'Middle class' is a con

Lots of doctors' all nurses and nearly everyone who works in the money markets gets up before 6am. I am sure lots of teachers do too, it isn't unique to the working class.

Okay, there are definitely gradients of wealth and privilege, but I agree that we often exaggerate minor differences. For example, whether someone is an electrician or a secondary school teacher is largely immaterial, as they are likely to socialise in the same places, live in similar areas, and have comparable resources. At the same time, we tend to underplay the major disparities: neither of these professions comes close to a hedge fund manager or the owner of a luxury brand with tens to hundreds of millions in assets, unless there’s something we don’t know. And then the latter two are puny compared to someone like Bernard Arnault.

In what way is his CV enhanced? Have you seen it? What's on it?

I agree with a lot he says. I have a background in economics so I know his thinking is sound. I think if you don't watch or read his stuff, his message can be misconstrued. Yes he wants to tax the super rich but via wealth not income taxes. So someone earning 800k a year with a 1 million bonus and a house worth 3 million wouldn't have to worry. The Duke of Westminster on the other hand would have to sweat a little!

Gary's point about inequality is correct, those with wealth just buy more and more assets, leaving the rest of us fighting over what's left over. Asset prices keep rising and more and more people end up being unable to afford anything. It's easy to blame migrants or saying people need to work harder, but I am pretty sure even if migration was zero and we all worked 120 hours a week, we still wouldn't be able to afford a house or have a decent public services. 😡

The middle class are supposed to be able to afford their own homes because they have middle class jobs but most of them cannot unless they have help from bank of mum and dad. My children's upbringing would probably be described as upper middle class and the idea of them having their own place seems impossible unless I downsize.

Well she’s 1 of 5 children and her parents are relatively young as well as fit and healthy. They may leave an inheritance in 30 years’ time which will be divided by 5 and taxed. She’ll be late 60s. Hardly being set up for life.

Returning to my electrician. I don’t know how many siblings he has, but I do know his dad is also an electrician with his own business. So my guess is that this kid is sitting on a bigger inheritance than the ‘middle class’ dancer turned yoga teacher.

You oversimpilfy it I think.
I think the squeeze middle (class) sums it up better.
You'll get posters on here stunned that someone owns a £2m house, but cos it's in a not shitty part of London, they are considered loaded, when in reality they might not holiday and also drive a 25 year old car, and every year just go to the parents place in Crete. No expensive vacations.
It's about degrees of course, but some folks would have impressive assets, but are not rich, at all, in reality.
Check out the French economist Thomas Picketty, for more ideas.

I suppose the question then becomes, will she inherit some money which will cushion her and mean she doesn’t end up on a state pension and nothing else, paying market rates for rent when she’s 72 (or whatever age it is by then, 89 probably). If she has that ‘private safety net’ she’s probably what we’d term middle class.

I think it’s better put in terms of privilege than money. Two people can have the same amount of money, but one is privileged, in that they have access to cultural and social capital, to education that the other doesn’t.

This is a completely outdated view.

So many of the middle class are impoverished now, due to choice of career and stagnant wages.

I know a woman who went into the fitness industry (over-saturated, freelance/gig economy based), after failure to make it as a professional dancer. having come from quite a privileged background and encouraged to pursue a hobby/interest as a career. She’s in her late 30s, flat sharing in London and living hand to mouth, so to speak. My electrician who is in his early 20s has enough cash leftover to pay for some expensive veneers, the last time I saw him.

Yes. Didn’t they tell you? I’m getting paid over 100k to do it.

I think there are serious societal cracks that are widening because of the increasing distance between the super rich and the rest of humanity. The gap is widening constantly, the wealthiest section of society is getting wealthier at an incredible rate, whilst the rest of society largely stagnates.

We can already see in the US how oligarchy replaces democracy, how centi-billionaires acquire power that makes them all but untouchable. It won’t be long until the planet has its first trillionaire. How can a person with that much wealth relate to the rest of humanity? What does it mean for the planet when an individual has amassed wealth that outstrips most countries?

We are entering uncharted territory in so many ways.

Wealth should be capped at £10 million. No one needs more than £10 million. A 100% levy on wealth above £10mil would generate hundreds of billions of pounds. We could actually sort out the country, pay everyone a decent salary, invest in infrastructure, education, healthcare and so on.

And you think people would just meekly still around and hand over most of their wealth rather than jetting off to Dubai or Switzerland?

Shame I didn't say any of that.

Gary Stevenson is basically warmed over Karl Marx/Thomas Piketty and just as the Marxist diagnosis had a lot of truth in it, I think so does the Gary Stevenson thesis. I think a lot of what he says is very sensible.

But this is overstating things. It's true the middle classes feel poorer than they did 40 years ago and the rich are getting exponentially richer. And that capital breeding capital is increasingly the only way to make serious money.

There is still a middle class in this country, though. There are still a lot of people who work hard, earn high salaries, send their kids to private school but without having yacht wealth. They may be increasingly anxious about their futures etc but they haven't disappeared, yet.

