• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

The Nobility Of The Working Class(es)

Yithian

Parish Watch
Staff member
Joined
Oct 29, 2002
Messages
36,371
Location
East of Suez
NOTE: This thread was split off from:

Growing Old—Death Approaches!
http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/growing-old—death-approaches.25458/
--------------------------------------------


Hello Min - thinking on the death rates of males and all that, I have my Grandads clearance to work which says he has had 6 years of education and could be gainfully employed.

As he was a Midlands Lad, the two main employers were the potteries (white lung), and the Pits (black lung).

He was eleven.

He chose the Pits and worked there until 1914 then took up the Kings Shilling and fought in the Leicesters In Europe. He was wounded a couple of times - once through his mouth which meant that when he ate his nose and chin would touch, and the other was from shrapnel down one side of his body which, after forming carbuncles, used to drop out at most inconvenient times.

After experiencing what he had he naturally developed a bolshi Socialist attitude, and word soon got around, so there was bugger all work for him after he was demobbed - I really don't know how the family survived through the late twenties and thirties.

Anyway, he survived and migrated to New Zealand in 1953, and died a contented old man in his late seventies.

I think that until recently, life for both genders was expendable Min - what comes to my mind are the cotton on girls in those Mills, and the match girls. It must have bred a certain resilience in the working class of those days. Poor little buggers.

Thanks for that, Mungoman.

Where do you stand on 'the nobility of the working classes': the idea that despite poverty and the huge wealth disparity in the country (and perhaps partly because of these things), the working man and his family often manage to eke out what they have into an honest and morally praiseworthy life? That there was something worthy to be admired in a spirit that the hardships of life had fashioned?

I'm thinking here simultaneously of the simple religious piety, the creation and maintenance of social 'rules', the temperance movements and mutual societies of the century before last, but also of the simple stoic acceptance of the unchosen burden of long and hard daily labour that never really went away.

I ask as there seems to be political debate on whether such a thing actually existed or whether it was a romanticised myth (like that of the noble savage) created by those who benefited most from an unjust system.

Both sets of my grandparents lived long enough and worked hard enough to enjoy (considerable & some) financial comfort in old age, but the habits of their childhood were never abandoned, and to an extent my father (fast becoming an old man himself) has inherited the same outlook: nothing is wasted, most things can be repaired, borrowing is a risk (perhaps even a necessary evil), sloth is a waste of your life, a man's word and handshake should be worth more than his signature--you know the type. Yet none of this was 'taught' in a school or church, it was inculcated through necessity and experience. I'm thinking most of all of my paternal grandfather: a house painter, a soldier and then forty years in an oil refinery, which coupled with his industrial tobacco consumption, ultimately killed him. Perhaps it's just my need to place meaning on a life that from my own perspective looks hard (he never complained in my hearing), but I'd like to think that he gained something from it. I rather like his reference on leaving the army. It says nothing but somehow everything:

Clean and sober. This man has a flair for making the best of things. Cheerful & reliable: a valuable man in any employment.

I'd like to think there's a kernel of truth in it, but then I'm a romantic, which is why I'm also a cynic--reality so often falls short.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The nobility of the working class...Bloody good question Yith.

I'm soon to be 65, and I remember the people of my Youth Yithian. I remember moving from one working class area to a more northerly one and, to me, the obvious differences between the two, and I've come up with some reasoning onit.

I was born in a town called Silverdale, North Staffs, (white country) in 1953 - eight years after.

There was a mutual respect between the layers of humanity in this community which created, I think, a sense of summat (something), where the Manufactory owners appreciated 'his' workers, and the workers appreciated the owner. I put it down to an awareness of the job.

The Men often walked arm in arm, pushing the prams, chatting while having the evening walk through 'The Jolleys' (a series of paths through pastures on the other side of the railway line). The women were open, with their opinion given freely when asked by their husbands, and children grew up with this.

They were great readers, and utilised the Mechanics Institute, and the Library, debating the merits of books like 'the ragged trousered philanthropist', or, like my Great Grandad Joseph, joined the local Choral Society, and sang things like Handels Messiah.

There was a sense of nobility there, to this little lad - some would say that some reached above their station but I don't think that they did. I think that the social harmony between all was due to their working with fine things - both woman and man - and they appreciated the fine work each other did and whenever anything is nurtured, it grows.

I don't know if this can be seen as nobility Yithian, more a sensibility I suppose.

