Do the bourgeoisie still have a political party?

[tinfoilhat]

I understand you are from the Netherlands surly in your country of birth you have working class ( labours for example) an middle class ( doctors, professional trades) and the rich ( landed wealth) and parties who represent them ?

 

In this day and age the rich are represented by EVERY party.

[crookedspire]

In this day and age the rich are represented by EVERY party.

 

Very ture look how many top rate tax cuts Osborne did during his time as Chancellor. Well the money got to come from somewhere to pay for them fancy meals and designer suits.

[WestTinsley]

I understand you are from the Netherlands surly in your country of birth you have working class ( labours for example) an middle class ( doctors, professional trades) and the rich ( landed wealth) and parties who represent them ?

 

---------- Post added 27-07-2016 at 22:50 ----------

 

 

The idea of class died after World War Two perhaps even after the Great War to a point but yet our politics is still based on the idea of ' class' the middle class were a Victorian idea a sort of middle ground. I agree that for the under 35s none of the parties reach out to them as the MPs know people over 50 are more likely to vote than the under 35s .

 

You've just talked about class .and then go on to say class hassn't existed since ww2 or ww1(??)

We live in one of the most classist ridden state systems on the planet .

You are using old neoliberalism rhetoric of thatcherism et al. Class does exist. Some People need to wake up and notice

It. Cos ukip and bnp are much further to the Right than Thatcher or the Tory party. Fascism and neo liberal centrist bs work hand in glove... time the media gave the Labour Leftt a chance (joke).. cos fascism is on the rise and the neoliberals and the media have no problem propagating any form of rightwing politics such as bnp edl ukip and the likes

Edited July 27, 2016 by WestTinsley

[tinfoilhat]

Very ture look how many top rate tax cuts Osborne did during his time as Chancellor. Well the money got to come from somewhere to pay for them fancy meals and designer suits.

 

You could say the same for Gordon Brown. He hardly hammered bankers pre-crash did he.

[Mister M]

This argument is totally obselete in today's society. That the UK obsesses with 'class' is a hangover from our 2 party system.

 

To most people my age working class doesn't exist. There are realistically 6+ 'classes' in Britain. The shocking thing is that neither Labour or the Conservatives have very much to say to the under 35s. Both are parties of the traditional middle class, which in reality only exists in the over 50s.

 

I think you're right that the concerns of the under 35s are under represented in parliament - lack of affordable housing / social housing; employment opportunities etc. But these are concerns of the over 35s as well.

 

I think social class is multi faceted - but working classes do exist, just like middle classes, and upper classes do. The boundaries maybe more blurred than they were in Victorian times - but we are far from a classless society. The grinding slow down of social mobility in the last 20/30 years is just one testament to that.

 

I can see why the political class would seek to promote the idea that 'we're all middle class now' though.

[crookedspire]

You've just talked about class .and then go on to say class hassn't existed since ww2 or ww1(??)

We live in one of the most classist ridden state systems on the planet .

You are using old neoliberalism rhetoric of thatcherism et al. Class does exist. Some People need to wake up and notice

It. Cos ukip and bnp are much further to the Right than Thatcher or the Tory party. Fascism and neo liberal centrist bs work hand in glove... time the media gave the Labour Leftt a chance (joke).. cos fascism is on the rise and the neoliberals and the media have no problem propagating any form of rightwing politics such as bnp edl ukip and the likes

 

What I mean is the government like to say were a classless society but our political system is based on the idea of class. The years following the Great War saw many landed estates come to an end as labour was not so cheap anymore to keep the grand palaces maintained the middle class was on the rise. After WW2 the post wars years were a time a growth and the working man's living standards inproved slowly. But now the class divisions are coming back we seem to have become more right wing I hope the lessons of history are remembered another Hilter is not the answer.

[tzijlstra]

I understand you are from the Netherlands surly in your country of birth you have working class ( labours for example) an middle class ( doctors, professional trades) and the rich ( landed wealth) and parties who represent them ?

 

Association with class is a different thing than actually being in a class. The reason I think this is an outdated view of the world is exactly because of that. People like labels and stereotypes: 'Ohaiyeh, me dad worked in't steel so I'm working class.' It is giving yourselves a disadvantage from the get go.

 

We have people (mainly elderly) in the Netherlands who still think like that, so let me explain why I am so fierce on this topic:

 

In my family (father and mother's side, combined they have 17 siblings, most of whom have at least 2 children, most of whom now have children and so on, big, big family...). I am one of the oldest grandchildren on my dad's side and the oldest on my mum's side. I was the first to get a bachelor's degree and I had to fight for it. I didn't think I could do it, despite being told all my life that I was intelligent I was also told all my life that higher education was pointless, you're much better off with an 'honest job' (Edit: Not by my parents by the way, who always encouraged education).

 

Here we are today, I am the first to hold an MSc and consequently, the first to hold a PhD. My cousin recently qualified as a midwife and her brother as an engineer, there are a few others who got their undergrad degrees as well but I don't know all of them... other than that most of my family has adhered to 'honest jobs' or what you would call working class, my dad's side rural and my mum's side city. Some of them are doing really rather well, running their own business and so on, a lot of them are doing meaningless menial jobs.

 

My grandad one day literally told me: Who was born for a penny will never become a shilling. And he believed in that and his children, mostly, believed in that. This is what made my time at Uni difficult at first (and boy, it was difficult). Now that I have all these qualifications though I understand how this works a lot better. It is all due to people's desire to put a label on things. On themselves, on other people, on their neighbourhood, on their job, on their church, their manager, their kids, their teachers, their neighbours.

