British court to rule on extermination of the working class

April 11, 2002 3:35 AM

British court to rule on extermination of the working class (more inside...)
posted by bifter (13 comments total)

Well, not quite as bad as it sounds, but a rather tedious dispute over development rights for a derelict pub looks to have the unexpected side-effect of a “definitive legal ruling” on whether or not the working class in Britain in fact exists.

Without doubt both working and upper classes exist in the UK (although you might wonder about how many working class people you’ll find in Sloane Square), but the case highlights an interesting question of the continued relevance of class in the 00’s, as both main parties scrap over the ever-growing Mondeo Man vote, first targeted by Thatcher in the 80s
posted by bifter at 3:36 AM on April 11, 2002

In the UK, we've become a lot richer over the past twenty years. My parents bought a house for £80k in 1993, and sold it for £200k in 2000. With that money, they left the South and bought a place with plenty of land up North outright. No more mortgage!

They're not a special case; I know of many families who have managed to do the same and jump up the class ladder or relieve themselves of large debts.

The way in which people jump between classes nowadays, thanks to debts, bankruptcy, lottery wins, and property prices, means that class, IMHO, is less important than ever. In fact, I think few people even consider it these days.

I think that the middle class is evaporating, certainly in London. You're either well-off, or you're skint. I know quite a lot of Londoners, and they all seem to be one or the other. Of course, the pattern is that the older people are generally the richer, and the younger people are the poorer. Through my eyes, that's how class works nowadays. You're either young and poor, or old and well-off.
posted by wackybrit at 3:50 AM on April 11, 2002

Wackybrit: There's always council estates full of scratchers though, and they'll not ever come away from that kind of existence for their whole lives. You know the kind, I'm sure.
posted by ajbattrick at 4:22 AM on April 11, 2002

I stumbled on this today (624Kb PDF) - the breakdown of the UK's population into 46 'lifestyle' categories. The class categories - ABC1, etc. - went out ages ago. Companies today target people using this kind of categorisation, with groups such as 'affluent intelligensia,' 'cautious couples,' 'beer & bookies.' Their brochure is quite a depressing read. How, and why, all this came to be was explained in the recent BBC2 series The Century of the Self, absolutely fascinating viewing.
posted by jonathanbell at 5:16 AM on April 11, 2002

jonathanbell: Century of the Self was an awesome, thought-provoking programme that has had me wandering around in a state of confused agitation for some time now. Talk about everything you know is wrong... I'm suprised it hasnt been mentioned on MeFi previously.

As for the working-class question, I think the closest you get to a traditional working class in London, as ajbattrick implies, might be more appropriately termed the non-working class. The vast majority of people seem to spend so long working to keep their heads above water that any sense of 'togetherness' that the working-class is traditionally associated with has long since disappeared - though I believe many more people mourn this loss than might at first be thought.
posted by barnsoir at 6:21 AM on April 11, 2002

I mentioned CotS yesterday, barnsoir, in the tax thread, where I answered the libertarian canard, 'who knows best how to spend my money, the government or me?' (I think the problem is that there's no web-based material devoted to the proggy.)

Anyway, wackybrit is living in la-la land if he thinks that "few people even think about [class] these days". Let's just say that newspapers do, and whether that's a reflection of the readership or simply preaching to them, you can decide for yourselves. (You realise, wackybrit, that people like your parents are actually sucking the life out of the North, by making it impossible for people to buy houses on their substantially lower salaries, while the southerners sell their one-bedroomed cupboards and buy entire terraces? I hope they're happy-happy-joyful about this. And that they have a nice big fence.)

What this case proves, I think, is that the triumph of the Thatcherite middle-class (ptui!) has come at the expense of a curious love-hate relationship between the ultra-wealthy and the poorest. (My home town had a Carnegie library for the working-classes. 'Libraries gave us power', I believe, is the lyric.)

And it just proves that property developers have no class whatsoever. But we knew that already.
posted by riviera at 7:23 AM on April 11, 2002

Being related to the guys they were talking about in century of the self (go Bernays!) and having done a bit of background into family history they weren't exactly telling the whole truth. But then again it is TV, these things have happened and people should know about them. If the program has to be a bit innacurate and less balanced to make it that way then its probably better than if it hadn't been made at all.

And as was noted further up the thread. The 'council estate scratchers' are todays poor. They may not be the 'deserving poor' (in the old sense of the word) but they are poor. Anyone who says they don't exist is blind to some of the most challenging problems in the UK today.