In Stockton, it was a very different kettle of fish where women wouldn't dare to be seen outside of the home in a pinafore, and the use of the word 'clashing', which was only used when a husband hit his wife.

This, I can put down to a lack of connection between male and female, Boss ( It's what they call a locating lug) and worker. There were the differences between a pit man and a 'machinist' who worked 'on the bank'.

The mechanics institute was utilised up there but more for advancement to get out of the pit - a much less inclusive society to this little lad.

Personally, I've always experienced a contentment in being working class/being a worker - not a daft, 'UP THE WERKERS', but knowing where I fitted in to society, appreciating my efforts/contributions to industry, and learning - always learning. I was horrified to learn that one of our labor Premiers (Neville Wran),said that the best thing about the working class was the getting out of it.

I think that a certain nobility comes from appreciating yourself, and your contribution, and knowing the importance that you bring to any situation.

I'd like to think that the majority of good tradesmen and tradeswomen have this deep seated appreciation of what they do, and who they are.

Any road up Yith, My take on the noble worker.
 
I think that a certain nobility comes from appreciating yourself, and your contribution, and knowing the importance that you bring to any situation.

I'd like to think that the majority of good tradesmen and tradeswomen have this deep seated appreciation of what they do, and who they are.

Any road up Yith, My take on the noble worker.

I very much enjoyed reading that and wonder what it was that set the two communities apart so? (I mean the root cause--you describe the symptoms well enough.) Just communication?

Like with so much, my favourite writer, Conrad has something:

It was a great comfort to turn from that chap to my influential friend, the battered, twisted, ruined, tin-pot steamboat. I clambered on board. She rang under my feet like an empty Huntley & Palmer biscuit-tin kicked along a gutter; she was nothing so solid in make, and rather less pretty in shape, but I had expended enough hard work on her to make me love her. No influential friend would have served me better. She had given me a chance to come out a bit--to find out what I could do. No, I don't like work. I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. I don't like work--no man does-- but I like what is in the work,--the chance to find yourself. Your own reality--for yourself, not for others--what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.
Or as another very different writer (Paulo Coelho) has it:

The alchemists spent years in their laboratories, observing the fire that purified the metals. They spent so much time close to the fire that gradually they gave up the vanities of the world. They discovered that the purification of the metals had led to a purification of themselves.
Or as the accursed/sainted Jordan Peterson proscribes to the depressed and downhearted: get up and tidy your room. The by-product of planning followed by intentional action methodically applied to reach a visibly satisfying result is really quite powerful.

What's more, it's a step on the path from microcosm to macrocosm. Confucius (for all his sins) has:

The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the Kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts.

But perhaps it's the nature of today's work that is robbing us of that satisfaction that shines outward and upward through families, communities and nations. Marx perceived long ago that the compartmentalisation of modern industrialised production (where each worker repeatedly works on a single part of the whole) alienates the producer from his product. And where are many of the working classes today? It takes a lot more imagination than most can muster to see your contribution and take pride in the success of the company when you work in a call centre that languishes under the perpetual threat of being outsourced to the over-educated (for the task) in the subcontinent.

O tempora o mores!
;)
 
I've pondered the whole 'happy working class' thing myself and once the nostalgia effect is cleared away, the accounts of the survivors remain. I've no doubt that the camaraderie among e.g. mine workers was strong and needed to be. It was a brutal job and I imagine that most miners (who lived to retirement) were especially broken.

But what of the folk in such a community that couldn't cope with days underground doing literally back-breaking and dull work? Those with only a life-time of such ahead of them (if they were lucky), with little to compensate them for illness or injury and a 'retirement' that might last ten years and be accompanied by grinding pain in every joint? History has a way of air-brushing out the folks who simply 'stepped into the cage at the wrong time', went mad, or simply walked away one day and were never heard of again.

While we have a picture of the 'honourable working man', I'd ask who drew it, and who does it serve?

But perhaps it's the nature of today's work that is robbing us of that satisfaction that shines outward and upward through families, communities and nations. Marx perceived long ago that the compartmentalisation of modern industrialised production (where each worker repeatedly works on a single part of the whole) alienates the producer from his product. And where are many of the working classes today? It takes a lot more imagination than most can muster to see your contribution and take pride in the success of the company when you work in a call centre that languishes under the perpetual threat of being outsourced to the over-educated (for the task) in the subcontinent.
There's a nice book called "The Case for Working with Your Hands: Or Why Office Work is Bad for Us and Fixing Things Feels Good" by Matthew Crawford" that covers this subject quite well. It does discuss why busywork or work that doesn't appear to have any point affect one's mentality in a negative way.

