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just occurred to me that in all the time i knew my auntie's good china was the single most important element of her middle class credentials, i never once made a joke about taiwan
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Apr 12, 2022 20:57
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sometimes you just look back and realise you never really lived 
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Apr 12, 2022 20:57
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Guavanaut posted:Does the strict Marxian class division work in a postindustrial society? Marx says it doesn't work properly like that in preindustry, and there's a whole frankfurter school that says that interwar and postwar consumerism was the beginning of the end of a defined proletarian interest, but some of those guys just didn't like jazz. I doubt any of these rubrics are universally explanatory, but I question whether this working/middle/upper is a more useful analysis, kinda just seems like brainworms left over from the British peerage system
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Apr 12, 2022 21:03
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I'm sure that intersects with some people's understanding of it, and possibly the choice of words used. But I don't really know a better way to use the marxist idea that your position in society reflects your interests and, to a degree, your likely behaviour, while also accounting for the fact that marx's specific two class sytem doesn't actually seem to reflect how the world works? If I look at the world and try to infer classes from it, which I think is how you're supposed to do it, I would probably pick three main ones: Super loving rich people who own everything and almost all their interests revolve around continuing to own things; bourgeoisie. People who own gently caress all and whose interests mostly revolve around trying to figure out how to get it so they can own at least enough to live properly: proletarians. And people who already own enough to live quite well and whose interests are apparently so impossible for they themselves to figure out that they spend most of their time getting mad about poo poo that doesn't affect their lives at all, but still have a very strong instinct to stamp down on anything that might threaten their position of being labour aristocracy or middle class or whatever, they seem to take a perverse joy in being not at the bottom of the pile even if they are objectively much closer to it than they will ever be to the top; middle class. And they're not even wrong in their judgement? I've said it before but while capitalism may be poo poo, if it offered you like an 80% chance of having probably the best quality of life that has been available to most humans throughout history, as long as you worked for a while at a high paying job enough to own a house and a pension and all the other poo poo the boomers mostly have, would you not be quite rational if utterly morally bankrupt to take that chance? People en-masse apparently did in previous decades and now form the bulk of the tories vote share. What are they, if not a class? At what point does their position in society repeat enough from person to person and have traceable roots back to the material conditions of their lives that it constitutes a class?
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Apr 12, 2022 21:22
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OwlFancier posted:Or at least that is the case given that I think a lot of people would rather die than not have amazon prime, given how the pandemic has demonstrated that people would also die for haircuts and gawping at things in supermarkets, or the right to eat horse paste. Strictly speaking I think lots of people were comfortable for other people to die so they could get their haircuts and Amazon. You know, service workers.
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Apr 12, 2022 21:59
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I think that old lady who phoned into the radio and literally said she was satisfied with her life and if she had to die to go out for a walk she would like to, has been burned into my brain. Which, granted, may have been in response to being unwilling to back down on radio, but people have literally gone to their graves screaming about how actually they made the right decision, people genuinely will die rather than correct course, so at what point is that just who they are?
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Apr 12, 2022 22:02
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from GA Cohen:quote:The communist impression of the working class was that its members The typical rejoinder in the post-Thatcher/Reaganite 1990s and 2000s to this kind of argument was to allude to a global rather than national proletariat (which Cohen later tackles, but I bring up as illustrative of the mood of the period: that is, being entirely too willing to concede that the description does successfully capture domestic politics). My cynical sense is that the largest problem that would emerge with this discourse is that the countries of the Global South eventually got together and decided that their greatest interest was not the West cutting off the South's exports but instead the opposite: to open their own domestic agriculture markets to Southern exports. That and the rise of China rather spoiled the alt-globalization mood. The Occupy-channelling 99% intellectual moment in Anglo politics was genuinely revolutionary in its own way in shifting discourse from welfare to inequality - from redistribution to predistribution, so to speak - and thereby reviving a definition of a 'working class', albeit this would of course go hand in hand with a new new left politics aligning around the priorities of the upper third, whilst the protectionist crowd migrated back across the aisle to the right.
