Why do people from privileged class backgrounds often misidentify their origins as working class?

[The39thStep]

Got to say that i don't really see how the size of a rentier's portfolio affects their status as leeches of unearned income. Perhaps the gradations of middle-classness are the problem here.

Woe betide those who have lodgers

 

[Chilli.s]

The whole property situation in the uk is a fuck up. The idea of a "ladder" that you get on, it's a marketing con by the banks to get a steady income. Mortgages were difficult to get in the old days and the de regulation of them in the early seventies gave a green light to finance to start to gouge profit. Being a landlord is no sign of class though, take Rigsby, possibly the most famous fictional landlord, just an ordinary w.c. bloke. I've had plenty of good landlords who were decent people providing decent value within the constraints of the rental market. Landlords take the risk and responsibility that I couldn't manage.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Yeah, as fun as it can be to try and work out what class someone would be if they've voted tory but never eaten a viennetta, surely the whole point of class analysis is to work out collective class interests - as a renter, I have shared material interests with other renters, things like more protections for tenants and restrictions on what landlords can do would be good for me. The landlord of a single flat in Croydon might even be a nice and altruistic person who supports those things on principle, but their relationship to tenant protections or landlord regulations would be very different to mine, no?

Yes agreed. I think to go back to Brainaddict's point though, I do think this is where 'the left' hasn't been very successful in recognising the difference in those different interests. I'm thinking maybe around homeownership more than landlordism really. I mean it's fine to say, as people have here, that being a homeowner doesn't make you middle class and lots of working class people own homes but don't you then have to recognise that conflict of interest exists within the group still? Obviously the Tories have successfully appealed to those interests and Labour have lost votes, but even if you're coming at it from a more radical left viewpoint, working class homeowners aren't likely to be attracted to 'abolish all property' type approaches are they?

 

[Smokeandsteam]

That sounds about right tbh.

2/3 of Britain being middle class sounds about right to you??

 

[hitmouse]

Yeah, dunno really. Is it worth making a further distinction between mortgage-havers and people who haven't paid their mortgages off? I suppose it's easy to roll both into the same category of "homeowner", but if you're paying a mortgage off then are you that much more secure than a renter?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yeah, dunno really. Is it worth making a further distinction between mortgage-havers and people who haven't paid their mortgages off? I suppose it's easy to roll both into the same category of "homeowner", but if you're paying a mortgage off then are you that much more secure than a renter?

Than private renting, yes, you are. You're not subject to yearly rent increases, and as long as you keep your job, you're not subject to the threat of eviction with a couple of months' notice. That's a big difference. (Plus, you know you are likely to have a government that will act in the interests of homeowners, generally, to the extent of borrowing massively to prop up the market.)

Social housing renting can be different. But in the UK, private renting laws are so terrible that you never have any security.

 

[Chilli.s]

And now anyone who has a property is forced to pay for their old age care with it

 

[littlebabyjesus]

2/3 of Britain being middle class sounds about right to you??

If you widen the idea to one in which many people have a mixed status, yes. As ever, depends on your definitions.

 

[The39thStep]

2/3 of Britain being middle class sounds about right to you??

We've clearly been concentrating on the wrong class

 

[hitmouse]

Than private renting, yes, you are. You're not subject to yearly rent increases, and as long as you keep your job, you're not subject to the threat of eviction with a couple of months' notice. That's a big difference.

Social housing renting can be different. But in the UK, private renting laws are so terrible that you never have any security.

Fair enough, yeah, I was thinking of the way that mortgage-holders were hit after the 2008 crash, but I suppose that was relatively exceptional whereas tenants are just in that situation all the time. And similarly I suppose being in a permanent job with a proper contract is very different to being on some zero-hours bogus-self-employed shit, but some of the underlying power relations are still the same?
Dunno, I'd think of the PAH in Spain as being something worthwhile and that feels like class struggle to me:

Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But then I suppose the fact that I have to give a Spanish example says something about the UK not being great at articulating those interests in a class struggle way?

 

[Pickman's model]

.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Fair enough, yeah, I was thinking of the way that mortgage-holders were hit after the 2008 crash,

Most mortgage holders did very well out of the 2008 crash. Interest rates came crashing down.

Some people were unable to move for a while due to negative equity, but otherwise, as long as you kept your job, you were totally fine, and as I say, your costs came down.

ETA: This was surely an important factor in keeping people voting tory during the pay cuts of the 'austerity' years.

 

[muscovyduck]

Yeah, dunno really. Is it worth making a further distinction between mortgage-havers and people who haven't paid their mortgages off? I suppose it's easy to roll both into the same category of "homeowner", but if you're paying a mortgage off then are you that much more secure than a renter?

