Class

[Swan Red]

My claim is, as it’s no longer possible to identify class membership and self identification by class is unreliable, class has become largely redundant as a concept. This led to this response from matty which I’m taking as a starting point.

 

Maybe one for a separate thread.

 

I think class self-identification is only necessary if that class intends to do something as a class. I would say that it's harder to put people into classes by occupation, but simple by income/wealth. Society has changed considerably and manual/non-manual, etc don't work as identifiers anymore.

 

I agree with most of this and as no class seems intent on doing anything as a class it suggests that it is largely irrelevant in the minds of people. This is a case for its redundancy rather than against.

 

I don’t think a simple income or wealth distinction corresponds to class as we understand it but I do think it’s of utmost importance in focusing attention. But this is about rich and poor and various gradations of both this isn’t about class. We make distinctions on profession but these aren’t always reflective of the incomes of those professions.

 

The fact british politics requires coalitions of voters to be assembled to win elections has diminished the need to appeal directly to one class - hence New Labour, and this might be the main thing that keeps the Tories out next May. However, that the interests of what we might (or used to) call the working class are still relevant to debate is clear to me.

 

The question is whether we should call it the working class or not. Or consider these interests somehow working class interests. What makes a decent education system a working class interest? Or a decent health service? Our focus should be those least fortunate, at the expense of those most working though progressive rates of taxation. It seems that you referring to what we might or used to call the working class is again making the point, it may have been relevant to talk about working class interests but it isn’t now.

 

It is my belief that there aren’t a coherent set of interests we can consider working class, that the granularity evident in modern scales of social division aren’t suited to homogenising into the broad types of historical class division. Earlier notions of class were based on the relationship with the means of production, distribution and exchange. This is no longer appropriate.

 

I have a dog in this fight, some years ago Mrs Sutty made it clear she didn’t consider me working class and I argued strongly against, a couple of years ago a mate said similar and I strongly disagreed again. I don’t know that I would argue so strongly now, it is the case that my considering class redundant as a concept is a result of me no longer caring about whether I’m working class or not. If I am then me not needing to be the recipient of government tax cuts distinguishes me from those that do. If I’m not then how is my current security reliant on the two of us staying in work.

Edited August 8, 2014 by Swan Red

[Snookie]

Are you suggesting class (be it economic, cultural, social) as an analytic concept has little or no real value any more?

Edited August 8, 2014 by Snookie

[Gunga Din]

when did "Class" start though. years ago there was basically the aristocracy and then everyone else. Is it a Victorian thing? And has it just become obsolete now as its become more fluid. I'd imagine that anyone born into poverty 150 yearsa go wouldf have found it virtually impossible to get out of it.

[Swan Red]

In part it's specifically to do with the concept of working and middle classes. There are economically and culturally relevant identifiers of group membership but these generally aren't interesting in normative terms. That access to resources is the best means to identify those that need support and that it is no longer possible to talk of working and middle class interests.

 

I also think it's of little use in politics, that political parties no longer seek to appeal to a class, they neither wish to narrow their appeal to members of a particular class nor alienate those members of the class to which they appeal but who do not identify as belonging to that class.

[Snookie]

In part it's specifically to do with the concept of working and middle classes. There are economically and culturally relevant identifiers of group membership but these generally aren't interesting in normative terms. That access to resources is the best means to identify those that need support and that it is no longer possible to talk of working and middle class interests.

 

I also think it's of little use in politics, that political parties no longer seek to appeal to a class, they neither wish to narrow their appeal to members of a particular class nor alienate those members of the class to which they appeal but who do not identify as belonging to that class.

 

There is a difference though between who political parties need to appeal to to get elected and whose interests they represent when they do.

 

 

 

 

[Swan Red]

That's true of both and I don't think in either case for either party they correspond to working and middle class.

[pipnasty]

Although I agree that definitions of class need to be constantly updated (ownership class? borrowing class? What is the cost of accessing resources?), I strongly disagree that class has become largely redundant as a concept. To put it bluntly, I think we are being sold a neoliberal lie on the scale of 'there is no such thing as society.' All three main political parties in this country could now be classed as neoliberal.

 

The working class (or however you wish to define them) didn't cease to exist, political parties ceased to represent it. There is a big difference.

[Swan Red]

when did "Class" start though. years ago there was basically the aristocracy and then everyone else. Is it a Victorian thing? And has it just become obsolete now as its become more fluid. I'd imagine that anyone born into poverty 150 years ago would have found it virtually impossible to get out of it.

 

I think this is true and I think it's in danger of becoming true again, virtually impossible may be too strong but much harder than it should be. That there is still poverty in the country is a terrible shame but the only really important distinction is wealth not class. Classes have existed throughout history in various forms but it was always more granular than the working class / middle class distinction allowed. Granted for a time it may have been appropriate to talk of the bourgeoisie and proletariat but that time is long gone.

