Middle Class Callousness?

Understood the middle-class…but what is the servant class ? Couldn’t find that phrase in the linked post.When did this class creep into our national class-economics?

Meaning people at the lower end of the economic spectrum who work as house-help.

Saket,I find this term “servant class” derogative.Would we be calling people at the “lower end of the economic spectrum” who work as cleaner as “Bhangar Class” and so on.The placement of the words “Middle Class” and “Servant Class” side by side reflects a mean upper/middle-class mentality that thinks that people at the “lower end of the economic spectrum” are destined for servant kind of work. That was my objection.

To reiterate my point a class is a group of people who lie in the same economic strata.That’s why we have middle class family and not “clerical-class” family. The other members of the so-called servant-class might or might not serve as a house-helper. To classify all of them broadly as the “Servant Class” would be gross injustice. Coming it from a sensible DP editor like you (going by your past posts about recent Shivam’s pic/Notice Period etc) was a bit surprising.

Chillabong,

I did not mean that all people who are at the lower end of the economic spectrum are “servant class”. Using the expression was not meant to classify people at all. Neither was it meant to be derogatory.

I used the expression servant class, purely because the post which was linked to, primarily focused on the attitude of the middle classes towards their servants, esp house help (and not other people at the same economic level). The post mentioned the word “servant” (including the inverted commas) to signify those people, I merely removed the inverted commas and used the expression ’servant class’, which, I thought, basically served the same purpose.

Secondly, there is no hard-and-fast rule stating that the word “class” must be used only for economic classification. The criteria can be anything. Isn’t the word “business class” common? What about the “warrior classes” and “merchant classes” you read about in school textbooks.

Only Nilu can resolve this debate

Yes indeed. I half expect him to come here and say something profound

From now on use small end domestic and non domestic service providers