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?

Don't believe what the pious progressives preach from their pulpits, look instead at what they do.

See how some of them make millions, earn thousands from speeches, send their children to private schools and even claim for such little things as bath plugs.

That's their capitalist face (except for the bath plugs, which is merely corruption, although at least they are trying to plug some leaks).

'they are trying to plug some leaks'

They tried to plug the leak about the expenses scandal, but the Daily Telegraph (the paper of the people, along with the Daily Mail) exposed it.

I hate the term "progressive". It doesn't mean anything!

stock market bubbles are. They are fuelled by bankers lending easy money and encouraging the 'squeezed middle' to over extend themselves, and then, hey presto, they pull the rug out from under them

Can this be proven? What caused the great depression? What caused the uprisings in 1848?

Relying on continued growth is not sustainable. The UK economy has doubled in 30 years but have peoples lives improved two fold? No real incomes have not doubled but houseprices are completely out of touch with peoples earnings. So whilst people are in debt to their eye balls beleiving private property will make them happy and fulfilled, the real winners, the bankers have no such trouble affording private property.

When ever we go into a cycle of "bust" more of the middle are thrown into the class below. But the middle are not the middle, they are the ruling class, albeit lesser capitalists, people of lesser means who find themselves "ruined" lose their homes or jobs, these are what claig refers to as the squeezed middle. If they are not the ruling/employing class, then they were and have always been working class and like the working class exploited to create profits.

Ah, now you're "plugging" The Telegraph. . I must go to bed. I wonder whether plugs of any sort will feature in my dreams. Will report back.

'Can this be proven? What caused the great depression?'

It can't be proven, because they won't admit to what they do. But you only have to look at history to see that it is true. The rich get richer and teh poor get poorer. Orwell explained how it is done and how they hold the people's progress back.

'Relying on continued growth is not sustainable'
That's what the elite say, sustainable' is their buzzword, and is used by the greens too. The Greens want zero growth and even negative growth, that is what they say is 'sustainable'. That wilmake teh rich richer, since their money will be worth much more, while teh poor and teh 'sqiueezed middle' lose their jobs and are impoverished and have to sell their 'unsustainable' homes which have been artificially inflated so that they can be classed as wealthy by the elite who want to tax them more and kick them once again as they are on the way down.

'When ever we go into a cycle of "bust" more of the middle are thrown into the class below'
That's why they give us busts, in order to throw teh middle back down, so that any of teh working class people who managed to climb to teh middle are kicked back down the ladder by the progressive ruling elite.

'I hate the term "progressive". It doesn't mean anything!

On the contrary, it is a fantastic example of Orwellian doublespeak. It is one of the finest examples of deceptive propaganda, which is, of course, why they are all busy employing it.

Claig, I think essentially you are socialist. You are 100% right, on each cycle of growth and bust, the rich get richer. This happens because of capitalism. The rich don't actually get richer during lean times, although some do, mostly not, but the inequalities widen because more people get poorer and the poor get poorer still.

The peoples progress will only happen at the end of capitalism. Have you read capital? you might not want to, most don't because it might challenge long held ideas and ideology, it might be uncomfortable reading and obviously we socialists are dangerous subversives but contained within are essential economic truths, that although written in the C19th, the thesis is water tight!

'the inequalities widen because more people get poorer and the poor get poorer still.'

exactly. Wealth is relative, not absolute. If everybody is a millionaire, then no one is wealthy, since being a millionaire is not uncommon. People are only wealthy if they have wealth far beyond the wealth of the average citizen. Orwell explains that to maintain a hierarchical society, the people need to be kept down and prevented from progressing and demanding their rights. It is only relative wealth and power that counts.

He explains in 1984 that since teh beginning of time, political movements said that their aim was equality. He then said that when equality became feasible, these same movements no longer spoke of equality and in fact these socialist movements turned totalitarian. He then said that the final stage was Big Brother, whose boot stamped on the face of humanity and held it back for the benefit of the ruling elite.

No, I haven't read Marx. I think it is another trick to fool the people and enslave them under the Orwellian doublespeak of equality, but I don't know, because I haven't actually read it.

It is life changing, I rebelled from a marxist upbringing and voted Tory! Only since I gave up work to look after my children, feeling desperately sad about what sort of future existed for them, I read Capital, the manifesto and started following some economics lectures from MIT online.

Your right about classical progressives, relative power, works like relative wealth. It doesn't matter how much power they have as long as it is greater. So equality for you & me but not between us and them.