[pipnasty]

In whose interest does the dismantling of class structure best serve? I think that is an important question.

[Gilps]

It's difficult to imagine a more fundamental difference between (what we used to call) class than the ownership of property. We now live in a society where , more so than at any point in living memory, the overriding factor in determining that is whether your parents owned property. So yeah, those divides are there as much as ever and affecting peoples lives as much as ever.

[New York Red]

The concept of class is just so damn inefficient. People with money and power shouldn't make any kind of judgements based on class becuase they are not making the best economic, moral or emotional decision. Only when that is gone can it be reciprocated properly.

 

At that point we'd have a pretty cool society.

 

But the concept of working, middle, upper, upper-middle etc is all a bit pointless now.

[Swan Red]

Although I agree that definitions of class need to be constantly updated (ownership class? borrowing class? What is the cost of accessing resources?), I strongly disagree that class has become largely redundant as a concept. To put it bluntly, I think we are being sold a neoliberal lie on the scale of 'there is no such thing as society.' All three main political parties in this country could now be classed as neoliberal.

 

The working class (or however you wish to define them) didn't cease to exist, political parties ceased to represent it. There is a big difference.

 

The working class ceased identifying as the working class.

 

I don't know how class contributes to our understanding of society and I don't know how to break the interests of society down by class. I believe in society and it's this belief that makes me consider class largely redundant. There are no interests that belong only to the working class and universally across the working class. These are societies interests. There are further interests that apply only to the poor and universally across the poor, our interest in getting them out of poverty. For this reason wealth seems the relevant property.

[Rimbeux]

In whose interest does the dismantling of class structure best serve? I think that is an important question.

 

 

That assumes it was constructed by design in the first place. Maybe it was, then again maybe it was commentary, observed behaviour, as is it's supposed demise?

[Swan Red]

In whose interest does the dismantling of class structure best serve? I think that is an important question.

 

It's gone. And yes you can argue it served the interests of the rich far better than it served the interests of the poor but it made just enough of the working class rich enough for them to no longer identify as such. It wasn't very rich and it prayed on a desire to satisfy self rather than collective interests but if we want to focus again for collective interests those interests have to be wider in scope than would be identified on class lines.

 

It's difficult to imagine a more fundamental difference between (what we used to call) class than the ownership of property. We now live in a society where , more so than at any point in living memory, the overriding factor in determining that is whether your parents owned property. So yeah, those divides are there as much as ever and affecting peoples lives as much as ever.

 

Do you want to contend that more people owned property in the past because I think that's a difficult defend. Thatcher may have decimated council house stock but she did a lot of it by transferring it into the hands of people who were renting. It may be that those least fortunate are most unable to acquire wealth now but this is an argument in favour of prioritisation strictly on wealth lines. There isn't the correspondence between class and income that the distinction once relied on.

[Gilps]

Do you want to contend that more people owned property in the past because I think that's a difficult defend. Thatcher may have decimated council house stock but she did a lot of it by transferring it into the hands of people who were renting. It may be that those least fortunate are most unable to acquire wealth now but this is an argument in favour of prioritisation strictly on wealth lines. There isn't the correspondence between class and income that the distinction once relied on.

 

The rate of owner-occupation of UK households peaked at 69.7% in 2002, following a steep upward trajectory thanks to the policies under Thatcher that you reference. It has fallen since, steeply following the most recent recession, to reach 64.7% in 2012. Over the same period, the average age of the the first time buyer has raced up, continues to do so, and will soon be 40.

 

Anecdotally, I know one person my age (40) or younger who owns a home without parental help*. He has three degrees and works as a fund manager, so is hardly representative.

 

*where I know enough about their circumstances like. Realise there might be some massive (albeit likely) assumptions involved there.

Edited August 8, 2014 by Gilps

[pipnasty]

And yes you can argue it served the interests of the rich far better than it served the interests of the poor but it made just enough of the working class rich enough for them to no longer identify as such.

 

 

But how much of that was / is debt?

 

Do you believe that an underclass exists?

 

 

 

I think there is a danger in believing that an 'end of history' scenario is playing our here which, again, is classic neoliberal thinking. Yet I see many signs that even firmer lines of class are developing. How we define these is the key.

 

 

Final edit - gonna leave this for tonight as I am in danger of getting too high to be coherent.

Edited August 8, 2014 by Pipnasty

[Swan Red]

It was lower than 64.7% previously though it's not like that really supports the claim of any time in living memory. A significant part of that 64.7% will be the children of parents that rented.

 

This isn't to suggest that there aren't real problems in housing provision but again these are not issues that only affect the working class or affect the working class universally. In conversations about the needs of people what purpose does class serve?

