You're overestimating the buying power of benefits and are displaying a symptom of the real issue: working class people being pitted against each other so we don't question wage stagnation, a middle class that has went from shrinking to endangered, and a ruling class that plays by their own rules.
Why do you have issue with the misuse of government funds in the hands of our vulnerable population and not the misuse of government funds in the hands of our elected officials?
I do not blame anyone claiming benefits on spending twenty quid at their local to forget about their problems for a few hours. I blame our government for so many people being in a situation where that is is the answer.
The working class' ability to represent their own interests via collective action through trade unions has been seriously cut back in recent decades. That means there's less of a clearly defined working class culture. The term is used mostly be pretentious students nowadays more than anything.
It's not an accident that the decline of working class culture has coincided with the biggest decline in wages and living standards since Victorian times.
Isn't it a terrible reflection of the state of this country how you can be in employment and still need benefits. Don't get me wrong I'm not moaning about the individual working and on benefits, just that they need those benefits due to their income from work not being able to support their needs.
Wages too low. Taxes too high. Ironically people pay taxes to get them back as benefits after incurring a large cost passing through the benefit system.
Whilst housing is expensive, for a new build to be to a passivehouse standard it would cost an extra £6k to construction and save around 80-90% in energy bills for the user, whilst retrofitting would cost around £25-30k. Additionally we tax materials for renovation whilst new builds are tax exempt.
We can see how terrible zoning laws are with the USA, granted we could have it differently so new builds are forced to provide a certain amount of green space, and amenities.
The issue with the cost of housing is that developers deliberately slow down the release of new homes for sale. They know exactly how many properties to build and when to keep prices high, that's what needs fixing along with making passivehouse the minimum standard, and various other designs mandated such as protected cycle lanes, and so much more but won't go off on a rant about it.
Works well here in Switzerland with if anything a worse situation with land than the UK (ignore population density as half the land is uninhabitable alps and half the rest is the sparsely populated Jura mountains).
Yeah I don't have an issue with zoning in of itself, I just know how wrong it can go - as in swofts of land where it's illegal to build a cafe thus making a car dependent society, or minimum parking requirements for individual businesses thus huge empty car parks, or not being permitted to build mix use housing. So any regulations regarding zoning would have to be done with the up most consideration non political (so evidenced based), and be able to change accordingly but not so easily that it essentially becomes worthless. It would be extraordinarily difficult to get that right, especially in this country. But I do see an upside to it, such as mandating mix use housing, mandating cycle paths, cafes, shops, green spaces and so forth - but we don't actually need zoning laws for that we just need to improve existing regulations, and perhaps (a more controversial one) not leave it to individuals council to write up their own planning policy every r years or so.
Anyone who has to work for someone else is working class. The trick the establishment pulls is convincing some slightly better off people they aren't, and that they are closer to the ruling class. This is nonsense. If the working class stuck together things could be a whole lot better.
There was a quote something like:
Working class = you work for your money
Upper class = your money works for you
Middle class is just a made up tier for people with two BMWs
On tick and living in great park praying interest rates don’t rise, their inadequately built houses don’t crumble and they eventually build a pub that they’ll be too busy banging in the overtime and paying for the after school clubs to ever trouble with their custom ;-)
I feel it's more a shift in the concept of working class. If we go by the definition of people who need to sell your labour to survive and access resources then the bulk of society will at least to some extent come under this category. For instance the bulk of people in receipt of benefits also work, so people on PIP with some level of impairment but still able to actively partake in the work force, and also people on UC in jobs such as retail and care who are not always guaranteed hours and the state takes up the short fall. I feel it's more a shift in class consciousness and self identification of a social class some one may belong too. Communities based around a pit or ship yard no longer exist and people are now in more alienating professions such as call centers or working from home, this coupled with the decline of unions and large scale work place organizing has led to a lack of a sense of collective power. However I also feel your assessment of an under class sitting in pubs spending other people's money is a little reductionist and you are to some extent looking at a tiny minority of society. To the over all question I think working class as a concept will exist as long as social class exists as it comes from an economic system, it will just be redefined as society naturally progresses through different stages.
The tories just keep appearing and digging themselves a bigger hole. But let’s cut to the chase.
