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

[SpookyFrank]

It's OK to like sushi as long as you don't like wasabi or pickled ginger

Those are the only parts of sushi worth eating.

Cold stodgy rice and seaweed? No, no thanks.

 

[seventh bullet]

I bought my place simply because of the state of renting in the UK. If social housing was plentiful and the private sector was better regulated then I never would've done it. It's not an 'asset,' it's my home, reasonably affordable and cheap to maintain. It doesn't change my thoughts on society and my class. This shite is why we need communism. Shelter in a human society is fundamental. It's baseline stuff like food and fucking water. It's that simple.

 

[strung out]

Food choices can fuck off from a class analysis though right? We're so multicultural now that whether someone eats hummous or guacamole or sushi or splashes out on expensive olives or fresh juice or even wine, is down to taste, nutrition, and because its all available these days. As if working class people should stick to stew and beer and rickets.

We're ok talking about quinoa though right?

 

[deeyo]

I just need to know before the Red Guards kick my door in.

better stay away from this one then. esp 'filling 2'

Plant sushi with brown rice and yummy fillings — Plant based by Thess

Everything is okay in sushi making, if you ask me. Fill your rolls with what every you love and everything will be alright. Here are a few of my favourites!

plantbasedbythess.com

 

[mojo pixy]

We're ok talking about quinoa though right?

If cocaine is OK, quinoa is OK too

(ftr I'm not sure cocaine is ok, I'm just equating one exotic, resource-intensive consumer good whose increased overseas consumption has detrimental effects on people in the places it comes from, with another)

 

[Elpenor]

It used to be a job you could go into as a working class person, without funding yourself through years of university, and end up with a good profession and a decent income. That was what my mum did. When I was a kid our whole family lived off her nursing bursary.

Now nursing is university-only, bursaries have been cut and wages have fallen in real terms. That route for people (particularly women) to get themselves a good career without having family money to back them up has disappeared.

My nanna was a midwife and a single mum and raised two kids off her salary in the 50s. She had originally gone into nursing in the 30s I think in part due to there being accommodation as part of the role and also because it allowed her to work in various parts of what was still nominally the empire (Palestine, Hong Kong - travelling there by flying boat!). Not bad for someone from a mining / farming village half way up a mountain.

 

[The39thStep]

Food choices can fuck off from a class analysis though right? We're so multicultural now that whether someone eats hummous or guacamole or sushi or splashes out on expensive olives or fresh juice or even wine, is down to taste, nutrition, and because its all available these days. As if working class people should stick to stew and beer and rickets.

Is multi culturalism a major factor in guacamole consumption?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Mushy peas is the traditional proley version.

 

[mojo pixy]

Is multi culturalism a major factor in guacamole consumption?

I've not read any academic studies but I do know all kinds of exotic foodstuffs I never saw as a kid are readily available in asda now. Which may suggest the relationship between class and eg guacamole, sushi, olives, quinoa or live yogurt is tenuous at best.

The role of multiculturalism in this is either unclear or really obvious. I'm going with really obvious, but happy to read over any detailed analysis should it be available.

 

[The39thStep]

I've not read any academic studies but I do know all kinds of exotic foodstuffs I never saw as a kid are readily available in asda now. Which may suggest the relationship between class and eg guacamole, sushi, olives, quinoa or live yogurt is tenuous at best.

The role of multiculturalism in this is either unclear or really obvious. I'm going with really obvious, but happy to read over any detailed analysis should it be available.

Yup there's far more stuff available and consumed ( depending on price ) by all sorts of folks. My question wasn't about class and food styles though it was about the link between multi culturalism and the consumption of things like guacamole ie could marketing ie promotion of 'super foods' , content of films, holidays abroad celebrity tastes etc have helped increase the consumption of some of these products rather than multiculturalism?

Btw I can remember avocados being marketed as avocado pears in the 1970's.

 

[Agent Sparrow]

Been reading since just before danny la rouge ’s excellent long post (which I’ll refer back to in a moment).

I’m not well read on this, as many of you obviously are, but I’ve increasingly thought that there’s a difference between class, which we define as categorical data, and financial privilege and/or security, which is surely continuous data. Not only that but financial privilege can be assessed across several different continuum scales, eg wages, owned assets, debt, parental finances etc. That’s why discussions of where the employee who earns 100k/employed homeowners/new professional roles that didn’t need degrees and now do etc. come up. Class and financial privilege intersect in some areas and not in others, thus it’s not always easy to assign class in a meaningful way to individuals or subgroups. There almost needs to be a duel way of judging cases in order for it to make sense.