I hate to keep banging the same drum but even if you own the house, once you hit old age and start getting ill that's really not secure as an asset any more, or even if you're not old but you need full time care long term after a serious accident or something. I would be very suprised if anyone's pension can actually cover full time care fees. Most of us (including some of the middle class) have common interests here but people don't realise it's too late.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Yes agreed. I think to go back to Brainaddict's point though, I do think this is where 'the left' hasn't been very successful in recognising the difference in those different interests. I'm thinking maybe around homeownership more than landlordism really. I mean it's fine to say, as people have here, that being a homeowner doesn't make you middle class and lots of working class people own homes but don't you then have to recognise that conflict of interest exists within the group still? Obviously the Tories have successfully appealed to those interests and Labour have lost votes, but even if you're coming at it from a more radical left viewpoint, working class homeowners aren't likely to be attracted to 'abolish all property' type approaches are they?

There is no doubt that Thatcher was correct to identify home ownership as a critical issue for working class voters and also that the sale of council houses was an important symbol of the new order she intended to impose on Britain. But some of the arguments on here are straying into Galbraith's Affluent Society territory.

As for your last point, do we say a worker who has a mortgage is more or less likely to challenge the established order than those who once lived in a house rented from their employer and where the roof over their head was often clearly linked to avoiding workplace militancy? This was once a commonplace set of arrangements in mining communities, shipbuilding and much of industry. My dad grew up in a house rented off his dad's bosses. I really think you need to be careful about ascribing too much into people who have managed to obtain a mortgage. Landlords, I would accept is a different matter.

 

[Storm Fox]

Hate to go #notalllandlords but there's a significant minority who are just people who've had to do some maneuvering to hold onto a home that should 'belong' to someone whose in long term care, people going through nasty divorces, etc. The same way the stock market holds everyone's pensions hostage, the rental market holds a lot of vulnerable people hostage. You can't claim someone whose rented out a house so they can afford the literal extortion of care for the elderly is middle class. They're just being exploited by the people profiting off the care system, as is the tenant.

Whether the landlord involves understands this, and is proactive in doing as little harm as possible, is a different question.

My sister lives in a (relatively) wealthy area in an otherwise down on its luck bit of Birmingham. The amount of empty houses is shocking, like the equivalent of what you get with retail units up a high street. The arseholes who own these houses are class traitors imo. Just full on hoarding houses they've inherited, often while they have a sibling who grew up in the house who wants to move in (or often whose entitled to money from the sale or something).

I was a landlord few a couple of years, I couldn't afford my flat so had to move back in with my parents and needed to rent it out to cover the mortgage. The tenant asked for a couple of things to be added to the flat, which I didn't have when I was living there which I gladly did. I wasn't a dick and would have been happy to do more if requested, I also gave the tenant the option of leaving my washer dryer for them to use, (which was safety tested).
When they moved out then it was vacant for about 6 six months while I sold it.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Yeah, dunno really. Is it worth making a further distinction between mortgage-havers and people who haven't paid their mortgages off? I suppose it's easy to roll both into the same category of "homeowner", but if you're paying a mortgage off then are you that much more secure than a renter?

Depends what sort of renter.

If someone is a council/social/affordable housing renter, then their tenure is relatively secure.

If someone is a private sector renter, they have very little security, beyond the initial... six or 12 months? of an Assured Shorthold Tenancy. So many private sector tenants get served with possession notices/evicted, because the landlord wants to sell up, which is happening more and more.

iirc, private sector landlords can no longer offset mortgage interest on their profits, and the regulatory requirements are becoming more and more onerous in terms of quality and safety, (gas and electricity safety tests, Energy Performance Certificates, etc), which is no bad thing, of course, from the tenants perspective, but for many landlords the additional costs, coupled with substantial losses if they get a bad tenant who stops paying the rent, they incur the legal costs of eviction, and then often the bad tenant has trashed the place, causing £thousands of damage, and the deposit doesn't cover those costs...

Not all landlords are bad, just as not all tenants are bad. And don't forget, many Buy To Let landlords are relatively ordinary people in relatively ordinary jobs who have invested in property as their 'pension', because they saw what happened to the Maxwell media pensioners, the Rover pensioners, and so many other people who'd worked all their lives and then got fucked over by thieving fuckers who raided their pension schemes. So many people have ended up figuring they've got to look after Number One, because the company you work for isn't going to, the government isn't going to either.

But all that means is that private sector renters are vulnerable to the knock-on effect of being susceptible to the changing circumstances in the life of their landlord, and the risks and amount of work that landlord is prepared for.

I'm in a couple of landlord groups on Facebook, because I was thinking about renting out my flat if I end up working away, or maybe getting a lodger.

Lots of landlords are either selling up, or thinking about doing so. So renting in the private sector is going to become more and more unstable over the next few years, I think.

The best kind of stability, I think, is still 'getting on the property ladder' and aiming to be mortgage free in a freehold property, not leasehold. But I know that's not an option for everyone. It's bad enough when it's adults who are impacted by the whims of landlords, but when families with children are having to move every couple of years, it's awful.

I don't think the government has properly studied or taken account of the impact of insecure housing on small children especially in their formative years. I have friends who moved four times in the first six years of their daughter's life, because of landlords selling up and them having to move, only for the same thing to happen again. And I know someone else who ended up homeless and living in an hotel room then temporary accommodation with their primary school age daughter, after their landlord wanted the property back that they'd rented for years, paying the rent promptly, no problems. The landlord probably wanted to either sell or maybe renovate and rent out for a lot more money, which is another thing they do when rents are increasing rapidly, ie get rid of the current tenant, give it a lick of paint, then rent it out for an extra couple of hundred a month.

