ska invita
back on the other side
.
Why do people from privileged class backgrounds often misidentify their origins as working class?
- Thread starter brogdale
- Start date
I only just found this thread. I'm impressed that people care enough to justify 55 pages of posts.
In the modern age, think most people are very difficult if not impossible to categorise. For many - I include myself - it's probably much easier to point to a working class family history than to pretend they are themselves working class.
In the modern age, think most people are very difficult if not impossible to categorise. For many - I include myself - it's probably much easier to point to a working class family history than to pretend they are themselves working class.
ska invita
back on the other side
Love to see it
ska invita
back on the other side
Looks an interesting book
summary here
blogs.lse.ac.uk
In The Asset Economy, Lisa Adkins, Melinda Cooper and Martijn Konings retell the story of neoliberalism through the lens of assets, showing how asset ownership and asset inflation have been driving forces behind inequality and new class divides.
summary here
Book Review: The Asset Economy by Lisa Adkins, Melinda Cooper and Martijn Konings
In The Asset Economy, Lisa Adkins, Melinda Cooper and Martijn Konings retell the story of neoliberalism through the lens of assets, showing how asset ownership and asset inflation have been driving…
blogs.lse.ac.uk
InArduisFouette
Well-Known Member
the 'owning shares' thing is a bit of redherring as quite a lot of people who are celarly 'working class' have modest shareholdings either from SAYE (lots of firms) or a modest stock grant -i.e. less than 1-2k at the tiem of grant at work ( even Currys did that ) or because they had an account with a building society that got carpet bagged then there are the 'Sids' who brought BG / BT shares i nthe 80sGood to see Keir International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency Starmer (KIRMTS) applying some material class analysis to the population:
"Sir Keir Starmer said on Thursday that anyone who owns shares and rental property is not a “working person”, as his chancellor Rachel Reeves prepares to unveil a Budget that will feature numerous tax increases.
The prime minister promised in Labour’s election manifesto he would “not increase taxes on working people”, ruling out rises in income tax, national insurance or value added tax.
Starmer is coming under increasing scrutiny about what he means by the phrase “working people” given the October 30 Budget is due to involve up to £40bn of tax rises and spending cuts."
Tax the asset owning class!!! Sweat the landlords!!! Reappropriate the wealth of the corporate share-holding appropriators!!!
the amateur property tycoon lanndleeches are not the working classes - the irony for labour is that blair . brown made being landleech a wicked wheeze
Working people owning a few shares have zero to worry about. This is all about raising CGT to be more consistent with income tax rates. If you ultimately have to pay 20% on any profit you make above £3000 from selling your few grand of shares, is that going to be noticeable to those people? No.
ska invita
back on the other side
No this is all about having meaningful material class definitions
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
What’s the question Russ?
PTK
Paul Kegan
Can you quote an example of someone arguing this?
Belongs in Glinner thread, but sure. It's a common thing in TERF circles, painting the trans movement as predominantly middle-class and sponsored by (((billionaires))). For context, the original post was by some Glinner fanboy calling Adam Buxton and another comedian 'snivelling twats'. I had a screencap but the quality is shit.
PTK
Paul Kegan
The attachment in your post does not work.
See the edit.
If you don't want to believe me, I can't make you, but it is a common thing among TERFs and their male allies to claim that the trans rights movement is middle-class and that all or most trans people are middle-class. Like Glinner calling that teen who was filming people at the Spiked conference 'Tarquin'. Because, you know, posh person name. He knows nothing about the kid or their background, he just went for the 'posh twats' angle.
If you don't want to believe me, I can't make you, but it is a common thing among TERFs and their male allies to claim that the trans rights movement is middle-class and that all or most trans people are middle-class. Like Glinner calling that teen who was filming people at the Spiked conference 'Tarquin'. Because, you know, posh person name. He knows nothing about the kid or their background, he just went for the 'posh twats' angle.
PTK
Paul Kegan
He is not claiming in that quote that people are "loaded", merely that they are middle class. Does being middle class mean that you are loaded?
Do you think I'm making this up? Or are you just trying to pick holes in my posts and make me look stupid?
ETA: I am not going to play tedious games with you. I've had enough dealings with men who just love to pick apart everything I say and treat me like a stupid little girl and I'm not in the mood for it. It's fun and games to you, it isn't to me.
ETA: I am not going to play tedious games with you. I've had enough dealings with men who just love to pick apart everything I say and treat me like a stupid little girl and I'm not in the mood for it. It's fun and games to you, it isn't to me.
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
This sort of thing has history. Back in the day, I well remember certain parts of the left referring to homosexuality as a "bourgeois disease". Calling trans people and their supporters middle class, rich, entitled, etc is just the latest iteration of this shite.
Some tankie types still do. And George Galloway, though I wonder how left he is really.
The argument is that LGBT people spend too much time thinking about their sexuality/gender instead of doing a hard day's work and clearly have too much time on their hands if they can afford to think about it. Of course it's nonsense, you can work 12-hour shifts in a coal mine and still be gay. Another argument is that LGBT people are class traitors because they'd side with each other over the working class and can therefore be turned into potentially informers or enemies of the state. Or it's counter-revolutionary, which is why Reinaldo Arenas got banged up in Cuba. It's just homophobia dressed up in class discourse.