Danny, the one thing I’d disagree with you on is that the race/cultural background/gender/sexuality/disability status etc. of people in charge doesn’t matter. Yes they’re just a part of a person’s experience, and class and/or financial privilege also create huge differences in experiences and the lens you develop for understanding the world. And yes, when people get into arguments about not being able to understand the other’s challenges it can be very counterproductive. But these facets of our identity are still important as there’s a whole wealth of data showing how in multiple domains, the needs of PoC and/or women have suffered because White men in charge have taken Whiteness and maleness to be norm, and haven’t noticed (or cared about) the issues that other groups face on a day to day basis.

And doctors in a hospital have a managerial role in relation to nurses.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

This is getting a bit off track here, but I’m not sure that’s always true. Directly anyway. Doctors in hospitals definitely have more power but they don’t actively manage nurses or other MDT professionals unless they’re the service lead. At least in community service MDTs (emergency medicine is no doubt different and fits more).

 

[The39thStep]

Mushy peas is the traditional proley version.

Seem to remember the mushy peas/advocado issue as being a joke told by Militant in some by election.

 

[Sue]

Seem to remember the mushy peas/advocado issue as being a joke told by Militant in some by election.

I heard the mushy peas/chippy/ guacamole joke about Mandelson (in Hartlepool I think?) but sure it's done the rounds a few times...

 

[The39thStep]

I heard the mushy peas/chippy/ guacamole joke about Mandelson (in Hartlepool I think?) but sure it's done the rounds a few times...

I think you are right

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Seem to remember the mushy peas/advocado issue as being a joke told by Militant in some by election.

Mandelson wasn't it?

He'd feel right at home with the bourgeois taste in comestibles paraded by various posters on this thread...

 

[redsquirrel]

Danny, the one thing I’d disagree with you on is that the race/cultural background/gender/sexuality/disability status etc. of people in charge doesn’t matter. Yes they’re just a part of a person’s experience, and class and/or financial privilege also create huge differences in experiences and the lens you develop for understanding the world. And yes, when people get into arguments about not being able to understand the other’s challenges it can be very counterproductive. But these facets of our identity are still important as there’s a whole wealth of data showing how in multiple domains, the needs of PoC and/or women have suffered because White men in charge have taken Whiteness and maleness to be norm, and haven’t noticed (or cared about) the issues that other groups face on a day to day basis.

I don't want to speak for danny la rouge but I don't think think anyone is claiming race/gender/disability/etc do not matter. They absolutely do, and the effects of discrimination can be every bit as, or even more, important than class.
Where class is different from race/gender/etc is that it provides that strategic point under capitalism that is a route to dismantling capitalism. That is why class is not more important but different to race/gender/etc.

And of course there is the intersection of class and race, gender, sexuality. It is absolutely part of the class war to fight to abolish pay gaps, to recognise that gender is part of casualisation etc

 

[Agent Sparrow]

I don't want to speak for danny la rouge but I don't think think anyone is claiming race/gender/disability/etc do not matter. They absolutely do, and the effects of discrimination can be every bit as, or even more, important than class.
Where class is different from race/gender/etc is that it provides that strategic point under capitalism that is a route to dismantling capitalism. That is why class is not more important but different to race/gender/etc.

And of course there is the intersection of class and race, gender, sexuality. It is absolutely part of the class war to fight to abolish pay gaps, to recognise that gender is part of casualisation etc

Yes I would absolutely agree 100% with all of that It has to be about intersectionality.

 

[mojo pixy]

Yup there's far more stuff available and consumed ( depending on price ) by all sorts of folks. My question wasn't about class and food styles though it was about the link between multi culturalism and the consumption of things like guacamole ie could marketing ie promotion of 'super foods' , content of films, holidays abroad celebrity tastes etc have helped increase the consumption of some of these products rather than multiculturalism?

I don't suppose it's an either/or tbh, I'm sure it's all relevant. And I should really have used growing cultural diversity (because I meant the broad social context behind increasingly available exotic foods) not multiculturalism (as in more specifically a particular approach to cultural diversity).

 

[Ming]

This hummous thing is getting on my wick. My hospital porter dad made his own hummous not because he was desperate to join the chattering classes but because he was a Sephardi Jew from an Eastern Mediterranean background.

Please stick with sushi as the middle class cultural signifier from now on. Mick McGahey never ate sushi and neither will I.

It's not just about food.

 

[danny la rouge]

I don't want to speak for danny la rouge but I don't think think anyone is claiming race/gender/disability/etc do not matter. They absolutely do, and the effects of discrimination can be every bit as, or even more, important than class.
Where class is different from race/gender/etc is that it provides that strategic point under capitalism that is a route to dismantling capitalism. That is why class is not more important but different to race/gender/etc.