 

Frankly, it is silly and in fact, creates the 'rise in right wing sentiment' you speak of in the post before this.

 

I genuinely think the most unhelpful thing in the world is to label yourself as something and then, subconsciously, sticking to it. To illustrate my first point about association and being. Here is an ONS stat. Particularly for WestTinsley.

Edited July 28, 2016 by tzijlstra

[biotechpete]

I think you're right that the concerns of the under 35s are under represented in parliament - lack of affordable housing / social housing; employment opportunities etc. But these are concerns of the over 35s as well.

 

I think social class is multi faceted - but working classes do exist, just like middle classes, and upper classes do. The boundaries maybe more blurred than they were in Victorian times - but we are far from a classless society. The grinding slow down of social mobility in the last 20/30 years is just one testament to that.

 

I can see why the political class would seek to promote the idea that 'we're all middle class now' though.

 

We are certainly more unequal and less socially mobile. But in terms of skills and income differential, the traditional working class are getting ever smaller. When you try to break down the inequality and look for solutions you see that there are many reasons for it across really quite separate demographics of the population.

 

When you look at precarious employment terms for example, they exist across the income spectrum, by and large, but almost exclusively it's the young that are most subject to such terms, not (just) the poor. Equally having an education is not a guarantee to well paid or secure employment. Many graduates earn less than those without a degree.

 

I know of people who identify as working class (eg builders who own a building company) but actually don't realise that they are probably in the top 30% or over of household incomes. By and large, the real wealth has been shifted to the hands of the global super-rich and given the cost of living for eg housing, we are mostly all working class.

 

---------- Post added 28-07-2016 at 12:57 ----------

 

What I mean is the government like to say were a classless society but our political system is based on the idea of class. The years following the Great War saw many landed estates come to an end as labour was not so cheap anymore to keep the grand palaces maintained the middle class was on the rise. After WW2 the post wars years were a time a growth and the working man's living standards inproved slowly. But now the class divisions are coming back we seem to have become more right wing I hope the lessons of history are remembered another Hilter is not the answer.

 

The class divisions aren't coming back. There is a polarisation yes, between the very bottom and the very top, but in the middle it's all mixed up.

[crookedspire]

Association with class is a different thing than actually being in a class. The reason I think this is an outdated view of the world is exactly because of that. People like labels and stereotypes: 'Ohaiyeh, me dad worked in't steel so I'm working class.' It is giving yourselves a disadvantage from the get go.

 

We have people (mainly elderly) in the Netherlands who still think like that, so let me explain why I am so fierce on this topic:

 

In my family (father and mother's side, combined they have 17 siblings, most of whom have at least 2 children, most of whom now have children and so on, big, big family...). I am one of the oldest grandchildren on my dad's side and the oldest on my mum's side. I was the first to get a bachelor's degree and I had to fight for it. I didn't think I could do it, despite being told all my life that I was intelligent I was also told all my life that higher education was pointless, you're much better off with an 'honest job' (Edit: Not by my parents by the way, who always encouraged education).

 

Here we are today, I am the first to hold an MSc and consequently, the first to hold a PhD. My cousin recently qualified as a midwife and her brother as an engineer, there are a few others who got their undergrad degrees as well but I don't know all of them... other than that most of my family has adhered to 'honest jobs' or what you would call working class, my dad's side rural and my mum's side city. Some of them are doing really rather well, running their own business and so on, a lot of them are doing meaningless menial jobs.

 

My grandad one day literally told me: Who was born for a penny will never become a shilling. And he believed in that and his children, mostly, believed in that. This is what made my time at Uni difficult at first (and boy, it was difficult). Now that I have all these qualifications though I understand how this works a lot better. It is all due to people's desire to put a label on things. On themselves, on other people, on their neighbourhood, on their job, on their church, their manager, their kids, their teachers, their neighbours.

 

Frankly, it is silly and in fact, creates the 'rise in right wing sentiment' you speak of in the post before this.

 

I genuinely think the most unhelpful thing in the world is to label yourself as something and then, subconsciously, sticking to it. To illustrate my first point about association and being. Here is an ONS stat. Particularly for WestTinsley.

Never belittle yourself you don't what you can do until you try. I'm opposit to you in the way I see myself I'm pround of my working class roots and family history much is tired in with Sheffield's history .

 

---------- Post added 28-07-2016 at 14:18 ----------

 

We are certainly more unequal and less socially mobile. But in terms of skills and income differential, the traditional working class are getting ever smaller. When you try to break down the inequality and look for solutions you see that there are many reasons for it across really quite separate demographics of the population.

 

When you look at precarious employment terms for example, they exist across the income spectrum, by and large, but almost exclusively it's the young that are most subject to such terms, not (just) the poor. Equally having an education is not a guarantee to well paid or secure employment. Many graduates earn less than those without a degree.

 

I know of people who identify as working class (eg builders who own a building company) but actually don't realise that they are probably in the top 30% or over of household incomes. By and large, the real wealth has been shifted to the hands of the global super-rich and given the cost of living for eg housing, we are mostly all working class.

 

---------- Post added 28-07-2016 at 12:57 ----------

 

 

The class divisions aren't coming back. There is a polarisation yes, between the very bottom and the very top, but in the middle it's all mixed up.

I think the whole political scene is skewed now more than ever.

[Jeffrey Shaw]

I agree that for the under 35s none of the parties reach out to them as the MPs know people over 50 are more likely to vote than the under 35s .

Yes. At the Referendum, only 35% of registered voters younger than 24 actually bothered to vote!