If you were to ask someone like, lets' say a Vanderbilt, etc., yes- they (celebrities) would be considered middle class with money, lots of money. Sports figures get astronomically high salaries, rock stars too. It isn't the dollars in the bank. It's the bloodlines. I'm talking OLD money. Generations of it.
The Brits here have to know what I am talking about, though in past centuries, those with enough wealth could purchase a title or peerage.
Having lots of money doesn't give you class. Being a celebrity doesn't give you class or make you upper-class. Ever watch "The Kardashians?" or "Jersey Shore"?
DeeDee249,
Well here is just one uk person's perspective on class. Class is simply a distinction between people made on some chosen basis. e.g. a racist one might be to refer to someone as black carribean, rather than, Carribean. This example is from the politically correct BBC, where the conservative leader parroted some statistic about only one
black person being enrolled in an elite english univeristy. The BBC corrected him with reference to this black person being a black carribean and others having similar semantic distinctions.
Before money or capital made its entrance holding
land was the main generator and sign of wealth and status. So with it come all the insignia and markers of this class, e.g. equine culture, dress codes, fox hunting, titles such as squire and lord. Older elites use these markers to distinguish themselves from those who simply purchase land and the accompanying titles, e.g. the Queen attends horse racing regularly, has her own trainer, and owns a stable of horses. They have land in scotland reserved exclusively for hunting, and being invited to join on a shoot means you have made it, you have joined an elite upper class e.g. aristos.
As a postscript it is usually an unspoken distinction that this upper class elite need not
work at all! Illustrating this feature, the Royals never carry physical money with them!
The middle class are those that form the industrial moneyed class, their wealth is derived from manufacture. It may be vast, say like Carnegie or Rockerfeller, but it is still middle class. This is a new class one to which the lower classes may aspire, courtesy of the politicians.
The lower class, hoi polloi, etc work either on land or for manufacture.
So in the UK social class distinuishes you from other classes in the USA it is capital or money that forms this distinction. e.g. Amercia is segmented by money, consider credit scoring, or entrance to elite universities based on income etc. Take a look at your politics and the advisors to nearly all your presidents have been drawn from the financial elites. Which country is No. 1 in the world of of banking secrecy, Switzerland, Cayman Islands nope its good ole USofA, which is the largest offshore hub in the world. Its laws
explicitly allow the proceedings of certain
foreign crimes to be deposited in the USA. Think about Miami and all those cocaine dollars or Enron, the state of Delaware and its corporate laws, or what is indirectly referred to as the shadow banking sector etc etc.
So from here in the UK celebrity looks a lot like the the function Sainthood used to play in the old medieval way of things. A model to aspire to, and with suitable prayers and large ecclesiatical donations you could touch the tailcoats or bask in the aura of say St. Christopher and be protected.
Whereas in modern America, you have to purchase celebrity endorsed products, to recieve some form of salvation, and thus generate or create value.
So a celebrity appears in the Amercian way of things to be decidedly middle class.
Using these definitions some people have no class at all. Consider the rulers of Saudi Arabia, drawn from the tribal leaders of camel herders. Yet their wealth in petrodollars places them in the American upper class elite?
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