Is there an 'underclass' on MN?

[wildswans]

I have name changed for this.

I have been on MN for about 6 months - off and on - and one of the most interesting aspects is the insight into people's lives and the contrasts and similarities. You can communicate with others you probably wouldn't meet in RL and in circumstances where they feel able to be completely open and frank about themselves, their families, their worries, their aspirations etc.

However, I can't help wondering if there is an 'underclass' who subscribe to MN. I have noticed, in particular, that any site which relates in any way to money or status - such as jobs and level of earnings and spending or whether a SAHM or WOHM - provokes very strong reactions. By this I don't just mean engaging in heated debate - which is part of the fun - but there is an undercurrent of envy and spite, which is very unattractive.

There are clearly a lot of high earning, highly successful women in MN and a number who have DHs who are well off. There are also lots who are earning less but do worthwhile and fulfilling jobs and others who are happy to care for their DC full time. Most MNs agree that it's all about choices and it doesn't really matter what you choose as long as it's right for you.

Yet the 'underclass' often seek to highjack interesting and constructive threads by pouring scorn on anyone who is a high earner, can afford tickets to the theatre (or even the zoo in one case!), or go on decent holidays. Presumably these are the ones who want the entrepreneurs to be taxed into exile and for a 'mansion tax' to be imposed. I can tell you that you don't get a 'mansion' for £2m in london or the South East, so what is that all about? In my view, it's nasty spiteful class envy and emanates from a small number of people on MNs who haven't achieved much in their lives so don't think anyone else should either.

Has anyone else reached this conclusion or AIBU?

I have no problem with people who earn plenty of money and do well for themselves, good for them. I'm from a working class background but would be seen as middle class by now. We do ok but far from being minted, our money goes as far as it needs to and we have nothing 'flash'.

I wouldn't worry what people on MN say, it's an internet forum. The Government is making sure that anyone with plenty of money will do even better from what I can see of it.

The social and economic inequalities caused under capitalism do not cause envy more than it causes suffering. I am constantly aware that "this underclass" that OP mentions are the product of a system and a society which is deeply flawed.

I also think that the underclass are the would be working class, a class of people now so disenfranchised and marginalised that whether they are engaged in envy is not the problem, just a symptom. If the riots were caused by a breakdown in society, parenting, dysfunctional upbringing and low educational attainment that speaks volumes, not about them as individuals but us as a society, that these people see no other way of acquiring what others take for granted other than to steel it.

I know wealthy people from top public schools and I know people who are so poor that they have an empty fridge and no heating by Wednesday but if I am friends with them they all have something in common, they have empathy, they are generous and they don't brag.

Doesn't matter if it's a mansion or a caravan in Knightsbridge if you can afford to live in a 2m place why shouldn't you be taxed higher for it? and if you bought it so long ago it only cost you two donkeys and a bag of turnips, why not sell it and move to a more affordable place where you will pay lower council tax?.

The term Underclass is an insult used by those who think some are not working class but scum who shouldn't even count as a class at all, so they speak of the underclass and liken them to parasites, bigotry prevails all walks of life.

madaboutmadmen Middle class! that's a construct designed to divide people.

yeah i don't see myself as midfle class just think i would be put in that bracket. Up the workers

People talk as if those who live in £2m worth of house don't aleady pay more tax than the rest of us. It's ridiculous.

The vast majority of people who live in houses worth £2m will already be paying more than most in council tax, and are very likely to be paying the higher rate of income tax. As well as putting money into the economy and providing employment, even if it's just the gardener.

Those who don't, are people who live on farms with houses that need a lot of maintenance, and they are only worth that because of the land that's included. And then, they are likely to be properties that have been in the same family for generations where the owners can't help the fact that their property has increased in value, they never set out to have an expensive home like some. And in those instances, people tend to be asset rich but cash poor. Why should they have to leave their family homes because the government has wasted money and poorer people want a reason to feel better about them.

The only fair way of taxing people is income tax, and that is already being done. Half of your income is more than enough for anyone to have to pay, no matter how much they have. The £2m property tax is grossly unfair.

It isn't just mumsnet though. When I was in my 20's a lot of people said "you're so lucky - you got a lucky break" I was a Eurobond dealer in the City in the 1980's. Similar people said "I wouldn't do that, I wouldn't give up my life" when I left a party at 9.30pm because I had to be in work at 7.30 the following morning or took a call via a bleeper from the head of my desk.

