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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Aibu to have thought that the class system ended when the servant system did?

180 replies

RipRC · 11/08/2013 21:06

I am Irish living in Ireland but did live in UK for a number years. I honestly thought that the class system was dead and buried and yet I have seen it mentioned on here quiet frequently.
Does it still exist, if so can you give me an idea of what type of people belong in each class, how does your occupation influence your class and indeed your behaviour? Can people move up and down classes according to their own life style? And how much is this class system actually acknowledged today?
Personally speaking I am glad there is no class system here in Ireland.

OP posts:
Original poster
RipRC · 12/08/2013 16:01

Nancy I don't understand this I have not once heard an Irish person refer to themselves as been a particular class, never it doesn't happen. Not once has some one said to me I am from a working/middle class background, it doesn't happen. So many posters insist there is a class system in Ireland but if there is it is worlds apart from the English class system.

OP posts:
GummyLopes · 12/08/2013 16:02

Oh. Sorry. I seem to have blundered in to some kind of a maassive fight.

LittleSporksBigSpork · 12/08/2013 16:02

There are still servants that have little or no choices and few rights that they can fight for if they want to eat. Rights are only as good as they can be enforced.

There are still slaves, trafficking in these is a major issue, with absolutely no rights or freedom.

They still exist, maybe a bit more hidden than in days of old, but it's still there. And even most people who are employed as cook/cleaner-types are often treated as lower. There is a social divide enforced by the systems in society. Being able to ignore/be blind to these is a blessing, but they must be noticed to be reconstructed into anything better.

There are other social issues that intersect and are quite more noticeable, but class still an issue on a local, national, and international playing field.

SconeRhymesWithGone · 12/08/2013 16:03

Very interesting discussion. OP, I think you are defining class/class system very narrowly. Some of what you describe about Ireland could also be said of the US (I am American) but I interpret that as class just manifesting somewhat differently than in the UK and perhaps having different vocabulary. Class distinctions exist in all societies; the mere fact of "social mobility" attests to those distinctions.

LittleSporksBigSpork · 12/08/2013 16:03

Just because something isn't discussed, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

burberryqueen · 12/08/2013 16:08

i think you are just seeing what you want to see OP

Original poster
RipRC · 12/08/2013 16:10

Gummy why do you think it's a fight, I genuinely see this as a discussion, you must be very genteel. ;-)

When I say the servant system no longer exists I am not referring to trafficking or illegal unemployment practices, everyone knows this still happens but it is not with the governments consent like the servitude system was.

If you pay someone to work in your home they are your employee not your servant, the fact that some people consider a domestic employee to be a servant is something I find very disturbing.

OP posts:
burberryqueen · 12/08/2013 16:10

actually you sound a bit naive if you think 'the servant system' no longer exists

Shrugged · 12/08/2013 16:11

Skyler, what is offensive about the statement that large amounts of Irish land was granted to British planters and/ or as rewards for military service in the past? If you are going to consider class in Ireland, you have to take the Anglo-Irish into account historically, surely, as landowners with dependent tenant farmers, employers of domestic servants, etc, even if they are numerically tiny by now?

Agree with FrancesFarmer that it is less rigid and codified than the UK, largely because there are few private schools and no real equivalent of the top public schools of the UK educating an elite. I also think there is less obsession with class shibboleths than in the UK, less wincing at 'non-U' expressions etc. and regional accents don't necessarily mean working-class. The boom time turned all kinds of people (some of them very briefly) into property millionaires, and may have blurred class distinctions rather more than the same boom would have in an older, more rigidly class bound society like the UK, where wealth doesn't necessarily raise you up the class structure.

ivykaty44 · 12/08/2013 16:12

OP writes People who behave without class/manners are knackers.
So this is what the irish have in place of a class system... you still have one but use different words to describe the system

burberryqueen · 12/08/2013 16:14

yes just a different vocabulary - West Brits, knackers, corner boys, whatever...

