Class

[eighthobstruction]

Wow that's very rich piece/overview....hope I can get around to reading it all....

>>>At some point quantitative changes lead to qualitative shifts and we need to take seriously the idea that we may be at exactly such an inflexion point in the history of capitalism. Questioning the future of capitalism itself as an adequate social system ought, therefore, to be in the forefront of current debate.

Yet there appears to be little appetite for such discussion, even among the left. Instead we continue to hear the usual conventional mantras regarding the perfectibility of humanity with the help of free markets and free trade, private property and personal responsibility, low taxes and minimalist state involvement in social provision, even though this all sounds increasingly hollow. A crisis of legitimacy looms.<<<

....Further down the talk his analysis of the world economic crisis [and resulting losses of freedom] should be core reading....

[Cornet IV]

i It is a matter of great concern and regret to me that none of our present political parties can find the courage and understanding to take their ideas seriously; meanwhile we are in the grip of a cabal of gangsters and corrupt sociopaths many of whom employ their public school and Oxbridge PPE education to their own benefit at the expense of the people in general .......

Like a gem in the mire of so much pretentious dross does this observation sparkle. Thanks CDJ

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

let the trumpets sound eh ....

Monbiot on Green is it

Aditya Chakrabortty with an interesting take on deference [we are not far in time from being slaves and serfs] and on Milliband Snr

this paragraph is a priceless gem

At only 47, David Miliband is taking up a £300,000 job, following on from the nearly £1m he has raised since leaving government in 2010. Nor is he alone. James Purnell is going to the BBC for another six-figure salary. Ruth Kelly is now at HSBC. John Hutton went from being energy minister to a seat on the board of a US nuclear giant. And we could go on, with Patricia Hewitt and Alan Milburn ... Westminster has become the equivalent of a gap year for middle-aged overachievers, a place to earn a few CV points before catapulting themselves into the private-sector plutocracy. If today's Treasury minister is tomorrow's investment bank director, what hope of overhaul of Britain's rotten finance sector?

[Serial_Apologist]

Some great posts among the stupid ones in the responses below the Monbiot article - so thanks Calum for linking to it; let's get going on them!

[Richard Barrett]

Some great posts among the stupid ones in the responses below the Monbiot article - so thanks Calum for linking to it; let's get going on them!

Has anyone else here read Monbiot's The Age of Consent? He has a lot of very interesting things to say but he still seems to be somehow convinced that it's possible within the framework of neoliberal democracy to initiate the kind of reforms he's talking about. I just can't see that.

[eighthobstruction]

Here we are....the board anticipates again (or Simon instigated) : you choose....http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22000973

Traditional British social divisions of upper, middle and working class seem out of date in the 21st Century, no longer reflecting modern occupations or lifestyles.

The BBC teamed up with sociologists from leading universities to analyse the modern British class system. They surveyed more than 161,000 people and came up with a new model made up of seven groups.

Bit of fun, but not really of use....

[Julien Sorel]

Richard Seymour today http://www.leninology.com/2013/03/th...apitalist.html

[ahinton]

Here we are....the board anticipates again (or Simon instigated) : you choose....http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22000973

Traditional British social divisions of upper, middle and working class seem out of date in the 21st Century, no longer reflecting modern occupations or lifestyles.

The BBC teamed up with sociologists from leading universities to analyse the modern British class system. They surveyed more than 161,000 people and came up with a new model made up of seven groups.

Bit of fun, but not really of use....

I heard the Today piece about this as well.

I wouldn't go so far as to claim that it's all merely a "bit of fun, but not really of use", but it does at least make some effort to demonstrate that class and people's ideas of it have changed fundamentally from the days pre-WWII.

Among the many interesting contributions to this thread, some of which seem (to me, at least) to use the notion of "class" as a stepping-stone to more generalised political discussion, there seems so far to have been little movement away from, or indeed questioning of, the idea that class measurement is inextricably - and principally - bound up with comparative wealth and poverty, as though the very notion of social "class" is predicated upon that and little else. Whether we have or once had three generally recognised classes and are now being told that there are in fact seven seems to emerge from little more than a somewhat arbitrary exercise in sociological befuddlement. In days gone by, there was certainly a stronger and more widespread perception that, whatever "class" one belonged to, one would remain in that class permanently (almost to the extent that, for "class", one might be forgiven for reading "caste"). I think it true that increases in social mobility provide opportunities not only for the breaking down of class barriers but also for the movement between classes, but there will always, I think, be confusions over what is meant by particular social class definitions.

