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

[Pickman's model]

I do, it's true, and I was talking about the conditions in the south east (plus a bunch of other cities). But what do we make of the fact that it used to be abnormal to buy your house with inherited wealth but is now for large parts of the country the norm? This is a change to material conditions.

There are a range of definitions of class eg marx, weber etc. But none of them seem to mention home ownership

 

[andysays]

Sure, but I think I could make the argument successfully that what matters about class at large scale is material interests, and that this can be quite complex in our society. I don't think avocados will have much analytical power to explain why what happens in society happens, whereas I do think material interests do. The material interests of a worker who will inherit a house are objectively different from those of a worker who will not inherit a house. The latter will e.g. put up with a lower salary if they enjoy a job, the latter can't afford to put up with low salaries, whether or not they enjoy their job. This has serious effects in certain industries - e.g culture industries, which then has an effect, through art, on how people view themselves etc etc

I suspect the difference, in most cases, is not really as great as you seem to be suggesting.

Relatively few people who inherit a house from their parent(s) will be able to live off the income they gain by renting it out, which is what I suggest they would need to do to actually change their class position significantly.

When my Mum died a few years ago, by the time the proceeds from the sale of her flat were split between me and my two brothers, I was able to give my daughter enough to cover three years of university tuition fees and have a few grand left over for a rainy day. It's hardly been the life changing event you seem to be suggesting.

 

[ska invita]

This is what it always comes down to: “do me! Am I one of the ‘bad guys’?” No, you aren’t. That’s not what it’s about.

The problem is not shaming, the problem is appealing to someone politically.
Telling someone well off that they're alienated from their labour or they don't own the means of production gets nowhere if they are comfortable and stakeholders.

Average personal wealth in the UK has vastly increased since the industrial revolution, and the effectiveness of the class based political appeal has inevitably reduced in relation.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

If that's what you think is the case, then where does it leave your politics and political struggle, as I assume it then means you must have given up on class struggle as the factor in this as so many of the country are now not working class and have a position that makes them identify with the needs of capital?

No, not at all. It's simply a reality among many that I acknowledge. It can also be helpful in explaining how and why people act the way they do. At the very least, categories are complex and porous.

 

[campanula]

O, and all this chat about people with 100K salaries is just waffle because such a worker is still in a position where they can be sacked/made redundant and find themselves woefully impoverished. At heart, this is about power rather than raw income, (I think) but, tbf, I could be missing any number of points. It always seemed pretty clear to me anyway - who are the shits in this set-up.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

O, and all this chat about people with 100K salaries is just waffle because such a worker is still in a position where they can be sacked/made redundant and find themselves woefully impoverished. At heart, this is about power rather than raw income, (I think).

And a small business owner can go bankrupt.

 

[redsquirrel]

I'm talking about how material conditions affect the behaviour of people on a large scale. Owning a house is one of the factors, whether or not you are making money on it or profiting from someone else's labour.

OK. Just for the moment let's take this contention as true. What next. how does that answer LDC's question

f that's what you think is the case, then where does it leave your politics and political struggle, as I assume it then means you must have given up on class struggle as the factor in this as so many of the country are now not working class and have a position that makes them identify with the needs of capital?

 

[chilango]

The problem is not shaming, the problem is appealing to someone politically.
Telling someone well off that they're alienated from their labour or they don't own the means of production gets nowhere if they are comfortable and stakeholders.

Average personal wealth in the UK has vastly increased since the industrial revolution, and the effectiveness of the class based political appeal has inevitably reduced in relation.

I dunno.

Most people's jobs still suck.

 

[LDC]

The problem is not shaming, the problem is appealing to someone politically. Telling someone well off that they're alienated from their labour or they don't own the means of production gets nowhere if they are comfortable and stakeholders.

I dunno.

Most people's jobs still suck.

Yeah exactly, chatting to people about why things are shit and how they might be better isn't a 'hard sell' at all in my experience, mostly whatever their wage or house owning status is. The harder bit is getting to believe that something better is possible and that there's routes to it.

 

[redsquirrel]

BTW this 'Marx's analysis of class no longer really applies nowadays' is almost as old as Marx's work. Meiksins Wood's Retreat from Class (1986) discusses, and demolishes, it. And as the subtitle alludes to that was not the first 'New Socialism"

 

[Bus Honeygun]

Genuinely interesting discussion.

I'm way out of my depth and a bit too pissed to coherently comment, but it just sticks in my head that I've had a walk today and went past the house of a mate who lives in what would be described by estate agents as a delightful period property in a well situated unspoilt village. His neighbours are wealthy, retired types from the professions, but he was a train driver with no O-levels who joined BR in the early 80s when it was a shit job but he didn’t care because he liked trains.

30 years later he retires on nearly £60,000 a year plus good pension and benefits, thanks in combination to the guild union clout of ASLEF and privatisation freeing (until recently and DfT reabsorption) them from public sector wage restraint.