The call-centre example is especially apposite - but it is possible to generate team-spirit even in such environments but it requires commitment and to treat people decently as people. I've only been working in 'my' business for about 30 years and note that the gulf between a good supervisor and 'some person who just wants to be in charge' is enormous, but it does seem to me that in the last decade, taking charge without taking responsibility has increased. And uncaring managers or supervisors make a dull job insufferable. This overlaying of a feudal mind-set on people whose horizons and world-view is global in scope will inevitably cause a disconnect with poor employers and as 'managers' like to say "There's no loyalty any more..." ...as they outsource the jobs to a sub-continent economy.

[I suspect, although it's a hypothesis, that those who score low in social dominance are more affected by busywork that those who score highly, as the latter will see 'the point' as being an increase in status, irrespective of the inherent uselessness of the work. Perhaps it's why some jobs that confer status are often stupefying dull and bureaucratic, as the satisfaction of a 'job well done' is replaced by the warm glow of a burnished ego.]
 
Well, I reckon that the difference in the two communities is more than the differences in their labour - one was inclusive, the other seemed divided to a nine year old

In the pottery trade, women had a lighter hand, and so, added the artistic value - also the design in some cases, while the majority of men threw, or cast the item, and packed the kilns, knowing that what would come from their combined efforts was a much desired product, known around the world, and desired by People such as the likes of royalty.

While up North, It was hewing coal, filling a quota and knowing that the seam was getting lesser, and wetter, indicating that you were under the channel - all the while, not having an alternative because you were married with bairns...At least the single men had the boats, the forces, and there was always Canada where a young fellow could get on.

Was the Geordie pit man less noble than the midlands potter?

No, I don't think so - they had less opportunity to believe that they were 'noble workers', but their work kept the wheels of industry going, and homes warm, whereas the potter did have the opportunity to believe that, due to 'the product'. I suppose it depended on a few things like how you saw yourself, neighbouring communities attitudes (my Dad told me that when he was a lad, there was a section of the community that were that poor that they had rings on their arses because they couldn't afford toilet seats), the reward for your labour - both intrinsic and concrete.

I was shown as a lad that working mindfully, being present where you were, on what you were doing allowed you to experience a gratitude from what you were doing...I dunno, maybe THAT'S the nobility in being working class.
 
Here's something I've learned the hard way. If your car is failing, try to steer it towards a rougher area. When it finally breaks down people will come out and help you.

If you break down in a posh area nobody will even speak to you, and they might even call the police.

I used to drive bangers and have had both scenarios. I'd much, MUCH rather break down in a place where men don't mind getting their hands dirty and women will offer refreshments to strangers in distress. We were once tow-started by an ice cream van!

So yeah, maybe THAT'S the nobility in being working class; sharing what little you have, even when it's only kindness.
Anyone can be that noble. Not everyone bothers.
 
Here's something I've learned the hard way. If your car is failing, try to steer it towards a rougher area. When it finally breaks down people will come out and help you.

If you break down in a posh area nobody will even speak to you, and they might even call the police.

I used to drive bangers and have had both scenarios. I'd much, MUCH rather break down in a place where men don't mind getting their hands dirty and women will offer refreshments to strangers in distress. We were once tow-started by an ice cream van!

So yeah, maybe THAT'S the nobility in being working class; sharing what little you have, even when it's only kindness.
Anyone can be that noble. Not everyone bothers.
Never a truer word etc
 
Then there's me. Highly educated, cultured, working class and proud of it.


And then there’s me – uneducated, uncultured and also proudly working class, although many of my old contemporary’s would now disagree.

Anyway what defines a working class person..?

Is it accent, your current job, background, the amount of money you have in the bank…?

I like this topic :)
 
And then there’s me – uneducated, uncultured and also proudly working class, although many of my old contemporary’s would now disagree.

Anyway what defines a working class person..?

Is it accent, your current job, background, the amount of money you have in the bank…?

I like this topic :)

My point was that having a higher level of education and being lucky enough to enjoy a range of cultural experiences and foreign travel don't make you middle class. Hasn't worked on me anyway!

If people have a lot of nice things in life that they haven't earned, they don't get my respect. Just owning stuff or money doesn't impress me either. Those things are incidentally especially bad for children.