Let's take as an example the wealthiest top 5% of the British population; on the basis of their wealth (income from all sources, capital assets, &c.), one might deem them all to occupy the same class, but would that be correct? - or particularly illustrative of anything beyond the fact of their belonging to the nation's wealthiest top 5%? For "wealth" and "wealthiest", also read "poverty" ad "poorest" for broadly the same question to pertain (except, of course, to the extent that the bottom 5% may have little or no income and/or capital assets). Even on the sole basis of comparative "wealth", what about the cash-rich /asset-poor as compared to the cash-poor and asset-rich; are they all in the same "class"? What about the wealthy people who choose not to work for money or indeed at all and those who choose to work for money or for no money? Are they all in the same "class"? One inescapable conclusion from consideration of all of these and other factors is that class divisions are a far more complex issue than is amenable to the acceptance of a notion of three, seven or any other number of classes; another is that, all too often, consideration of social class and class structure can become divisive and at times also risk appearing confrontational.

[french frank]

Here we are....the board anticipates again (or Simon instigated) : you choose....http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22000973

Traditional British social divisions of upper, middle and working class seem out of date in the 21st Century, no longer reflecting modern occupations or lifestyles.

The BBC teamed up with sociologists from leading universities to analyse the modern British class system. They surveyed more than 161,000 people and came up with a new model made up of seven groups.

Bit of fun, but not really of use....

Well, I'm traditional working class (apparently) which 'scores low on cultural activities', in spite of specifying that I go to the opera, listen to classical music and visit museums and art galleries (go to gym). Presumably these also don't rate highly on the cultural scale ...

Yes, it is trivial, but I think it relates more closely to popularly perceived 'class' differences: culture, how much money you earn, your level of day-to-day financial security (hence control over your life and the life choices available to you).

[teamsaint]

let the trumpets sound eh ....

Monbiot on Green is it

Aditya Chakrabortty with an interesting take on deference [we are not far in time from being slaves and serfs] and on Milliband Snr

this paragraph is a priceless gem

Th labour front ....oh dear. In the pockets of the banks.....

[eighthobstruction]

Yes ah , I had been thinking thoughts (as you do)(i do) about just what you say in your last para'....there's a great deal of difference between the Landed rich and the Urban rich, but would be found in the same category....

I said fun and not useful before my first cup of tea....but it does come across as a work done by committee I think....the Emergent Service Worker comes across as a bit of a wolly term, "they say the new affluent workers and emergent service workers appear to be the children of the "traditional working class," which they say has been fragmented by de-industrialisation, mass unemployment, immigration and the restructuring of urban space."

.....my personal feeling is that the fragmentations of society has increased the classes far past 7....

....By this rating ....in the 60-70's I was a 6, the 80's 5, 90's 6, 2000's a 5, and now a 7....

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

yep i came out as trad working class ... what it misses is age .... oap's are poorer eh ... i do not accept what it is saying unless there is some serious validity research showing it relates to something as a composite index more than income alone ....

and in such a financially unequal society, one might want a rather more subtle examination of social types than this ...

eighthO raises the interesting question about mobility within the life span - is it much greater a feature of our lives than a 100 years ago say [when i might have been a trad working class all my life rather than in childhood and old age?]

[eighthobstruction]

I'd like to see a break down of the class statics re the BBC and Uni that produced it....the#1 who commissioned it, the #2 that devised it, the #3 that put it into practise, the #5 that organise it and the #6 that did the survey....

[MrGongGong]

This really is a load of nonsense

If i'm a rich person who only knows people with low paid occupations and has one cultural activity ......"listening to rap music" then I am part of the "Elite"

and apparently (in this instance)

Enjoy high cultural activities such as visiting museums and listening to classical music errr NO
Went to private school and elite universities errr NO
Socialise with people who do a wide variety of jobs errr NO

This confuses wealth with 'class' in a ridiculous way ..........

[Mary Chambers]

Nonsense, yes, but quite entertaining. I'm not at all sure what my income is (bits and pieces), and I don't really know the value of my house. The first time I did the test, I was astonished to come out as 'elite', which I'm certainly not. I then dropped both income and house value by one notch - because, as I said, I don't really know either - and found I was 'traditional working class', which I also am not. I'm as ordinary middle-class as you can get.

It doesn't take age into account, or whether you live in the north or the south, which makes a massive difference to house values. Siily but fun.