Class, does it matter?

[minimathsmouse]

We hear a lot about class but do we really unpack it and analyse it? We hear lots of terms such as the political class, working class, sex class, upper class, are we happy when we can categorise people, do we make assumptions and hold prejudices about people and class, do we feel more secure when we know where we are in the social pecking order?

Do we have allegiances to class, are we really attached to the idea because we are sentimental and class lines move but our perceptions haven't. Or is that the other way around, we think they have moved but in fact the same prejudice and antagonism is still bubbling below the surface?

Is it the last frontier in discrimination. Could we even tell if class discrimination actually does effect people in similar ways such as women's oppression or racism or other forms of discrimination.

Do we live in a meritocracy where class is no longer an issue?

What would society be like without class?

America - try being unemployed and needing medical attention - No, America is not a place of opportunities for the underclass and their underclass is vast I argue.

Trying being unemployed in the States will be a little bit harder, since they have lower unemployment level. :) Also millions of illegal migrants working (not sitting on their butts like those poor fellas in Greece/Italy) are good evidence for opportunities existing.

You are talking about the miserable position of the bottom class in the States, it is absolutely true, they do not have all sorts of support existing here. However, it is not an argument towards better/worse social mobility, since speed and acceleration are different things.

It matters if you are posh, eton educated then anyone can say anything they like about class no matter how rude or spiteful. Reverse it though and political correctness comes in to play. Politicians or journos wouldnt dream of saying things like " nadine dorris, er yuk, she comes from a council estate and was educated at a local comp, oh goodness how horrendous, we dont want the likes of her running the country". Of course i completely back myself into a corner when i look at example the mccann case. Well to do docs leaving children under three unattended. Not a word Jade from a sink estate, typical chav blah blah blah. you get the picture. Class will always be a factor in everything.

??? Not quite sure I understand your point, chipstick10???? I haven't noticed any signs of political correctness from our media at any level. Anyone from any background is fair game.

I think the media has done a great job of demeaning the working classes. Where does the term Chav come from? The mail regularly runs a bash a benefits scrounger type headline.

Chav doesn't refer to the working classes. By definition, the working classes work and by definition, chavs don't.

??? Chavs can have jobs, flatpackhamster. I think the terms you are thinking of are "unemployed," "benefit scrounger" and "underclass." None of which are the same thing as "chav."

Why have we developed a sense that there is or should be an underclass? A class of people below working class. Are the middle classes not working?

Most of my point was why are posh people fair game. No politician would dare say "we dont want blah blah running the country, they are common and come from a poor working class background" . Yet we are told endlessly that we dont want etonians, posh boys running the country. They cant help that they were born into money any more than someone who was born in a council house. I think its quite lazy and rude to keep slagging someone for their background.

That's just rubbish. We are only constantly told about posh boys because it just so happens that at the moment, posh boys are running the country. It's not as if there are many "working class" MPs in positions of high office to lampoon. And there have been plenty of more subtle but equally nasty remarks from the media in the past about the appropriateness or otherwise of politicians attempting to strut on the world stage with other world leaders, because of their accents or class-related general demeanour and attitude. Do you really think our press would tolerate someone with an Estuary accent representing the UK on a world stage?

The media was pretty quiet about 'posh boys' when Blair and Mandelson were in power.

I have a pupil at school who calls herself "chav and proud" - good on her. She is ostracised slightly in a grammar school.

Do agree media wouldn't credit brains with an estuary accent! We are classist through and through.

Why have we developed a sense that there is or should be an underclass?

Because it becomes clearer, that the future belongs to the growing underclass, free riders on welfare society. During the last 100 years the working time has been shrinking. Ban on child labour. 5-day working week. Paid holidays. Retirement. Endless studenthood. The productivity goes to the levels when smaller and smaller fraction of production requires to satisfy basic human needs of a pint of lager. Jobs are not just disappearing, they are becoming redundant. Free ride becomes easier, and, provided the progress does not slow down, it will get easier faster.

