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I'm referring to class as a person's conception of themselves, and others' conception of them, as someone who can live the life they're living and can expect to continue living that life. Losing this doesn't just mean the loss of some sort of social authority, of having an impressive job title at parties, but also and more importantly it can mean almost everything in that person's life changing for the worse, indefinitely: worse neighborhood, worse housing, worse medical care, worse food, worse schools and college funds, worse retirement, worse jobs, worse hobbies, worse transportation, worse life expectancy. That would devastate anyone, and it's not so much about how a person self-identifies but about how much they can afford.


By that same measure, anyone who lives in a lower socio-economic class would have a lower sense of well-being. This is true for people with extrinsic work orientation, but not to those with intrinsic orientation. Again, a lot of it comes down to one's relationship with work.


People who are forced to receive worse medical care, for example because they can't afford necessary medicine anymore, are tangibly worse off than they were before. It's not a sign of an unhealthy relationship with work if someone is upset at not being able to buy medicine. Framing it that way is unhelpful.




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