The question of class is a minefield for Brits! If I win the lottery I'll move to a BIIIG house in the country with a long drive and a huge gate at the end...

No I won't, because then we won't see any kids for Halloween, and anyway I'm not afraid of people. Even really poor, common ones. I'm not intrinsically better than anyone else and nobody is better than I am.

So I'm off this thread now because it's time ter fly me whippets.
 
...Perhaps it's just my need to place meaning on a life that from my own perspective looks hard (he never complained in my hearing),...

If you are born into a working class area then you simply have to get on with living in it.

There is no nobility involved ; you have no choice. Unless you can get out. I joined the Army.

And all the talk of the mining communities etc is set in another time. A time when everyone living in an area tended to work in the same place.
Where I am it was the mills.

But in the fifties/sixties the great modernisation began. The communal areas were demolished.
People were moved into high rise flats where you can have people living to either side, above and below you and never know who they are.
Also it became the beginning of workers having to commute to work.

So, no meaning to that life. Just the acceptance of it.

Then tv came along and really screwed with people's minds.

INT21
 
I find talk of 'class' disingenuous. It suggests, in the UK at least, something one is born into and must remain in, ‘knowing one’s place’. Even to acknowledge a ‘working class’ from within it, reinforces the class system legitimising an upper-middle class sense of entitlement and their mistaken belief they are special or different, in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

It’s the late 20th century rigidity of such classification that rankles, the ’born to and must remain so’. Getting above your station was frowned on by those who considered themselves ‘better’ but it’s also resisted from inside communities. I’ve met “working class” folk (or perhaps we should call them “opportunity deprived”) that have been ostracised by their own communities for daring to better themselves or for not getting a ‘proper job’. People who are actually oppressing themselves and legitimising the very system that keeps them away from opportunity. I've seen a middle class couple block their son's desire to train/qualify to help autistic children, something important to him, "Because he can do better".

Extraordinary, this legacy of a class system that never had the very proper upset of a revolution.

These fetid notions are still with us, and while there is talk of a fairer society, far too many of our positions of power go to the paying products of a two-tier education system, which may have at one time provided education hand-in-hand with a sense of duty and obligation, but now perpetuates a form of proxy inheritance of power for the self-entitled, instead of the most able, ethical or competent. And worse, these arrogant shites believe this self-promotion of the inherited ‘class’ system. “The poor must be lazy and work shy…”

Let us not talk of class; let us talk of inequality of opportunity, the unearned and undeserved entitlement of the moneyed class and damn them all to hell for keeping one of our society's feet in the middle ages.

To the barricades I say. Feck 'em. :wcry:
 
...And worse, these arrogant shites believe this self-promotion of the inherited ‘class’ system. “The poor must be lazy and work shy

Capitalism causes that.

Would someone please put some grease on that guillotine, the noise is keeping my ferrets awake.

INT21.

(more comment later)
 
...And worse, these arrogant shites believe this self-promotion of the inherited ‘class’ system. “The poor must be lazy and work shy

Capitalism causes that.

Would someone please put some grease on that guillotine, the noise is keeping my ferrets awake.

INT21.

(more comment later)

I say, I say Heads on Pikes I say!
 
Coal,

Would you not agree that there is a 'layered' structure to society ?

INT21.
 
Class in the UK governs almost everything important: notably how you view yourself, how you view others, and how you are viewed by everybody else (I don't say treated or judged--those decisions are subjectively determined--just viewed); those people who doubt this is true tend to be like the fish asking what on earth water is. The only thing unusual about the British system is that class is not determined solely by wealth and/or income.

I feel ready to be shouted down for this, but I feel confident saying that you can be the nicest and most accepting of souls and this will still apply. The discretion and discrimination that almost all of us exercise daily is inculcated from our very births through the voices we hear, the stories we read, the words we learn, the places we go, the people we meet, the places we live, the toys we play with, the jobs our parents do and even the food we eat and when, how and in what quantities we eat it. There are exceptions to this scheme (outsiders/foreigners mostly), but the number of them is comparatively small.

By the time you are old enough to understand how any/all of this works (and some people never manage it), you've been breathing it in so long that it's almost impossible to see what it has done to shape you.

¡Ya basta!
Commandant Yith.
 
I find talk of 'class' disingenuous. It suggests, in the UK at least, something one is born into and must remain in, ‘knowing one’s place’. Even to acknowledge a ‘working class’ from within it, reinforces the class system legitimising an upper-middle class sense of entitlement and their mistaken belief they are special or different, in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

It’s the late 20th century rigidity of such classification that rankles ...