Elected government is deliberately removing itself from the scene as much as possible, in order to give power to the unelected.

I wonder what people think about this:

I grew up on a council estate in the 1970s where everyone had a wee terraced house, a garden and a job: bus driver, milkman etc

To me this is normal. I think a civilised country should be able to provide a living wage and a reasonable standard of living to working class people. That for people to earn a low wage and yet still have this reasonable standard of living is not unreasonable.

I was told my one wealthy woman that this expectation was outrageous and another that this was entitled and that not everyone can or should, expect a middleclass lifestyle that living standards are set to drop massively.

To me, a wee house and a garden ( or equivalent accomodation, I do not have a garden) is not an outrageous expectation. I see huge amounts of money swishing around the economy but apparently taxing the rich is, again, entitled as they work hard, have greater responsibilities.

I agree.

Here in America people used to be able to raise whole families on a factory job, or working as a milk man. They could have decent lives and a little house that was their own, and take the kids to the beach in the summer.

Not now, and it's so sad. Because at the school I see lots of kids every day whose skills and minds are suited to a trade. But these days it's academics/business or poverty, and it makes me desperately sad and angry.

Completely agree with little albert and cheerful yank. DH's grandad went down the mine at 14, left at 18 and joined the army. In 1947 he was discharged and became a servant for a very important family. He hated the mine and made sure every one of his six children went to the grammar school (which as the eldest of many he was denied) and got some professional qualifications. The girls became respectively a teacher, a nurse and a secretary (oddly the secretary who didn't go to grammar school ended up the most well off). The boys became a teacher, a businessman and an engineer.

A generation on and DH and his sisters, having been raised in a godly 1930's semi detached environment, all went to comprehensive schools and then to Russell Group Univesities. DH now owns a house worth £3 million, entirely due to his efforts and my support.

The great grandchildren, ie, our DC are receiving an education similar to that which the state provided for their grandparents - the difference is we have to pay for it - £34,000k of taxed income per annnum because, here, in London, it is simply not available for those who cannot pay.

However, it is exceedingly sad in this, modern UK society that a significant degree of respect has been lost for the ordinary working man who might not be academically clever but who is hard working and who seeks to achieve what his family needs in the context of a good and decent life, a roof, a plot of grass for a football and a slide, stability, cleanliness and a full tummy.

I haven't read all 342 preceding posts! (er...Sorry)... But there's a a really good article in Sunday's Observer about how incredibly hard it is for working people on low incomes to get by - and getting harder.

I read somewhere that the divide between the rich and the poor in this country is now as great as it was in the 1920s. I am still gobsmacked, this is just so shameful.

I haven't read all 342 preceding posts! (er...Sorry)... But there's a a really good article in Sunday's Observer about how incredibly hard it is for working people on low incomes to get by - and getting harder.

I read somewhere that the divide between the rich and the poor in this country is now as great as it was in the 1920s. I am still gobsmacked, this is just so shameful.

To Cheerfulyank,

Thanks for your post Sobering reflection How do we make people value others? and plan for them to encourage valued job creation?

Coming from a working class background, being a professional graduate myself, I realise that tradespeople have pride in their work, charge appropriately and have good aspirations. I love my academic job but it really is not for everybody and wider opportunities should be planned for and encouraged.

To say in your words "underclass hijacking conversation" are you denying a class a voice? Perhaps we should hide the harsh struggle of the working class so as not to offend.

Stephrick, underclass = Lumpens.

Lumpenproletariat.

Oh, thanks Andisa. :)

I'm not sure how we can do that, but I would be very happy to help.

So many factories have shut down now, and business opportunities, at least here in America. Those jobs have been sent overseas. It's almost impossibly expensive to buy anything (clothes, whatever) that has been made here. I certainly don't begrudge the workers overseas their jobs, I don't mean that!

Agree with you CheerfulYank. That is globalisation. Localisation takes a back seat when globalisation is in the ascendent.

Have you watched the very powerful and very sad video called "When Mitt Romney Came To Town". Many republicans are not keen on vulture capitalism.

He uses the Orwellian oxymoron 'creative destruction'. Incredible.

The word underclass refers to a class of society who exist more often below the breadline. I have noticed heated debate between wohp/sahp and wealthy and less wealthy and agree to having heard both snobbery and inverted snobbery, but to attribute this to one particular class is both incorrect and imo a form of snobbery in itself.