Workers define class by shared conversational and consumption resources, not formal rank

Evidence

What is the basis of social class? Well, things that people have in common… Money is one, for instance, like I wouldn’t feel very comfortable going around with a millionaire, we’ll say… He could do a lot and say a lot—mention places he’d been and so on—I mean I wouldn’t be able to keep up with him…and he wouldn’t have to watch his money, and I’d have to be pinching mine to see if I had enough for another beer, or something. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2239

Categorization

• DEFINE: Working-class respondents define class boundaries concretely in terms of what they can talk about and afford, not in abstract structural terms.
• XREF: connects to: Classes share tastes without acting as coordinated groups — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 313