Class and class relations in the modern UK

[Bird on a Fire]

It's more than that. The term applies to people who know they are "the precariat", if that's a thing.

I think that what Sheldrake is getting at is that Thatcherism convinced people they were something they weren't. A northern industrial worker on the dole knew he was in a precarious position. But there were a range of people who became convinced they were now in the secure middle class - home ownership (but slave to a mortgage), nice car (on credit), office job (but no job for a lifetime or durable skills).

The effect worsened over time. Fundamentally people believe they are richer than they are. Nobody appreciates the vast amount of savings they need to accumulate to have a decent pension and proper social care till they are 90. Nobody realises we need to devote far more resources to the NHS to cope with the aging population and hence the tax take is too low. Nobody understands that having a valuable home is not the same as usable wealth.

And jobs and skills that appeared to be good for a lifetime no longer are - experienced retail workers and travel agents and council workers and taxi drivers are suddenly finding themselves in a precarious position.

Fundamentally, a huge segment of the population urgently needs to stop getting an Audi on credit and direct their money into saving and paying higher tax to the NHS.

Thanks for this - it's what I was trying to get at, but expressed a lot better.

I think a huge number of people don't recognise where they are on the totem pole, and would prefer not to as the reality is scarier than the comforting fiction they've been sold and bought into.

I also think that political change in the UK would be a lot easier to achieve if people knew where they and others sit. People on 80k don't realise they're very near the top, people on 20k think they're in the middle if they wear a shirt to work and drink wine in the pub, and the actual folks at the top are nearly invisible.

[sheldrake]

I agree with everything you say LPM. The middle class I described (with private education) would be small. I'm using the term 'middle class' in the old English sense rather than the much broader American sense we've become used to, and our traditional middle classes were always significantly outnumbered by workers.

To get a sense of where I'm coming from, read a few obituaries in the Daily Telegraph. The British people in there, when described as 'from a middle class family' almost always went to a private school (if they were middle-middle class it was likely one of the less expensive minor public schools). The upper middle classes went to well-known expensive public schools and often grew up around domestic servants.

In my view a modern lifestyle roughly in line with the traditional definition of 'middle middle' class requires household income starting north of 100k a year (significantly more than that in London) or significant inherited wealth.

I also think average income stats can be misleading because they often seem to be based on PAYE, and therefore exclude a lot of the wealthiest people who aren't in PAYE.

I've often wondered if this was deliberate to make the broad mass of indebted, struggling people feel better about where they are in life.

[sheldrake]

<dbl post>

[lpm]

The whole notion of class is so confused it needs to be abandoned for political debate.

When Labour MPs start spouting crap about the working classes - and sneer at Toasted Marshmallow Hot Chocolate Frappuccino drinkers - their listeners put themselves in with the coffee drinkers and are baffled by the rhetoric. Loads of people on lower than average incomes today don't get their hands dirty, don't think about Trade Unions, don't think about class at all.

Where would we classify a travel agent working in the high street's Thomas Cook shop who buys herself a Starbucks after driving to work in her 2016 VW Golf? Her relatively low income compared to her and her husband's huge mortgage and car financing payments puts them in a precarious position of no savings. When Thomas Cook goes bust and she loses her job, what transferable skills does she have? Credit cards replaced unions, and a maxed out credit card doesn't help you when your job is under threat.

Capitalism is currently failing a range of people in this position. Real wages have stagnated for a decade and "hard-working alarm clock workers" are struggling despite working 40 hours a week. Inevitably they feel they are little better off than benefits scroungers working zero hours a week, plus can easily feel immigrants or the EU are to blame somehow. They are turned off by rhetoric about the working class because they aren't manual workers in factories or outside in all weathers, they are indoors workers who have wine at the pub.

[sheldrake]

I would definitely consider your hypothetical travel agent as working class. She has access to material comforts that were beyond her grandparents' reach, but she's got little leverage in the job market and is indebted to a degree that a relatively short spell of unemployment would see her pushed down into a struggling underclass.

My own view is that the Labour party was set up for a time when the main economic conflict was between workers and their employers. Today I think the economic conflict is between debt-serfs and asset owners (not really the same two groups). Monetary policy is almost entirely aimed at the interests of asset owners and has been for decades, which is the main reason wages just cannot keep up with the cost of housing, retirement income etc.. I think most people can see that enacting crippling tax rates on their employers isn't really in their own economic interest, but they're also aware of this eroding standing of living and don't know exactly what to do about it.

One of the ways in which Blairism failed the working class was to do the exact opposite of what was needed here; they were pretty cosy with private equity firms and investment banks and encouraged a massive credit boom whilst ratcheting up the regulatory and tax burdens on the genuinely productive parts of the private sector. They did do things that benefitted working-class people with public sector jobs though.

