Following on from the 'posh' thread......

There is no known society that lacks a class of ruling elite persons.

The old British working class has mostly disappeared as heavy industry has gone.

The social classes being redefined from day to day. Today it looks as if illegal immigrants, criminals, and homeless people are the lowest classes while the very rich are the ruling elite.
Obviously the very rich have the means to protect themselves and their families against becoming illegal immigrants, criminals, and homeless.

The rise in power of right wing elites will continue to stop social mobility and increase disparity in wealth.

I agree with you Doodledog.

Dickens My OH is a Ridder Første, which was presented by King Harald V, so the remnants of a class system exist in Norway.

I agree with your assertion Doodledog "that it is naive to suggest there is no class divide"

Kamiso you misinterpreted what I was saying I wasn't making judgements as to people being born into disadvantaged circumstances being uncaring, quite the opposite.

If you take certain demographics where the odds are stacked against them it is harder to reach the top echelons than say someone who is born into comparative wealth, receives an education at a private school, there is an alignment to ease them into top positions. There is still an overwhelming percentage of the judiciary for example drawn from public schools, nothing remarkable therefore about such people assuming those top positions, they have had a myriad of privileges at their disposal. to do so. We only have to look at a handful of our most recent PMs to see that, Blair, Cameron, Johnson, Sunak all from top public school. Sometimes in some cases it would appear that certain public figures seem to give the impression that is their birthright which all adds to what should be an outmoded concept. There is something far more exceptional however about a person who is born into a life of disadvantage overcoming those obstacles and succeeding.

It is a fact that some children have an exceptionally difficult start in life, I'm not talking about traditional working class communities where as you point out most are surrounded by a caring family but they aren't the ones who need the support of the social services. Communities are more fractured than they were once and that support for some isn't there, addictions are more prevalent today, of course drug and alcohol addiction isn't a preserve of any particular class, although those that compile reports on deprivation do point to evidence that suggest that there can be instances of generational behavioural patterns.

Bearing in mind the OP was "Do we still have a class system" I would still answer yes, but not impossible to transcend as maybe it was once.

I thought I had quoted Witzend in my post.

I’m not sure that that’s the same thing though- it sounds more like saying ’look at me, I have had no advantages and did well by sheer hard work and/or talent’.

The truth is that going to a good school will give you a head start, and going to a fee-paying school will give you social advantages. That is proved over and over again (why would people pay so much if it didn’t), and that seems to me far more ‘systemic’ than the things they talk about on MN, which come down to matters of taste as much as about a class system.

Saying you are proud of displaying the class signifiers others look down on is just refusing to join in and risk losing a rather silly game.

I don’t think anyone can choose a social class, really. In the end it comes down to how others see you, not how you see yourself. There are plenty of Hyacinths around who spend their lives trying to belong to a world they see as ‘better’, but they never quite make it. There will always be people who try to cut others down to size socially.

You can opt out of that by not caring, but the actual system of class that says that if you are born to X parents you will have ten more years of life and be paid £10k a year more for doing the same job than a child born in the same day to Y parents is insidious and needs to be changed.

You absolutely do have a class system and it is very noticeable if you don’t live there. Even everyday dramas illustrate it. There is one here,too, but it is a lot more subtle.

There is a report in todays paper which says that professional people from a working class background doing an identical job to those from a middle class background get paid on average £6k pa less.

The divide does exist and whilst we can all quote notable exceptions to the rule, a child born to middle class parents have much better life chances and outcomes than a child from working class parents.

There are myriad reasons for this, - one being education from birth, which was recognised by Labour and thus Sure Start centres were set up and proving their worth, by emerging outcomes.

Naturally the Tories stopped their funding, and most have disappeared.

It’s alive and well on MN, where the question of social class is brought into so many threads. They seem obsessed with it, and there are always some who say they’re ‘proudly’ working class. I never quite understand that - it’s not as if you can choose what class to be born into - ‘Ooh, working class please!’ (Just in case anyone was thinking of making you one of the dreaded MC).

Back in the 1950s and 1960s there was a strong feeling among many working class people that they wanted their children to do better by going to university or qualifying in a profession. This was equated with "getting on". However there was an orientation running alongside (among other working class people) that by aspiring to do something different via education or career progression was showing disrespect to your parents and their forebears. "What was good enough for us should be good enough for you".

I cannot tell you how hostile my father was when I had passed the application process for the civil service but waited months for my appointment. There was no internet then so references had to be gathered by snail mail. He kept pushing me to take a shop or factory job in the meantime so I could "pay for my keep".

Later when I moved into local government (early 1960s) he was even more hostile because I was paid by bank transfer and that meant a cheque book and setting up direct debits (then called standing orders) for regular expenses. In those days only "posh" people had bank accounts, telephones and cars. Not to mention central heating and bathrooms!

It goes without saying that once you move into a profession with middle class friends you begin to leave your working class roots behind. The process is compounded when you leave the parental home.

Skye17

Dickens Interesting, thank you. Did you learn Norwegian?

Yes!

But most Norwegians can speak English - many fluently... except for the older generations living in isolated communities.

This report (in The Guardian) would suggest that the class divide is alive and well.

I’m not sure that there is so much of a ‘system’ these days, but I think it’s naive to suggest that there is not a class divide.

Equalising educational opportunity would, IMO, be the most effective way to close the gap, but it is unlikely to happen as those in power have usually benefited from the unequal educational chances the current system perpetuates and will never give it up.

