Here's a snippet of a canon rewrite I'm doing... · 3:42am Nov 5th, 2014
The Equestrian Caste System:
Nobility
The aristocracy. These ponies have a history in money, politics, and often lineage traced back to the Equestrian Founders and pre-Equestrian nobility themselves. Old Money. This caste is formed of the constituent Houses.
Gentry
Nouveau-riche. The fraction of the bourgeois that have risen far enough to stand out. Gentry are those families not historied enough to be allowed into nobility, though they try to push for the same political and economic recognition. This caste is formed of Minor Houses, of which there are an order or so of magnitude more than Noble Houses. The Apple Family is one of the strongest contenders for nobility, as they have been trying to break the mud ceiling for centuries (and are, in fact, Old Money themselves).
Bourgeois (Merchants and Artisans)
Shop owners, merchants, craftsponies, tradesponies, and valuable employees. Small business owners and their families. The upper-middle class, in human terms.
Peasantry
Officially defined as ponies whose yearly income is lower than 600 bars. The basic income guaranteed by the Celestial Throne is 300 bars per year (plus 30 per year for each dependent claimed), tapering off as market income reaches 600 bars per year. Therefore, peasantry consists of all ponies living with governmental aid.
Non-Equines
Cows, pigs, donkeys, mules, griffons, zebras, bison, dogs, nomadic ponies (and disguised nomadic changelings), etc. make up 28% of Equestria's total population. These species are limited to the bottom two rungs of the caste system.
Bars are 100 bits/dollars, since I don't want to complicate things too much.
This canon rewrite I'm working on is meant to be an alternate version of the FiM canon, meant to be both as realistic and as self-consistent as possible. Basically what FiM might have been like if it were a hard fantasy adult novel series, instead of a children's television show. I'd like questions and critique on this snippet, if any of you crazy cats are interested. 
So is this a BUI (basic universal income) across all castes, or is it just a basic income for those below a certain income level?
2574800
It's across all castes, since there are members of noble, gentle, or bourgeois families who aren't supported by their families. Economically, however, those ponies are classed as peasants. The income guarantee is dependent entirely on the pony's market income.
There's some stuff I need to work out with taxes and property, but that's the gist of it. I have an interesting governmental set-up in mind, too.
Canon rewrite for adults? Dare I hope for a rationality fic?
I prefer to see the Equestrian Nobility as a meritocratic system, like in Empire system.
Each official function come with a title, and you need to prove your skills to gain a title and a function.
The only exception being for the founders lineage which is hereditary .
And I think your canon miss a middle-class caste, no ? (unless they are the Bourgeoisie ?)
Wouldn't that push many earth ponies into the middle class, to use the normal word for it?
Given how many earth pony business owners, craftsmen and even stuff like the fashion industy.
Heck, come to think about it, I think Rarity is the only unicorn we've seen in fashion. At least what I can remember spontaneously.
Still, given how many stories that have a caste system have simply 'every other species --> earth ponies --> pegasi --> unicorns --> alicorns' that actully does sound rather interesting.
2575059
Mmmmmmmaybe...
2575522
Two words: Prince Blueblood.
The middle class and "lower" class are lumped in as peasantry, and given that ponies receive at minimum the equivalent of 30k salaries, the lower class is more like lower-middle. I forgot to mention independent artists who live on this, and artists who gain patronage from the nobility and gentry move up to the bourgeois.
2575569
Not sure what you're saying here. I'm also planning on diverging from show canon quite a bit. A unified Element of Integrity, anyone?
2575646
In near all fics I've read or encountered with a class/cast system in place, earth ponies tends to be put second-to-last.
The logic of income (seemingly) being the deciding factor for the system you described, and how many earth ponies... well, do or craft stuff, seemed to have some interesting implications about where on that scale, for example, the Cakes, or the Apples would end-up.
Just thought it kinda neat a difference compared to the 'standard' way of segregating Equestria.
2575654
Oh, yeah. It doesn't really make sense to put Earth ponies on the bottom; any rational imagining of Equestria should have the Apple family as a major economic and social influence. I mean, they even have relations with the Oranges.
As for the discrimination against earth ponies at the very top (the "mud ceiling"), I plan to have the tribes distributed according to a genetic theory or something similar, where earth ponies are a large percentage of the population, and cities are under the governance of one tribe or the other. Ponyville is an earth pony town, after all, and Canterlot is a unicorn city.
2575646
Yeah, but Blue Blood is a prince, a very high title (well, it's the same as he princesses, yes, yes, I know it's true), so I consider him like a member of the founders lineage, and consequently he has an hereditary title.
But your canon is good, just too feudal for me concerning the nobility.
Equestria looks like a developed and modern country, but the feudalism is considered like an ancient system (more middle-age like)
But it's probably because I'm french (and yes I know, feudalism ended in renaissance in France)
2575685
It's not feudal, there are no serfs or vassals. The nobility only functions differently from the bourgeois in legal matters, besides their protected inheritances (which might not be a thing, or might be a thing that ends shortly after Luna's return) and economic status. It all has to do with the somewhat novel governmental system I'm working up.
2575646
DO IT FILLY
!
2576996
Well, with such an eloquent and well-reasoned argument, how can I say no?