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Rewrote introduction to reflect the multiple different definitions of "working class" in common usage |
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[[File:Construction Workers.jpg|thumb|right|Construction workers, commonly regarded as working class, at work at [[Massachusetts General Hospital]] in [[Boston|Boston, Massachusetts]], 2006]]
The '''working class'''
== Definitions ==
As with many terms describing [[social class]], working class is defined and used in many different ways. One definition, used by many [[socialism|socialists]], is that the working class includes all those who have nothing to sell but their labour. These people used to be referred to as the [[proletariat]]. In that sense, the working class today includes both white and blue-collar workers, manual and menial workers of all types, excluding only individuals who derive their livelihood from business ownership and the labour of others.{{sfn|McKibbin|2000|p=164}}{{verify source|date=November 2018}} The term, which is primarily used to evoke images of laborers suffering "class disadvantage in spite of their individual effort", can also have racial connotations.<ref name="Feingold 2020">{{Cite journal |last=Feingold |first=Jonathan |date=20 October 2020 |title="All (Poor) Lives Matter": How Class-Not-Race Logic Reinscribes Race and Class Privilege |url=https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/1019 |journal=[[University of Chicago Law Review]] Online |pages=47 |access-date=5 December 2020 |archive-date=3 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201203043839/https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/1019/ |url-status=live}}</ref> These racial connotations imply diverse themes of poverty that imply whether one is deserving of aid.<ref name="Feingold 2020"/>
When used in non-Socialist contexts, however, it often refers to a section of society dependent on physical [[labour economics|labour]], especially when compensated with an hourly [[wage]] (for certain types of science, as well as journalistic or political analysis). For example, the working class is loosely defined as those without college degrees.<ref name="NYTCanary">{{cite news |last=Edsall |first=Thomas B. |author-link=Thomas B. Edsall |date=17 June 2012 |title=Canaries in the Coal Mine |url=https://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/canaries-in-the-coal-mine/ |url-access=limited |department=Campaign Stops |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=18 June 2012 |archive-date=20 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220620051108/https://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/canaries-in-the-coal-mine/ |url-status=live}}</ref> Working-class occupations are then categorized into four groups: unskilled labourers, artisans, [[outworker]]s, and factory workers.{{sfn|Doob|2013|pp=}}{{page needed|date=November 2018}}
A common alternative is to define class by income levels.{{sfn|Linkon|1999|p=4}} When this approach is used, the working class can be contrasted with a so-called ''[[middle class]]'' on the basis of differential terms of access to economic resources, [[education]], cultural interests, and other goods and services. The cut-off between working class and middle class here might mean the line where a population has discretionary income, rather than finances for basic needs and essentials (for example, on [[fashion]] versus merely [[nutrition]] and shelter).
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In [[feudalism|feudal]] Europe, the working class as such did not exist in large numbers. Instead, most people were part of the labouring class, a group made up of different professions, trades and occupations. A lawyer, craftsman and peasant were all considered to be part of the same [[social unit]], a [[Estates of the realm|third estate]] of people who were neither [[Aristocracy (class)|aristocrats]] nor church officials. Similar hierarchies existed outside Europe in other [[pre-industrial societies]]. The social position of these labouring classes was viewed as ordained by [[natural law]] and common religious belief. This social position was contested, particularly by peasants, for example during the [[German Peasants' War]].{{sfn|Abendroth|1973|pp=11–12}}
In the late 18th century, under the influence of the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]], European society was in a state of change, and this change could not be reconciled with the idea of a changeless God-created social order. Wealthy members of these societies created ideologies which blamed many of the problems of working-class people on their morals and ethics (i.e. excessive consumption of alcohol, perceived laziness and inability to save money). In ''[[The Making of the English Working Class]]'', [[E. P. Thompson]] argues that the English working class was present at its own creation, and seeks to describe the transformation of pre-modern labouring classes into a modern, politically self-conscious, working class.{{sfn|Abendroth|1973}}{{verify source|date=November 2018}}<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/prospective-undergrads/virtual-classroom/secondary-source-exercises/sources-people/thompson |title=Thompson: The Making of the English Working Class — Faculty of History |website=www.hist.cam.ac.uk |publisher=[[Cambridge University]] |language=en |access-date=1 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200313180607/https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/prospective-undergrads/virtual-classroom/secondary-source-exercises/sources-people/thompson |archive-date=13 March 2020 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
Starting around 1917, a number of countries became ruled ostensibly in the interests of the working class (see [[Soviet working class]]). Some historians have noted that a key change in these Soviet-style societies has been a massive a new type of [[proletarianization]], often effected by the administratively achieved forced displacement of peasants and rural workers. Since then, four major industrial states have turned towards semi-market-based governance ([[China]], [[Laos]], [[Vietnam]], [[Cuba]]), and one state has turned inwards into an increasing cycle of poverty and brutalization ([[North Korea]]). Other states of this sort have collapsed (such as the [[Soviet Union]]).{{sfn|Kuromiya|1990|p=87}}
Since 1960, large-scale proletarianization and [[enclosure]] of commons has occurred in the [[third world]], generating new working classes. Additionally, countries such as [[India]] have been slowly undergoing social change, expanding the size of the urban working class.{{sfn|Gutkind|1988|pp=}}{{page needed|date=November 2018}}
== Marxist definition: the proletariat ==
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