Curated category
Social classes
- SlaverySlavery is the ownership of a person as property, valued above all for their labour. In 2019, roughly 40 million people were still enslaved across the world…
- Upper classThe upper class is a social category defined not just by wealth but by the power to pass that wealth across generations, intact, as though it were a…
- Working classThe working class is a term that cuts differently depending on who is speaking. Karl Marx defined it as those who sell their labour power for wages and do…
- Social classSocial class shapes the schools a person attends, the jobs open to them, when they retire, whom they may marry, and how police and the courts treat them.
- Middle classThe middle class first appeared in print in James Bradshaw's 1745 pamphlet, a document about Irish wool smuggling, of all things.
- PeasantPeasants have made up the majority of humanity for most of recorded history. One estimate puts the figure at 85 percent of the population in the Middle Ages.
- SerfdomSerfdom was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude that held many of Europe's peasants in place for centuries.
- NobilityNobility is a social class that has shaped the political, economic, and cultural life of societies across nearly every continent.
- Class discriminationClass discrimination, also called classism, decides who a hiring manager calls back before a word is spoken. In one study by Bertrand and Mullainathan…
- Aristocracy (class)Aristocracy carries a meaning hidden in its Greek roots: aristokratia, a compound of aristos, meaning excellent, and kratos, meaning power.