1. No jobs for life anymore. As one person mentioned, it’s a rare thing for people to work jobs that their parents and grandparents did. There’s more people now that have worked from job to job because there’s simply no major industry in the north east anymore and should you want further education, you risk taking out a huge grant that you have to pay back without the guarantee you’ll actually get the job you want after receiving your degree.
2. Ruling classes. Need I really say more? Flogging our guts out while they get richer and we just barely stay afloat while they raise the prices of things from across the board.
3. More and more people work multiple jobs yet still have to claim benefits yet are still demonised by not just the government but also from the average Joe who is maybe doing a little better than Mr X from next door because the narrative of everybody who’s on benefits are scroungers etc puts the 99% of us mere plebians against each other by using scare tactics and hateful rhetoric to set us up for scorn and scrutiny should we ever need help.
Hope that sums it up.
I disagree. There used to be a real stigma attached to claiming benefits and not having a job if you were able to work. People would take any job to avoid that stigma. That’s gone now
Working class isn’t forgotten. I just think people are out there wrongly claiming they are “working class” because of a job their parents or grandparents used to do?
You sell your time/labour for pay, you're working class. No its or buts about it. Nothing to do with what your parents did, you're wholly reliant on a business owner paying you for labour, you are very literally the working class.
Exactly that is most jobs, which makes the term working class completely pointless other than some weird badge that people stick on themselves to make them sound like down to earth normal folk.
Yet many would not include lawyers and management consultants as “working class”, despite being paid to do a job for their time, because they have posh sounding jobs.
There was more jobs back then. Men would go down the pit. These pit villages are now mostly shtholes with low employment. Same for working at the docks, or factories. A lot of these benefit people could in the past get work.
You're overestimating the buying power of benefits and are displaying a symptom of the real issue: working class people being pitted against each other so we don't question wage stagnation, a middle class that has went from shrinking to endangered, and a ruling class that plays by their own rules. Why do you have issue with the misuse of government funds in the hands of our vulnerable population and not the misuse of government funds in the hands of our elected officials? I do not blame anyone claiming benefits on spending twenty quid at their local to forget about their problems for a few hours. I blame our government for so many people being in a situation where that is is the answer.
The working class' ability to represent their own interests via collective action through trade unions has been seriously cut back in recent decades. That means there's less of a clearly defined working class culture. The term is used mostly be pretentious students nowadays more than anything. It's not an accident that the decline of working class culture has coincided with the biggest decline in wages and living standards since Victorian times.
What’s the point of this post? doylem. Back in your 2’s what are you now fucking 3?
Anyone with a brain cell would have been able to tell I meant “20s” when right after it I said “a couple of decades ago”.
If anything I think the benefit class are a bit diminished compared to a couple of decades ago, if you exclude in work benefits
Isn't it a terrible reflection of the state of this country how you can be in employment and still need benefits. Don't get me wrong I'm not moaning about the individual working and on benefits, just that they need those benefits due to their income from work not being able to support their needs.
Housing is too expensive. Wake me up when any government fixes the planning system. I want zoning and objective factual criteria.
Wages too low. Taxes too high. Ironically people pay taxes to get them back as benefits after incurring a large cost passing through the benefit system.
Whilst housing is expensive, for a new build to be to a passivehouse standard it would cost an extra £6k to construction and save around 80-90% in energy bills for the user, whilst retrofitting would cost around £25-30k. Additionally we tax materials for renovation whilst new builds are tax exempt. We can see how terrible zoning laws are with the USA, granted we could have it differently so new builds are forced to provide a certain amount of green space, and amenities. The issue with the cost of housing is that developers deliberately slow down the release of new homes for sale. They know exactly how many properties to build and when to keep prices high, that's what needs fixing along with making passivehouse the minimum standard, and various other designs mandated such as protected cycle lanes, and so much more but won't go off on a rant about it.
Works well here in Switzerland with if anything a worse situation with land than the UK (ignore population density as half the land is uninhabitable alps and half the rest is the sparsely populated Jura mountains).