You don't get a paid holiday or 5-day working week if you aren't working MsAverage. I think you are confused. You appear to be arguing for the benefits of working, because work is much easier than it used to be, whilst simultaneously arguing that it is more beneficial not to work at all. And simultaneously forgetting that more people go out to work now than used to be the case in the past, when the middle classes and upper classes ensured their women stayed at home and didn't get any paid employment (unless they were on temporarily hard times and were desperate, when being a governess was shameful but barely acceptable). Do you really fancy belonging to the underclass and having a lovely "free ride"? Frankly, it sounds even worse than being a kept woman who is not allowed into the job market because she's a silly, weak, pathetic female who should focus her efforts on making everything nice for her husband when he gets back from visiting his mistress and should count herself lucky to get any housekeeping money at all, because he might just decide to stop giving it to her.

From a Darwinian point of view the 'underclass' are doing very well. They don't have a very high standard of living but in terms of passing their genes on they're way ahead. They're having children younger than everyone else, and having more of them. They're evolutionary successes.

It seems that technologies are replacing people. We need fewer labour hours to produce the goods to meet human need. What is puzzling though, is why are we not sharing the hours around, (and the wealth created) why we not finding ways of keeping everybody engaged and invested in production & in society?

The system seems to be about climbing the ladder with no heed of anyone else. Ours system needs under dogs to allow others to over succeed.

The ideas that it is a happy life to be unemployed is repellent to me - we should encourage everyone to take part, contribute, be part of something as it makes their lives and our lives better if we are all gainfully employed.

Cars were smashed outside my place of work this week - I thought what sort of mean existence is that to be involved in such negative behaviour, not good for them or us.

It is equally disturbing to me that people , like those that pos there have no regard for these underclass, losers of society and don't feel an ounce of social responsibility.

It seems education has failed many. I see it as unintelligent not to understand we are all part of the problem and we all have to do our bit to make our society a better place to be. Some of the posts on this thread show detachment.

Should read:
like those that post here have no regard...

Very good point, so some of us seem to be detached and from our position either at the bottom or at the top of the social ladder, we have little understanding and show even less concern.

So would it be better if we just didn't have such divisions?

Differences in people is part of living but controlling the behaviour of excess through law, order and particularly economic law would create more harmony I think. Different thread really - but left leaning election results are I think a good sign. Even the lib. Dems. moderating the Tories is good and they are taking so much flack!

There is cultural and class diversity but it does not need to be polarised. Differences do not need to lead to such unfairness. I know I harp on about it but fat cat top exec pay is a dividing class factor and contributes to the riots - no coincidence I think.

rebbitstew, You appear to be arguing for

No, I do not. There is no point in developing attitudes for or against something until one understands that thing. I am developing understanding and recognition of reality. And please, do not bother writing about me "confused" or "fancying" - this personal attacks do not add any value to the discussion and generally are just not interesting.

Good point about women joining workforce. However, the number of women privileged enough to be entirely free from work was negligible. When poorer women started to become employees, it meant that they got freed from the other hard household work. Washing, cooking, cleaning took a hell lot more time and efforts - imagine process of washing for a family without running water in the house.

The number of those entirely free-from-work women can not even be compared with the number of 12-20 year olds, who would be working in 19th century, but are in education today.

mini, What is puzzling though, is why are we not sharing the hours around, (and the wealth created) why we not finding ways of keeping everybody engaged and invested in production & in society?

First bit is easy - we do share hours. The higher an economy developed, the more people are working part-time (recent comparison was Germany vs Greece - Germany has more part-time workers).

