Does Britain still have a Class system ?

[woodrot]

check yer booth poverty map kids - thats your real class

* Pink -Fairly comfortable. Good ordinary earnings *

used to be

*RED: Middle class. Well-to-do*

[Loz]

Mick Mac Wrote:

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> Loz Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Why do you think that, Parkdrive? Do you

> really

> > think there is no social mobility in the UK?

>

> Acknowledging that 1) class groupings exist and 2) saying there are boundaries to social mobility

> would be different things.

I disagree Mick Mac. To me a class system is the very definition of a lack of socio-economic mobility. Whatever family you were born into pretty much (with some exceptions) defined your lot in life. These days, that is a lot less true.

>

> Over time, even when we had landed gentry, middle

> class, working class, families would have moved

> between these classes over time, or generations,

> as a gradual process, just not overnight.

>

> People can move more quickly between modern day

> socio economic groupings, based upon education and

> income. I guess that's progress.

This I agree with. These days, it's whoever has money. And which family you were born into counts much, much less. Look at the top earners in this country - how many are footballers, entertainers and F1 drivers? How many are self-made businessmen. And then look at how many are the old 'landed gentry' families?

The class system (as it was) is dead.

[LondonMix]

I'm not really sure what your point is. Even during Victorian times there existed entrepreneurs / a merchant class. There have long been rich entertainers from poor backgrounds. You act like these things are somehow unique to this period of time.

[Huguenot]

DaveR, I also recal nostalgically being an actor, but that doesn't make me working class no? The builder illustration was just an extension of your own analogy.

Most people claiming to be 'working class' are as pretentious as those claiming to belong to a more exalted class. They're taking on a mix of symbols and cliches and wearing them like a cheap suit.

It reminds me of North American Irish. They're about as Irish as their fevered imaginations and quest for a fabricated identity allows them to be.

[Loz]

LondonMix Wrote:

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> I'm not really sure what your point is. Even during Victorian times there existed entrepreneurs

> / a merchant class. There have long been rich entertainers from poor backgrounds. You act like

> these things are somehow unique to this period of time.

Really? I'll give you that there was a entrepreneurs/merchant class, but very, very few of these emerged from the working class. And, for those that did make it that were not from the upper classes were excluded from 'society' anyway. Money did not buy you a ticket into the right circles. These days it does. Because today, that's all that matters.

As for rich entertainers from poor backgrounds, were there really that many? If any? I can't think of any before the advent of Hollywood in the 1920's.

[DaveR]

"Most people claiming to be 'working class' are as pretentious as those claiming to belong to a more exalted class. They're taking on a mix of symbols and cliches and wearing them like a cheap suit."

Isn't that kind of beside the point? It remains the case that, if you are English, your choice of car, or of names for your kids, or favourite food or holiday spot, or any other of a myriad of little things is enough to enable loads of other English people to quietly categorise you, and form lots of other expectations about you. And even though the proper class system may be long gone, its traces are still easily discernible.

[LadyDeliah]

Add accent and expected codes of behaviour, DaveR and I reckon you've nailed it.

[Loz]

But how does that differ from just about every other country in the world where 'class' has never been an issue like it is in the UK?

[*Bob*]

Britain may have a particularly pervy obsession with class (as demonstrated on here, week in, week out) but if you think such stuff doesn't exist in nearly every other corner of the globe, you're dreaming.

India.. China.. The Americas, Japan, Africa.. Even Australia, mate.

[edhistory]

woodrot Wrote:

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> check yer booth poverty map kids - thats your real

> class

>

> * Pink -Fairly comfortable. Good ordinary earnings

> *

>

> used to be

>

> *RED: Middle class. Well-to-do*

There is a fundamental flaw in the Booth notebooks/maps for East Dulwich.

If no-one chimes in to explain I'll give it a go st the weekend.

John K

[Loz]

*Bob* Wrote:

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> Britain may have a particularly pervy obsession with class (as demonstrated on here, week in, week

> out) but if you think such stuff doesn't exist in nearly every other corner of the globe, you're

> dreaming.

>

> India.. China.. The Americas, Japan, Africa.. Even

> Australia, mate.

But is that a class system, or just socio-economic differences mixed with a bit of pretentiousness? Or, if you like, if there is still a class system, what are the classes? Would you consider the current ABC1C2DE system a class system??