Original poster
RipRC · 12/08/2013 16:15

Little spark and Burberry I would consider you to be blinkered, I find it astounding that you believe that the English class system which has formal names for each section exists in other countries.

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Takingthemickey · 12/08/2013 16:16

As someone from foreign shores I love these 'class' discussions. In other countries I know well your class is mobile and it is defined by education and money and not your ancestors.

The British (should I say english) system seems more rigid and it appears to control how people behave irrespective of how much money they have made or lost; or how much time has passed since they were deemed to fulfil the requirements of a particular class. So you have rich people who are seen as acting above their class or poor people who cling on to certain norms. It is fascinating.

ComposHat · 12/08/2013 16:18

The Op seems to have a somewhat simplistic view of class relations in England sort of an inflexible Downton bbey/Upstairs Downstairs view of class.

The idea that class doesn't get mentioned, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It probably means you are just far enough up the class ladder to not be disadvantaged by it.

FWIW my take on class is that:

I would say that class manifests itself in the ability to transfer capital to the next generation. Be that financial capital, social capital (contacts or job opportunities) or cultural capital (the right sort of books, music) or educational capital (private/selective schooling, University). Which allows successive generations to maintain their position within society. It isn't impossible for people to achieve upward mobility and achieve these forms of capital, (for example it is possible that the bright son/daughter of a a docker may become a Doctor) but cross generation downward mobility is much rarer (The academically limited son/daughter of a doctor becoming a docker) as their parents are able to deploy various forms of capital to prevent that happening.

I'd say a sign of an egalitarian society, is not one that has upward mobility in which bright working class kids can move into the middle class, but an accompanying degree of downward mobility.

ivykaty44 · 12/08/2013 16:19

The English class system is not found in other countries - but that doesn't mean that other countries don't have their own class system and it is often (not always) based on wealth and manners

burberryqueen · 12/08/2013 16:19

i just said the vocabulary is different - i did not say that "the English class system which has formal names for each section exists in other countries", you did.
Some of the most snobbish people I have ever met have been .....Irish, weirdly.

Original poster
RipRC · 12/08/2013 16:19

I think I said that I would describe them as knackers others would use different terms and these would not be used in the media like the term lower class would be in England. As I have previously said but you have chosen to ignore we do not have formal terms of classes. Media would refer to people's employment status not their perceived upbringing.

OP posts:
BOF · 12/08/2013 16:20

There's a huge confusion about class because people get bogged down in the cultural and social signifiers which are associated with them. The actual class system is the same as it has ever been, and exists in all societies.

Under capitalism, if you own the means of production, you are ruling class. Everybody who helps them administer their rule is middle class, and the wage slaves with no control over their working environment are working class.

Easy. The rest is just obfuscation and waffle.

burberryqueen · 12/08/2013 16:21

so RipRC - could you link to a media example of the use of the term 'lower class' then?
no I thought not.

burberryqueen · 12/08/2013 16:22
ivykaty44 · 12/08/2013 16:24

RipRC - it was you that said knackers don't have class....

Original poster
RipRC · 12/08/2013 16:25

Burberryqueen,, I am not sure who you are quoting yourself or me.

Ireland has plenty of snobs, we just do not consider them to be middle/upper class, to us they are snobs. People are largely judged gere on who they are and what they themselves have achieved rather than who or what their long line of ancestors were. I personally consider this a nicer way to live.

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OP posts:
burberryqueen · 12/08/2013 17:04

obviously i was quoting you ripRC...Confused
so...you have established that Ireland has a 'nicer way to live' and helped perpetuate the myth of the jolly lovely Irish.
Was there any other point to this thread?

Takingthemickey · 12/08/2013 17:06

There was another thread here with people talking about MC pretensions and a lot of it was centred around eating of foreign foods. Had me chuckling as to whether Italians considered themselves superior by eating an english full breakfast.

So how do you classify those of us that are from other countries - do we get a pass or have my colleagues secretly graded me?