'Middle Class' it's basically just a construct isn't it...

[Pickman's model]

That's disingenuous. You came back to have a dig at me hours after the fact.

that's nothing, i've done it weeks, months, even years after the event.

 

[DotCommunist]

Yeah, I got to page 3 and saw that starting and thought FUK DIS.

My dad used to hop one legged to the Labour Exchange while my mum kept us afloat cooking trifles for Lord Bastard. My education was funded by the Mormons and I currently wank goats off for 100 pounds an hour. WHAT CLASS AM I THEN?

 

[JimW]

Beagle destroyer

 

[Santino]

Upper MC old. Ish. With a chic shabby beard.

Oh, quite quite wrong, btw.

 

[Pickman's model]

Beagle destroyer

all that for a few fucking dogs? they must have bloody hated beagles in those days.

 

[stuff_it]

Oh, quite quite wrong, btw.

Oh, soz - in his 20s, went to public school, dong an arts degree at Oxbridge.....

 

[Santino]

Oh, soz - in his 20s, went to public school, dong an arts degree at Oxbridge.....

0/3

 

[Santino]

Hang on, you did mean me, didn't you?

 

[stuff_it]

Hang on, you did mean me, didn't you?

Yes but I was ripping the piss mercilessly after four bottles of cider so I didn't take your response at face value.



<quoting refuseniks...mumble...grr>

 

[Treacle Toes]

Many of the MC people I know self identify as MC. They are far too politically and socially aware to want to be seen or feel like they are truly priviledged and 'Upper class' but at the same time, would secretly puke at the idea that anyone would think them working class because of the prejudices they have internalised, and/or enjoy the 'status' they have and are shit scared of losing it.

 

[redsquirrel]

Yep, you get a clear sense of this in the debates they have here about increasing domestic demand so they can move away from export dependence and that warped relationship with the US (primarily) economy. It's obvious even to mainstream economists that the quickest way to do this would be to raise working class wages (even after a bit of an upturn recently still incredibly low even by SE Asian developmental economy standards IIRC) or deliver the social health care model they've been promising for a decade or more, but that doesn't suit the agenda of anyone bar the last few well-meaning reformists in the state apparatus, so what you get instead is this reliance on a white collar group in the cities (or petty bourgeois maybe more widely) that just might be open to a few very lucky working class people as the pressure valve. You might just make enough slaving in the service sector to go home and open a shop or hair salon (even though 99% of those will bomb); you might be the one office drone who gets promoted into something managerial. It's this lot that occupy far more of policy-maker's time and who the state seems most interested in serving/fostering.
What I'm not sure about is how far it's deliberate and how far it's a logic playing out that becomes self-reinforcing.

Really interesting posts Jim, thanks.

What would you do if your job vanished? Find another similar one? Go on the dole because you can't do anything else? Ring up a friend who can get you a cushy number somewhere?

I think there was a good piece of data someone (butchers?) posted up a couple of years ago looking at the correlation between job security and ability to live off your savings.

 

[Crispy]

Many of the MC people I know self identify as MC.

Yup. I know what I am, and don't need to supplicate myself in front of the thread to find out

 

[TruXta]

Oh, quite quite wrong, btw.

But you'd like it to be true of course.

 

[love detective]

How old are you, Santino?

how old do you think people should be before they are allowed to express their opinion on a message board?

 

[Santino]

But you'd like it to be true of course.

Like what to be true?

 

[kabbes]

I can confirm that Santino is 75 years old with 5 children, 14 grandchildren and 33 great-grandchildren, one of whom is the president of Bulgaria. In his time, he has created hope and destroyed worlds. This has qualified him to talk about class as it relates to choice of job, but sadly not as it relates to choice of entertainment snack.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

Many highly paid people in some ways have fewer freedoms in their work than people in low-paid work. I don't know how old you are, but I'm guessing that you're a few years younger than me. My attitude to my employment at the moment is that I have to keep working to pay the bills I have at the moment. Life was easier when I was probably your age and working in a badly paid job but with no debts or responsibilities.

Would like to try it some time to see what it's like, while knowing that I am risking the lesser freedom involved with being paid much more in a better job than I have now. There are a few important things restricting my 'freedom' to do that (finding the time and money for funding and juggling study with day to day responsibilities and full-time work being one), however. I know it isn't just about me, though, like.