I generally agree ... Part of the problem in framing things with respect to 'class' is that 'class' becomes the focal dimension or context for establishing the foundation for analysis or debate. Framing things in terms of aggregates or groups obscures as much as it illuminates, insofar as it establishes coarse-grained categories into which all subjects have to be pigeonholed.

This framing bias issue becomes even worse when there are multiple versions of the framing criteria. The very notion of 'working class' varies among cultures, nations, timeframe(s) at issue, academic fields, and even individual scholars / writers / pundits.

Having said that ...

One reason I hadn't yet posted in this very interesting and timely thread is that 'working class' has distinct connotations and associations in the UK context that don't easily correlate with my native US context - most particularly the existence of perceptible societal strata with deeply entrenched historical foundations.
 
Enola Gaia,

..associations in the UK context that don't easily correlate with my native US context - most particularly the existence of perceptible societal strata with deeply entrenched historical foundations...

I find that difficult to accept.

You (as a nation) refer to lower level people as 'trailer trash'.

Or is that a particular sub-division of working class people ?

INT21
 
I agree with Yithian that one tends to absorb the culture that you are born into without questioning it. At least for the formative part of your life.
And when you do realise the reality of it it may be very hard if not impossible to move out of it. This is brought out in the saying 'you can take the man/woman out of the ghetto but you can't take the ghetto out of the man/woman'.
It works both ways. Someone from a higher stratum who has, for whatever reason, dropped down a layer, will still bear the traits of his earlier social group. And all the people in the new grouping will instantly recognise it.
It took me a very long time to realise that I had been molded by my fathers place in society and his attitudes. And that they were not my attitude. I tended to think along the lines of my mother's family.

INT21
 
Enola Gaia,

..associations in the UK context that don't easily correlate with my native US context - most particularly the existence of perceptible societal strata with deeply entrenched historical foundations...

You (as a nation) refer to lower level people as 'trailer trash'.
Or is that a particular sub-division of working class people ?

The idea that all Americans, as a whole, denigrate certain groups as 'trailer trash' is as ridiculous as claiming all Brits revere the monarchy.

'Trailer trash' is a pejorative label framed as much or more with regard to sociocultural biases as economic factors - particularly when used to smear the background or attitude(s) of someone who's escaped the implied economic stratum associated with it.

Having said that ...

The economic strata most likely to be associated with 'trailer trash' descriptions would be the working poor or the non-working (i.e., dependent; publicly subsidized) poor.

The 'working poor' category is typically construed as that subset of the working class whose income meets basic subsistence requirements, but provides no excess that can be saved or leveraged to better one's situation - i.e., folks who literally 'live from paycheck to paycheck'.
 
..The idea that all Americans, as a whole, denigrate certain groups as 'trailer trash' is as ridiculous as claiming all Brits revere the monarchy...

Not all Americans , but it is used often against people who do not live in the eponymous trailers. I readily admit it is generally used to denigrate a social group. Also many of the people referred to do not live in 'trailers'.
It appears to be used, as you suggest, to describe the working class poor who tend to live in mobile homes.

Oddly I can be almost fitted into the same description a my home is one of a set built just after the war and described (rather loosely) as BISF; Brick in steel frame. The steel frame part is accurate, but the construction between the frame is a kind of concrete. The whole thing was then clad in steel panels.
Recently, just before I bought it, the steel cladding was removed and the houses were clad in plywood that had a four inch insulation layer on the outside. This layer was sprayed in resin and pebble dashed The heat insulation improved greatly.

My point in this description is that myself and the others who live in this form of construction are still referred to as living in the 'tin houses'. Often with a light added sneer.
We are looked upon a just being one step above the folks who live in trailers.
It doesn't take into consideration the people, just the observers assumption of the occupiers.
There is nothing wrong with this type of construction and it is often used in Scandinavian countries.

INT21
 
... Not all Americans , but it is used often against people who do not live in the eponymous trailers. I readily admit it is generally used to denigrate a social group. Also many of the people referred to do not live in 'trailers'.
It appears to be used, as you suggest, to describe the working class poor who tend to live in mobile homes.

I can attest to the unfortunate fact 'trailer trash' has been generalized to the point it has little intrinsic relationship with living in a mobile home. Nowadays it serves as a sort of coded slur synonymous with the much older pejorative 'white trash'.