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Apr 12, 2022 22:06
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I think it's useful to note that the perceived middle class is heavily aspirational; and not aspirational in the sense of wanting to be rich, but aspirational in the sense of wanting to have everything a middle class person should have. Which it turns out (even based on the perception graph earlier) still puts you into the top 10% or so. You can call it being on the top of the crab bucket or whatever, but the truth is that most people don't have everything that belongs to a middle class (i.e. "decent" in the traditional class system sense) lifestyle. e: This in turn making people anxious and feeling insecure even though objectively they have quite comfortable lives and making them exploit the poor through laws, power and politics. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Apr 12, 2022 |
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Apr 12, 2022 22:21
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Private Speech posted:I think it's useful to note that middle class is heavily aspirational; and not aspirational in the sense of wanting to be rich, but aspirational in the sense of wanting to have everything a middle class person should have. Which it turns out (even based on graph) still puts you into the top 10% or so. I think you’re right, in that the middle class is defined by being an aspirational one. They have enough comfort that they can afford to be aspirational about luxury as opposed to merely aspiring to security (financial, social, moral, societal, educational, and labour). The thing that’s missing, perhaps, is a recognisance that the current middle class is still highly insecure, a fact well known to the upper class who have enough to genuinely and meaningfully hoard to the detriment of all other classes. The middle classes themselves are largely manipulated by a culture war that’s masking the true class war: that the middle classes have no more significant long term security in a society as unequally controlled as the one we have today. As time goes on, they themselves use the weapons of that class/culture war to prolong it, because the invective of that war is in itself a kind of stabilisation of their position. The class/culture war as promulgated by the bourgeoisie is less concerned with the fate of the bottom, because the mechanisms of necessity and survival keep them focused on immediate food-on-table, but rather is more concerned with keeping financial docility of a middle class so that they can be relied upon to favour the tenuous stability of the status quo. The middle and lower classes are both focused on survival, but the middle class have just enough latitude and safety net (still fragile, but not so obviously at risk of immediate failure) that they can be relied upon to maintain the balance. I think that’s why so often they agree with much of the socially liberal philosophy, but daren’t risk the destabilisation because they know they, perhaps more than any class, are faced with deep uncertainty of outcome. Put simply: they perceive that they have more to lose. Side note: political philosophy was the only thing that excites me at university and part of me rues giving it up. I wish my thoughts were more informed. Time to read this stuff again. e: missed your edit, but I think we’re saying fairly similar things.
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Apr 12, 2022 22:33
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I uh... do know a couple of people in the high five figure salary range and they absolutely have what I would call a decent life, they have everything I would realistically want out of life absent things that can only be provided by society anyway such as healthcare, security, and the world not being on fire. In terms of material comfort based on ownership I do not believe at all that a six figure salary is insufficient to afford you a very good quality of life.
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Apr 12, 2022 22:34
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OwlFancier posted:I uh... do know a couple of people in the high five figure salary range and they absolutely have what I would call a decent life, they have everything I would realistically want out of life absent things that can only be provided by society anyway such as healthcare, security, and the world not being on fire. Six figure salary is also a very small part of the society. Most people who call themselves "middle class" have nowhere near that.
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Apr 12, 2022 22:38
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OwlFancier posted:I uh... do know a couple of people in the high five figure salary range and they absolutely have what I would call a decent life, they have everything I would realistically want out of life absent things that can only be provided by society anyway such as healthcare, security, and the world not being on fire. A six figure salary is simply not enough to buy you immunity from the societal changes that are at risk. They know this. A new Merc still needs fuel. Private healthcare in the UK still needs nurses. A fund for your kids going to Winchester won’t keep you safe. You need Smaug levels of wealth to truly not worry. Their fear is the most powerful weapon the upper class have. They’re wealthy enough to look secure, but if standard mores collapse that wealth will be worthless. Only the Sunaks will survive.
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Apr 12, 2022 22:38
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https://twitter.com/joe__mander/status/1513976616749355015 https://twitter.com/Planetwaves20/status/1513994595272642560 https://twitter.com/Kimberl50317556/status/1513989578310533124 fuctifino fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Apr 12, 2022 |
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Apr 12, 2022 22:41
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I quite like the point that James from the podcast made about this. Class can't be understood just from material conditions, it's also about status. Middle Vs working class can be understood as different status indicators, independent of economics. People will face down even quite serious hardship rather than lose perceived status. See that famous quote about the necessity of a linen shirt - it's a kind of trap for poorer people.