The second part of the question is about our limited abilities to understand, predict, plan and implement changes in the society. This particular change (less work required for support of the basic needs) clashes with thousands-years work ethics, and I do not have ready answers, how to deal with this clash. I tried to find what other people wrote on that topic, but unfortunately was able to find only writing of lunatic socialists from academic ivory towers. The reading was highly satisfying as a brain gym, but had less connections with reality that I would expect.

daffo The ideas that it is a happy life to be unemployed is repellent to me - we should encourage everyone to take part, contribute, be part of something as it makes their lives and our lives better if we are all gainfully employed.

Shall we compare attitudes to 2 young people? One lives on expense of the society, the other on expense of [relatively] wealthy parents. First one watches football and plays videogames, the second blogs night photos of trees and makes jewellery from rubbish. None of them is gainfully employed. They are living in the same inner city.

Do you pity the second one as much as the first? If not, why?

MsAverage - are you not putting your own, subjective weighting onto what counts as work and what doesn't? You count women doing unpaid domestic chores in the past as working; but you don't count students doing unpaid work towards academic qualifications as working and don't even attempt to distinguish between those who genuinely do benefit from those qualifications by being able to apply them to a subsequent job or use them to get a well paid job for which a higher level qualification is expected, and those who do not either continue to pursue their academic career as a paid lecturer or researcher, or need their qualification for their subsequent career. You also don't distinguish between middle class women of the past, who actually often did have servants helping with the cooking and washing and housework (and this was not a minute percentage of people, but the majority of the middle classes), and many middle class women of today whose servants are hoovers, dishwashers and washing machines. Is their workload really less, to now be going out to work and not having a servant at home any more? You also don't seem to like the idea of making jewellery from rubbish - but what if people actually buy the stuff and the person in question eventually makes a profit from it? Why is that not gainful employment? Because you don't like rubbish? Because it isn't remotely useful? Or in your scenario, is the person in question deluded if they think they will ever make a living that way? Or not even trying to make a living that way? And if they are not making money out of it, does that make it a worthless activity? In which case, women of the past doing unpaid domestic work were doing worthless work - which you clearly don't think, so you clearly have other means of deciding whether an activity adds to the sum total of one's existence. Do you only add value in life if you are contributing towards life's necessities? And anyone contributing anything remotely frivolous is doing something worthless???? Or anyone contributing something we don't need should only be considered to be contributing anything remotely good to society if they can make money out of it? Or if a minimum percentage of people think that what they have done has improved their day in some way (made them happy, made them think, etc) to experience it?

I also think you need to stop referring to a "free ride" and implying with your crossings out that all anyone wants or needs is a pint of lager, because that makes it sound like a positive and enjoyable choice for people to make to not contribute or do anything interesting in life and just take money to waste their life away and I don't believe most people actually do wish to spend their lives on their backsides being made to feel worthless - because these people are daily told how useless they are and have to develop very thick hides and seriously blinker themselves to all their missed opportunities in order to cope with it. Yes, I think as time goes on, more and more time seems to be spent getting towards goals that could surely have been reached more quickly, as though days have to be filled with something seemingly worthwhile but not actually necessary, but then mankind has always sought to create time for the unnecessary, rather than to be tied down by the necessary business of staying alive. This freedom was not sought in order to drink lager and drinking lager and being given money to spend on food and accommodation is not most peoples' idea of a fulfilled life or something to which most people aspire, if they haven't had all aspiration squashed out of them. So I still don't really understand where your thinking is going. Do you really think we are all headed for a life where we sit on our backsides drinking lager, taking money from a minority who work and doing absolutely nothing else?

With each recession more of the middle class are thrown into the class below, it is the middle class that find themselves dispossessed of their private property and their small businesses. The working classes of course always take a hit with more being made unemployed.

The working classes are growing, their numbers increasing despite what politicians like us to believe. The pool of surplus labour grows with each economic cycle and more people are working part time hours than ever before.

Will we ever get to a stage where all human needs are met and we simply won't need to work such long hours? At that point will we see a more equal society? I don't think we will unless we alter how we get to that point, something has to happen on the journey.