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
You can definitely see some of that in the more 'class only' elements of the left but I'd argue it's more common from overtly right wing types tbh. It's that whole thing that projects an idea of the an authentic working person (normally man tbh) who's very socially conservative and sees anything outside of that as somehow effete and decadent.
It's obviously ridiculous but it's very common isn't it. You can see twats like Laurence Fox and Rod Liddle trying it on, as well as the whole Spiked lot.
It's obviously ridiculous but it's very common isn't it. You can see twats like Laurence Fox and Rod Liddle trying it on, as well as the whole Spiked lot.
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
All people who've probably never put a shift in and never will.
i am one of those woke types Fox hates and I work harder than he does, but I'm a translator so the right don't count it as real work.
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
Yeah I think that would only be allowed if you kept whatever you were working on in English but TRANSLATED IT INTO ALL CAPS.
All foreign languages are woke I believe.
_Russ_
Never not Knowingly Misunderstood
The question is..... are you working class?
its a daft question I wouldnt really ask but the self identification of such is the subject of this thread...your answer?
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
Yes.
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
This thread seems as good a place as any to highlight this excellent article by Malik.
As Malik argues, the key to understanding the purpose of the culture wars being fought by one side - those often mistaken for the left or mischaracterised as the left - the “symbolic capitalists” – “professionals who traffic in symbols and rhetoric, images and narratives, data and analysis, ideas and abstraction”. In other words, writers and academics, artists and lawyers, museum curators and tech professionals. It is a social stratum that attempts to entrench itself within the elite, elbowing out others already there, by using the language of social justice to gain status and accrue “cultural capital”. Theirs is a struggle within the elite presented as a struggle against the elite on behalf of the poor and the dispossessed.
One starting point in thinking about how to push back against right populists (the other side in the culture war) is for the left ‘proper’ to better define itself against the symbolic capitalists. All too often they are portrayed as a lesser evil or even potential allies.
The analysis in Musa al-Gharbi’s book of the ‘racialised caste system’ embedded by the elite liberals for their benefit provides an excellent example of why.
www.theguardian.com
As Malik argues, the key to understanding the purpose of the culture wars being fought by one side - those often mistaken for the left or mischaracterised as the left - the “symbolic capitalists” – “professionals who traffic in symbols and rhetoric, images and narratives, data and analysis, ideas and abstraction”. In other words, writers and academics, artists and lawyers, museum curators and tech professionals. It is a social stratum that attempts to entrench itself within the elite, elbowing out others already there, by using the language of social justice to gain status and accrue “cultural capital”. Theirs is a struggle within the elite presented as a struggle against the elite on behalf of the poor and the dispossessed.
One starting point in thinking about how to push back against right populists (the other side in the culture war) is for the left ‘proper’ to better define itself against the symbolic capitalists. All too often they are portrayed as a lesser evil or even potential allies.
The analysis in Musa al-Gharbi’s book of the ‘racialised caste system’ embedded by the elite liberals for their benefit provides an excellent example of why.
Cosplaying social justice is the new elitist way of elbowing out the working class | Kenan Malik
A new book by Musa al-Gharbi accuses liberal professionals of talking about justice but entrenching inequalities
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chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Dunno. Sounds a bit like Goodwin's bullshit about "new elites" to me.This thread seems as good a place as any to highlight this excellent article by Malik.
As Malik argues, the key to understanding the purpose of the culture wars being fought by one side - those often mistaken for the left or mischaracterised as the left - the “symbolic capitalists” – “professionals who traffic in symbols and rhetoric, images and narratives, data and analysis, ideas and abstraction”. In other words, writers and academics, artists and lawyers, museum curators and tech professionals. It is a social stratum that attempts to entrench itself within the elite, elbowing out others already there, by using the language of social justice to gain status and accrue “cultural capital”. Theirs is a struggle within the elite presented as a struggle against the elite on behalf of the poor and the dispossessed.
One starting point in thinking about how to push back against right populists (the other side in the culture war) is for the left ‘proper’ to better define itself against the symbolic capitalists. All too often they are portrayed as a lesser evil or even potential allies.
The analysis in Musa al-Gharbi’s book of the ‘racialised caste system’ embedded by the elite liberals for their benefit provides an excellent example of why.
Cosplaying social justice is the new elitist way of elbowing out the working class | Kenan Malik
A new book by Musa al-Gharbi accuses liberal professionals of talking about justice but entrenching inequalities
I mean "writers and academics, artists and lawyers, museum curators and tech professionals" as some sort of organised and influential elite? Nah, I don't buy it. Smacks of intra-bubble beef dressed up as distractionary analysis to me.
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
There does appear to be an echo of Goodwin’s ‘new elite’ schtick.
But as I understand it a central argument in the book is that the ‘symbolic capitalists’ is to obscure the questions and impede effective strategies to fight for social and economic justice.
Goodwin of course draws a different conclusion that also mischaracterises the populist right as being on the side of the working class and the only alternative to the other side in the culture war.
I’m going to read the book, but I will say that Goodwin’s analysis of the symbolic capitalists isn’t entirely wrong just because he says it.
lazythursday
Averagely-Known Member
I think there's probably a good point there about priorities within social justice movements and how that can be skewed by the class make-up of participants but the idea that it's all about cosplaying and gaining status is no different from the long standing sneering from the right that any concern about anything is virtue signalling.
I thought you liked your Bourdieu? The idea of symbolic capital and the role it plays in reproducing dominance within fields is hardly new!
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