Final Essay

Choose two aspects of social class and discuss how they apply to British society past and present

The definition of class society mentioned by Floater (2015) is that “in societies stratified by class a person's class status is determined by membership of a group. ” The British classes at past were composed of working class, middle class and upper class. With the great development of world economy, some changes have taken place and people expect to become wealthier by grasping the marvelous opportunities in life. The abundant life of western citizens is what people in other countries admire at. From the perspective of many other eastern countries, Britain is a typical country which is the symbol of wealth. However, the fact is not the same

Compared with the past, the middle class of British possesses not only money, but also wealth and the total amount constantly increases at present due to the growth of economy. This group contains billionaires and millionaires. In 2006, more than 4,000 individuals had one million pounds of annual bonus in financial investment circle (O’ Driscoll, 2009). Furthermore, the wealth in working class is still the lowest among three classes, 4% of British families had no income in 1968, but the proportion increased in the following years (McDonough, 1997).In generally, this class need subsidies, such as housing subsidy, children subsidy, and education subsidy. These subsidies are the way to keep the basic living of the working class (Floater, 2015) and sometimes the subsidy has reached to an absurd degree. Moreover, the wealth of working and middle class could swap that working class could join to the middle class through wealth

Based on the wealth in three classes introduced above, the lifestyle of different classes have different characteristics. Seeking- pleasure is a representative lifestyle in the upper class. In the past they usually lived in the glorious manors corresponding to their noble identities. In their spare time, such blue blood would have some entertainment like horsing which was an aristocratic activity. And it is very common activity in the upper class until now. The lifestyle of most upper class tends to be enjoyment, although they can’t live as extravagantly as before at