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

[Red Cat]

young people on the left could point to 'quiet quitting' and 'lazy girl jobs' as trends that fit that sort of belief. there's a resignation to the status quo, so the least you can do is try and make it work for you.

I wasn't talking about the 'left', I was wondering if Marx's theory of alienation still stood as a justification of why 'communism' is better than capitalism.

 

[Red Cat]

It´s all part of the income/culture dichotomy: whether class is distinguished by what you earn or what you do. What you call things is cultural, part of what you do.

We know that, its been done to death over the years, is there any more to say about it?

 

[Pickman's model]

I wasn't talking about the 'left', I was wondering if Marx's theory of alienation still stood as a justification of why 'communism' is better than capitalism.

Most things are better than capitalism

 

[Serge Forward]

How has this thread turned into chat about what people call things? We were previously having some very interesting discussions about class and social change.

New to Urban75?

 

[ElizabethofYork]

We know that, its been done to death over the years, is there any more to say about it?

It's still interesting.

 

[A380]

…Nothing at all to do with class and everything to do with region. Class is about one's relationship to the means of production. The rest is all bunkum.

^^^ This a fucking 1000 times this! ^^^

 

[A380]

How has this thread turned into chat about what people call things? We were previously having some very interesting discussions about class and social change.

Just be glad it hasn’t meandered into the relative size of wagon wheels over time.

Yet.

 

[A380]

Supper is a quick butty before bo-bos.

Never ever use the term Bo-bos again please. ..

 

[Red Cat]

^^^ This a fucking 1000 times this! ^^^

Was that ironic?

 

[Red Cat]

Just be glad it hasn’t meandered into the relative size of wagon wheels over time.

Yet.

Don't eat too many or you'll spoil your:

a)lunch
b)dinner
c)tea
d)supper

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

e) banquet

 

[kabbes]

f) γεύμα

 

[Elpenor]

Don't eat too many or you'll spoil your:

a)lunch
b)dinner
c)tea
d)supper

Just don’t put too much white pepper on whatever you call your meal

 

[isvicthere?]

We know that, its been done to death over the years, is there any more to say about it?

On this particular thread, which you are contributing to, it appears there is.

 

[danny la rouge]

G) girl dinner

 

[The39thStep]

Terrible news from the recent British Social Attitides Survey

 

[brogdale]

Terrible news from the recent British Social Attitides Survey


View attachment 392433

Looking at their time series there does appear to have been a significant shift to a firming up of certainty of respondents' perception of their own class over the last decade. Seemingly marking the end of 3 decades of relatively high levels of belief in "classlessness".

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Kenan Malik on class and culture.

Malik shows how the narrative spun by the new right commentariat and sections of PMC that portray the working class as socially illiberal are simply wrong. Also interesting is the growing link between sense of class and cultural signifiers:

Forty years ago, class defined us in Britain. Now it’s we who define our class | Kenan Malik

More Britons call themselves working class, but they are also increasingly liberal, a new survey reveals

www.theguardian.com

 

[redsquirrel]

Orthodox socialists insist that workers only believe they have benefited from capitalism, and are in fact exploited by it, but this is rank sophistry to those who feel they've got a good quality of life out of capitalism. Even when wages stopped rising, the increase in cheap goods from china benefited working people here enormously and people really feel that. They really experience it. There's no point in being in denial about that experience. And of course we can talk about outsourcing our immiseration abroad - but it does mean less immiseration in this country.

It's this type of stuff that shows - that despite your claims - you really do not understand Marx, or for that matter socialism.

Orthodox Marxists (or "Marxists" if one prefers) certainly do not argue any such thing, the whole 'orthodox' interpretation of the stages of production shows that the above is absolute baloney.
Even those of us socialists that don't subscribe to the Marxist stages of production (at least in the deterministic form it is often presented as) recognise that the productive power of workers under capitalism has (via the actions of workers) obtained benefits for producing classes.

You've not actually moved on in the best part of 20 years - you are still stuck on the the fact that socialists use exploitation in a manner you don't like.

Rimbaud - thanks for the post. I'm too knackered after the last couple of weeks to respond now but will try to get around to it some time.

 

[Pickman's model]

Don't eat too many or you'll spoil your:

a)lunch
b)dinner
c)tea
d)supper

m) appetite

 

[Pickman's model]

That's a good post Rimbaud, but I think it still misses one basic point: the increase of consumption power of workers from a hundred years ago to now. Imagine telling a worker between the wars that they could fly to Europe for a day's wage, or that they could afford to buy new clothes every month (and we know the true cost of that is paid by other workers but that's not the point here), or that they could eat a diet from all over the world.

Of course it's also true that there has been much undermining of that progress in consumption power recently, to the point that foodbanks are a regular part of everyday life for many people. Yet that is 3-5% of the population using foodbanks. You don't build mass movements on even 5% of people, no matter how outrageous their falling into poverty may be. And yes, the cost of living crisis has affected many more, but from a consumption level that was unimaginable a hundred years ago.

Orthodox socialists insist that workers only believe they have benefited from capitalism, and are in fact exploited by it, but this is rank sophistry to those who feel they've got a good quality of life out of capitalism. Even when wages stopped rising, the increase in cheap goods from china benefited working people here enormously and people really feel that. They really experience it. There's no point in being in denial about that experience. And of course we can talk about outsourcing our immiseration abroad - but it does mean less immiseration in this country.

There's nothing in your post about health. About the great variation in life expectancy throughout the country and by class. The way in which a vast number of children in this country are brought up in poverty. The use of food banks soaring over the past 13 years. You say 3-5% of the population use them. Do you think we've reached peak use of food banks? Do you think their use only affects the part of the population who get food from them?