Private sector renters are screwed, and it's only going to get worse.

 

[A380]

I think for a few of the posters on this thread the British working class in 2022 consists of:

The poster
The posters wife*
Their dog, Susan.



(*For such a level of idiocy is invariably male.)

 

[ouirdeaux]

Nobody calls their dog Susan. Particularly if they believe that they're working class.

 

[platinumsage]

Nobody calls their dog Susan. Particularly if they believe that they're working class.

I met a cat called Susan once, the owner was a beach vendor on a Caribbean island, which no doubt made him and his cat petite bourgeoisie.

 

[A380]

I met a cat called Susan once, the owner was a beach vendor on a Caribbean island, which no doubt made him and his cat petite bourgeoisie.

First against the wall.

ETA. Susan the cat faces the firing squad come the revolution.

 

[chilango]

We've clearly been concentrating on the wrong class

I suspect in a number of ways that's truer than you intended.

 

[Brainaddict]

There is no doubt that Thatcher was correct to identify home ownership as a critical issue for working class voters and also that the sale of council houses was an important symbol of the new order she intended to impose on Britain. But some of the arguments on here are straying into Galbraith's Affluent Society territory.

As for your last point, do we say a worker who has a mortgage is more or less likely to challenge the established order than those who once lived in a house rented from their employer and where the roof over their head was often clearly linked to avoiding workplace militancy? This was once a commonplace set of arrangements in mining communities, shipbuilding and much of industry. My dad grew up in a house rented off his dad's bosses. I really think you need to be careful about ascribing too much into people who have managed to obtain a mortgage. Landlords, I would accept is a different matter.

This is a bit irrelevant though, because we're talking about the differences in society now, and almost no-one has tied accommodation now. The class groupings around housing are roughly: landlord, ownership(secure), ownership(insecure), secure tenancies, private rented tenancies. Those groups all have different interests, but I'd argue that the biggest faultline is between those who own and those who rent. The Tories keep winning elections because they picked a side. Most of the left still hasn't worked out there are sides, even though it's about clear material interests.

Really not very interested in hearing from the 'not all landlords' gang. Come on, this is very unsophisticated thinking. When people talk about bosses being exploitative do you start talking about someone you know who has a small business and is really nice to their employees, or someone you know who accidentally ended up owning their mum's flower shop? Of course there are all sorts of edge cases and gradients within the class alignments, but that doesn't stop there being large power blocs or voting blocs who want different, often opposing things.

 

[A380]

Nobody calls their dog Susan. Particularly if they believe that they're working class.

The Queen did, and Princess Margret thought she (the Queen not the dog) was common.

Susan (dog) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[ouirdeaux]

You added the bit about Margaret, though

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I suspect in a number of ways that's truer than you intended.

My favourite quote is from Joe Reilly, previously of this manor who once said*, "If nobody is working class any more, who is doing the work?"

*Paraphrased somewhat.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

My favourite quote is from Joe Reilly, previously of this manor who once said*, "If nobody is working class any more, who is doing the work?"

*Paraphrased somewhat.

And by that definition surely the working class is the majority. Those who have no choice but to sell their labour in order to survive. That's most of us.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

And by that definition surely the working class is the majority. Those who have no choice but to sell their labour in order to survive. That's most of us.

Hang on, I thought you said that 66% of the population being middle class ‘felt about right’?

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Those groups all have different interests, but I'd argue that the biggest faultline is between those who own and those who rent. The Tories keep winning elections because they picked a side. Most of the left still hasn't worked out there are sides, even though it's about clear material interests.

What evidence is there that ‘the biggest fault line is between those who own and those who rent’? How do you take this idea forward without setting to set up another set of generational divides?

As for picking sides why would ‘the left’ want to write off 63% of the population on the basis that it possesses one particularly form of material interest?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Not all landlords are bad, just as not all tenants are bad.

And yet...

Private sector renters are screwed, and it's only going to get worse.

Maybe not all landlords do overtly evil shit like evicting people just to put the rent up but if you're in a position of constantly worrying if they're going to turf you out it doesn't really matter, because 'good' or 'bad' they've still put themselves in that position where they can fuck up someone else's life to make a few bob extra or to spare themselves the hassle of phoning the agency twice, three times a year.

I don't think there's anything preventing landlords from offering long term tenancies. But none do. Because they're all out for themselves at the end of the day. So maybe they're nice people, but they might as well not be for all the difference it makes.

 

[SpookyFrank]

What evidence is there that ‘the biggest fault line is between those who own and those who rent’? How do you take this idea forward without setting to set up another set of generational divides?

As for picking sides why would ‘the left’ want to write off 63% of the population on the basis that it possesses one particularly form of material interest?

Because homeowners have multiple parties chasing their votes and renters have none?

Because that one particular form of material interest is the single biggest material factor affecting a person's quality of life? Because neoliberal capitalism is now entirely focussed on property speculation and there can be no challenge to it that doesn't address homes and housing?