It’s not a conspiracy theory. It’s all in the history books.

Haha very true!

That’s two sentences!

Alasthedaffodils How on earth does this analogy work?So many "rich" pensioners are on a par with hard working older people,who have saved and worked (older pensioners since 16)and cared for their DC .Equal to some"hooray Henrys" who happen to have been born into wealthy families! Owning property doesnt make you middle class or rich.Born by many Dads who got up at 5am, worked hard all day and sometimes had 2 jobs.I think MC is a misunderstood description .Its not all about money.Education is the key to open lots of doors. Doctors Teachers ,Lawyers, Accountants and so on

Thanks that is an interesting article. This bit jumps out at me. US figures where inequality is even greater but still relevant for the way things have gone - greater inequality

“In 1965, CEOs in the US earned 20 times more than the average worker but by 2015 it had risen to 300 times (in the UK, the bosses of FTSE 100 companies now earn 117 times the salary of their average worker).”

As many as people want to start, really. Who are you-the thread police?

The only real way to avoid this is to insist companies pay higher wages to people with children, which is currently illegal. Or else you could insist that the minimum wage rises so it’s enough for a single adult to raise a family of two or three children on one wage with no benefits. But then it would probably have to go up to £40k or more, potentially higher in London. The entire hospitality sector would probably disappear, and maybe also the care sector.

This interests me. I have thought since tax credits were invented that they were effectively supporting big multinationals to pay poverty wages, and I support the rises to minimum wage. I also think other workers should be seeing commensurate rises. I find it hard to believe that large companies really can’t afford to pay their staff more- should we reform laws around dividends so that companies must pay their whole workforce enough to live on AND fulfil their responsibilities to their infrastructure (I’m looking at you, Thames Water) BEFORE they are allowed to pay any dividends to shareholders- after all, those should be on profits, which are only profits after the expenses are covered. Maybe reducing pay at the top, which has risen far more relative to pay nearer the bottom, would help companies to achieve this? After all, there is the trope that small businesses are often told- if you can’t afford to pay your staff properly, maybe your business isn’t really viable. How do we solve this problem without those at the very top bearing some of the burden?

This is an interesting example of that happening:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-51332811

I agree but both sets in your example are ordinary working people as far as I am concerned. The way things are now, the surgeon / barrister couple are portrayed as rich wankers who are somehow screwing a system and deserve to have more tax burden placed on them to help "ordinary" people. That's what I have an issue with. I'd like Starmer and co to be more honest about who they are talking about when they say "those with the broadest shoulders" or "ordinary working people". I'm ordinary. I'm a teacher on just over 50k after three decades of service. To some that makes me part of the problem but I'm sitting here bouncing around debt and remortgaging and hoping to God my car doesn't break anytime soon.

I’m in a different country, Ireland, and the person on 30k would be entitled to housing assistance.

My point is that the money is distributed in a very unequal way.

Look at Tesco (again in Ireland) CEO earns 11.5 million a year
A regional manager earns 258,000 a year and the person on the checkouts earns 26k

Again we have extraordinary wealth at the top and the person on the bottom cannot fully afford to live at all.

Putting those in poverty in the same box as those on 6 figure salaries whining because due to col they can no longer afford 3 holidays a year. Ok then. I guess some people really do believe we all have the same 24 hours.

HRTFT

i think this was possible for a group of people who benefitted from boom economic times, Right to Buy (council houses but then also shares in utilities), and an expanding economy. The demographics also favoured them, with about 5 or 6 working people to every retired person. By saying that I don’t mean to denigrate them at all; my parents were in this group (a teacher and an electrician).

However, for people coming up later, there have been far more economic barriers: university fees meaning they have started working life with a sizeable debt; rising house prices, very few council houses and a private rental sector that’s been skewed in the landlords’ favour; and in the last 17 or so years, stagnating wages outside of the minimum wage, rising costs for food and fuel on top of housing, and fewer than 3 working people for every retired person.

All this means that for those who are starting life without any kind of intergenerational wealth (be that help from parents to the tune of a few quid towards a deposit, or parents outright buying your first home) it’s now far more difficult to improve on your birth standard of living. For many people it’s difficult to even achieve the same standard of living as you grew up with. I mean, even a UK camping holiday now isn’t a cheap option. Local to me is a popular site where 2 nights is £77; the place I went for childhood holidays, which in the nineties was under £10 a night for a family, now costs over £50 per night.

There was an interesting piece recently about this, about the difference that being lent a deposit in 2003 would potentially have made to someone. The article compared 2 men who did the same degree course and got the same kind of job after it, the difference was one had parents who could either have him at home rent-free so he could save up, or could lend him the deposit on a house (I forget which), while the other didn’t have that option. Over the years the difference between where they both were in terms of wealth was huge. Unfortunately I can’t remember where I saw it, but I’ll have a look and if I find it will share it.