Corbynism just failed spectacularly because it wasn't a working-class movement at all. It was about middle-class intellectuals focussing on the needs of the underclass.

[lpm]

But she perceives herself to by middle class, whatever her actual vulnerable position. Why wouldn't she? She has as a good a phone as any of them - the latest iPhone (paid for over 3 years at £42 per month).

She voted for Blair, though, because then the Labour Party spoke to her. More money for schools and hospitals, yet tough on crime and supportive of her values. Her husband got his first job in the public sector and that massive credit boom gave them the mortgage and array of credit cards in her purse. Easyjet gave her family cheap holidays (while ultimately destroying her employer) and car finance was pushed to the masses, giving her a brand new car. She liked all this stuff, not realising the long term damage being done by the credit boom to her personal finances as well as the banking sector.

Corbynism failed spectacularly because it was so baffling to her. It provided no way to solve her precarious position, and for that matter didn't even provide ways to help the underclass in the long term. By thinking in terms of class it was never going to reach people who have no concept of what class is or where they stand.

[sheldrake]

Yes she will think she is middle class, that was one of Thatcherism's great transformations.

She probably also thinks Corbyn identifies more with members of the underclass she looks down on more than he does with her.

[lpm]

...which is why Labour will never win from the left wing, with a Corbynite obsession with working classes and trade unions and protecting the worker through nationalisation

In a modern service based economy they can only win from the Blairite centre left.

[sheldrake]

...which is why Labour will never win from the left wing, with a Corbynite obsession with working classes and trade unions and protecting the worker through nationalisation

In a modern service based economy they can only win from the Blairite centre left.

Perhaps once all memory of the brexit referendum has faded. There will be no appetite to forget Starmer and Cooper's attempts to overturn the referendum result for a while.

[Herainestold]

...which is why Labour will never win from the left wing, with a Corbynite obsession with working classes and trade unions and protecting the worker through nationalisation

In a modern service based economy they can only win from the Blairite centre left.

Which is why they need a stealth candidate.

[secret squirrel]

...which is why Labour will never win from the left wing, with a Corbynite obsession with working classes and trade unions and protecting the worker through nationalisation

In a modern service based economy they can only win from the Blairite centre left.

Some would argue that the 'service based economy' is problematic in itself. Ha-Joon Chang makes this argument in his book '23 things they don't tell you about Capitalism'. I quote an extract below (sorry about the formatting, I just copy-pasted from a pdf).

For example, in Britain since the 1990s, exports of knowledge-based
services have played a crucial role in plugging the
balance of payments gap left behind by de-industrialization
(and the fall in North Sea oil exports, which had enabled the
country – just – to survive the negative balance of payments
consequences of de-industrialization during the 1980s).
However, even in Britain, which is most advanced in the
exports of these knowledge-based services, the balance of
payments surplus generated by those services is well below
4 per cent of GDP, just enough to cover the country’s
manufacturing trade deficits. With the likely strengthening of
global financial regulation as a consequence of the 2008
world financial crisis, it is unlikely that Britain can maintain
this level of trade surplus in finance and other knowledge-based
services in the future. In the case of the US,
supposedly another model post-industrial economy, the
trade surplus in knowledge-based services is actually less
than 1 per cent of GDP – nowhere near enough to make up
for its manufacturing trade deficits, which are around 4 per
cent of GDP. The US has been able to maintain such a
large manufacturing trade deficit only because it could
borrow heavily from abroad – an ability that can only shrink
in the coming years, given the changes in the world
economy – and not because the service sector stepped in to
fill the gap, as in the British case. Moreover, it is
questionable whether the strengths of the US and Britain in
the knowledge-based services can be maintained over time.
In services such as engineering and design, where insights
gained from the production process are crucial, a
continuous shrinkage of the industrial base will lead to a
decline in the quality of their (service) products and a
consequent loss in export earnings.
If Britain and the US – two countries that are supposed to
be the most developed in the knowledge-based services –
are unlikely to meet their balance of payments needs in the
long run through the exports of these services, it is highly
unlikely that other countries can.

[jimbob]

...which is why Labour will never win from the left wing, with a Corbynite obsession with working classes and trade unions and protecting the worker through nationalisation

In a modern service based economy they can only win from the Blairite centre left.

Some would argue that the 'service based economy' is problematic in itself. Ha-Joon Chang makes this argument in his book '23 things they don't tell you about Capitalism'. I quote an extract below (sorry about the formatting, I just copy-pasted from a pdf).

