Am I middle class?

There seems to be some discrepancy between what classes are believed to be in the western world and what they really are; there is specially a lot of confusion with the middle class. We tend to believe that all of us that have a job, a car and a TV at home, are middle class. That seems reasonable; after all we are the majority of the population and we are in the middle between the rich and the poor. Anyway, who want's to say that they belong to the working or lower class.

The case is that classes are not defined in that way. The upper class are not the executives and politicians; those are in many cases middle class and in some cases even working class; unless they are very rich or belong to a wealthy dynasty (like John F. Kennedy or G.W. Bush). The upper class or ruling class are, as mentioned before, the wealthy dynasties, the different monarchies, the bank and corporate owners (not to confuse with directors), and other aristocrats and awfully rich people. Basically anyone who can maintain a lavish life style without working, not only for the rest of his natural life, but for many generations to come.

Also as explained above, the middle class are not the vast majority of us in the middle. The middle class, or bourgeoisie, are many of those we work for; for example, business owners and investors; or mildly wealthy people. Basically, the middle class are those who can live from their businesses, investments or interests without working another day in their life; though they might choose to do so.

And the working class, also called laboring class and proletariat, are those who need to work for a living or depend on another activity to sustain themselves; whether they manage to secure a job or not, or whether they are white, blue, or any other collar workers.

So, classes do not depend on percentages of the population or the distribution of wealth (e.g. the popular 99% vs the 1%, or the 20% and 80%), or whether you earn more or less as the rest of the people around you. Classes depend on who needs to work for a living and who doesn't. If you need to work sometime along your life, you are working class; if you depend on a business or investment but don't need to work, you are middle class; and if you and generations of your family can live of what you already have right now, you are upper class.