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Apr 12, 2022 22:43
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a new socialism of universal basic services - that is, welfare de facto gated behind a lifestyle and culture of high-paying jobs and high costs of living - did seem to have the potential to reshape politics for at least a couple of decades, with or without their respective personalist politicians a brexitless (and covidless, etc). ukpol might well have hurtled in that direction as it stands it seems that middle-class existential unease is instead pulling due greenism
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Apr 12, 2022 22:43
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It seems from the Brexit press that a new enemy in Russia has done more to drive the green push than Covid, although that laid the groundwork. The Express saying that Britons don't want fracking or Russian natural gas so heat pumps are good now, hydrogen should be green not blue, wind is the answer, solar is duck shaped, and we don't even know what coal is makes for an interesting turn.
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Apr 12, 2022 23:07
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Guavanaut posted:It seems from the Brexit press that a new enemy in Russia has done more to drive the green push than Covid, although that laid the groundwork. Solar: the great duckroll of our time; promulgated by the express
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Apr 12, 2022 23:14
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BRITISH TURBINES harvesting BRITISH WIND for BRITISH POWER none of that forrin wind only BRITISH
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Apr 12, 2022 23:17
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OwlFancier posted:BRITISH TURBINES harvesting BRITISH WIND for BRITISH POWER farts for queen and cuntry
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Apr 12, 2022 23:19
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ronya posted:as it stands it seems that middle-class existential unease is instead pulling due greenism I'm not sure I'm a fan of this terse, gnomic iteration of ronya in general, but this seems particularly problematic given fairly static Green party polling over a good number of years for example , and I'm not sure I see much policy or even political signalling that suggests a substantial advance on Cameron hugging a husky as the answer to vague voter discomfort.
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Apr 12, 2022 23:37
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Jeherrin posted:farts for queen and cuntry
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Apr 12, 2022 23:41
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Gilbert Gottfried has died. John Oliver had him read all the ridiculous Brexit agreements because Parliamentary footage can't be used in comedy shows. And he treated it with the respect it truly deserved by seguing into Bigfoot erotica. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdHmp5EX5bE
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Apr 12, 2022 23:50
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Boris and Rishi have received 6 fines between them. Fabricant has been a oval office again today, so the RCN wrote him a nice letter 
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Apr 13, 2022 00:26
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Jeherrin posted:Solar: the great duckroll of our time; promulgated by the express
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Apr 13, 2022 01:26
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Lady Demelza posted:Gilbert Gottfried has died.
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Apr 13, 2022 05:46
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OwlFancier posted:I think that old lady who phoned into the radio and literally said she was satisfied with her life and if she had to die to go out for a walk she would like to, has been burned into my brain. Was that the same woman who said that if we don't go to the beach, the virus wins? I think about that a lot. There's a whole flavour of brain worms going on there.
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Apr 13, 2022 06:58
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Bobby Deluxe posted:We regret to inform you the sun is racist.
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Apr 13, 2022 07:35
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Jeherrin posted:farts for queen and cuntry So *that's* what all the beans are for!
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Apr 13, 2022 08:27
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Jeherrin posted:A six figure salary is simply not enough to buy you immunity from the societal changes that are at risk. They know this. A new Merc still needs fuel. Private healthcare in the UK still needs nurses. A fund for your kids going to Winchester won’t keep you safe. You need Smaug levels of wealth to truly not worry. Their fear is the most powerful weapon the upper class have. They’re wealthy enough to look secure, but if standard mores collapse that wealth will be worthless. Only the Sunaks will survive. This actually came up in a recent programmer thread. An American who's currently working in Sweden was asking where he could move to improve his salary, but required social healthcare. He was initially suggested to come back to the ol USA where programmer salaries are about 2/3X everywhere else ($170—250k is pretty standard there) so you don't need to care about healthcare, you can afford the best! Suddenly out come all the other Americans who point out how that's not true at all and an argument ensued over how much salary socialised healthcare was worth and all the various ways the American healthcare system can gently caress you over, and you're always one serious health condition away from poverty. You need a staggering amount of money to truly be care free.