The class system is still alive and kicking and people’s attitudes keep it that way.
Margaret Thatcher is a case in point, when surprise is expressed that the daughter of a greengrocer should become prime minister or saying that all DavidBeckham’s money won’t move him into the upper classes.
There is a lot more ‘financial’ and ‘educational’ mobility though. My parents wanted me to “do better than them” which meant going to university though they both had perfectly acceptable careers.

Of course we have a class system. Most of you are using it to categorise people right now.

And if we didn't, why are we always being told that the Labour Party is no longer the party of the 'working class'? Or that they don't understand the working class...

If we didn't see it as being all pervasive, and definitely valid, we wouldn't even be discussing it.

Fleurpepper

Kate1949

Yes just one person but the only doctor I know! Went to school around here and was from a working class family. Just worked hard and got there.

It does not make sense to put all doctors and lawyers in the same 'bag'. It depends entirely from their background, parents, grand-parents, and where they were educated. Doctors are still a very mixed bag.

Doctors aren’t that mixed a bag, they don’t come from the upper classes, the vast majority of British doctors are from middle class backgrounds. It’s still quite unusual for doctors to come from working class backgrounds, because the hurdles to jump to tick all the boxes to get accepted at medical school is very difficult for them to navigate, and it’s extremely competitive.

Kate1949

Yes just one person but the only doctor I know! Went to school around here and was from a working class family. Just worked hard and got there.

It does not make sense to put all doctors and lawyers in the same 'bag'. It depends entirely from their background, parents, grand-parents, and where they were educated. Doctors are still a very mixed bag.

I so agree with you, makes no difference who has pensioner friends and titled millionaire friends the class system goes waaay back and those at the top do not want it any different.

Dickens Interesting, thank you. Did you learn Norwegian?

There is definitely a class system, but it doesn’t matter very much any more. It’s more a matter of education than money. David Beckham will never be upper or even middle class, but his children will be middle class.

Skye17

Blossoming

Yes we do, and we always will while we have a monarchy that clings on to its rights and privileges.

According to two measures, Norway is one of the most financially equal societies in the world. The World Happiness Report gives it top ranking. It also has a constitutional monarchy.
www.theguardian.com/inequality/datablog/2017/apr/26/inequality-index-where-are-the-worlds-most-unequal-countries

Yes, it is. Mostly.

Lived and worked there for 12 years. But they, too, have a sense of 'class' distinctions.

There are epithets to describe those who live in isolated communities out in the sticks - those we might refer to as 'country bumpkins'.

Also there are definitely some 'posh' and exclusive areas in and around Oslo where only those with money live, Holmenkollen, where the huge ski jump is located, being one of them.

And there is definitely poverty - though not on the scale we live it here in the UK. Since the global financial crisis it has increased, and it's much higher among the immigrant community.

And, as Wiki points out, "Norway combines a free market economy with the welfare model to ensure both high levels of income and wealth creation and equal distribution of this wealth. It has achieved unprecedented levels of economic development, equality and prosperity."

Generally tho', life is good for most Norwegians. I'd go back there in a flash if I wasn't so old and decrepit now. Sometimes, I wish we'd stayed, but the lure of 'home' was great and my partner, though Scandinavian, is an Anglophile and wanted to retire in The Cotswolds. Which we did.

Margaret Thatcher was a greengrocer’s daughter yet became PM. My mum was a greengrocer and I became a teacher. Not sure where class distinctions lie. Education and opportunity have more to do with it. Apart from the aristocracy and royal family.

TerriBull

I think we do!

Not as set in stone as it once was and not insurmountable for individuals who have the tenacity to see a way through and out the other side if born into a life of deprivation. It can be turned around in a generation, not impossible but a damn sight easier for the child born into a world if everything is in place to make their ascent into a successful life almost a foregone conclusion.

Nevertheless for some I imagine it would be impossible to move up the social ladder as so much is stacked against them, the vicious cycle of having a poor upbringing themselves and and then being so ground down by their own demons and poverty that to even parent their child/ren is a struggle let alone imbue them with aspirations, add failing schools, lack of facilities into that mix and odds are stacked against that child from birth.

Lack of opportunities and where you are born are deciding factors, for example, a child born in say Barrow in Furness where from what I read life is bleak to parents on the poverty line who have addictions is probably not going to fare anything like as well as one born into a comfortable home in Tunbridge Wells for example. where schools are good. The added bonus of having parents who in turn inspire their own offspring to work hard at school, engage in extra curricular activities and generally develop them as people is that child's good fortune.

Whilst everyone is equal, not everyone has equal opportunities, there are enormous disparities depending on where you happen to be born, who you're born to and the standard of schooling received and that in itself is a can of worms as to levelling up the playing field!

Yes, I think we do too. WE might treat everyone equally, but I think there is still a lot of 'them and us" around. And kids born who are brought up to believe they ARE "better" than others, are Entitled in certain ways. I think judgements and assumptions based on a number of factors unrelated to a persons individual personality are still alive and kicking.

People might have learnt to hide their thoughts and pretend they dont think they are 'better' than others is all.

growstuff I agree

Kate1949

Yes just one person but the only doctor I know! Went to school around here and was from a working class family. Just worked hard and got there.

I’d say they’re working class by origin and middle class by occupation and income.

Yes just one person but the only doctor I know! Went to school around here and was from a working class family. Just worked hard and got there.