Upper-middle class is doctor/lawyer/professor/diplomat.

Upper-class is power, not job.

Totally different categories.

Oligarchs are upper-class.

Monarchs are upper-class.

To the upper-class, job-people are hirable-dogs, not equals.

www.barnesandnoble.com/w/…/1111206189?ean=9780671…

Read that long-ago, & it has proved its right-framing consistently since then.

He got the fundamentals right.

There are other sub-class-systems, however:

The academic-class system, the financial-class system, etc.

But the fundamental givaway is this:

Power is what “validity” means in the upper-class.

Institution is what “validity” means in the middle-class. ( so, PhD is high-status within the middle-class, school-dropout is contemptible-inferior in their eyes ).

Money is what “validity” means in the working-class.

Underclass has its own hierarchy, too… street-bosses, etc…

The parent-child relationship is a class-system!

But Fussell’s right on the fundamental 3 categories in the class-system, & their “validity” anchorings.

The whole “Ivy League” thing is that it isn’t the skills you have , that make you valid, it is being in the power-clique that does.

That is upper-class.

So, there’s Venn-diagram intersection between raw-oligarchy & jobs … so truly-upper-class could well have jobs, but … it’s the power, not the grind, that true-upper-class is.

When your power-connections are more important than your in-organization-day-to-day-decisions, then you’re probably upper-class in mode, though your instinct may still be upper-middle-class, or financial-class ( which is above upper-middle-class ).

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