And of course there is the intersection of class and race, gender, sexuality. It is absolutely part of the class war to fight to abolish pay gaps, to recognise that gender is part of casualisation etc

Well put.

 

[Brainaddict]

I know I'm late to reply to this, but it's occurred to me on waking up that I'm (for example) very well protected from various ups and downs - because while I don't own my home and probably never will, the house I live in is one I pay very low rent for (substantially below market) and my tenancy is assured, so unless I deal drugs or piss off the neighbourhood or burn the place down or whatever, I basically get to live here indefinitely. Minus is that it's not mine so it's not as asset, fine. But i can do what I want with it within reason, and there are a ton of repairs I'm not responsible for, and unless the HA sell it (which I admit could happen) I'm basically set for life. If anything I think I'm in as good a position in terms of the security of my home, as if I owned it myself. And maybe better, in terms of running costs. I have the right to buy it, but I don't want to because it'd cost me more if I did.

I'm just not sure (outside of the south east maybe) that home ownership is necessarily the class-defining grail you seem to be painting it as. Yes, it's nice to own your home but for a few thousand quid you can buy a perfectly livable van or caravan. I lived in a van for ages instead of renting, I don't think it changed my class except downward to 'itinerant' if that's a thing - but the fact is I did for a while own my own home, outright.

As has been pointed out, even if you own the place you live, you can't sell it and realise that wealth without moving out. And how many people actually do own bricks-and-mortar home of their own but no other wealth or assets except that, I bet its not all that many in a country of ~60million. I think the reason home ownership tops some people's 'middle class' list is not because of the home itself but because it represents an asset to leverage in order to make other wealth-increasing investments - and that can change your class substantially.

Eg. If someone owns more than one and rents out the others, that's class defining. If they own it and give up working, that probably is too. If they remortgage to invest in a business they aren't employed by, that too most likely. And various other 'I don't have to sell my labour anymore' scenarios, no doubt. If they own one and have lodgers, that may too - but not definitively, and IMO unless they live 100% off of that rent I'm really not sure it fundamentally changes their class, if they still sell their labour and would struggle if they lost their job. I just don't believe Home Ownership is really key to defining Class, not on its own. Other material interests come into it.

Still, I'm glad this thread is alive again. This is proper U75 stuff

The point about how social housing affects people's interests is an interesting one. One could split people into, for example, precariously employed and precariously houses, then precariously employed but securely housed, securely employed and precariously housed, and securely employed and securely housed, and talk about their different interests and the different behavioural tendencies. Who would you want most in a tenants union? Probably securely employed and precariously housed, because they are most likely to risk a fight with their landlord, knowing that they can find other housing again.

I've explained before on here at some length how people can and do extract a lot of cash from their houses over the years, though some people just didn't believe me. Apparently people on urban never remortgage or downsize because it all seems to be an unknown to them. I can assure you a lot of people do it and as a result there is billions in unearned income getting into the pockets of salaried workers. I would say it is one of the defining features of the economy over the last twenty years. Have a read of this if you don't believe me: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02673030701731225 The graph on equity release over time is particularly interesting. It's a bit out of date but I think we can all guess the trends since.

 

[Brainaddict]

Thanks for outlining your theory a bit more. But I'm not contesting it for the moment I'm seeking an answer to LDC s question - what does this mean for your politics.
I understand you identify homeowners as no longer working class, so are renters the key strategic block, how will they dismantle capitalism? Are you arguing for organising on a class (your definition of w/c) basis, or a cross-class basis? If homeowners are no longer part of labour you've significantly shrunk the size of labour, what do you think are the political implications for that? What does your theory mean for countries where renting is much more common? Is Germany less capitalist, orcloser to a revolutionary situation than the UK?

Bollocks. Marx very clearly outlined why labour was the crucial point in capitalism - the focus on the working class is not a moral, it is because the working class occupy the pivotal strategic point. In the words of EMW "The particular importance for Marxism of the working class in capitalist society is that this is the only class whose own class interests require, and whose own conditions make possible, the abolition of class itself."
You can disagree with that but it is a clear coherent politics that builds it base upon the group that is able to dismantle capitalism.

Where is your strategic pivot point? Is it still the working class but redefined to remove homeowners?

I don't know about understanding Marx, but the first sentence shows you don't understand (or are arguing in bad faith) the positions of people posting on this thread. I certainly do not believe Marx 'established a sort of science of how society works' and I'm skeptical that most other posters believe such. Indeed, in contrast to, say ska invita, I absolutely reject economics and political science.