 

[redsquirrel]

I'm a populist at heart, I'm not looking for differences for the sake of dividing people up, the opposite in fact, its about recognising and then overcoming the differences so people can come together.

OK but then you are not a socialist.

Class struggle is not some optional extra to socialism, it is the key, the foundation what the whole philosophy is built on (at least in the non-utopian form). Socialists can have different views about the state, about social values, about methods of organising, tactics, history, etc.
But key to socialism is class struggle and the role and importance of the working class, that cannot be removed.

Populism proposes to organise on the basis of people, rather than class. I'm not without any sympathy for populism, I think it can be a genuine show of working class power, and has too often been dismissed by some. But it is not socialism. Moreover there are two key points that even left populism has to come up against.
First, what happens with the class struggle really does hit and the differing interests of workers and bosses cannot be papered over? Second, the working class is central to socialism not because it is better or morally right but because it operates in a key place in capitalism, while also provides the means of destroying it. You've called yourself an anti-capitalist, by what vehicle (if not the working class) are you proposing as a route of escaping capitalism?

 

[mojo pixy]

Kenan Malik on class and culture.

Malik shows how the narrative spun by the new right commentariat and sections of PMC that portray the working class as socially illiberal are simply wrong. Also interesting is the growing link between sense of class and cultural signifiers:

Forty years ago, class defined us in Britain. Now it’s we who define our class | Kenan Malik

More Britons call themselves working class, but they are also increasingly liberal, a new survey reveals

www.theguardian.com

I think this paragraph is very pertinent to the matters of this thread:

Those who see fewer barriers to social mobility, and so are less concerned with inequalities, are more negative about immigration and more rightwing. Another way of reading this is that those for whom being working class is a cultural identity are likely to be more rightwing and more hostile to immigration whereas those for whom it is more a political marker lean to the left and are more welcoming of immigration.

 

[A380]

OK but then you are not a socialist....

Fuck me, who made you the Socialism police?

I mean, I don't see eye to eye with ska invita on many (most?) matters of policy but they have more commitment to socialism in their little finger than you appear to have in your entire exclusionary body...

 

[Serge Forward]

Fuck me, who made you the Socialism police?

I mean, I don't see eye to eye with ska invita on many (most?) matters of policy but they have more commitment to socialism in their little finger than you appear to have in your entire exclusionary body...

I'd probably say it's not socialism in any meaningful sense. After all, socialism that doesn't connect to class, and how to get rid of class, is pretty meaningless.

 

[redsquirrel]

Fuck me, who made you the Socialism police?

I mean, I don't see eye to eye with ska invita on many (most?) matters of policy but they have more commitment to socialism in their little finger than you appear to have in your entire exclusionary body...

if ska invita is arguing for a left populism, i.e. political organising on the basis of 'the people' (however that is defined) then by definition he is arguing against socialism. This is not some moral judgement it is a simple statement about two different political philosophies.
Left populism is not socialism, it may share some political ideals, organising and tactics. But class struggle is integral to socialism and (left) populism splits from socialism at that point.

As for exclusionary, that's rich coming from someone calling people Tory supporters because they may chose not to vote for an anti-worker, racist party that just happens to wear red.

 

[A380]

if ska invita is arguing for a left populism, i.e. political organising on the basis of 'the people' (however that is defined) then by definition he is arguing against socialism. This is not some moral judgement it is a simple statement about two different political philosophies.
Left populism is not socialism, it may share some political ideals, organising and tactics. But class struggle is integral to socialism and (left) populism splits from socialism at that point.

As for exclusionary, that's rich coming from someone calling people Tory supporters because they may chose not to vote for an anti-worker, racist party that just happens to wear red.

Well that does support the Tory party in the hear and now. And whilst it probably shouldn’t be it is true whether you like it or not.

 

[Rob Ray]

Well that does support the Tory party in the hear and now. And whilst it probably shouldn’t be it is true whether you like it or not.

No it doesn't, that's just you positing the same shortsighted TINA lesser evilism as ever with an additional victim-blaming guilt trip. "You're a bad person if you don't vote for these purple-tie Tories" doesn't suggest you're must of an authority to be declaring who's socialist, either.

 

[A380]

No it doesn't, that's just you positing the same lesser evilism as ever with an additional victim-blaming guilt trip.

There is no doubt it does support the Tory Party and will in 2024/5. You wish it didn’t, I really really wish it didn’t.

I’d be interested in reading coherent argument about how it doesn’t support the Tory party. Not a statement that hearing this truth makes you feel uncomfortable.

 

[Rob Ray]

I’d be interested in reading coherent argument about how it doesn’t support the Tory party.

More seriously, it's not the anarchists who have created this issue that you're now merrily throwing in our faces. You're wanking on about how our abstaining is so very damaging (all several thousand of us, more usually living in solid Labour seats), but we've been consistently campaigning to push the public away from conservative politics for decades and have worked damn hard at it no matter the weather.

You know who's done more to get Toryism elected than us? You. Because every single time Labour's proposed a right-wing ticket you've pulled this shit. That "anyone but" behaviour provided cover for Blair, Brown, and now Starmer. And their victories were steps along the road to Cameron, Bojo and Sunak. And not just in Britain, either. In France, Italy, Spain, Greece - look how it's turning out. That's not our fault, the political non-voters of Europe didn't make the Eruopean public reject technocrat centrism. These parties have relied on "anything but" for a long time now and it was never going to cover for their exploitation of the working classes forever, it was always a fantasy.

Your ilk have done more to create modern hard-right Toryism than than most Tories, frankly, let alone the anarchists.