Current Disconnect
In modern day America, a common view among some members of the working class or less privileged members of the statistical middle class is that while the professional middle class is paid better, they are less directly involved in the production of goods and services than those of the working class. This difference in pay coupled with the impression that professionalas and managers are less hands-on in their work often evokes an image of unearned privilege on part of professional in the minds of working class persons. Conversely, the fact that working class persons generally work with their hands may lead those of the middle-class to assume that those of the working class are incapable of abstract, intellectual reasoning. One must also consider that most professionals tend to work in their fields of interest; thus work may not be as perceived as dreadful and menial by them. For working class persons, however, the contrary may be true. This difference in job satisfaction tends to be perceived by working class persons as further proof of unearned privileged among their professional managers, further adding to class tension.
Additionally many middle-class persons lack direct experience in relating to working-class persons outside of a formal workplace environment. Commonly the interactions between both classes are subject to rather strict social norms which tend to put the professional in a position that is perceived as one of entitled authority over the working class individual. Examples other interactions between both classes other than the rather iconic worker/manager interaction include that of consultations with physicians or therapists. Author Barbara Ehrenreich suggests that these relationships will often lead to the unconscious assumption of class privilege on the part of middle-class individuals in their dealings with members of the working class.
| “ | "Relative to the working class, the holders of middle class occupations are in positions of command or, at the very least authority. Their job is to conceptualize, in broad terms, what others must do. The job of the worker... is to get it done. The fact that this is a relationship of domination-and grudging submission-is usually invisible to the middle class but painfully apparent to the working class." -Barbara Ehrenreich | ” |
Overall working class Americans are most likely to encounter a professional middle class persons in a situation where the latter either directs or advises the former. Meaning that working class persons usually do not converse with professionals unless they are receiving instructions or being given advice. Likewise, members of the contemporary middle class are increasingly unlikely to interact with working-class persons outside of a supervisor/employee setting, and will rarely attempt to know or relate to working-class individuals as individuals. These circumstances might lead to the development of classism.
Read more about this topic: Professional And Working Class Conflict In The United States
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