agree - it is still a land of opportunity and hard-working immigrants can still prosper and make it all the way into the House of Lords despite not being a member of the upper class.

Cuthbert Rizla

Where do the ultra-rich, dotcom millionaires and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs fit into the grand scheme of things ?

They're obviously well-educated but many come from ordinary backgrounds - their enormous wealth puts them on a different level from other people but does it make them upper class, or middle class or just rich ?

MostlyYank

I'd argue that anyone who can spend $100k or more on a car, or has multiple houses, is upper class.

Perhaps anyone that moves in those circles where one does not come into much contact with 'regular' folks outside of hiring them.

Pete

SultanOfSwing

Landlords are upper class, then? That's interesting.

Cuthbert Rizla

Just suppposing that $100k car was bought by a rapper from Compton celebrating his first hit record - would he still be upper class ?

The point I'm making is that there is no class system based on wealth alone.