This reminds we of a conversation I was having with a friend. I (very much jokingly) explained to him he was a tradesperson because he charged an hourly rate for work and his job had a barrier to entry (by way of having a period of supervised on the job training and having to gain a certification that he isn't allowed to work without).
He's an accountant.
this is tbe modern definitions.
Which are completely irrelevant to this discussion. Those are occupation-based categories and don't consider background, culture etc. The tradional definitons which people use to identify themselves consider a lot more than what you do for a job and what you get paid.
Still enjoying this gem to be honest...
Take Glasgow away and Scotland is a mostly middle class liberal place
Yes remove Scotland's largest and most diverse city, one with three universities, tens of thousands of well paid professional jobs, a thriving art and music scene, and Scotland will become more middle class and liberal.
this is tbe modern definitions.
Which are completely irrelevant to this discussion. Those are occupation-based categories and don't consider background, culture etc. The tradional definitons which people use to identify themselves consider a lot more than what you do for a job and what you get paid.
what are these traditional derinitions then?
marxist ones about uour ownership of yhe mesns of production? When was das Kapital written?
or the socioeconomic used my entire lifetime?
this is tbe modern definitions.
Which are completely irrelevant to this discussion. Those are occupation-based categories and don't consider background, culture etc. The tradional definitons which people use to identify themselves consider a lot more than what you do for a job and what you get paid.
what are these traditional definitions then?
marxist ones about your ownership of the means of production? When was das Kapital written?
or the socioeconomic used my entire lifetime?
I havd never seen a definition spart from Marx that would have well paid university educated professionals as working class.
If your thesis is right then most doctors are working class as are many lawyers
nickc. thats pretty much the marxist defintion of class.
There's nothing Marxist about it. It's just a simple economic definition - where does your money come from?
But class definition isn't just economic, it's cultural and social as well - what job do you do, what's your education, what's your families (parents) status, what did they do, what was their expectation for you, where d'you live, what do you do as a hobby, what d'you eat and drink, what's your self-identity?
If culture is a construct, then one's own perception play a significant part, and is both consciously and unconsciously; part of your persona. Charlie Mullins hasn't worked as a plumber for ages but probably has more money that many blue-blooded Aristos, but put him in their world - and he stands out like a sore thumb, and the opposite is just as true.
That's probably the best single sentence answer to this really - Can you walk into the local working men's or the Legion, and have a pint there, or would you feel more at home at Quatre Saisons, the Fat Duck or the RAC in Pall Mall?
When was das Kapital written?
which Volume? Part one was 1860 something, I think Engels (Lord alone knows why) published that last volume after he'd edited it into something coherent was 1880 something.
In between Marx spending money on piano lessons and moving house (always climbing the social greasy ladder), and realising that his central theme - Profit comes from surplus labour - was entirely bogus.
If your thesis is right then most doctors are working class as are many lawyers
Can be
which Volume? Part one was 1860 something, I
rhetorical question answered. 😀 my point is traditional definitions of class were mrntioned so I mentioned the only two I gave ever seen. Both old enough to be seen as traditional.
Never seen your definition used apart from by middleclass folk claiming they are still working class. A bit like Americans claiming to be Irish 😀
Does your thesis allow for social mobility ? Seems like it doesn't.
Anyway. Thats the thread drifted a long way.
apart from by middleclass folk claiming they are still working class
So they may affect middle class, but come from a working class background. What folks call themselves or think of themselves is vastly more important that any label given to them. Plus it works both ways, Hyacinth Bucket is only funny because it's 'yer actual working class posing as something they're not
and this is funny because of the inverse snobbery of being middle class but claiming to be working class
so if i say i am a member of the aristocracy does that mean i am
The mental gymnastics some folk will perform to avoid describing themselves as middle class is really quite something to behold. I'm an educated senior manager earning significantly more than average, and have no problem describing myself as middle class. Given the nature of this forum, I expect my circumstances are similar to many others here.
Last year I bought a waxed cotton flat cap from John Lewis and I knew the game was up
In my defence, it’s age-appropriate and I live in the Lancashire hills where it always rains, but I’m virtually Jeremy Clarkson!
I couldn't give a flying fig what social or working class I'm supposed to be.
