to think we are entering a new age of feudalism

[shjjhs12]

Only a few generations ago home ownership was an absolute rite of passage, even the most average job could support an entire family, living standards were good, the retirement age was 65, a 9-5 really was just a 9-5, ect. Today things look completely different. Young people are forced to live at home until their mid 20s as it’s too expensive to move out, home ownership is becoming more and more unrealistic, both parents working far more hours still struggles to maintain a good standard of living, driving is becoming very expensive, holidays are becoming unattainable, fewer people are getting married and having children because of how expensive it is. Today the lives of many people have become far more meaningless with very little to show for, many of us are now just cogs in the machine making money for someone we will never meet. Living standards are materially getting far worse for the majority of people yet the wealth of the super rich keeps growing to the point where now 0.1% of people control massive corporations more powerful than some countries. Anyone else feel like we are entering a new age of feudalism where effectively everyone apart from the super rich is being reduced to a peasant class.

My DH works at an airport. Plenty of people going on holiday. Unprecedented numbers in fact. Supermarkets still rammed where I am, people out in restaurants and at gigs. My builder is booked up 2 years in advance with people having extensions and new kitchens etc. Northern town.

No one is denying the rise in prices and the issues caused by covid and Brexit followed by war in Ukraine.

But sick of reading doom and gloom posts with an obvious agenda. Suspect some posters are not genuine Putin Bots. Anyone reading from abroad would think we are all sitting in our garrets starving to death and being whipped by Tory Overlords.

The reality is that most (not all, but most) people are doing OK; a lot are doing very well. They may have to cut their cloth or cut down on extras but they will be absolutely fine. Sick of reading posts about people apparently earning £100k and yet fretting about the cost of their Aldi shop.

Using CPI, my old house bought for £42000 in October 1987 would cost £104,241 in August 2022. It actually sold (not by me) for £350,000 a couple of years ago, this is the problem. The Housing acts of 1980 and 1988 - respectively the right to buy and the abolition of fair rents destroyed many peoples futures and housing affordability.

Quite. I am 65. My parents were the first people in our family to own a home (and it really wasn't a great home), and nobody else in our area / school / lives owned their own home. In fact most working people couldn't get a mortgage (or even a bank account) until the 1970's - Thatcher deregulated banking to enable access to banks and mortgages to anchor the working classes to obedience. It's harder to strike if you are tied to a mortgage and debt. My parents had a "private mortgage" which they paid in cash every Friday to the bloke next door who owned the "big house" that ours was attached to.

This so-called golden age of working class people has never, ever existed.

My dad grew up in a 'room' in Brixton in the 30s to 50s and it literally just was a room, my partner had similar in North London in the 60s and the 'kitchen' was an oven and buckets on the landing.

Private rentals.

A few generations ago living standards where higher than they are now? You are bananas. Even if you just think of the UK which is bloody selfish in itself, in 1950, life was very bleak if you were poor, (yum yum to eating pigeons and rabbits) gay (don't ever speak of it) female (death in childbirth, rape in marriage) learning disabled, depressed or pregnant and unwed, (disappeared into an institution and never seen again). Why have you got the idea that life was better for all but the very rich? And I'd query even for them.

And then Henry the Eighth made everyone follow a new religion he'd invented so he could get a divorce.

And everyone on horseback stood up in their stirrups and clapped.

antipodeancanary · 16/12/2022 18:47
A few generations ago living standards where higher than they are now? You are bananas.

Yes, life was so good most adults didn't have there own teeth, and 130,00 orphaned children (as young as 5) were shipped off by the Government (Child Migrant Scheme) to be abused and used as slave labour in Australia, South Africa, and Canada. This didn't end until 1972 !

Well, with the weigh, NHS dentistry is heading. None of us will have our own teeth either

This is largely a myth. A “few generations ago” takes us back to 1900

1900? If people had kids in their 40s and 50s maybe?

I'm 30 now and have a teenager who could technically move out in a few years at 16. My mum owned a home when we were growing up in the 90s as a single parent nursery teacher. Her parents owned a home when she was a child in the late 70s / early 80s and my grandad was a sheet metal worker while grandma did odd jobs and took in ironing. Grandparents on the other side owned too, grandad a joiner, grandma a barmaid. None of us are middle class, in fact the exact opposite - a long line of teenage mums and not a university degree between us!

I own my home (also a single teenage mum!) but have absolutely zero hope for my daughters being able to buy in their early twenties like I did.

If we're talking about the generation reaching adulthood now then yes, 3 generations, 2 generations, and 1 generation ago i.e me were all able to buy homes as working class people. A "shit" home in the "shit" north maybe, but still a home.

I live on a council estate in the Midlands and most of this (minus the central heating and home ownership) this is how you live if you are lucky. We’ve no car. I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve been to the cinema in the past decade. Caravan holidays in the U.K. are a treat every few years— and the vast majority around here never ever holiday.

I know MN is incredibly upper-middle class, but I think many would surprised to learn how the WC live— and I count myself lucky every day that I have a secure home in my council house, and a secure NHS job. Many people I know are privately renting AND on 0 hours contracts— now that is a hell I wouldn’t wish on anyone.