In the WSM we’re often asked why we spend so much time talking about the working class. Even the title of our paper, Workers Solidarity, seems a bit odd to some - why are we talking so much about workers? Isn’t anarchism for everybody? And aren’t we all middle class now? —— Questions like these are based on a misunderstanding of what class actually means. Being working class doesn’t mean being poor, working down a mine, or keeping pigeons, any more than going to college or working in an office makes you middle class.
The working class is, basically, everyone who has to work for a living, and the ruling class is the people that we work for. The middle class is a small group somewhere in between the two - not rich enough to live off the work of others, but still not entirely dependent on their own wages. The working class is important because of the society we live in today. Capitalism is based on an unequal distribution of wealth and power. A small minority of people control most of the world’s wealth, which means that they own the farms and the factories that produce all of the necessities of life. The rest of us have to work for them - and this, not the clothes we wear or the books we read, is what makes us working class. (Obviously, the working class includes the unemployed, and the partners and children of workers)

— Thinking About Anarchism: Workers Have the Power by Ray Cunningham