He's a good bloke who's never forgotten his roots, but there are plenty in his former job who think they've done very well out of capitalism in public services and will never feel an affinity with the kids today with university degrees struggling in admin jobs that previously would have been two GCSE positions.

 

[killer b]

I do, it's true, and I was talking about the conditions in the south east (plus a bunch of other cities). But what do we make of the fact that it used to be abnormal to buy your house with inherited wealth but is now for large parts of the country the norm? This is a change to material conditions.

I think it's only really a change to material conditions in one very specific way, ie you have an interest in the continued expansion of the housing price bubble. I'm not sure if Marx had anything to say about that particular material condition tbf.

 

[chilango]

I think it's worth reflecting upon the reasons for discussing "class" in the first place.

For some, it's a lens through which to understand the structures and processes of society, perhaps with a view to changing them.

For others, it's a way of describing identity.

Often people are trying a bit of both, and that's when it gets confusing.

And that's without accounting for the confusion between wealth, income, power and class.

 

[Athos]

I think it's only really a change to material conditions in one very specific way, ie you have an interest in the continued expansion of the housing price bubble. I'm not sure if Marx had anything to say about that particular material condition tbf.

Even then your interest in the housing price bubble is limited unless you own a second home. You'll need to sell your place to buy somewhere else, so prices going up or down don't mean much - if you make more on the sale you'll pay more for the purchase, and vice versa.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Even then your interest in the housing price bubble is limited unless you own a second home. You'll need to sell your place to buy somewhere else, so prices going up or down don't mean much - of you make more in the sale you'll pay more for the purchase, and vice versa.

A lot of people in London and the SE who bought pre-boom have cashed in by selling up and moving to a cheaper area, retiring to Jamaica, etc. Equity on your home gives you options.

 

[danny la rouge]

I don't think it does; you've not really made a case for why a relationship to the means of production is the best measure of material interest in the modern world (and you've slightly glossed over some of the challenges that poses e.g. we all own the means of production by way of shares in pensions).

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but am playing devil's advocate to tease out your excellent analysis.

To the extent that I have shown the nature of power, who holds it, their numerical inferiority, and how it is to be overthrown, and what the class relationship should be replaced by, I think it does.

I don’t demand that people agree with me. But I do wish they wouldn’t say this model doesn’t cover things it clearly does cover.

 

[Athos]

A lot of people in London and the SE who bought pre-boom have cashed in by selling up and moving to a cheaper area, retiring to Jamaica, etc. Equity on your home gives you options.

Yeah, that's why I said limited. There are those people, but it's a small minority of homeowners who are willing and able to cobbler uproot their lives to cash in equity.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yeah, that's why I said limited. There are those people, but it's a small minority of homeowners who are willing and able to cobbler uproot their lives to cash in equity.

In London, it's loads of people.

 

[danny la rouge]

The problem is not shaming, the problem is appealing to someone politically.
Telling someone well off that they're alienated from their labour or they don't own the means of production gets nowhere if they are comfortable and stakeholders.

Average personal wealth in the UK has vastly increased since the industrial revolution, and the effectiveness of the class based political appeal has inevitably reduced in relation.

I think what’s reduced it’s appeal (and I agree its appeal is reduced) is the fact that it suits those in power if people are prevented from seeing where their class interests lie.

 

[danny la rouge]

You're behind the times Danny, almost no-one buys a house these days without inherited wealth. The only people buying just from their own labour are those people on £100k.

Whether that’s correct or not, it’s not what was initially asked.

 

[campanula]

Soz, forgotten how this works - meant to reply to LBJ
Indeed...and for the longest time, I would have been very insistent that the discrepancy between value and equity had a distinct place in discussions about class and wealth. However, I gotta say, I am looking at things through different lens since I pay a smallish rent to a local council and have enjoyed huge security and relative freedom for over 40 years. Not at all the same formy kids, renting on the private market. Social housing for all seems a much better way than stumping up for a demented amount of money to be mortgaged for years and years. All in all, I would really prefer to see an end to private ownership of property in favour of community ownership of all housing (cloud cuckoo land)

 

[The39thStep]

I work with loads of nurses who own their house, some outright, does that make them not working class? Lol that they're 'hugely protected' by this btw.

I've known miners, plasterers, printers, train drivers, steel erectors who not only had their own houses but went abroad on foreign holidays.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Soz, forgotten how this works - meant to reply to LBJ
Indeed...and for the longest time, I would have been very insistent that the discrepancy between value and equity had a distinct place in discussions about class and wealth. However, I gotta say, I am looking at things through different lens since I pay a smallish rent to a local council and have enjoyed huge security and relative freedom for over 40 years. Not at all the same formy kids, renting on the private market. Social housing for all seems a much better way than stumping up for a demented amount of money to be mortgaged for years and years. All in all, I would really prefer to see an end to private ownership of property in favour of community ownership of all housing (cloud cuckoo land)

For clarity, I'm not advocating any of this. I think the property boom of the last 20-odd years is a massive social evil and one that it will be very difficult to reverse. But ime a lot of people who found themselves on the lucky side of the boom tend not to agree with me. That's a problem.

