Class

[Serial_Apologist]

Well, looking at some of the contributions here it does seem to me that 'minority' (women are actually a majority of the population) politics is dismissed or considered to be something that can be added on later. & what is class politics if not 'identity' politics? Especially now - someone from a working class background, who has gone to university & now has an office or professional job has to decide who they identify with - working class or middle class?

Some, Floss, not all of us! "Dismissed" is a bit strong, I think; but, having said that, I do agree when you say "added on", because that has been the course of learning that led to their eventually being added on in the first instance - I don't deny that has been a major failing of left wing thinking, from the start; what I don't think is that it needed to be: theory lacked a comprehensiveness which later generations have moved towards modifying. Environmentalism offers another instance.

[Beef Oven]

It wouldn't be a simple answer, but a timewasting one with me having to think of all the ways in which the capitalist crisis is hitting working people and then delivering them to you signed Serial Apologist, when it is all out there to save time!



The general tenor of the thread is class, what are its causes, and is some kind of socialism (maybe under a different name?) the, or a, solution?

Socialism, as I understand it, would be summed up in Clause 4 of the LP's constitution, until Bliar did away with it. I don't still have my old membership card, so this is probably inaccurate or inadequate, but it argued for the means of production, or at least the key economically pertient parts of it, to be put under democratically-controlled collective ownership. Qualitatively different, in other words, from merely nominally in public ownership, as happened under the Attlee government. How we get from here to there will now probably be a long drawn out process involving formations of new parties, splits etc - part of which is trying to ensure that those currently threatened with having their means of support decimated are up to making sure this does not happen, and that eventually communities and workforces are up to running society themselves.

With respect, I think this is a cop out.

[Serial_Apologist]

With respect, I think this is a cop out.

In what way?

[Beef Oven]

In what way?

In that I was asking an easy question and it would have taken less time than you've spent on many other of your posts. But that is of course your prerogative.

[Serial_Apologist]

In that I was asking an easy question and it would have taken less time than you've spent on many other of your posts. But that is of course your prerogative.

Well you've already said there's nothing wrong with sourcing articles to my reply that it saves time regurgitating what they state, so I can't see anything I have said that could be construed as a cop-out, or how taking more or less time on unspecified postings has relevance to anything which I have said.

[Beef Oven]

Well you've already said there's nothing wrong with sourcing articles to my reply that it saves time regurgitating what they state, so I can't see anything I have said that could be construed as a cop-out, or how taking more or less time on unspecified postings has relevance to anything which I have said.

We'll leave it there then.

[Serial_Apologist]

We'll leave it there then.

Fine by me.

[Beef Oven]

Fine by me.

Of course it is, you've managed to dodge the question.

[Richard Barrett]

I'm asking you RB, not the independent or David Harvey. Tell me a it more about austerity measures affecting working class people more. It's not a trick question.

As I already suggested in the form of a rhetorical question: I can't think of a single element of Cameron/Osborne's economic policy which doesn't further impoverish working class people while preserving the privileged position of their own class. For some further corroboration of this I referred you to an Indy article which was more detailed and authoritative than I could possibly be off the top of my head. What more do you want?

I would like to know more from you about why the idea of equality I expressed is based on false assumptions. Reminder: what I said was "of course you're right when you say that human beings have not been "created" equal. But why should that mean that any (presumably) biological dis/advantages should be translated into social ones?"

But you seem now to have left this conversation twice, so maybe you really mean it this time.

[Beef Oven]

Related to social class, it seems the well off are more than paying their way in society. The top 15% of earners pay 87.8% of the total income tax bill. The remaining 85% of earners pay 12.2% of the bill (and some earners pay no tax at all).

Sometimes it's hard to know why high earners get such a bad press.

[Beef Oven]

As I already suggested in the form of a rhetorical question: I can't think of a single element of Cameron/Osborne's economic policy which doesn't further impoverish working class people while preserving the privileged position of their own class. For some further corroboration of this I referred you to an Indy article which was more detailed and authoritative than I could possibly be off the top of my head. What more do you want?

I would like to know more from you about why the idea of equality I expressed is based on false assumptions. Reminder: what I said was "of course you're right when you say that human beings have not been "created" equal. But why should that mean that any (presumably) biological dis/advantages should be translated into social ones?"

But you seem now to have left this conversation twice, so maybe you really mean it this time.

Play the ball, not the man, there's a good chap RB.

[ahinton]

As I already suggested in the form of a rhetorical question: I can't think of a single element of Cameron/Osborne's economic policy which doesn't further impoverish working class people while preserving the privileged position of their own class. For some further corroboration of this I referred you to an Indy article which was more detailed and authoritative than I could possibly be off the top of my head. What more do you want?

I would like to know more from you about why the idea of equality I expressed is based on false assumptions. Reminder: what I said was "of course you're right when you say that human beings have not been "created" equal. But why should that mean that any (presumably) biological dis/advantages should be translated into social ones?"

But you seem now to have left this conversation twice, so maybe you really mean it this time.

That would be a shame if so. I'm keeping out of this for the foreseeable, but I remain very interested in many of the intelligent and well-considered responses posted, especially some of those that have appeared during the past couple of days or so, so I am following this and noting how it develops with considerable relish.

[Richard Barrett]

Well, looking at some of the contributions here it does seem to me that 'minority' (women are actually a majority of the population) politics is dismissed or considered to be something that can be added on later. & what is class politics if not 'identity' politics? Especially now - someone from a working class background, who has gone to university & now has an office or professional job has to decide who they identify with - working class or middle class?

Like S_A, I don't think there has been any dismissal of the issues you mention, nor has there been any claim that everything worth saying about class was already said in the 19th century. Perhaps I haven't been clear enough; that's quite possible, I'm not a particularly deep student of politics. With regard to your second question, I would say there are very few people who get to choose their actual economic class position, as opposed to which class they "identify with", which as you say is somewhat more fluid.

[ahinton]

Related to social class, it seems the well off are more than paying their way in society. The top 15% of earners pay 87.8% of the total income tax bill. The remaining 85% of earners pay 12.2% of the bill (and some earners pay no tax at all).

Sometimes it's hard to know why high earners get such a bad press.

I take your point, but I do still think that the all too real risk - no, the certainty - that at least some of those at the very lowest end may soon come to be worse off even than they are now is quite simply far too important to ignore.

Sorry, I did imply that I'd shut up - so I will in a moment!

[ahinton]

I'm not a particularly deep student of politics.

You have got to be kidding, surely?! You are very thoroughly versed in the subject, as well I know and as many of your posts here and elsewhere demonstrate (albeit not at all for the purpose of showing off your political knowledge).

With regard to your second question, I would say there are very few people who get to choose their actual economic class position, as opposed to which class they "identify with", which as you say is somewhat more fluid.

There can surely be no argument with that - certainly none of which I have ever been aware.