Oddly I can be almost fitted into the same description a my home is one of a set built just after the war and described (rather loosely) as BISF; Brick in steel frame. The steel frame part is accurate, but the construction between the frame is a kind of concrete. The whole thing was then clad in steel panels.
...

My point in this description is that myself and the others who live in this form of construction are still referred to as living in the 'tin houses'. Often with a light added sneer.
We are looked upon a just being one step above the folks who live in trailers.
It doesn't take into consideration the people, just the observers assumption of the occupiers. ...

Coincidently, so can I (though I don't recall anyone ever pointing it out with condescension).

My childhood home was a small 4-room bungalow (prefabricated wood frame construction; clad with shingles) that was a 'mobile home' in the sense it was standing, and still stands, on its second site.

It was one of hundreds (maybe thousands) of such prefab houses erected en masse at Norfolk, Virginia, to house military families during WW2. After the war the houses were dismantled and offered for sale quite cheap to veterans and others. My newlywed parents could afford one of these recycled bungalows, so they essentially bought one 'mail order' and prepared the prescribed foundation. Once they were ready they notified the sellers, and eventually a big truck arrived carrying all the pieces 'n' parts. They added a framed-in back porch area, and that's the house where I spent my childhood.

I don't think anybody in the community disparaged our modest house because it was equivalent to many such modest wood frame houses in the (still largely rural) area.
 
EnolaGaia,

There seems to be a movement back toward the 'tiny house' concept. I think it is a very good idea.

Anyone who is any good at all with his hand can make a very practical small house.

If I were to take it upon myself, and had the spare cash, I would do just this in my garden to make a purpose built workshop/lab/study where I could 'do my own thing'.

I could build in about a foot of insulation all around and heat the place for next to nothing.

I do have a large traditional workshop, but it is cold and damp and not much fun at all.

INT21
 
Capitalism causes that.
I beg to differ. Inequality of opportunity is the root of the inequality in society.

Life offers opportunities to most of us, more or less. The issue is that we all get a roll of the dice, but if it's £10 a roll and you only have £10 to start with, you're in a much worse position than someone who starts with £100 and understands the odds (ever played 'Risk'? Once you've amassed enough pieces, you will win.)

This translates into the difference between (for example) someone with no capital or family funding who embarks on his dream business, only to see it break and leave them with debts that not only remove all chance of another go, but likely condemn them to paying off for most of their life.

However the person who can rely on family funding for a start-up is not plunged into debt and penury on failure, so gets another go. Or two. Or three. My opinion is that the UK has swung too far in favour of those with assets as they start out - and when you throw in university fees for the asset-less, it looks more and more like 'keeping the poor poor', than 'equal opportunity for all'.

Coal,

Would you not agree that there is a 'layered' structure to society ?

INT21.
Of course. As soon as a skill, ability or resource becomes more valuable than others, then some form of hierarchy forms, and we are as human being 'programmed' to try to make our way up said hierarchy, to a greater so lesser extent. Some of us are happier with lower rungs in tandem with other rewards, for others it's all about the rungs.

As long as said hierarchies are meritocratic, then all is well. As soon as the positions on high rungs are passed onto less meritorious cronies or progeny, then the dice is loaded against those who have nothing to start with. While it's easy to turn that alone into a polemic, the long term affects are also economically very real, as the lessening ability in areas of business causes long term economic problems. If you put idiots in charge, blood or no blood, then business and institutions fail.

(Or non-meritocratic hierarchies in business or institutions - when proxies for productivity take over as 'brownie points' at the expense of productivity. Like 'time served' or 'the right school'.)

Once the balance has swung past a certain point, society is divided. There is no route from 'poor' to 'opportunity', battle lines and stereotypes are drawn up and the long term prognosis from that is civil unrest, ghettos and easy pickings for the neo-right and drug-dealers, who can both spot a disenfranchised community at 500 paces. Never mind the bright people born into poor economic areas with shite schools, who's prospects are blighted from birth and for whom the effects of a sub-par education can never be fully rectified by education later in life.

Want a fairer and more productive society? Education education education, and make it top notch and free for everyone.

Otherwise, it's great...

It took me a very long time to realise that I had been moulded by my fathers place in society and his attitudes. And that they were not my attitude. I tended to think along the lines of my mother's family.
The trick is to spot the behaviours, work them out, realise you don't have to behave 'this way' or 'that way', and figure out what you want. Easy after that. Well 'easier'...
 
Back
Top