Curated playlist
Social classes
- SlaverySlavery is illegal in nearly every nation, yet roughly 40 million people were enslaved in 2019.
- Upper classMerchants could hold more money than nobles and still not count as upper class.
- Working classThe working class is one term with a dozen competing definitions. Marx and American usage draw it differently.
- Social classThe word class comes from Latin, where census takers sorted citizens by wealth. It decided military service.
- Middle classThe term middle class first appeared in a 1745 pamphlet about Irish wool smuggling.
- PeasantPeasant is both a plain word for a farm laborer and, today, a slur. It traces back to a Latin word for a rural district.
- SerfdomA serf swore loyalty by placing his head in his lord's hands. The bond also held every child he would ever have.
- NobilitySpanish nobles once showed off their blue veins as proof of ancestry. Pale skin set them apart from tanned peasants.
- Class discriminationIdentical job applications got different callbacks depending only on the name.
- Aristocracy (class)Aristocracy began as a word for young Athenian soldiers at the front line. Bravest was assumed to mean best.