Class

[Guest]

On another thread, ts posted the following:

Class is a huge determining factor in how the world runs. [...]

Powerful people usually come from powerful backgrounds.
The rich usually stay rich.
The poor usually stay poor.

Social mobility can transform individuals, sometimes, but at a level that will transform society it is a lie.

Now, I have some problems with this, but it may be that they are partly problems of definition. Whatever, it raises questions that I think may be fundamental to the way we see our society, and some of its problems and their causes.

I wonder if we might be able to have a decent philosophical debate on this topic, with no rambling posts with massive quotes, no name calling, no hate at the Royal Family, no digs at newspapers and/or their readers (including from me at the Guardian) and none of the usual stuff from the usual mob that doesn't get anybody anywhere.

May I suggest that we agree to make, within each post, a maximum of three concise points which we attempt briefly to justify, and that if we respond to a fellow-poster directly we respond clearly to particular ideas or comments?


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If I may, I'll start:

I don't belive that it is "class " that determines our success and our influence on the world, though I think that one's background and family (which don't in my view equate snugly to "class") play a part, of which their perceived "class" will be but one factor.

The reason I don't believe it because there have been so many exceptions, where "upper" class children have signally failed and "lower class" children have spectacularly succeeded. In my view that has been down to many other aspects: morality, work ethic, self-belief, luck, love, unselfishness/selfishness of parents, values, integrity and - paramount - intelligence.

[MrGongGong]

I think you need to start with some definitions Simon
if you assume that everyone means the same thing when they use the word "class" then I think you are mistaken.

[eighthobstruction]

Some of the people who invaded Britain in 1066 are still in charge....no matter what morality, work ethic, self-belief, luck, love, unselfishness/selfishness of parents, values, integrity and - paramount - intelligence....

....it's called Pecking order....sometimes some little tit nips in and grabs some bread....but only if the bigger birds know they will get their full feed....

[teamsaint]

8O has it in one.
(Edit, and from the way history is often taught, you might think that the invasion and all the lovely castles the Normans kindly gave us were a really good thing. Hurrah for feudalism !)
Anyway,
Here the Guardian plays statistics.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/may/22/social-mobility-data-charts

[ahinton]

I think you need to start with some definitions Simon
if you assume that everyone means the same thing when they use the word "class" then I think you are mistaken.

Without wishing to derail the thread for the sake of so doing, especially at so early a stage, this is indeed the problem; everyone does not interpret "class" in the same way and there are many different ways in which different people see its meaning as applied to society. Very many factors may influence - and may determine - the extent or otherwise of individuals' success within society - and even "success" is defined in many different ways by different people in any case. Simon already accepts that there are problems of definition but, as there indeed are many such, it's hard to see how this thread can progress meaningfully beyond providing a platform for many differing individual takes on the matter - but I could be wrong about that and only time and more posts may tell.

[MrGongGong]

"success" is also (as ahinton points out) a rather slippery fish
if one thinks about music then one could say that Justin Bieber is a more "successful" musician than Maxim Vengerov
but that would be to place £ in front of everything else ..........

[Serial_Apologist]

Under capitalism the question (a) boils down to two main classes, unrelated to numerological weight, dependent upon their relation to the wealth-creating capacity of society's productive industrial sector:

1) The class which owns the means of production and distribution, classically known either as the ruling class or the bourgeoisie, whose ownership confers greater control over their own and other's economic fortunes than any other's; and

2) The working class, or proletariat: those who sell their labour power to the ruling class and, unlike the bourgeoisie, create value by transforming natural resources into product.

(b) The middle classes, or petit bourgeoisie, constitute a class between the above two, itself constitutive of more complex relations to the means of production by virtue of professionalism, self-employment, and capacity to accumulate personal wealth.

(c) Birthright does not confer an automatic lifelong right to be a member of any particular class.

That's my three points; may I have three more?

[Richard Barrett]

Powerful people usually come from powerful backgrounds.
The rich usually stay rich.
The poor usually stay poor.

(...)

Now, I have some problems with this

Are you saying you don't think these three statements are true?

Serial_Apologist uses the only unambiguous definition of class that exists. Discussing class on any other basis usually leads to people talking at cross-purposes.

[vinteuil]

Which is why political leaders from the three main parties are always happy to talk about so-called social mobility and are all keen to say how keen they are on social mobility...

... and even then, when politicians are "keen on social mobility" they always seem to present it as an unmitigated good, and to phrase it in terms of an upward escalator. Whereas of course if there is social mobility, one person going upwards is matched by another going downwards.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

well Parkin talks about social closure strategies [exclusion by the upper; usurpation by the lower in laying claim to resources rather than ownership of the means of production .... Koln finds social status far more predictive of life outcomes than simple ownership of resources .... no doubt Bourdieu would want to comment on taste and its development ...

the issue in the UK is that social mobility is stalled, we do have a self sealing plutocracy ... the stalwarts of the property owning democracy are getting clobbered ... the hoi polloi are excluded by limited access to public school education ... and income inequality is going off the scale ... and politics is now a career not a calling, with the public school/ppe/spad path now well documented [ask Andrew Neill]


seems to me that the present ruling classes are firmly linked by birth and/or education to the families, mores, and values of the British imperial elite and its mercantile cousins ...