 

[Athos]

I think what’s reduced it’s appeal (and I agree its appeal is reduced) is the fact that it suits those in power if people are prevented from seeing where their class interests lie.

A big part of capital's success is selling the idea that the interests of the relatively well-off working class i.e. home-owners, decent wage, established careers, good pension, and a little bit of savings - and of those who aspire to that - are more aligned with the interests of capitalists than with those of poorer working class people. Of course, under capitalism they might be e.g. low taxation, low benefits, markets stable, controlled inflation etc., etc.

But the elephant in the room is that we don't need to live under capitalism - it's not an inevitable permanent state of affairs.

But one of the left's failings* is that the idea of a radical shift seems so far away that many in the w/c would rather take their chances on getting the best from the status quo.

*It accepted the logic of neoliberalism and pivoted away from a broad based economic movements of, by, and for workers, to atomised identarian causes (essentially radical liberalism) led by middle-class careerists.

 

[cesare]

A big part of capital's success is selling the idea that the interests of the relatively well-off working class i.e. home-owners, decent wage, established careers, good pension, and a little bit of savings - and of those who aspire to that - are more aligned with the interests of capitalists than with those of poorer working class people. Of course, under capitalism they might be e.g. low taxation, low benefits, markets stable, controlled inflation etc., etc.

But the elephant in the room is that we don't need to live under capitalism - it's not an inevitable permanent state of affairs.

But one of the left's failings* is that the idea of a radical shift seems so far away that many in the w/c would rather take their chances on getting the best from the status quo.

*It accepted the logic of neoliberalism and pivoted away from a broad based economic movements of, by, and for workers, to atomised identarian causes (essentially radical liberalism) led by middle-class careerists.

I would have thought that * was social liberalism rather than radicalism. Or is this just a labelling issue?

 

[Athos]

I would have thought that * was social liberalism rather than radicalism. Or is this just a labelling issue?

It was a slightly tongue-in-cheek jibe at what passes for the self-defined radical left. But the point remains the same.

 

[SpineyNorman]

It matters because of the political consequences. It took a while to dawn on me how many people there are on high salaries because for a long time I didn't meet any of them. But travelling round SE England and see the well-off suburbs and exurbs made me realise there are a lot. Latest figure I can find is "545,000 privately employed people earning £100,000 or more" - from this guff article The perils of earning a £100,000 salary . That's not a small number. A lot of them will be managerial as well and fit more into the classic middle class category, but a bunch of them won't be these days. Who pays the high rents in London without blinking? These people.

Meanwhile there are 2 million landlords in the UK, many of whom identify as 'working class' and spend their time making other people's lives a misery and all telling themselves they're a 'good landlord'.

There are over 67 million people in the UK so 545k is still significantly less than 1 percent.

 

[ska invita]

. 'Marxism has the only valid defn of class because Marxism has the only valid description of society' is not really defensible except to dedicated Marxists.

Its not even just Marxism, its a Marxist analysis made at a very particular point in history. Post industrial Britain, with an economy built on factory workers being exploited in poorer countries further complicate the picture.

I think it's worth reflecting upon the reasons for discussing "class" in the first place.

For some, it's a lens through which to understand the structures and processes of society, perhaps with a view to changing them.

For others, it's a way of describing identity.

A really porous definition of class doesn't do a good job of defining society, in fact it airbrushes out all kinds of differences.

More important to me is how to make a political case to people for 'socialism' within a rich country like the UK.
Oops hit post too early... Have more to add but can't be arsed now my stop coming up

 

[ska invita]

Even then your interest in the housing price bubble is limited unless you own a second home. You'll need to sell your place to buy somewhere else, so prices going up or down don't mean much - if you make more on the sale you'll pay more for the purchase, and vice versa.

It goes much deeper than bubbles, it changes ideology... Becomes about the right to private property and the individualism that goes with being a stakeholder, and what I Have Earned etc

ts. All in all, I would really prefer to see an end to private ownership of property in favour of community ownership of all housing (cloud cuckoo land)

A good example of how home owning changes ideology, in general people who own property will likely think you are dangerous and wrong, people without will see the merit more readily

 

[littlebabyjesus]

More important to me is how to make a political case to people for 'socialism' within a rich country like the UK.

This is it for me as well, and I genuinely think it would benefit a large majority of people. That's a good start. imho the Occupy movement had some decent ideas about how to include the vast bulk of the population under a call for collective provision.