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?

IHA.

(I hate acronyms).

The fact you use the term 'underclass' says it all really! You sound like a very narrow minded person who's obviously deeply insecure and seeking approval as much as these terrible friends of yours.

OP- Your definition of success seems to be completely related to how much money that you earn / have. This attitude is prevalent in our society and completely disrespects people who, like high earners, are very talented but who do vocational or low paid work through choice. What I don't like is the assumption that because you have more material wealth you are somehow better / more successful than others - this attitude says more about you than any underclass.

"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."

Why is it shameful?

I know of people who are half my age and earn double what I earn. So what? SIL graduated and joined a City firm on £60k at the age of 21. So what?

There are people who earn lots more than me. There are people who earn a lot less than me. I don't measure my level of happiness by what others earn in relation to me

Is it fair that I earn more than a nurse or a soldier? No, of course it isn't fair but it is hardly shameful. If you don't have access to an education or if you was barred from high paid jobs because of your social class or the colour of your skin or gender like it was in the 1920s then that would be shameful.

i think some posters would argue that it is bad for society to have a very wide range of incomes.

personally i think that any lack of meritocracy and social immobility are bad for society. however given an equal set of circumstances not everyone will make the same choices. that will be reflected in their lives financially and otherwise & that inequality is not bad.

What I think is bad for society is an unequal treatment of its citizens by the legal system.

Pardon the off topic rant but it is not uncommon for a white collar criminal to get a community service sentence for swindling a company for serious money while someone who boost a car gets a custodial sentence. Stealing is stealing, whether you use a pen or a brick through the car window.

End of off topic rant about shameless inequalities. :o

Is it fair that I earn more than a nurse or a soldier? No, of course it isn't fair but it is hardly shameful. If you don't have access to an education or if you was barred from high paid jobs because of your social class or the colour of your skin or gender like it was in the 1920s then that would be shameful

Education- we have a two tier education system, state and private. Most of these unemployed young people whether they are graduates or not, the highest percentage are from disadvantaged areas in the north and almost totally from state ed backgrounds.

Barred because of social status- we have a two tier education system. Privately education and the ability to net work with other advantaged extended networks means that people from wealthy backgrounds almost always prosper regardless of their talent. Whilst the rich can afford for their offspring to take unpaid work experience, poorer students are now denied the same entry level jobs in certain sectors, either through lack of contacts or because they simply can not work for nothing.

Colour of your skin- during this recession the number of unemployed black youth has doubled, not the case with other groups.

Gender- there is still a pay gap between men and women, the greatest gap is in the private sector where the greatest inequality is between men and women on the lowest wage rates.

I call that shameful. I am not proud to be self employed in the sector in which I work. I sell toot! I sell toot that I hate, wouldn't buy and I sell it to people that can barely afford to buy it. It's made in china by people who sleep in dorms and commit suicide. All that my work creates is more inequality and I do this to feed MY children. We eat, they wear clothes and I buy antiques for fun! Do I think our system is fair, no I bloody don't even if I am fine, thanks. It doesn't make me happy to realise that some people in this country are struggling to feed their children and that those children will almost certainly not prosper.

I grew up in a small town in the Midlands born to poor uneducated parents. It was already a poor town but when British Steel closed shop the town and the surrounding area went even further downhill. And yet here I am with a two children at private school. :o

SIL, also working class, graduated and landed herself a job in the City with a £60k pa starting salary so please tell me about how women and working class people are barred from jobs. I accept that one probably needs a Public school/Oxbridge degree to land a high flying job in the Foreign Office but the City is pretty much egalitarian these days. Can you make them money is what concerns them as opposed to your gender/colour/social class.

According to a former employee of Goldman Sachs, it really is making them money that is all they are concerned about...

rabbit from the GS person, i know, i can assure you its not just money they are interested in...they are interested in sport, their egos and Russian prositutes!

sorry for sharing this with you ....twitter.com/#!/GSElevator

Very egalitarian.