 

[butchersapron]

I think there was a good piece of data someone (butchers?) posted up a couple of years ago looking at the correlation between job security and ability to live off your savings.

Figures were from Doug Henwood's book After the New Economy and covered the US in 1998 (book published 2003) - i expect things have got even worse since. Basically they showed how many months each household quintile could exist at their current level of spendings and how long they could exist spending at 125% of the poverty line on savings alone (first number is current, second is at 125%)

Richest 25.5 - 81.5
Second Richest 8.2 - 18.4
Middle 2.2 - 3.4
Second Poorest 0.1 - 0.1
Poorest 0 - 0

 

[stuff_it]

I can confirm that Santino is 75 years old with 5 children, 14 grandchildren and 33 great-grandchildren, one of whom is the president of Bulgaria. In his time, he has created hope and destroyed worlds. This has qualified him to talk about class as it relates to choice of job, but sadly not as it relates to choice of entertainment snack.

The Entertainment Snack Federation of Bulgaria wants a word with you.

 

[Random]

Many highly paid people in some ways have fewer freedoms in their work than people in low-paid work. I don't know how old you are, but I'm guessing that you're a few years younger than me. My attitude to my employment at the moment is that I have to keep working to pay the bills I have at the moment. Life was easier when I was probably your age and working in a badly paid job but with no debts or responsibilities.

FFS baby, isn't that blantantly an age difference you're talking about? Debts and responsibilities come with age. There are plenty of people in low paid work also bringing up families, you know?

 

[redsquirrel]

Figures were from Doug Henwood's book After the New Economy and covered the US in 1998 (book published 2003) - i expect things have got even worse since. Basically they showed how many months each household quintile could exist at their current level of spendings and how long they could exist spending at 125% of the poverty line on savings alone (first number is current, second is at 125%)

Richest 25.5 - 81.5
Second Richest 8.2 - 18.4
Middle 2.2 - 3.4
Second Poorest 0.1 - 0.1
Poorest 0 - 0

Ta

 

[littlebabyjesus]

FFS baby, isn't that blantantly an age difference you're talking about? Debts and responsibilities come with age. There are plenty of people in low paid work also bringing up families, you know?

Of course there are. That wasn't my point. Santino appeared to be trying to show something using my job and my attitude towards it as an illustration of a wider point. But bringing this kind of analysis down to the level of the individual doesn't work. You can't prove any wider point by looking at the circumstances of any individual, especially if you're only taking a small section of that individual's circumstances into consideration.

 

[Santino]

Of course there are. That wasn't my point. Santino appeared to be trying to show something using my job and my attitude towards it as an illustration of a wider point. But bringing this kind of analysis down to the level of the individual doesn't work. You can't prove any wider point by looking at the circumstances of any individual, especially if you're only taking a small section of that individual's circumstances into consideration.

We were discussing whether or not people think about class in their day-to-day lives. Actual, individual people. That's what we were talking about.

 

[ViolentPanda]

What I am on about is deliberate categorisation which is then promoted to us by the government, so that some people look down on others...

it's called "divide and rule". It's a strategy as old as "civilisation" itself.

some people spend their lives aspiring to something...

Everybody does, it's just that what gets aspired to differs.

but the vast majority are in fact in the same leaky boat and should be working together.

And they do, but only insofar as is beneficial to maintain the status quo.

 

[ViolentPanda]

What do you think of yourself as?

To all..

A mongrel. Working class upbringing, decent education, put myself through higher ed, but I've only ever had a single job that could be classed as "middle class" (civil servant) rather than low grade manual and clerical stuff. Live on a council estate, am disabled and can't work to the sot of consistent hours most employers want.

 

[ViolentPanda]

That's because everything is about class. The trouble is, too many people think class is about balsamic vinegar vs mushy peas.

Rather than about definitions that have had to evolve alongside economic and social change.

 

[weltweit]

We were discussing whether or not people think about class in their day-to-day lives. Actual, individual people. That's what we were talking about.

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
Eleanor Roosevelt

 

[kabbes]

You do realise the irony, I hope, of giving a line about the small-mindedness of discussing individuals and then being sure to attribute the quote?

 

[weltweit]

You do realise the irony, I hope, of giving a line about the small-mindedness of discussing individuals and then being sure to attribute the quote?

I think you are reading too much into it

 

[Santino]

I think you are reading too much into it

An accusation that is rarely levelled at you.