Life will go on, no matter what happens to property. People thought community was going to end after enclosures. It didn't. People thought community was going to end after slum clearence. It didn't. People want to be in a community, just look at MeFi.
posted by nedrichards at 7:47 AM on April 11, 2002

...making it impossible for people to buy houses on their substantially lower salaries, while the southerners sell their one-bedroomed cupboards and buy entire terraces?

Couldn't agree more, I don't think the division is class as such, but location within the UK. e.g. The 'average' wage is something close to £20k, however over here in northern Ireland £20k is considered pretty well off.

I would consider myself earning around average, and I'm getting £15k. That would allow me to buy a house at a grand total of £50,000.... hahahahahahahaha! Totally priced out of the market
posted by twistedonion at 7:48 AM on April 11, 2002

Sounds like the British are becoming even more American. Here, of course, we are all "middle class" -- rich and poor alike -- because no one wants to admit to being anything else.
posted by briank at 8:34 AM on April 11, 2002

Riviera - Anyway, wackybrit is living in la-la land if he thinks that "few people even think about [class] these days". Let's just say that newspapers do, and whether that's a reflection of the readership or simply preaching to them, you can decide for yourselves.

I can't see British newspapers being at the forefront of recognising and reacting to socio-demographic change to be frank. As long as class-analogous audience demographics are the base of their (advertising) revenue model, then of course they'll think about class. It doesn't mean that class is relevant to anything other than publishers accounts. I think the point here is the dissolution of the actual political and cultural influence of traditional working/upper classes, as they become sub-sets of the middle-class (upper-middle/lower-middle). Yes, they exist and can be identified, but the distinction no longer means much to most people. Kind of like trying to differentiate between Methodists, Baptists and CoEs...

Anyway, its not like newspapers don't do anything that isn't a habit of archetypal Joe Public. Among many other unique and antiquated UK tabloid habits: use of the word "nookie".

Riviera - What this case proves, I think, is that the triumph of the Thatcherite middle-class (ptui!) has come at the expense of a curious love-hate relationship between the ultra-wealthy and the poorest.

AKA patronage, right...? Can't see mourners lining the streets...
posted by bifter at 8:38 AM on April 11, 2002

Not at all, bifter: paternalism, perhaps, but not patronage. The industrialists of the 19th century built houses and schools and provided libraries for their workforces because it was considered part of the capitalist deal.

Anyway, the interesting part of this story is possibly the bit that doesn't get mentioned: I can well imagine that the good people of Chelsea are praying that the court backs the property developers, as there's no greater threat to your house price than the possibility of being within range of, god forbid, poor people. And that attitude -- the pursuit of home equity as the arbiter of personal achievement -- is the most depressing legacy of the Thatcher era.
posted by riviera at 8:44 AM on April 11, 2002

The ability to be property-owning used to be a pretty good guide to class in the UK - if you couldn't afford to own your own, then you tended to live in Council housing (in towns) or in property owned by your employer (in towns and in the country), and you could pretty definitively be put in the working class bracket.

Once the whole Thatcherite ideal of a nation of homeowners came along, that all went by the wayside, and now, well-off people are paying a lot of money to live in what used to be Council flats, and almost no replacements are being built to provide for the people who still can't afford to buy property.

Ironically though, certainly in the cities, this last group is increasingly encompassing people who earn relatively good wages but who can't afford the insane excesses of the property market. I was 34 years old before I could afford to buy a place I wanted (in an area I liked) in London, and it's tiny.

So yes, twistedonion, I agree that the divisions are really about geography these days, but the consequent problem is that because the cost of living is so out of whack with the wages people earn, there are people living in, say, London, who earn a good wage compared with people elsewhere, but live in comparatively worse situations. And the people who might once have expected to be in a better situation than those in a 'lower' class, are actually not.

Which makes many of the old distinctions about the lifestyles of the various classes obsolete. But probably creates new ones.....
posted by jonpollard at 10:00 AM on April 11, 2002

Riviera said: (You realise, wackybrit, that people like your parents are actually sucking the life out of the North, by making it impossible for people to buy houses on their substantially lower salaries, while the southerners sell their one-bedroomed cupboards and buy entire terraces?..

Generally I would agree with this, but not in the case of where my parents live. The east coast of Lincolnshire. House prices are low. You cannot commute to anywhere in a decent amount of time.. there are absolutely no jobs around here, and you can still pick up a house for £40k. The amount of people leaving the area is equal to those coming in.

Now.. if you want to talk about Devon, Cornwall, Wales or the North West, I'll agree with you.. Southerners are driving the prices up. But in Lincolnshire? It's not really happening. The area is dirt cheap because there's nothing there and it's not particularly desirable.
posted by wackybrit at 2:53 PM on April 12, 2002