The Racist Origins of the Term ‘Working Class’

The harmful combination of classism, capitalism, slavery and racism

Photo by British Library on Unsplash

I had no idea that the term “working class” was coined by a man who also passionately promoted slavery, but it’s not very surprising, is it?

I want to be very careful in comparing the enslavement of Black people to the exploitation of poor people. Chattel slavery was uniquely evil. But let’s point out that the ruling class has never been particularly benevolent to anyone outside their own class.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known use of the term “working class” was in the 1700s, in the writing of one Malachy Postlethwayt.

A pro-slavery economist

I’d never heard of him. But Wikipedia tells us he was a British economist and lexicographer who published the Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce in 1751 and 1755, plus a slew of other books and pamphlets, many of them pro-slavery.

Consider his 1745 pamphlet, The African Trade, the Great Pillar and Support of the British Plantation:

“Many are prepossessed against this Trade, thinking it a barbarous, inhuman, and unlawful Traffic for a Christian Country to trade in Blacks” but Africans would be better off to “live in a civilized Christian Country” than among “Savages.”

If you think this argument sounds familiar, you might be remembering what Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said about how slavery actually benefited Black people.

It’s not very shocking to learn that Thomas Jefferson — who fathered many children with an enslaved woman — had a copy of the Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce and gave it to a relative.

The powerful have always exploited the powerless

In Malachy Postlethwayt 1707–67: Genealogy and Influence of an Early Economist and “Spin-Doctor,” Robert J. Bennett describes how Postlethwayt wormed his way into British Prime Minister Robert Walpole’s inner circle and helped shape early ideas about economics, taxes and labor and worked to shape public opinion.

The “intense pamphleteering” Bennett describes can be thought of as the forerunner of social media campaigns.

Nothing is really new under the sun.

Whether they own us outright or simply rent us at a low hourly rate, some members of the ruling class do not consider workers as people equal to themselves but as tools to be used to enrich their bank accounts.

When Thomas Jefferson included the phrase “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” in the Declaration of Independence, he wasn’t talking about Black people or women or, frankly, the white working class who owned no property. We barely qualified as people to him.

Sometimes, racism is a tool

Imagine if the white working class and enslaved Black people had seen themselves as brothers and sisters suffering under similar yokes. Instead, white people were always encouraged to see themselves as a completely separate caste.

“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

–Lyndon B. Johnson

You cannot tell me the overt racism of the far-right isn’t building on that shameful philosophy today.

If you need to work, you’re in the working class!

If you have amassed so much capital that you don’t need to work, you are not. But like most of you, I’ve been in the working class all my life.

I have far more in common with the young Black man working the drive-thru window than I do with American oligarchs like Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg or any of the rest of them. In fact, I have much more in common with unhoused folks than to anyone in the top 1 percent.

I also have much more respect for every member of the working class than I do for the oligarchs. They are the ones doing the real work we depend on. The billionaires are mainly exploiters who happened to be in the right place at the right time and are extracting wealth from the masses the same way an oil well extracts wealth from the ground.

Today, we have a man running for vice president who claims to speak for the working class. He owns multiple mansions, graduated from Yale and works in venture capitalism. He grew up in a decent three-bedroom, two-bathroom house that is today valued at $222,500, according to Realtor.com — hardly a hillbilly hovel.

But because he spent some summers with his extended family in Appalachia, he feels qualified to judge and bash everyone who lives there. If he, a man who spent some summers living in a poor area while spending the school year in a better-off area, could amass a fortune, every poor or working class person should be able to do the same, he suggests.

He is not fit to speak for the working class.

About Michelle Teheux

I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe to me here or on Medium. My new book is Strapped: Fighting for the soul of the American working class. Tips accepted here.

The cover of my new book. And yes, those are my husband’s work boots on the cover!

About Strapped

Did you know that originally the term “bootstrapping” was used sarcastically to describe an impossible task? Yet now, the meaning has morphed into the opposite.

I invite you to give it a try. Reach back, grab your bootstraps and pull with all your might. How did that work out for you?

There’s a reason we tell people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps even though we know it can’t be done. It’s one of the ways people in power keep the rest of us from complaining that we’re being screwed. We keep trying and trying and blaming ourselves when we have trouble. Of course we blame ourselves. Who else can we blame? 

This is not a self-help book because you cannot single-handedly fix what’s wrong with the system by working harder or working smarter. There’s a good possibility that some of your problems are out of your hands. 

This book was not written for the top 10 percent or for anyone who had life handed to them on a silver platter.

Instead, this book is for every working-class, lower-class and even middle-class person who has done everything right but still feels strapped.

A version of this post originally ran on Medium on Oct. 8, 2024.