[Gilps]

It was lower than 64.7% previously though it's not like that really supports the claim of any time in living memory. A significant part of that 64.7% will be the children of parents that rented.

 

This isn't to suggest that there aren't real problems in housing provision but again these are not issues that only affect the working class or affect the working class universally. In conversations about the needs of people what purpose does class serve?

 

I agree that class is no longer a particularly helpful word to describe the differences that exist now, largely due to the historical associations of the word. I do believe that trends in property ownership indicate that we're becoming a society divided as fundamentally as ever along those those lines, and that the divide there looks likely to pass along to future generations as rigidly as any other that we've seen before. A young person's economic prospects are more dependent on the economic situation of their parents than they've been in the previous couple of generations.

[Swan Red]

But how much of that was / is debt?

 

Do you believe that an underclass exists?

 

Lots and yes. A lot benefited from the lower rates of council properties pre boom and everyone else will be paying the price until such time as there's no shortage of affordable housing but there's a good amount on mortgage books and there's the decline that Gilps points out.

 

I wouldn't refer to the most vulnerable or least privileged in terms of being an underclass, it carries a stigma I don't think people warrant, but as shorthand sure. These interests aren't best served in terms of class though but in terms of poverty. My argument is that there are people who are subject to unacceptable income inequality, it's these communities, these people that need most help and class is an unreliable measure of this. I also think we should have a similar focus on those who have been subject to other forms of unequal treatment but again class fails to satisfy.

 

Just to make my position clear before I be co-opted as a neoliberal my position is aggressively redistributive but we can't identify the worst off by class. That beyond the interests of the worst off the interests are those of society and as such class serves no purpose either in identifying the specific needs of the poor or the wider needs of a just society.

[Rimbeux]

I agree that class is no longer a particularly helpful word to describe the differences that exist now, largely due to the historical associations of the word. I do believe that trends in property ownership indicate that we're becoming a society divided as fundamentally as ever along those those lines, and that the divide there looks likely to pass along to future generations as rigidly as any other that we've seen before. A young person's economic prospects are more dependent on the economic situation of their parents than they've been in the previous couple of generations.

 

I think it's more generational than class, the house thing, and you've a point in wondering about what happens around the capital built up by a generation of each family, as someone has to be able to buy the thing. Might be as simple as more and more people looking forward to inheriting an actual place to live rather than the proceeds of selling a house.

[Gilps]

I think it's more generational than class, the house thing, and you've a point in wondering about what happens around the capital built up by a generation of each family, as someone has to be able to buy the thing. Might be as simple as more and more people looking forward to inheriting an actual place to live rather than the proceeds of selling a house.

 

That looking forward to inheriting thing of course is only an option for those whose parents will have a place to leave to them. Wealth to inherit, or the absence thereof, looks like a class distinction to me.

[Swan Red]

I agree that class is no longer a particularly helpful word to describe the differences that exist now, largely due to the historical associations of the word. I do believe that trends in property ownership indicate that we're becoming a society divided as fundamentally as ever along those those lines, and that the divide there looks likely to pass along to future generations as rigidly as any other that we've seen before. A young person's economic prospects are more dependent on the economic situation of their parents than they've been in the previous couple of generations.

 

I think what happened is that there ceased to be correlation between working class / middle class and property ownership. I think it went a long way to having a lot of people identify as middle class on the basis they own a house that was council stock up to 20 years ago. They managed to make the middle class aspirational and achievable without the corresponding increase in income I think you are right and those with the direst economic prospects are the ones in real danger of being abandoned and so it is those that should be of primary focus.

 

That looking forward to inheriting thing of course is only an option for those whose parents will have a place to leave to them. Wealth to inherit, or the absence thereof, looks like a class distinction to me.

 

It doesn't to me, what does this class look like?

[Rimbeux]

That looking forward to inheriting thing of course is only an option for those whose parents will have a place to leave to them. Wealth to inherit, or the absence thereof, looks like a class distinction to me.

 

 

This is true, but it's objectively most people in that position of 'owning', and/or waiting, what with owning being skewed towards the older end. So if that's a large part of the criteria, then it's a big change

[Gilps]

It doesn't to me, what does this class look like?

 

Probably shouldn't have used the word class as I think we're in agreement it isn't useful here. There's a divide between those that own property and those that don't. That divide looks like enduring across generations. We might need new terminology, but it is a genuine divide that is not entirely unlike what we'd have once called a class divide.

[Swan Red]

Probably shouldn't have used the word class as I think we're in agreement it isn't useful here. There's a divide between those that own property and those that don't. That divide looks like enduring across generations. We might need new terminology, but it is a genuine divide that is not entirely unlike what we'd have once called a class divide.

 

I agree with a lot of this I still think there's a very tentative relationship between the poorest property owners and the property that they own but otherwise I'm with you it's just not useful to talk of needs in terms of class any more.