Oh, this is fun because I can actually answer this. (My life and class background is weird).
The lower class/working class/working poor, it's kind of similar to driving in states that see a lot of snow: There's an understanding if you see some poor bastard in the ditch and you can stop to help, you do, because next time it could be you. Liking each other does factor into how much effort they'll put into one another, and it's definitely possible to blow all your goodwill, but generally they assume there's a shared understanding that the shit stick is always going around, everybody's going to catch it, and everybody might need some help.
In this class, the predatory people you find are mostly those who take advantage of that ambient goodwill (this is also why there's a knee jerk reaction against mooches- when your community relies on everybody pitching in to function, moochers are more of a big deal) AND people who are waaaay too chill about the risks/consequences of their actions. (These are the friends you end up in prison with.)
The middle and upper middle class extend genuine resources and help if they approve of you, but are absolutely vicious if you don't. Because there's a sense that everybody should be able to take care of themselves/that running a household is achievable, if you step out of line and fail it's because you've failed. The circumstances of your poverty matter greatly to this class, and that's why you find very strong opinions on what the poor should and shouldn't do/what they're like. They're the most tribal of all the main groups. But if they do genuinely like you, they'll give you the shirt off their backs and are very sweet. They make their social decisions based on their emotions + values on how they think society should be (versus the practicality of the working classes). In this social class, predators are mainly social in nature. Pirating isn't really a thing because it's gauche, and that would give away the camouflage. The other way predators exist in this group are those who abuse the working class, particularly in the service industry.
The rich/well off/extremely privileged are very pleasant until you do something that they don't like. They're very used to having control over their environment, and this can manifest as a sort of grace and a lot of generosity because it doesn't cost them anything. Break something? Not a big deal; it isn't like they can't get another one. On the other hand, if you do cross them, they do not take it well. There's a tendency to see most of society as similar to a giant 4X game, and unanticipated variables annoy them. We all know what these predators are like. This class is very calculating, because it's a necessary condition to being there, and this does show up in their social and other lives. I often got the sense the people I met from this class were very stressed out.
> The lower class/working class/working poor, it's kind of similar to driving in states that see a lot of snow: There's an understanding if you see some poor bastard in the ditch and you can stop to help, you do, because next time it could be you. Liking each other does factor into how much effort they'll put into one another, and it's definitely possible to blow all your goodwill, but generally they assume there's a shared understanding that the shit stick is always going around, everybody's going to catch it, and everybody might need some help.
This kind of thing is also found in dangerous professions like ocean fishing. When someone needs help, providing that help is obligatory. Misfortune (and in the case of fishing, raw physical location) is too unpredictable for help to be allocated by any other means.
It's something that has really bothered me about Naomi Novik's recent Scholomance series. A lot of discussion is devoted to how the rigorous nature of the environment (terrible misfortunes strike at random, with about one in four people dying as a result across a four-year stay) means that nobody can afford to provide assistance for free. (Because, in the author's words, if you spend valuable resources helping someone else, then when a misfortune falls on you you may not have enough to survive it.) If you need help and you can't afford it at the moment you need it, you die then and there.
Which of course makes no sense on its own terms -- a creditless system like that is going to raise the mortality rate from 25% to 100% -- and flies in the face of everything we know about human communities in real-life difficult environments.
Novik is a great writer and the books are still entertaining, but this is just a mind-boggling failure of world building.
The lower class/working class/working poor, it's kind of similar to driving in states that see a lot of snow: There's an understanding if you see some poor bastard in the ditch and you can stop to help, you do, because next time it could be you. Liking each other does factor into how much effort they'll put into one another, and it's definitely possible to blow all your goodwill, but generally they assume there's a shared understanding that the shit stick is always going around, everybody's going to catch it, and everybody might need some help.
In this class, the predatory people you find are mostly those who take advantage of that ambient goodwill (this is also why there's a knee jerk reaction against mooches- when your community relies on everybody pitching in to function, moochers are more of a big deal) AND people who are waaaay too chill about the risks/consequences of their actions. (These are the friends you end up in prison with.)
The middle and upper middle class extend genuine resources and help if they approve of you, but are absolutely vicious if you don't. Because there's a sense that everybody should be able to take care of themselves/that running a household is achievable, if you step out of line and fail it's because you've failed. The circumstances of your poverty matter greatly to this class, and that's why you find very strong opinions on what the poor should and shouldn't do/what they're like. They're the most tribal of all the main groups. But if they do genuinely like you, they'll give you the shirt off their backs and are very sweet. They make their social decisions based on their emotions + values on how they think society should be (versus the practicality of the working classes). In this social class, predators are mainly social in nature. Pirating isn't really a thing because it's gauche, and that would give away the camouflage. The other way predators exist in this group are those who abuse the working class, particularly in the service industry.
The rich/well off/extremely privileged are very pleasant until you do something that they don't like. They're very used to having control over their environment, and this can manifest as a sort of grace and a lot of generosity because it doesn't cost them anything. Break something? Not a big deal; it isn't like they can't get another one. On the other hand, if you do cross them, they do not take it well. There's a tendency to see most of society as similar to a giant 4X game, and unanticipated variables annoy them. We all know what these predators are like. This class is very calculating, because it's a necessary condition to being there, and this does show up in their social and other lives. I often got the sense the people I met from this class were very stressed out.