Douglas Murray on intolerant politics

The problem with social mobility is that it is a function of inequality. If there was no inequality you wouldn't need social mobility. I know that's a big 'if' but it's why social mobility isn't something to aim for. Reduction of increasing inequality between richest and poorest would be better.

www.thelocal.dk/20150521/denmark-has-lowest-inequality-among-oecd-nations

I recall there was a company reported on a while back which had a policy of never paying its top executives more than a certain multiple more than it's lowest paid workers for this reason.

And daughters

As far as I understand it, there was genuine social mobility in the fifties and sixties in the sense that many people moved down as well as up. People wanting to move down depends on working class jobs having decent pay and security.

I agree with the poster earlier who said it was the middle class left who keep talking about empire in relation to Brexit. They also complain that Brexit would lead to us having less global influence. But as we are no longer an empire, why should ordinary people want more global influence, especially as that so often requires our sons to fight and die in foreign wars?

gcacademic Ah, I see. My parents are actually both Catholic
mine too I bet we're from.the same place

Hey GC, noodle, how fabulous is this thread and to ‘meet’ each other like this! I love this forum, so many great women here. Are either of you from a mixed background? Did either of you have any problems with orthodoxy if you see what I mean?
It is great to 'Meet' you too 😊My parents had an arranged marriage. My dad came here for university then brought my mum. I have 10 cousins who were either born here or came here as children after leaving E. Africa. Only 3 of us (the older ones) have married into our culture. the rest of us have all married Caucasian partners. My older cousin got all the grief for 'marrying out' her sister then did what was expected and divorced after a horribly abusive marriage. As a result, the rest of us didnt get as much grief! There are many diverse types of immigrant. I do think the difference in many cases is class based. The problem with the 'woke' is they don't have the experience they think they do. They don't know a lot of white working class. When I lived in London, I mixed with people of many different races. They were virtually all middle class, whatever race they were. As are so many of the people demonstrating against the election result on Friday. Unironically anti fascists demonstrating against a democratic election result instead of trying to understand or accept people have different opinions to them, because they dont see, know or speak to anyone outside their own narrow experience.

I have so much to say but more sneaky work posting means limits

It is very refreshing to read this after being called names for expressing these views in the past.

On the value of community. I grew up in Essex, then lived in five different London boroughs, I did find community there but areas were changing so fast and so many incomers didn’t even respond to “good morning”, I really noticed it falling apart, and the nature of London is that it’s normal to travel an hour to see people and I hate that.

In desperation, and combined with the death of my dad, I went to church as an atheist and there’s community there but it’s small.

Re the comments some people have seen about how certain people should have got a better education - foul. What vile people. The funny thing is, I have a feeling they’d jump down my throat if I said it about someone not English.

I actually have a post grad. I never say that on MN because I never understood the woke speak and had to ask questions and often thought people would think I was thick.

The job I do shouldn’t need a degree but that has a huge screw up along the way. Cock up or conspiracy? I don’t know.

I’ve had to spend a lot of time with mum in Essex after dad’s death. I’m pleased to say community is still there. We would not have managed without them.

Why anyone would not value, much less actively want to destroy, local community, is beyond me.

Re academia, I cannot understand why they would encourage ideas that were so inapplicable. I thought perhaps it was just social media globalising thought. If academics here have been encouraging it, that’s batshit.

I wonder if my North London outer burb community can recover but if not, when I retire, I’m heading back to the comfort of Essex!

For a long time I've been saying that social mobility isn't necessarily the greatest goal. While it seems like most complex societies have had some sort of outlet for social mobility, often through the civil service or religion or the military, it's generally true that populations have a fair bit of stability barring wars and such.

And because we have a lot of capacity to educate people we may have somewhat more capacity for social mobility than before. But there will always be different kinds of work, and to some extent that relates to different social roles.

The real issue is living and working conditions of all groups, and also their ability to be politically involved, and to have respect in their work and for their work. It's great if a really bright person from a working class background can follow his talents and passions and become a university professor, but we are never going to be a society made up entirely of professionals, or bankers, or whatever, and that would not be a good outcome anyway.

The other problem which IMO is seldom discussed is that when it is aspirational for all the brightest people to be bankers or whatever, you end up losing those people from other sectors. But being very capable and intelligent brings important things to almost all types of work, those are the people that go on to be leaders and innovators or to provide important insights.

Socialism in some ways started to lose the plot, in my view, when they started to think the goal was not to represent the interests and ideas of workers, but to give them all middle class office jobs.

This thread is so thought provoking and refreshing in many ways. I am unable to post much due to an ocular condition and an archaic tablet that seems to have a mind of its own. I wish I knew people, like posters here, in real life.

The somewheres and anywheres has really resonated. I've realised that my brother has cultivated a 'somewhere' working class identity in reaction to the rest of the immediate family falling in the 'anywhere' category. Whereas I'm an anywhere by default and never seem to be a good fit with communities where I have lived.

Yes, career talks for the boys at my dad's school were "do you want to work for [large local manufacturing business A] or [large local manufacturing business B]?" and they almost all went into good apprenticeships. Not so good for the children who didn't want those jobs, but at least for the ones who did, they were there and they trained you and they were a decently-paid, relatively secure career.

It's a huge oversimplification, and one that very much suits current Conservative spin lines

Indeed. As previously mentioned you can only make this spin work if you completely ignore the working classes not just in major cities, but in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

I live in the fastest depopulating council on the UK mainland. Over a quarter of our population has left since the 80s leaving an aging, immoblle, socially deprived population of firmly somewheres behind.

Many, many of these left behind working class people have has stints labouring on the continent thanks to the EU. It has never been the case that only the educated middle classes benefited from freedom of movement.

