Is there an 'underclass' on MN?

PushedToTheEdge - have you warned your dd that if she chooses to become a poorly paid music therapist, she may not be able to ensure the high quality of education for her children that you are paying for her to receive? You see, having worked in a City law firm, I have met quite a few people who were working more to maintain the lifestyle to which they had become accustomed and were scared to give up (the ability to afford private school fees, to pay for a nanny to look after their children, etc) than for anything else. A fair proportion of them would clearly have been happier being, eg, musicians, academics, research scientists, or just doing less lucrative legal work elsewhere, if it weren't for the question of money and status, yet only a very few actually took the step of going off to do something entirely different, so you could say that their qualifications had still trapped them into not really doing what they wanted, rather than setting them free: they couldn't have everything they wanted, so they chose money and status over all other considerations.

Sometimes, when you reach your goal, you realise it isn't as glittering as you expected, but it is very difficult to back away from what is supposed to be such a fabulous prize, because it seems such a hard thing to do when you have built up so many years behind you in reaching the wrong goal. And ironically, lots of people seem to make sacrifices for their children so that their children can have all sorts of fabulous choices in their adulthood, but the children's response is to feel obliged to trap themselves in their turn into highly paid careers they don't like, so that they can pay for their children to have choices (which they also won't take, because they feel trapped into going for the options that will pay them enough to ensure their children get the privileges they had....).

I don't think class is something you can escape. My parents came from wealthy backgrounds but both would describe themselves as working class. My mother was married to a count and my father dated the duke of Norfolks daughter but I grew up aware that wealth alone did not dictate class, neither did education or attitude.

Class is dictated by how you work, for whom and why. I believe there are only two classes. 90% of people are therefore working class irrespective of personal wealth and circs seeking to escape personal circs doesn't make you this gold standard "middle class" it makes you relatively better off compared to your peers.

"The worst snobs tend to be the self made who preach the mantra look at me"

Well, to me that is better than being one of those who go - look at me. I got no education, no money and my children got no prospects and its all Society's fault.

"you are quick to judge others less fortunate or less "applied" to the pursuit of wealth."

I apply myself to the 'pursuit' of improvement. Wealth is merely a side effect. I push my DCs so that they get Distinction for their music grades. There is no 'wealth' issues here. I just want them to be the best they can be. I push them academically because I want them to choose their careers as opposed to letting their academics their career. DD wants to be a music therapist with children. Not very highly paid but she needs top grades in order to get any where. As I said in my earlier post, why is ambition bad if you are middleclass?

"Quick to judge others?" Guilty as charged.

I work with a guy who has a Masters in Advanced Number Crunching from Oxford. His parents were Vietnamese boat people from the 70s. They left their country with nothing but the clothes on their backs and spent 2 years in a refugee camp in Hong Kong before being settled here in the UK speaking no English. If you have issues with my 'self help' attitude then you should hear what he has to say about the indigenous poor :o

ha- x posted mini
well said

hactually....this has sent me into a spiral of over thinking...but...

my df didnt work to elevate us away from our working class background. That was actually a by-product, and I think probably an unwelcome one to some degree. He (and I) very much identifies as WC still. He came to education as an adult because he is an intelligent man and wanted a job which used his brain. He wanted to be able to give his children choices in life and he is an adventurure. IME change from WC is often driven by passion not greed. And IME there is no desire to stop being WC and become MC at all. There is nowt wrong with terraced housing!! I live in a terraced house, I am pefectly happy with my dcs eductaion at the local school, and no one around me is moaning

Why are people trying to remove themselves from their working class background?

Why are people only interested in class when it relates to them and their place in the pecking order?

Why are people less motivated to examine class inequality from a less personal and more objective position?

"That is not wanting more than you deserve or need"

Who gets to decide what a person deserves or needs?

I/we need shelter, food to eat and clothes to wear. We don't 'need' anything else. I don't need more than one pair of shoes. I don't need more that one coat etc etc. So should a working class person feel guilty for having Sky or having more than one pair of shoes?

As for "hard graft and ambition", why is it a good thing for working class people but not for middleclass people? I mean, if a middleclass person works hard and is ambitious then he/she gets accused of chasing the Mighty Dollar and being materialistic.

"does not mean that there arent barriers in place"

Of course there are barriers in place but I don't want to be invited to Prince Harry's polo matches so it doesn't bother me :-)

pushedI don't believe that most of the "complainers" are actually living in mid terrace houses, in relative poverty and envious of middle class kids blah blah blah, I think you'll find though that the Tent dwellers, the demonstrators, the bloggers and leftie activists are usually middle class.

I think education sets people apart, unfortunately as was the case in previous generations the disadvantaged are usually less active because they lack the time, inclination and education.

The worst snobs tend to be the self made who preach the mantra look at me. It's all about application and effort. I don't think any form of greed is good if that means others have far less.