When the DC were small and DH was working 12 hours days and at weekends, similar people said "I wouldn't put up with that, my DH shares all the chores and jobs" Similar people said "you're so lucky you were able to give up work to be with your baby all the time".

At school the same old lines came out and then a bit of bitterness from some quarters when we transferred ds to prep school - not because we were being snobby but because his needs weren't being met.

Now, as we reach middle age, the same old "you are so lucky comments are made". I went back to work when dd started to school - for my own sanity and intellect. DH now earns a lot of money (not so much in London that we are mega rich but very comfortable relatively speaking - 1/2 a mill for the last three to four years and rising). The reason for that is that I supported him totally and completely as part of a team and a partnership in the early days.

I don't take very much notice. We continue to live modestly by the standards of our peers, our DC aren't especially spoilt - actually they are not spoilt at all and are quite nice and well rounded for teenagers.

I still remember the Paul Smith nude wallet thread from Xmas. A lady on a tight budget was justifying why she should spend £140 on a wallet for her DH. My DH eventually got a plain brown Osprey one - simple, plain, unnoticeable - for £16.50 in TK Max. DH upgraded his phone this afternoon and agonised over whether to upgrade the contract for £5 a month for extra minutes and whether he would use them.

Some people will always be jealous and some people will always want more than they can have. The paradox is that neither DH nor I have ever done it for money which isn't terribly important to us.

Actually, Outraged, the problem is they don't pay more tax than the rest of us, they generally pay less.

The whole point of the mansion tax is that your £2m+ house can't be paid into your wife's Monaco bank account, or moved to Switzerland, so it might be one of the few contributions these people make.

I think it's possible to live in a 2m house and for that house to be owned by an offshore company.

Yes, but someone will still have to pay the tax on it, right?

Is it not the case that.....

Upper class, the rich people born into wealth and easy money, many land owners of course don't have to work, living off the family pile and the more money you have the less you pay for things, even horses can be got for free by asking the Police for one apparently.

The working class, hard working people, paying there way and trying to work there way up to a better wage in there jobs, renting property from the council or the landlord because they don't earn enough to save.

The middle class, those who earn more then the working class but less then the upper class, they own there own homes and sometimes businesses, they can afford the finer things in life and have savings, they have no culture of there own, coming from backgrounds that are working class or upper class originally they are called middle purely because thats what they are, in the middle.

Anyway I will say here and now I don't understand the rich and I never will, why do you need a house with six bedrooms when you can only sleep in one at a time?, if you have the money for such pointless and abhorrent excesses, you should give it to charity, no matter how much you are aware with the fairies you will be aware that there are people in need of sanitation and medicines etc in the world, give the excess money to them rather then fritter it away on pointlessly large homes and extra cars etc.

Depends where the company is registered as to how much tax you would pay.

Ryoko, I would never subscribe to the class system and class analysis that is simply there to divide and to excuse. There are 2 classes, those that work and those that employ. In the case of small businesses this remains constant because the small business seeks to grow, employ more workers and create more profit.

Boulevard, that does happen, but it happens to the uber rich, probably the top 1%. There are many more people that do not fall into the top 1% who live in £2m houses and earn enough to pay higer rate tax. Those are the ones I'm referring to.

Ryoko, how can you say in one sentence that you don't understand the rich, then in the next state what they should do. You wouldn't accept them telling you what they should do, and rightly so, because they can have no understanding of your situation. But you think it's ok the other way round.

closing the tax loophole that a home can be owned by a company thus avoiding stamp duty is the big tax news of today

'The middle class ... they have no culture of there own'

The middle class are teh backbone of the country. They have lots of culture and they are teh ones who demand higher standards and less dumbing down. They read the Daily Mail anbd are teh 'squeezed middle' that Miliband now says he cares about. They are called 'the squeezed middle' because it is from them that the vast majority of tax is collected.

'I don't understand the rich and I never will, why do you need a house with six bedrooms when you can only sleep in one at a time?'
It's called freedom to spend your own money as you want, just as some people buy sports cars, some young people buy bling and fast cars, and some rich people buy expensive art. Nothing wrong with any of that. We don't live in a socialist/communist society where middle and upper class planners can redistribute the 'squeezed middle's' wealth for their own political purposes.

The people, not the planners, know best.

The mansion tax is unfair, because many people living in those mansions do not earn large incomes. House price inflation will one day see your own house being in that bracket and then you will also have to pay the 10% mansion tax. They won't raise it, that's why they want to introduce it, just like they will raise teh council tax eventually after you house has reached a sufficiently inflated value, caused by a deliberate lack of new house builds.