For example, in Britain since the 1990s, exports of knowledge-based
services have played a crucial role in plugging the
balance of payments gap left behind by de-industrialization
(and the fall in North Sea oil exports, which had enabled the
country – just – to survive the negative balance of payments
consequences of de-industrialization during the 1980s).
However, even in Britain, which is most advanced in the
exports of these knowledge-based services, the balance of
payments surplus generated by those services is well below
4 per cent of GDP, just enough to cover the country’s
manufacturing trade deficits. With the likely strengthening of
global financial regulation as a consequence of the 2008
world financial crisis, it is unlikely that Britain can maintain
this level of trade surplus in finance and other knowledge-based
services in the future. In the case of the US,
supposedly another model post-industrial economy, the
trade surplus in knowledge-based services is actually less
than 1 per cent of GDP – nowhere near enough to make up
for its manufacturing trade deficits, which are around 4 per
cent of GDP. The US has been able to maintain such a
large manufacturing trade deficit only because it could
borrow heavily from abroad – an ability that can only shrink
in the coming years, given the changes in the world
economy – and not because the service sector stepped in to
fill the gap, as in the British case. Moreover, it is
questionable whether the strengths of the US and Britain in
the knowledge-based services can be maintained over time.
In services such as engineering and design, where insights
gained from the production process are crucial, a
continuous shrinkage of the industrial base will lead to a
decline in the quality of their (service) products and a
consequent loss in export earnings.
If Britain and the US – two countries that are supposed to
be the most developed in the knowledge-based services –
are unlikely to meet their balance of payments needs in the
long run through the exports of these services, it is highly
unlikely that other countries can.

Having worked with engineers in both Greater China and Taiwan - that is very clear.

[Herainestold]

...which is why Labour will never win from the left wing, with a Corbynite obsession with working classes and trade unions and protecting the worker through nationalisation

In a modern service based economy they can only win from the Blairite centre left.

Some would argue that the 'service based economy' is problematic in itself. Ha-Joon Chang makes this argument in his book '23 things they don't tell you about Capitalism'. I quote an extract below (sorry about the formatting, I just copy-pasted from a pdf).

For example, in Britain since the 1990s, exports of knowledge-based
services have played a crucial role in plugging the
balance of payments gap left behind by de-industrialization
(and the fall in North Sea oil exports, which had enabled the
country – just – to survive the negative balance of payments
consequences of de-industrialization during the 1980s).
However, even in Britain, which is most advanced in the
exports of these knowledge-based services, the balance of
payments surplus generated by those services is well below
4 per cent of GDP, just enough to cover the country’s
manufacturing trade deficits. With the likely strengthening of
global financial regulation as a consequence of the 2008
world financial crisis, it is unlikely that Britain can maintain
this level of trade surplus in finance and other knowledge-based
services in the future. In the case of the US,
supposedly another model post-industrial economy, the
trade surplus in knowledge-based services is actually less
than 1 per cent of GDP – nowhere near enough to make up
for its manufacturing trade deficits, which are around 4 per
cent of GDP. The US has been able to maintain such a
large manufacturing trade deficit only because it could
borrow heavily from abroad – an ability that can only shrink
in the coming years, given the changes in the world
economy – and not because the service sector stepped in to
fill the gap, as in the British case. Moreover, it is
questionable whether the strengths of the US and Britain in
the knowledge-based services can be maintained over time.
In services such as engineering and design, where insights
gained from the production process are crucial, a
continuous shrinkage of the industrial base will lead to a
decline in the quality of their (service) products and a
consequent loss in export earnings.
If Britain and the US – two countries that are supposed to
be the most developed in the knowledge-based services –
are unlikely to meet their balance of payments needs in the
long run through the exports of these services, it is highly
unlikely that other countries can.

Labour and Conservatives have both been responsible for the degradation of British manufacturing and Engineering. Corbyn had a plan to reverse that process. I hope that whomever replaces him as Labopur leader keeps that plan alive.

[plodder]

It's not about British skills not being up to scratch, so much as that it's possible to get someone to do a CAD drawing far more cheaply in Asia. An ever increasing amount of engineering and ancillary services are offshored.

[sheldrake]

The first stumbling block of left-wing economic theories is that they're based on what their proponents think people are entitled to, rather than what customers in a demanding globaly competitive trade system are actually willing to pay.

[lpm]

The first stumbling block of right-wing economic theories is that they forget the basic generalisation of you get what you pay for. Pay teachers poorly and you get mediocre education, pay nurses poorly and you don't get much nursing. The failure of the UK governments to invest in high return but very long term opportunities (e.g. mental health services, primary school education) is going to hurt us in the demanding globaly competitive trade system.

[individualmember]

The whole notion of class is so confused it needs to be abandoned for political debate.