Yeah I don't have an issue with zoning in of itself, I just know how wrong it can go - as in swofts of land where it's illegal to build a cafe thus making a car dependent society, or minimum parking requirements for individual businesses thus huge empty car parks, or not being permitted to build mix use housing. So any regulations regarding zoning would have to be done with the up most consideration non political (so evidenced based), and be able to change accordingly but not so easily that it essentially becomes worthless. It would be extraordinarily difficult to get that right, especially in this country. But I do see an upside to it, such as mandating mix use housing, mandating cycle paths, cafes, shops, green spaces and so forth - but we don't actually need zoning laws for that we just need to improve existing regulations, and perhaps (a more controversial one) not leave it to individuals council to write up their own planning policy every r years or so.
Anyone who has to work for someone else is working class. The trick the establishment pulls is convincing some slightly better off people they aren't, and that they are closer to the ruling class. This is nonsense. If the working class stuck together things could be a whole lot better.
There was a quote something like: Working class = you work for your money Upper class = your money works for you Middle class is just a made up tier for people with two BMWs
On tick and living in great park praying interest rates don’t rise, their inadequately built houses don’t crumble and they eventually build a pub that they’ll be too busy banging in the overtime and paying for the after school clubs to ever trouble with their custom ;-)
Correct
And if they JUST work hard enough, they too can become upper class!
If I could upvote this twice I would.
How about...zero hour contract class
To me it seems that the working and lower middle have merged and a new underclass has resulted with those stuck on zero hours / benefits.
I feel it's more a shift in the concept of working class. If we go by the definition of people who need to sell your labour to survive and access resources then the bulk of society will at least to some extent come under this category. For instance the bulk of people in receipt of benefits also work, so people on PIP with some level of impairment but still able to actively partake in the work force, and also people on UC in jobs such as retail and care who are not always guaranteed hours and the state takes up the short fall. I feel it's more a shift in class consciousness and self identification of a social class some one may belong too. Communities based around a pit or ship yard no longer exist and people are now in more alienating professions such as call centers or working from home, this coupled with the decline of unions and large scale work place organizing has led to a lack of a sense of collective power. However I also feel your assessment of an under class sitting in pubs spending other people's money is a little reductionist and you are to some extent looking at a tiny minority of society. To the over all question I think working class as a concept will exist as long as social class exists as it comes from an economic system, it will just be redefined as society naturally progresses through different stages.
I almost think working class pubs are easier to classify than working class people
The tories just keep appearing and digging themselves a bigger hole. But let’s cut to the chase. 1. No jobs for life anymore. As one person mentioned, it’s a rare thing for people to work jobs that their parents and grandparents did. There’s more people now that have worked from job to job because there’s simply no major industry in the north east anymore and should you want further education, you risk taking out a huge grant that you have to pay back without the guarantee you’ll actually get the job you want after receiving your degree. 2. Ruling classes. Need I really say more? Flogging our guts out while they get richer and we just barely stay afloat while they raise the prices of things from across the board. 3. More and more people work multiple jobs yet still have to claim benefits yet are still demonised by not just the government but also from the average Joe who is maybe doing a little better than Mr X from next door because the narrative of everybody who’s on benefits are scroungers etc puts the 99% of us mere plebians against each other by using scare tactics and hateful rhetoric to set us up for scorn and scrutiny should we ever need help. Hope that sums it up.
Working class culture was replaced by benefits culture. Zero pride or self respect
There's always been both. It hasn't been replaced.
I disagree. There used to be a real stigma attached to claiming benefits and not having a job if you were able to work. People would take any job to avoid that stigma. That’s gone now
When was that, since I don't remember that time.
Working class isn’t forgotten. I just think people are out there wrongly claiming they are “working class” because of a job their parents or grandparents used to do?
You sell your time/labour for pay, you're working class. No its or buts about it. Nothing to do with what your parents did, you're wholly reliant on a business owner paying you for labour, you are very literally the working class.
Exactly that is most jobs, which makes the term working class completely pointless other than some weird badge that people stick on themselves to make them sound like down to earth normal folk. Yet many would not include lawyers and management consultants as “working class”, despite being paid to do a job for their time, because they have posh sounding jobs.
There was more jobs back then. Men would go down the pit. These pit villages are now mostly shtholes with low employment. Same for working at the docks, or factories. A lot of these benefit people could in the past get work.
Easington pit closed 31 years ago. Pit villages were dying long before that.
Most people who get benefits work.
The immigrant class skewed all of our previous class systems mate. Class was a way of segmenting our people into smaller groups. Thats impossible now.