But thats good isn't it?

I went to a comp and then onto a redbrick non Russell Group uni. In any other industry my humble cv would have held me back but not in the City.

As Gordon Gekko might have said, greed is good because it cuts through all of the snobbery and gender/race discrimination.

Sorry, I don't like snobbery and gender/race discrimination, but I don't think replacing it with greed is a huge improvement - just replacing one type of nastiness with another. Maybe that's just the puritan in me, again, but I don't think greed is "good."

i worked for a top tier investment bank & they were very snobby, i only just got in with redbrick masters in the late nineties. they were posh (unless you traded spot), full of it & nowhere near as clever as they thought but that is not a great surprise.

Rabbit - Everything in moderation is good, including greed.

Unfortunately greedy bastards gives us Greed Moderates a bad name :)

Wasabi - I'm in IT where what you know matters more than anything else. However, there are sections like Legal where they almost exclusively recruit from Oxbridge and the top tier of the Russel Group universities. 'Elitist' is probably a more accurate description as opposed to 'snobby'. I mean, there are quite a few state school graduates represented.

greed; An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth

i dont agree that moderate greed is good. or even ok

Sorry for continually touting my working class background but if it wasn't for my 'greed' then I would be living in some terrace house back in the midlands complaining on MN about my DC's education and how the odds are stacked in favour of middle class kids blah blah blah.

my dad worked very hard to remove us from our working class background (infact, with the removal of industry from the north-Im sure it would be described here as under-class background) Thats hard graft and ambition. Thats not greed. That is not wanting more than you deserve or need.

and...just because some people do manage to work their way into a better financial position, does not mean that there arent barriers in place

..with regards to class/ race/ gender

pushedI don't believe that most of the "complainers" are actually living in mid terrace houses, in relative poverty and envious of middle class kids blah blah blah, I think you'll find though that the Tent dwellers, the demonstrators, the bloggers and leftie activists are usually middle class.

I think education sets people apart, unfortunately as was the case in previous generations the disadvantaged are usually less active because they lack the time, inclination and education.

The worst snobs tend to be the self made who preach the mantra look at me. It's all about application and effort. I don't think any form of greed is good if that means others have far less.

Your original post spoke about relative wealth, it has been proven that relative social status and wealth matters to peoples health and mental wellbeing, despite it not be an issue for you. I think it matters a great deal to you though because you are quick to judge others less fortunate or less "applied" to the pursuit of wealth.

"That is not wanting more than you deserve or need"

Who gets to decide what a person deserves or needs?

I/we need shelter, food to eat and clothes to wear. We don't 'need' anything else. I don't need more than one pair of shoes. I don't need more that one coat etc etc. So should a working class person feel guilty for having Sky or having more than one pair of shoes?

As for "hard graft and ambition", why is it a good thing for working class people but not for middleclass people? I mean, if a middleclass person works hard and is ambitious then he/she gets accused of chasing the Mighty Dollar and being materialistic.

"does not mean that there arent barriers in place"

Of course there are barriers in place but I don't want to be invited to Prince Harry's polo matches so it doesn't bother me :-)

Why are people trying to remove themselves from their working class background?

Why are people only interested in class when it relates to them and their place in the pecking order?

Why are people less motivated to examine class inequality from a less personal and more objective position?

hactually....this has sent me into a spiral of over thinking...but...

my df didnt work to elevate us away from our working class background. That was actually a by-product, and I think probably an unwelcome one to some degree. He (and I) very much identifies as WC still. He came to education as an adult because he is an intelligent man and wanted a job which used his brain. He wanted to be able to give his children choices in life and he is an adventurure. IME change from WC is often driven by passion not greed. And IME there is no desire to stop being WC and become MC at all. There is nowt wrong with terraced housing!! I live in a terraced house, I am pefectly happy with my dcs eductaion at the local school, and no one around me is moaning