Labour politicians (I'm looking at you Caroline Flint) need to stop assuming the working classes are some kind of solid mass who favour brexit. It simply isn't true. We voted remain by a huge margin.

children in my parents' generation who were successful at grammar schools and went on to middle-class careers escaped that

No grammars here as I said, but my dad went on from WC area to MC job, bought a nice semi in a better area. Still in the catchment for the same comp though (later rebranded as a "high school" - and since demolished) which without the same opportunities for apprenticeships etc meant I have ended up back in the same area he escaped

The wars did a lot for social mobility but it's not just that. For many generations now, each generation has been able to reasonably expect it'll do better than its predecessor. That now is not the case. Intergenerational inequality is becoming a bigger and bigger thing and it is going to have a real impact on the Conservatives given how dramatic the voting skew is between age groups (it's not just 'people get more conservative as they get older'), but they probably reckon they have another ten years or so before they really need to worry about it.

Historically the only things that have led to large scale social mobility are wars, famines, epidemics and other natural disasters. Things that have left huge swathes of the population dead.

Thinking of the plague now.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequences_of_the_Black_Death

I LOVE THIS THREAD!

As regards social mobility, I have been convinced for years that the actual driver of social mobility for the baby boomer generation was nothing particularly to do with grammar schools or government policies but rather the fact that thousands of men had died in the second and first world war.

You would be correct in your observation.

Historically the only things that have led to large scale social mobility are wars, famines, epidemics and other natural disasters. Things that have left huge swathes of the population dead.

I am firmly a somewhere. My family have been rooted here for centuries and the immigrants in my ancestry were French Hugoenots.

My partner is from a more mixed background. His father is from one of the most disadvantaged of all ethnic minority groups, the travellers.

Discussions of social mobility tend to assume not only that everyone is trying to escape the working class, but also everyone ought to be trying to make such an escape.

Mmm. True in part but I don't think that's quite it; it's more that people are in general trying to escape the low-paid jobs and poor housing and inadequate local facilities that many are surrounded by. The children in my parents' generation who were successful at grammar schools and went on to middle-class careers escaped that, but so did many of the ones who went on to secondary moderns and then comps and had decent jobs in eg the manufacturing sector to go to. I wouldn't say someone like my dad for example escaped the working class or wanted to, but he escaped the slum he grew up in all right.

Still I see what you're saying and yes, and it's an issue with the idea of grammar schools and the broader idea of meritocracy as well. There just shouldn't be a massive proportion of the population living in poor conditions from which we cream off the lucky cleverest few to elevate to middle-class-ness. Decent jobs and decent lives should not be restricted to those who'd pass an 11 Plus.

It’s easier to slot an Oxbridge educated lawyer straight into a junior ministerial role.

But isn't this a major part of the problem in the first place? That government replicates specific paradigms found only within elite institutions?

Surely, any organisational structure is profoundly unstable if it requires individuals from a particularly socio-cultural background in order to operate efficiently.

Discussions of social mobility tend to assume not only that everyone is trying to escape the working class, but also everyone ought to be trying to make such an escape. This isn’t necessarily a good thing...

Agreed that grammar schools are not a great idea for social mobility. They take a relatively small proportion of poorer pupils and a relatively bigger proportion of privately educated pupils. They benefit those who attend them, but not massively so, and poorer pupils who don't attend them in selective areas do worse than they do elsewhere.

It was clear from looking at the manifesto that there was a conscious strategy to move away from the stereotype of Tory MPs as former lawyers and investment bankers. They positioned themselves as the party of the workers, and Labour as the party of the elite.

Perhaps off topic, but some are already noting that this, at least in the short term, leaves the Tories short of talent and experience. It’s easier to slot an Oxbridge educated lawyer straight into a junior ministerial role.

Perhaps deliberate. Perhaps government will run via a kitchen cabinet effectively run by Dominic Cummings. I hope they don’t forget who voted for them.

Boris has the advantage of being the first party leader since Thatcher who is not trying to hold together a party split by attitudes to the EU. The country will need to adapt to Brexit and he has the mandate to do this.

I don't want to derail the thread, but the idea of grammar schools as a vehicle for social mobility is a bit dodgy. Most grammar school pupils were middle class. The number of white-collar and middle-class jobs expanded enormously in the 50s and 60s, however, so there was room for people to move upwards. There is less room for upward mobility these days.

But if you look at places like Oxford and Cambridge, and other elite universities, they have a higher proportion of state school pupils now than they did in the 70s. Comprehensives have done quite well, relatively speaking, at getting working-class kids into uni.

They positioned themselves as the party of the workers, and Labour as the party of the elite.

Yep. I could cry.

And when you respond to any criticism or disagreement with "fuck off and join the Tories", turns out some people do.

In his bewilderment at the election result, Little Owen Jones was refusing to believe that anyone had been told by Labour party members to fuck off and join the Tories. People obligingly sent him tweet after tweet of the Momentum mob doing precisely this.

More importantly - far more importantly - there was a ready supply of well-paid working class jobs, so you could live a decent and dignified life if you were either unsuited to a middle-class career, or chose not to take that route in life.

This.

It's a huge thing that very few people talk about. I've been banging on about this on MN for years, but at best usually just get a polite silence.

We now have an hourglass-shaped economy: a fair few well-paid jobs at the top; lots of very poorly paid jobs at the bottom; very little in the middle.

I've always argued that the nation should face this reality and ensure that life in the bottom bulge can be meaningful and humane.

The argument I get in return is that people should simply fight it out, Hunger Games style, to make sure it isn't their children in the bottom bulge.

Mm, OK, but you realise we down here still each have a vote?

They positioned themselves as the party of the workers, and Labour as the party of the elite.

Yes they did. Something else they have successfully borrowed from Farage.