Your original post spoke about relative wealth, it has been proven that relative social status and wealth matters to peoples health and mental wellbeing, despite it not be an issue for you. I think it matters a great deal to you though because you are quick to judge others less fortunate or less "applied" to the pursuit of wealth.

..with regards to class/ race/ gender

and...just because some people do manage to work their way into a better financial position, does not mean that there arent barriers in place

my dad worked very hard to remove us from our working class background (infact, with the removal of industry from the north-Im sure it would be described here as under-class background) Thats hard graft and ambition. Thats not greed. That is not wanting more than you deserve or need.

Sorry for continually touting my working class background but if it wasn't for my 'greed' then I would be living in some terrace house back in the midlands complaining on MN about my DC's education and how the odds are stacked in favour of middle class kids blah blah blah.

greed; An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth

i dont agree that moderate greed is good. or even ok

Wasabi - I'm in IT where what you know matters more than anything else. However, there are sections like Legal where they almost exclusively recruit from Oxbridge and the top tier of the Russel Group universities. 'Elitist' is probably a more accurate description as opposed to 'snobby'. I mean, there are quite a few state school graduates represented.

Rabbit - Everything in moderation is good, including greed.

Unfortunately greedy bastards gives us Greed Moderates a bad name :)

i worked for a top tier investment bank & they were very snobby, i only just got in with redbrick masters in the late nineties. they were posh (unless you traded spot), full of it & nowhere near as clever as they thought but that is not a great surprise.

Sorry, I don't like snobbery and gender/race discrimination, but I don't think replacing it with greed is a huge improvement - just replacing one type of nastiness with another. Maybe that's just the puritan in me, again, but I don't think greed is "good."

But thats good isn't it?

I went to a comp and then onto a redbrick non Russell Group uni. In any other industry my humble cv would have held me back but not in the City.

As Gordon Gekko might have said, greed is good because it cuts through all of the snobbery and gender/race discrimination.

Very egalitarian.

rabbit from the GS person, i know, i can assure you its not just money they are interested in...they are interested in sport, their egos and Russian prositutes!

sorry for sharing this with you ....twitter.com/#!/GSElevator

According to a former employee of Goldman Sachs, it really is making them money that is all they are concerned about...

I grew up in a small town in the Midlands born to poor uneducated parents. It was already a poor town but when British Steel closed shop the town and the surrounding area went even further downhill. And yet here I am with a two children at private school. :o

SIL, also working class, graduated and landed herself a job in the City with a £60k pa starting salary so please tell me about how women and working class people are barred from jobs. I accept that one probably needs a Public school/Oxbridge degree to land a high flying job in the Foreign Office but the City is pretty much egalitarian these days. Can you make them money is what concerns them as opposed to your gender/colour/social class.

Is it fair that I earn more than a nurse or a soldier? No, of course it isn't fair but it is hardly shameful. If you don't have access to an education or if you was barred from high paid jobs because of your social class or the colour of your skin or gender like it was in the 1920s then that would be shameful

Education- we have a two tier education system, state and private. Most of these unemployed young people whether they are graduates or not, the highest percentage are from disadvantaged areas in the north and almost totally from state ed backgrounds.

Barred because of social status- we have a two tier education system. Privately education and the ability to net work with other advantaged extended networks means that people from wealthy backgrounds almost always prosper regardless of their talent. Whilst the rich can afford for their offspring to take unpaid work experience, poorer students are now denied the same entry level jobs in certain sectors, either through lack of contacts or because they simply can not work for nothing.

Colour of your skin- during this recession the number of unemployed black youth has doubled, not the case with other groups.

Gender- there is still a pay gap between men and women, the greatest gap is in the private sector where the greatest inequality is between men and women on the lowest wage rates.

I call that shameful. I am not proud to be self employed in the sector in which I work. I sell toot! I sell toot that I hate, wouldn't buy and I sell it to people that can barely afford to buy it. It's made in china by people who sleep in dorms and commit suicide. All that my work creates is more inequality and I do this to feed MY children. We eat, they wear clothes and I buy antiques for fun! Do I think our system is fair, no I bloody don't even if I am fine, thanks. It doesn't make me happy to realise that some people in this country are struggling to feed their children and that those children will almost certainly not prosper.

What I think is bad for society is an unequal treatment of its citizens by the legal system.

Pardon the off topic rant but it is not uncommon for a white collar criminal to get a community service sentence for swindling a company for serious money while someone who boost a car gets a custodial sentence. Stealing is stealing, whether you use a pen or a brick through the car window.

End of off topic rant about shameless inequalities. :o

i think some posters would argue that it is bad for society to have a very wide range of incomes.

personally i think that any lack of meritocracy and social immobility are bad for society. however given an equal set of circumstances not everyone will make the same choices. that will be reflected in their lives financially and otherwise & that inequality is not bad.