some thoughts on "class"

To start with, I'll "admit" that admirable ideal though it is, all people are not created equal and that when we refuse to discuss personal differences honestly(in one distorted way or another,) we create fertile soil for oligarchy under one name or another. Nonetheless, the recent BBC coverage still focuses too much on money, though at least some of it spot-lights a very needed topic of discussion.
Were the lens-grinding and cave-dwelling philosophers Spinoza and Nietzsche working or middle class? How about scraggly Van Gogh, who sold no more than one or two art-works in his life-time? Or young Einstein, bicycling along with light-pockets, contemplating sun-rays in a way that was to, as just one of its many effects, power most of vast France?
The truth is that issues of personal differences, value, and "class" have always been complicated and have become even more so as technology and abundance have made it at least possible for complex cultures to multiply even in forgotten, "low-class" petri-dishes of the world. Just as Europe's aristocrats once made the "mistake" of viewing merchantile business as unspeakably vulgar and low-caste... we've now made or allowed the opposite mistake by making "Usura" the unbendable measuring-stick of nobility.