[mikeb]

In case anyone wants to take up John's challenge:

Relevant part of map

http://booth.lse.ac.uk/cgi-bin/do.pl?sub=view_booth_and_barth&m.l=0&m.d.l=0&m.p.x=10668&m.p.y=11223&m.p.w=500&m.p.h=309&m.p.l=0&m.t.w=128&m.t.h=80&b.p.x=18542&b.p.y=17150&b.p.w=500&b.p.h=309&b.p.l=1&m.move.leftup.x=3&m.move.leftup.y=2

Notebook for area west of Lordship Lane

http://booth.lse.ac.uk/notebooks/b375/jpg/40.html

Notebook for area east of Lordship Lane

http://booth.lse.ac.uk/notebooks/b375/jpg/53.html

Fascinating reading.

[uncleglen]

In my experience of this class thing as soon as you open your mouth, some people in their infinite ignorance, sum you up.

[Huguenot]

Like Luke Skywalker in the cantina that has nothing to do with class and everything to do with freighter pilots.

[Ridgley]

*Bob* Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Britain may have a particularly pervy obsession with class (as demonstrated on here, week in, week

> out) but if you think such stuff doesn't exist in nearly every other corner of the globe, you're

> dreaming.

>

> India.. China.. The Americas, Japan, Africa.. Even

> Australia, mate.

But is that a class system, or just socio-economic differences mixed with a bit of pretentiousness? Or, if you like, if there is still a class system, what are the classes? Would you consider the current ABC1C2DE system a class system??

Also in those societies they have a colour cast system as well the darker you are the more you are treated differently.

In America it is called the brown paper bag test which I found it abhorrent. The class system in Britain will never go away it will always be here the only difference is that you can move from one class to another by hard work and success it could go either way to.

[Loz]

uncleglen Wrote:

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> In my experience of this class thing as soon as

> you open your mouth, some people in their infinite

> ignorance, sum you up.

Ha! Even before you open your mouth they will have summed you up based on what you look like and what you are wearing.

[*Bob*]

Most societies (ancient and modern) naturally gravitate towards organising themselves in various strata. Higher, lower, richer, poorer, important, unimportant, better, worse.

The various peoples scattered across the globe can be so different - and yet exhibit so many common traits. Of course there are differences in the ways in which those shared traits are manifested - they have been defined by local culture / history / etc - but the common traits remain.

'Class' is just a word, particularly and popularly attributed to Britain, but you'll discover different manifestations of something similar almost everywhere you care to look.

[Ridgley]

Both very good points Bob and uncleglen, in my experience because I don?t speak street or have a London cockney accent I automatically judged as a coconut or black trying to be white which I find offensive. You are right when you say people judge you according how you speak or what you wear and if you do not fit in that hole they want to class you as it then the name call.

[El Pibe]

I rather thought the key term in this question is not whether there is a social strataficiation or whether we judge each other, but whether the word 'system' in class system is still relevant.

Given that these days we can't even define the classes I'd say the system is long dead.

I went in to the old jamaica wine house the other day and the it was chaos, a free for all I tell ya, the class division walls were being completely ignored. Rich folk in the leftermost part f the bar, estuary accents blaring in the rightermost, tut tut.

I aim to reintroduce the class system by wearing a bola hat, ill fitting off the peg suit, and describing myself as a clerk whilst living in a dingy victorian terrace on the bread line, and hopefully everyone else will follow.

[Brendan]

That's just too depressingly close to life.

Although I can't afford a hat.

[Loz]

El Pibe Wrote:

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> I rather thought the key term in this question is not whether there is a social strataficiation or

> whether we judge each other, but whether the word 'system' in class system is still relevant.

>

> Given that these days we can't even define the classes I'd say the system is long dead.

That's exactly the point I've been trying to make. Badly.

[DulwichFox]

Do you have a Raven on your roof. ??

The raven on the roof closed one eye

Preened himself against the sky

Picked his beak with a crooked claw

And settled down to wait once more

In the house beneath the family sat

Tossing goldfish to the cat

TV dinners on their knee

And forty-nine lights on the Xmas tree

Father?s made a lot of bread

Someone?s got to make guns father said

We know it?s all right and there?s the proof

Our house has got a raven on the roof

The next door neighbours, there are a joke

They cultivate a garden which they smoke

And send their kids to the local schools

They must be growing up a bunch of fools

The next door neighbours haven?t a cent

We own our house but they pay rent

Property owners should remain aloof

Especially when they?ve got a raven on their roof

When father was fifty he fell ill

Mother puts the crumbs on the window-sill

Like she usually did, but he died in pain

And they found he had a raven in his brain...

Song Here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJS18IBvVts

Fox.

[Alan Medic]

Re.Subject:Does it really matter? You'll be dead soon enough.

73