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Apr 13, 2022 08:30
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Thanks Camrath for the prize fudge, it arrived on Tuesday but I've had a stinking cold and can't taste anything so I can't do it justice yet. My wife assures me the key lime pie is amazing though.
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Apr 13, 2022 08:36
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Lungboy posted:Boris and Rishi have received 6 fines between them. Love how the right wing papers are insisting there's a war on so of course everyone should leave Boris Johnson to do his job and it's all done. Except somehow no one is bothering to point out that Britain is not, in fact, fighting in this war. If there being a war on somewhere was reason not to change prime ministers then pretty sure it'd be a job for life. (not lessening what's happening in Ukraine of course, but ARE BOYS are, you know, not getting shot at)
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Apr 13, 2022 08:48
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Guavanaut posted:It seems from the Brexit press that a new enemy in Russia has done more to drive the green push than Covid, although that laid the groundwork. The Brexit press is currently trying to be as anti-Russia as possible, lest people remember that most senior Brexiteers were taking funding from Putin and it's now becoming very painfully clear that he was hoping the withdrawal of a core EU member would have serious negative effects on the unity of the bloc.
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Apr 13, 2022 09:15
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Definitely, but there's a few different ways that you can do that. "Clean coal revolution, open the pits back up, tell [foreign name you have been told to dislike] where to shove his carbon quotas" would not have been an unusual position for populist anti-EU papers to take even a decade ago. I wonder which heat pump provider is picking up the tab at the private members club. (It's going to be that one that Octopus has gone all in on.)
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Apr 13, 2022 09:22
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Well, apparently, tbe government feels because of my medical condition, I get free lfts. They came a few days ago, no one told me and tge parents stole them.
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Apr 13, 2022 09:23
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Bobby Deluxe posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW3lhfVpLL4 This is a Venn diagram 
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Apr 13, 2022 09:33
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Turns out that clockwork orange has a decent smattering of slavic, which is helping slightly in learning Ukrainian. Moloko is milk, and droog means friend. Maybe Anthony Burgess only got to the 3rd level in duolingo too.
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Apr 13, 2022 09:38
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I was speculating yesterday whether class nowadays might be better analysed in terms of a person's relationship to the State, rather than capital. Inequality is such that the traditional proletariat can't sustain themselves by selling their labour, so at the lower end you have people who are dependent on the State for housing & income (including tax credits &c) & interact with the State as service users, then as you get higher you have people who are able to invoke the power of the State by litigating (which is just too much time, expense & risk for ordinary people), all the way up to people who have the power to directly implement policy through lobbying &c & interact with the State as clients. idk what the implications of this are, it was just a fag-break musing.
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Apr 13, 2022 10:17
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Jedit posted:The Brexit press is currently trying to be as anti-Russia as possible, lest people remember that most senior Brexiteers were taking funding from Putin and it's now becoming very painfully clear that he was hoping the withdrawal of a core EU member would have serious negative effects on the unity of the bloc. Which has certainly backfired, because as bad as Brexit has been for the UK it's probably made the EU more unified - since leaving is both possible and painful, other EU states respect moreso that if they are in, they are in.
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Apr 13, 2022 10:23
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Nothingtoseehere posted:Which has certainly backfired, because as bad as Brexit has been for the UK it's probably made the EU more unified - since leaving is both possible and painful, other EU states respect moreso that if they are in, they are in. I wouldn't say that it was a flawed plan, though. Certainly the Eurosceptics in other EU countries were initially strengthened by it. Where it went wrong was with the horrific mishandling of the UK withdrawal, where the Tories in their arrogance decided that they had as much clout as the whole EU and were rudely disabused. If they'd only tried to sever the political links then more questions would have been raised over the need for a European Parliament. So the strategy was sound; it was the tools that didn't suffice.
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Apr 13, 2022 10:54
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OzyMandrill posted:Turns out that clockwork orange has a decent smattering of slavic, which is helping slightly in learning Ukrainian. Moloko is milk, and droog means friend. Maybe Anthony Burgess only got to the 3rd level in duolingo too. Yeah, and "horrorshow" is a corruption of khorosho.
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Apr 13, 2022 10:58
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