[Ferretfancy]

Real social mobility came to this country with the ending of WWII. I am one of those recipients of the 1944 Education Act, which gave a real opportunity to the children of men and women who had never been able to hope for a good education themselves before the war. From the 1940s and 1950s 0nwards, a huge servant class disappeared. The perfectly ordinary semi that we lived in after having been bombed still had bell pushes to summon the maid.

The other huge change for millions was the NHS, which is now being torn apart, not to improve matters for the poorest. Meanwhile the government is expecting local authorities to issue food stamps, with the strict proviso that they must not be used to buy immoral items such as cigarettes. Workhouses next?

So, in a nutshell, class is with us still, and all the petty distinctions that go with it. The great social revolution of the postwar years is being taken apart piece by pieces by old Etonians.

We should all be very angry.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Real social mobility came to this country with the ending of WWII. I am one of those recipients of the 1944 Education Act, which gave a real opportunity to the children of men and women who had never been able to hope for a good education themselves before the war. From the 1940s and 1950s 0nwards, a huge servant class disappeared. The perfectly ordinary semi that we lived in after having been bombed still had bell pushes to summon the maid.

The other huge change for millions was the NHS, which is now being torn apart, not to improve matters for the poorest. Meanwhile the government is expecting local authorities to issue food stamps, with the strict proviso that they must not be used to buy immoral items such as cigarettes. Workhouses next?

So, in a nutshell, class is with us still, and all the petty distinctions that go with it. The great social revolution of the postwar years is being taken apart piece by pieces by old Etonians.

We should all be very angry.

hear hear!

[Cornet IV]

Which is why political leaders from the three main parties are always happy to talk about so-called social mobility and are all keen to say how keen they are on social mobility; because social mobility doesn't alter or affect class relations, it merely shuffles the personnel.

I feel one of the very few undesirables not excluded by Simon's original post but, sadly, am too far into senility to be able to offer any advancement of the argument. However, unless precise definitions are agreed, such advance is unlikely anyway. Generally speaking, "class" is synonymous with socio-economic status but I am sufficiently ante-deluvian to think that breeding might also be a defining factor although I accept that this view might not prove attractive (or even relevant) in current times.

Julien Sorel's observation about social mobility is absolutely correct - it's all a bit like snakes and ladders; rungs represent a defined status occupied by people in a social flux. Those moving up or down merely alter their position on the ladder relative to the given status (class) which, as has been suggested, remains unchanged.

Talk of social mobility is relevant only if one accepts the notion of "class". Those of a political bent touting the rightness of this notion are rather at odds with themselves when they also seek to eschew the very system which encourages the need for such mobility.

[Simon]

Well, pace AH's reservations, I think we're off to a good start. Thank you to all who have responded.

I'm very happy to agree with GG's sensible comment about definition, which I alluded to in the OP: without something agreed, it my not be possible to take it much further. I agree with JS too, though maybe we need the definition before we can take that further.

I'm afraid that I think Ferret's post didn't help much: the first part was interesting, last two paragraphs just a rant without much of a sequential logical connection to the first two. That's what I hoped we might avoid.

Cornet's comment about class having a relationship to s/econ status I think is very relevant, though not exclusive: the concept of "breeding" - i.e. being brought up with certain values - is, as he says, probably not going to find favour in a society so obsessed with shallow soaps and celebrities. Though I suspect that most of us on here share far more values than we differ on!

I don;t agree with CdeJ that social mobility has stalled; as regards our politicians, it seems to me we have simply exchanged one set largely drawn from one section of society for another drawn from another. (Though there is some overlap, surely.)

If someone would like to end the beginning of this topic with something we can discuss as the basis for a definition, of class, maybe we can move on? If nobody does, I'll have a go later.

I'm now going to read Calum's links!

[amateur51]

Real social mobility came to this country with the ending of WWII. I am one of those recipients of the 1944 Education Act, which gave a real opportunity to the children of men and women who had never been able to hope for a good education themselves before the war. From the 1940s and 1950s 0nwards, a huge servant class disappeared. The perfectly ordinary semi that we lived in after having been bombed still had bell pushes to summon the maid.

The other huge change for millions was the NHS, which is now being torn apart, not to improve matters for the poorest. Meanwhile the government is expecting local authorities to issue food stamps, with the strict proviso that they must not be used to buy immoral items such as cigarettes. Workhouses next?

So, in a nutshell, class is with us still, and all the petty distinctions that go with it. The great social revolution of the postwar years is being taken apart piece by pieces by old Etonians.

We should all be very angry.

Well said, Ferret

I am very angry but I don't know where to direct it constructively.