The reason why I tend to believe that some "just don't understand Marx", is because the claims that a class model based on ownership of the MoP does not address X or Y are usually simply wrong (as danny la rouge has pointed out).
The claims that 'Marx did not take X into account' are not some radical new point, they are typically rather old hat. Which does not necessarily make them wrong or incorrect, but does mean that some posters are posting from a certain ignorance when they claim that 'Marx' is wrong because 'things are more complex now'.

I'd also not that at least one of the posters arguing against class and insisting that things are more complicated than in Marxian thought has repeatedly admitted they have read very little Marx. Which is fine, I would not pretend to be some scholar of Marx, but does mean that there is a very good chance they do not understand Marx.

If I've argued that homeowners aren't working class it was only by accident. I'm more arguing for class segmentation according to material interests. As for what to call each class segment, I would go for pragmatic naming, or something that fitted a political narrative that people might be likely to buy.

You wrote in the same post that you don't see Marx as having come up with the objectively correct description of society, and that Marx outlined a theory of political change that you seem to see as beyond dispute. Perhaps you can reconcile those two claims for me.

I think it's an indisputable fact that the working class (in Marx's defn) in the UK is avowedly reformist and shows no signs of being otherwise. 150 years of evidence is in and I'm going with that rather than with what Marx said. I actually think Marx would go with the evidence too. You can wait another 150 years for the prophecy of the working class becoming revolutionary to come true if you like. I'm a bit more impatient than that.

 

[JimW]

If I've argued that homeowners aren't working class it was only by accident. I'm more arguing for class segmentation according to material interests. As for what to call each class segment, I would go for pragmatic naming, or something that fitted a political narrative that people might be likely to buy.

You wrote in the same post that you don't see Marx as having come up with the objectively correct description of society, and that Marx outlined a theory of political change that you seem to see as beyond dispute. Perhaps you can reconcile those two claims for me.

I think it's an indisputable fact that the working class (in Marx's defn) in the UK is avowedly reformist and shows no signs of being otherwise. 150 years of evidence is in and I'm going with that rather than with what Marx said. I actually think Marx would go with the evidence too. You can wait another 150 years for the prophecy of the working class becoming revolutionary to come true if you like. I'm a bit more impatient than that.

Surely it's more that Marx is like Darwin and evolution, he did identify and describe something real but wasn't the last word himself. All the subsequent details still fit in the larger rubric though.

 

[mojo pixy]

One could split people into, for example,

Yeah sorry but this desire to split people into ever tinier groups is part of the problem IMO. It plays right into the hands of the ruling class, viz 'divide and rule' except while we're dividing ourselves so we each get to feel special in our own little lived experiences we're doing their job for them.

 

[Brainaddict]

Surely it's more that Marx is like Darwin and evolution, he did identify and describe something real but wasn't the last word himself. All the subsequent details still fit in the larger rubric though.

Do they? An enormous amount of post-Marx Marxian writing is explaining why the working class haven't become revolutionary yet. That would have been fine for a few decades but now it's just getting silly.

 

[A380]

" We are many, they are few! but we like to split ourselves into smaller and smaller divisions allowing them to continue to rule."

I mean, the British Empire had a reputation, well deserved, for divide and rule. But the The British left puts that to shame. It's why I'm a wanky reformist.

 

[JimW]

Do they? An enormous amount of post-Marx Marxian writing is explaining why the working class haven't become revolutionary yet. That would have been fine for a few decades but now it's just getting silly.

Well, yes. At base it's an observation of the particular social relations that arise under/go to make up capitalism. Just like evolutionary theory was an observation of something happening in the world. That stuff you don't rate was subsequently written by other people has no bearing.

 

[Brainaddict]

Yeah sorry but this desire to split people into ever tinier groups is part of the problem IMO. It plays right into the hands of the ruling class, viz 'divide and rule' except while we're dividing ourselves so we each get to feel special in our own little lived experiences we're doing their job for them.

You can identify differences in order to bridge them. You could even phrase it in Gramscian terms - knitting together social blocs. Saying that everyone has one set of interests because they need to do salaried work has not been working. Has it?

 

[mojo pixy]

You can identify differences in order to bridge them. You could even phrase it in Gramscian terms - knitting together social blocs. Saying that everyone has one set of interests because they need to do salaried work has not been working. Has it?

No it hasn't, but not because it isn't true. It's been made not to work by and for those whose interests are served by the breaking of w/c solidarity. That's not even up for debate is it?

 

[Brainaddict]

No it hasn't, but not because it isn't true. It's been made not to work by and for those whose interests are served by the breaking of w/c solidarity. That's not even up for debate is it?

An enormous amount of post-Marx Marxian writing is explaining why the working class haven't become revolutionary yet. That would have been fine for a few decades but now it's just getting silly.