Middle class anxiety
- Thread starter Proper Tidy
- Start date
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
inflation might. one thing's for sure, interest rates ain't going to stay so low for ever
8ball
1,200 lights
With your talking about those high percentages I figured you had a particular and possibly proximate precipitating event in mind.
I thought it was a middle-class thing to avoid over-leveraging yourself but maybe that has changed.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
the buy to let things are definite over-leveraging
breixt might trigger it, if we ever leave
if not that then something to do with china or the united states
8ball
1,200 lights
Yeah, but (and this may come down to the weird way we talk about class round these parts), when I rented for years and years and years, I wouldn't say the majority of the BTL'ers I ran into (renting from them) were middle class. I mean, In terms of Marxist analysis, then on that level at least they were clearly not working class... but by the signifiers most people seem to use they didn't always seem that way.
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
Middle class people don't *do* the BTL stuff themselves, they have people to do that.
8ball
1,200 lights
I didn't find that myself. Was a mixture of people from different backgrounds - I had letting agent rents and more direct rents and often met the owners when letting agents were involved. That's just coming from one person, living in one area, obviously.
What I would say is that the more working class types had some 'trade' reason for being in the game - such as getting into it via the building trade.
Going by stories from friends, there are a good many crooks and thugs in the business too. I doubt they're all of the cravatted, Queensbury rules variety.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
It is behind a door, in the corridor, outside my office.
It makes quite a lot of noise, so I tend to keep the door closed.
I am not saying the idea of a housing crisis was not part of the political landscape pre-crash...just that the insane rise in property prices was not initially signposted in any mainstream way.The de-coupling of mortgage allowances and income - ie, property which was affordable using 3-4x income which doubles, tripled and quadrupled to 12 x income for an average first time home, was not really seen as an impending crisis (unless you were directly involved in housing and its discontents, because the hefty gains in equity completely obscured the deepening inequalities in the UK. For many middle class people, property stopped being merely a home and became an 'investment'.
In terms of actual space and costs, the housing shortage is completely fixable - there is enough land and enough skills to ensure housing for everyone...but instead, it has become a self-reinforcing circle of market manipulation because there is an eye-watering amount of money to be squeezed from misery...including the modern slumlords -homeless charities and purveyors of 'supported housing' (or the ability to charge £400 a week for a filthy room in a hostel or temporary (!) B&B)
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brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
One reason the vermin hate socialised housing so much is it's a concrete reminder that capitalism can't house its workers.
Yeah, that was meant to be kind of in support of the idea that usage had gone up. For all I know I did it completely wrong anyhoo.
Of course, 8-ball. If anything, it should have been more of a reply to @Pickmans (in full pedant mode) who immediately posted an article dated 2008 and 2002. Doesn't detract from my initial statement, regarding the prevalence of 'Housing Crisis' as a common term, post financial crash. Even before RTB, social housing was in something of a crisis...with social engineering, 'sink estates', narrowing criteria of need (especially the 'local connection' and increasingly untenable waiting lists.
Sasaferrato
Super Refuser!
Quite.
8ball
1,200 lights
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Brexit (on both sides) is just one expression of something that's going on across the world.
The recent (how recent depends on where) expansion of the m/c, and the social mobility that enabled that is grinding to a halt.
Capital no longer uses the m/c as a vehicle for social control (via liberal democracy) and us tossing them back into the proletarian abyss.
A section of society that was, briefly, included, is now facing exclusion.
Fear of losing what they had/have.
That the w/c themselves have not only been under sustained attack, economically and in terms of identity/composition, amplifies this.
The recent (how recent depends on where) expansion of the m/c, and the social mobility that enabled that is grinding to a halt.
Capital no longer uses the m/c as a vehicle for social control (via liberal democracy) and us tossing them back into the proletarian abyss.
A section of society that was, briefly, included, is now facing exclusion.
Fear of losing what they had/have.
That the w/c themselves have not only been under sustained attack, economically and in terms of identity/composition, amplifies this.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Was hard to get 'othered' by the middle classes at my school, unless all teachers automatically count as middle class.
Hey ho, maybe you're from an urban centre or maybe you're a deeply stupid fuck, can't say it matters.
School as an institution, and as a process, inherently "others" w/c kids.
ffsear
Well-Known Member
Because their full of shit. Trust me, i know a lot. Media types!
ferrelhadley
There is no love between us anymore.
Social Grade | National Readership Survey
55% of the UK workforce is middle class by job categorization. Include much of the venomous hate mob on here. Though that is mostly self loathing being directed outward.
Many "middle class" jobs are people struggling to get by. It takes a real scumbag of Urban 75 or Daily Mail proportion to ignore many of these people.
Could barristers earn more working in McDonald's?
Teachers, junior doctors and many skilled jobs are filled in the lower ranks by people living in shared accommodation, struggling to make ends meet with little real hope of a better future in the next few years, decade or so. The cunts trick is to point to someone on a zero hours contract (though not a middle class person working in a professional role for fuck all money and zero security, they are SCUM unless off course they are anarchists, in which case heroes !!!!) and wail that if you can find one person worse of than a junior barrister then they have no right to complain about anything.
Now do carry on with your mixture of whiney self pity and hatred of anyone similar to yourself. It will help the night pass with a good few laughs.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
So how are you defining m/c there ferrelhadley ? Job category? Income? Something else?
8ball
1,200 lights
Could you expand - I wouldn’t want to dismiss this as drivel without a proper assessment. (+5 woke points grudgingly awarded)
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
Having to ask for explanation = - 5 WC points.
8ball
1,200 lights
Pride in inarticulacy = +5 WC points even more grudgingly awarded
Sasaferrato
Super Refuser!
I should hope not.I don't subscribe to that sort of hippy bollocks.“Quite woke”.
Is something you’ve never been called.
Proper Tidy
Arsed
Reread Learning to Labour again a while back. Great book.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Very briefly:
The curriculum, what is valued, and what is not, reflects the values of the dominant class.
The definition of educational success, what assessment measures and what outcomes should be sought also reflect the values of the dominant class.
These values contradict the lived experience of w/c families. Bourdieu talks of this as "symbolic violence".
You could also look at what Baudrillard calls "atmosphere" in schools. The architecture, colours, materials, design of "high status" schools - that aspired to by all schools - is the "taste" of the dominant class. Look at school uniform for a blatant example of this.
There's tonnes more though.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Criminally I've yet to read this.
Proper Tidy
Arsed
I strongly recommend. Best thing I've read on social reproduction of schools
8ball
1,200 lights
When you said “as an institution and as a process” I wasn’t sure what you meant, but can’t argue with any of that.
From my perspective, we didn’t feel like others *in the school*, but in terms of being taught that certain arenas were “not for us”, then yeah, definitely.
Edit: and thanks for the explanation and for your patience - think trying to kick the nicotine has made me a bit arsey today
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