Lockdown is where middle-class people hide and working-class people bring them stuff

[havanacabana]

I’ve seen this quote on twitter a few times and realised there is actually a lot of truth to it. IRL most of the people I know who are truly able to ‘hide away’ are the middle-class, privileged ones who are currently on furlough or working from home. People I know on minimum wage are the ones having to go out and mix at work in supermarkets, takeaways, warehouses etc. to keep everything going.

I agree minibea, but I find this thread much less depressing than the government’s misleading focus on stopping Covid spread by increasing fines for illegal raves, as though millions of people aren’t working in conditions with limited protection.

I think in the first lock down many businesses did temporarily close, but since then they have checked the rules, made any changes that they think are necessary (often very little) and carried on.

I feel very privileged that I get to go to work and keep my normal routine. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me. Dh is fully working from home and I feel for him. He misses office banter.

@TheKeatingFive indeed. I think the OP really wants to just point out that there are a load of smug twats out there who want to tell everybody else what to do. What I've seen is a huge mix of people who are for and against lockdown. Teacher friend thinks it's bollocks, SAHP (x3) thinks it's great, everyone in France on full furlough pay seems to think rule breakers should be lined up and shot, postman thinks it's bollocks and agrees with me about the iniquity of it all at length. Seems like the people who step outside the door and haven't actually dropped dead yet think everyone else has lost all sense of proportion. I think it's all very complicated, I don't lose anything from lockdown, but my kids have lost all their confidence.

I think it's pretty much true & definitely have found the ones shouting for stricter or "proper" lockdowns have no issue staying home but still expect deliveries to arrive, heating to work etc.

*Under any actual official class classification system, yes a doctor is middle clas

Because you can't quantify the unquantifiable

I'm working class and wfh. I appreciate that is fortunate.
My employer would never have got us laptops to facilitate home working if not for covid.
I reckon there is some truth in that twitter saying though.

So doctors, nurses, dentists and teachers are working class now? What utter nonsense! Are police officers defined as working class? Are social workers defined as working class?

People have forgotten that. Or they claim that every implementation of communism throughout history wasn't "real" communism.

@TheKeatingFive

Would it help then if we all stop ordering stuff online so those people fulfilling orders can loose their jobs too?

Why couldn’t they be furloughed like everybody else who can’t work?

Well the economy would grind to a complete halt but it won't help "save the NHS" when we go broke as

Because you can't quantify the unquantifiable

By its very nature then, it’s not particularly helpful.

Your unquantifiable middle class markers aren’t necessarily the same as someone else’s.

So doctors, nurses, dentists and teachers are working class now? What utter nonsense! Are police officers defined as working class? Are social workers defined as working class?

But some people from these professions can wfh.

If we could just accept that the quote does not assert that absolutely everyone able to stay home in relative comfort during the pandemic is middle class or that 100% of people having to work outside the home at increased risk is middle class, that would be helpful.

I think it's pretty much true & definitely have found the ones shouting for stricter or "proper" lockdowns have no issue staying home but still expect deliveries to arrive, heating to work etc.
Very much this! I have some older, financially comfortable relatives who have spent the year demanding that everyone must stay home and then spluttering when asked if that happened what how on earth would they survive, given that the electricity and gas and water and TV and phone lines and internet and food supply and so on are reliant on people still going to work. Because they don't mean everyone, do they? They still want people to go to work in jobs that maintain their own lockdown in comfort.

They still want people to go to work in jobs that maintain their own lockdown in comfort.

Yes. This is the key point.

@tatutata

Or they claim that every implementation of communism throughout history wasn't "real" communism

So, for those 'pedalling' these ideas every single day, how does it work?

Are they angry because they would like to be middle-class and think they can't? Or do they wish that those who are middle-class became working-class to be on a par with them?

@Fimofriend

So doctors, nurses, dentists and teachers are working class now? What utter nonsense! Are police officers defined as working class? Are social workers defined as working class?

Depends on their upbringing doesn't it

@TheKeatingFive

Because you can't quantify the unquantifiable

By its very nature then, it’s not particularly helpful.

Your unquantifiable middle class markers aren’t necessarily the same as someone else’s.

But they are. We all know it.

Because they don't mean everyone, do they? They still want people to go to work in jobs that maintain their own lockdown in comfort.

Yes, that is the bit that has always pissed me off because in order for them to have the privilege to stay home others need to facilitate it but they never seem to acknowledge it.

The class thing is maybe less relevant however I'm not English so a lot of that goes over my head.

But they are. We all know it.

They really aren’t. You just don’t seem too interested in looking beyond what’s in your head.

I’ve seen radically different lists of m/c signifiers on here.

Im jealous of people going out to work - id give anything to have a job atm (sahm) - dont underestimate how damaging it is being stuck at home day in and day out with nothing to do except home school.

Yes im lucky to be staying “safe“ but god it’s soul destroying. Im considering going to the doctors for antidepressents and ive never done that in my life.

Well the economy would grind to a complete halt but it won't help "save the NHS" when we go broke as

The same could be said for all the ‘non-essential’ businesses that had to close for lockdowns but we accept that it’s done to protect people and stop the spread of the virus. If this extended to scaling back online deliveries to essential items and food (so no scented candles, cushions, art and crafts or whatever) and furloughing more of that workforce in order to make conditions safer, I just wonder whether a lot of the people making a big point of ‘stay home!’ would be quite as supportive.

It would help if we stared differentiating between tangible definitions/markers of class (which are predominately profession based) and the various intangible markers that the middle classes/MNers like to champion so they can put people in their own defined boxes.

Yes I get confused by many of these as they are often just from an English & dare I say it white perspective. I'm a immigrant, most of my friends are children of immigrants. We don't really seem to fit in any of these boxes.

@BeautifulStar

Im jealous of people going out to work - id give anything to have a job atm (sahm) - dont underestimate how damaging it is being stuck at home day in and day out with nothing to do except home school.

Yes im lucky to be staying “safe“ but god it’s soul destroying. Im considering going to the doctors for antidepressents and ive never done that in my life.

Also important. I have friends who are single and childfree and wfh and their loneliness is enormous. I wouldn't want people to think acknowledging the division in risks faced between different social groups meant ignoring the suffering of anyone not in the going out to work in key roles group. Given the choice I'd take my own situation (working outside throughout the pandemic) over yours any day and think you are absolutely entitled to be fed up with it.

@trulydelicious I don't know. Not sure what you've put "peddling" in inverted commas as I never used that word. Marxism isn't exactly new. I personally do not think it is the answer to bring prosperity to the largest number of people, but the corruption of capitalism seems not to work well either. When I first read Marx it seemed to me to just presage the introduction of the welfare state and redistributive taxation, neither of which existed in his time. The obsession with class does no one any favours. Workers owning the means of production is kinda vague, but arguable their much greater representation on German company boards is a nod to that. I think the real problem is the rise of automation and resulting concentration of profits in shares, which we can all benefit from, but we need capital for ownership, which we don't have with crap wages. So we just end up with Bezos owning the entire world, and we carry on buying from amazon. I am definitely a capitalist, but it quite clearly has some headwinds. Covid makes all our economic and social problems far, far worse in the long term. War is usually next, so 2021 will probably seem like an idyllic time looking back.

I think this opinion fails to take note of the NHS, staffed by doctors and nurses (many of whom would not identify as working class).
These people are at most risk of infection due to treating hundreds of patients with high viral load while wearing inadequate PPE.
And consequently having the highest death rate.
Catching Covid-19 and risking death are not part of the job description of a doctor or nurse, yet this is what they are facing every day.

So no, OP it is not correct that only working class people are putting themselves at risk.