I’ve never really understood where I fit in to the class system. I mean, we were skint when I was little, being one of two boys brought up by a single mother. But I never identified as working class. When my parents divorced and my father f.cked off, my mother went to the local adult education college to get a teaching qualification and three years later got a job teaching two subjects; get the boys interested in something other than alcohol and petty crime, and make the girls employable so they can get an office job instead of lying on their backs. [Aka O level music and CSE Commerce (i.e., shorthand and typing)].

The youngsters my mother taught were working class, but we just weren’t in that social group. My brother and I commuted down to the hell hole that was the grammar school in Colchester. I never really fitted in with my predominantly middle class classmates either. But I did get to understand at an early age that class was about group identity, not really about jobs or income levels.

OTOH, I do empathise strongly with those who are very saddened by the collapse of their communities as their children move away to look for work, seeing as how I’m one of the kids who moved away to look for work. That is the problem that no government has really come to terms with over the last forty years.

[sheldrake]

The first stumbling block of right-wing economic theories is that they forget the basic generalisation of you get what you pay for.

You don't get what you pay for if you're a bad negotiator who doesn't demand high standards in return, you just overpay. Only fools pour money into institutions with a low-performance culture and unambitious, bureaucratic leadership.

Pay teachers poorly and you get mediocre education

Education funding has increased faster than inflation for over a decade. The problem with our education system is not funding, it's the rotten anti-aspirational culture of the educational establishment. I was debating this with a labour voting friend a couple of weeks ago and they repeatedly cited the new focus on punctuation, grammar and spelling as an example of how dedicated teachers were to try and rebut my point. They just went silent for 30 seconds and then changed the subject when I pointed out that this new focus on traditional rigour was something Gove had introduced against howls of protest from teaching unions.

The failure of the UK governments to invest in high return but very long term opportunities (e.g. mental health services, primary school education) is going to hurt us in the demanding globaly competitive trade system.

Mental health services are underfunded, but that's orthogonal to our position in globally competitive trade.

[individualmember]

The first stumbling block of right-wing economic theories is that they forget the basic generalisation of you get what you pay for.

You don't get what you pay for if you're a bad negotiator who doesn't demand high standards in return, you just overpay. Only fools pour money into institutions with a low-performance culture and unambitious, bureaucratic leadership.

I have to say that my life improved when I decided to resign twice (from the last two companies I was employed at) and walk away from clients (having abandoned full time employment a set up on my own) half a dozen times when they had what I felt were unreasonable expectations for what they were willing to pay.

TBH Shelly's attitude suggests the kind of client I wouldn't walk away from, I would run.

No point in working with people on the lower end of the scale.

[sheldrake]

Your argument amounts to 'I'm going to ignore the data about increased funding, petulantly insist that funding for anything that sounds 'nice' must always increase and then strut off muttering insults'.

[individualmember]

Your argument amounts to 'I'm going to ignore the data about increased funding, petulantly insist that funding for anything that sounds 'nice' must always increase and then strut off muttering insults'.

Is this directed at me? I haven't made any argument about increasing funding, one way or another. I am indeed ignoring data about increased funding, because I haven't analysed any. The point I have (but didn't articulate properly) is that underfunding, in all my experience, leads to demotivating workers and a consequent falling of standards. When I felt that happening I didn't want to work there any more and eventually built up the confidence to quit when it happened. Demotivating workers is is inherently anti-aspirational IMO.

[sheldrake]

Is this directed at me? I haven't made any argument about increasing funding, one way or another. I am indeed ignoring data about increased funding, because I haven't analysed any. The point I have (but didn't articulate properly) is that underfunding, in all my experience, leads to demotivating workers and a consequent falling of standards. When I felt that happening I didn't want to work there any more and eventually built up the confidence to quit when it happened. Demotivating workers is is inherently anti-aspirational IMO.

My point is that public sector workers claim to be underfunded even when their funding has substantially increased and that underdelivery is often a result of their own attitudes and working culture. The educational establishment demonstrated this very clearly when they whined about Gove's attempts to reintroduce academic rigour to state education. These cretins would genuinely rather that the standards stayed low and universities just varied their entry standards depending on which postcode you grew up in. That is a shocking failure of ambition and care by them on behalf of children from less privileged backgrounds. And no, teaching grammar and punctuation properly isn't more expensive. People teaching in bamboo huts manage to do it because they care about the future success of the children more than their own moody little political axe-grinding crusade. Something UK teaching unions should be embarrassed about and learn from.

This is not a nice message for anybody on the receiving end of it to hear, but if you're wondering why people are skeptical when teaching unions say they need more money, now you know.

[Stephanie]

Right, go here for the education discussion viewtopic.php?f=10&t=565

[bolo]

Right, go here for the education discussion viewtopic.php?f=10&t=565

Thank you