People who live in £2m homes. Do you realise that you live way beyond the average and that the housing gap as well as the salary gap has ostentasiously widened?

Please understand some people will find this grates.

OP - would it make you feel more comfortable if the poor people weren't on here?

I was tolerating your post (I am very tolerant) until you said 'people who haven't achieved much in their lives'. Because having a life of achievement is all about how much money you accumulate? Erm, how about bringing up children, overcoming DV situations, making ends meet when life throws you a curly one...? They don't count as achievements?

Look - people with all sorts of income levels and all sorts of interesting life experiences post on MN. I am just as fascinated by a 'Should I buy this house?' thread for £90k as I am for £4m. We all have a lot more in common with each other than you might think. Let's focus on that.

And did it occur to you that 'underclass' kind of sounds like 'untouchables'? Just something for you to think about.

Disclaimer: I am posting when I am a bit cross and haven't read the whole thread. If the OP saw the error of her ways on page 7 I apologise most sincerely.

Once they bring in their mansion tax, they will slowly decrease the value at which it starts, so that they can carry on 'squeezing' teh 'squeezed middle' even more until as they like to say 'the pips squeak'. It won't affect them in their mansions which will be owned by companies or trusts or whatever ways they can get around it. It's about 'squeezing' the 'squeezed middle' even more. It sets a precedent and one that they won't reverse in a hurry.

Just like the council tax, where a person earning £10 million can end up paying the same as a person earning £30,000. That's about letting the super rich off and squeezing the 'squeezed middle'.

The middle class are teh backbone of the country. They have lots of culture and they are teh ones who demand higher standards and less dumbing down. They read the Daily Mail any other useful insights claig.

The upper class, never buy cheap clothes, always wear expensive clothes until they fall of them, drive battered up saab estates, are covered in dog hair, smoke gaulois and inherit all their furniture. Rather sweeping generalisations. Amusing as it maybe it maybe, people are not the sum and total of the car they drive or the paper they read.

Ooh, hello claig - haven't seen you around for ages. I was wondering if you had left MN due to an overload of lefties like me . Nice to see you.

(Not a stalker - I like your views on women's issues)

You are right about the mansion tax claig.

This is what happens under an economic system that boils everyone down to a unit of production and demand. Those at the top will never lift the tax, so that the "middle" will also feel the pain eventually. Marx said that on each economic cycle, the bourgoisie threw off the hangers on, into the working class pool of labour. What we commonly reffer to when we speak about the "middle class" is a class of people who are in a very precarious situation.

Your observation about this tax makes this point perfectly

Hi Beachcomber, I spend less time on MN at the moment, mainly on Politics and In The News, but I will be back in Womens Rights and other areas soon.

Redwood was on TV today and he was right when he said that there is no shortage of tax that is collected in this country, but there is waste in how it is spent. We are all taxed too much.

They will never use the tax collected to help teh 'underclass'. Why are there still so many homeless people? Why are some elderly patients still dying of dehydration and starvation in hospitals? Why are companies being subsidised by teh taxpayer to take on unemployed people? Why is so much money being given to rich countries like India? Why are opera houses receiving public subsidy? Why were banks bailed out by the taxpayer? Why are taxpayer subsidies being paid out to rich landowners for their windfarms? Why is thousands of pounds of public money being paid to drive BBC presenters back home from Manchetser to the South East? Why are some BBC salaries so high? Why was teh expenses scandal going on for so long and why wasn't it stopped before?

There is lots of tax money, but it isn't going to the right people. Don't fall for the tricks to tax the 'squeezed moddle' even more, don't believe that it will go to the poor.

www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2116217/Match-Day-BBCs-15-000-travel-Gary-Linekers-chauffeur-ride-Salford-London.html

£15000 is more than many people earn in a whole year, working unsocial hours and through the night, and it is all paid out of teh public purse by tax collected from the poor and teh 'squeezed middle'. Who signs these expenses off? Who moinitors how public money is spent, when some people are refused life-saving drugs and some elderly are not even given water on wards?

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1388224/NHS-IT-project-cost-billions-delivering-ANY-benefits.html

Billions of taxpayer money wasted. And they want more tax money from the 'squeezed middle'. What for? More of the same? Who takes the blame? - the greedy 'squeezed middle', the story's always the same.