I do imagine a lot of posters on here look like this though. Or their partners do
I couldn't give a flying fig what social or working class I'm supposed to be.
You do seem very keen for us to know that you don't care what we think.
so if i say i am a member of the aristocracy does that mean i am
I knew it. With those tousled locks there's no way you worked with a textile power loom or Spinning Jenny
I’m entirely benefit class and proud of myself and my achievements 😉
so if i say i am a member of the aristocracy does that mean i am
You could claim to be upper class if you want, Aristocracy usually means you have to have a title though...You could buy one of those scams they sell to gullible Americans looking to reinforce their Scots heritage, and buy the Lairdship of half an acre of bog in in Trossochs?
I think (if we're using the Marxist definitions you claimed before), as a landlord, it puts you in a social category all your own.
The mental gymnastics some folk will perform to avoid describing themselves as middle class is really quite something to behold.
It might be for some, for other folks it's either less clear cut, or they're just not [middle class] in the way that you want to define them. These three classes (and modern sociologists use seven) only really exist as social construct because the boundaries are broadly agreed between folks, and they fall to bits when folks 'move' across them. Jim Radcliffe was born in a council house in Failsworth, Denise Coates grew up working in a chain of betting shops owned by her dad, both are multi-billionaires, I'll bet money they'd say their class is different to the label you'd give them.
It might be for some, for other folks it's either less clear cut, or they're just not [middle class] in the way that you want to define them. These three classes (and modern sociologists use seven) only really exist as social construct because the boundaries are broadly agreed between folks, and they fall to bits when folks 'move' across them. Jim Radcliffe was born in a council house in Failsworth, Denise Coates grew up working in a chain of betting shops owned by her dad, both are multi-billionaires, I'll bet money they'd say their class is different to the label you'd give them.
You seemed earlier to be relying on a very narrow, Marxist interpretation of class, and now you're saying that it's complicated. Mental gymnastics indeed.
so if i say i am a member of the aristocracy does that mean i am
You are called Jeremy everyone in Scotland already assumed you were!
I don't think Nickc has actually made any claims about his own status to be fair tho I do think his argument is full of holes
However this has gone a long way from the original topic and I think the debate has settled to three positions. 1) You are the class as defined by your education and occupation ( socioeconomic class) 2) the marxist definition of class which is about your relationship / ownership of the means of production, 3) whatever class you think you are
So they may affect middle class, but come from a working class background.
I am very much from a working class background (dad was lorry driver, mum was part time dinner lady and then home help)
I am now appear very much middle class - house (and decor), job etc,.
I still feel the same as I did when I was growing up and just found myself very lucky along the way so am I just working class with some intelligence and luck meaning I don't appear to be working class?
However this has gone a long way from the original topic and I think the debate has settled to three positions. 1) You are the class as defined by your education and occupation ( socioeconomic class) 2) the marxist definition of class which is about your relationship / ownership of the means of production, 3) whatever class you think you are
Which pretty much shows why the entire notion of class is pretty ridiculous. Its a useful tool for driving division and not much else. In my experience when someone is identifying as working class they are usually trying to say "I didn't get any particular advantage in life". Of course it doesn't necessarily follow - people are usually very bad at recognising that they didn't actually achieve all their own success through entirely their own efforts (even if the "leg up" was just a loving parent).
More to the point how does Labour leader Sir KS see himself? I see him as someone who has betrayed his origins and fails to represent th epeople who voted for him. Socialist François Holland refered to the lower classes as sans dents (without teeth). Poor dental hygiene when young and the inability to pay for implants when older means that the poor have bad teeth. I found it one of his less thoughtful comments as the "sans dents" were the very people voting for him.
My own teeth perhaps reflect my rising fortunes, I can now afford implants so can't consider myself poor or working class anymore. 😉 I still vote green/socialist/communist though - I voted for that coalition in the last local elections. I couldn't bring myslef to vote for Starmer though prefering to "waste" my vote on the greens.
His Defence Secretary has just resigned!
Must be bad if the Orc of war has resigned
A bit on the radio explained it. They (Defence) want, in the best case scenario, £28bn /yr for the armed forces. The Minister accepted that wasnt going to happen, so asked for £18bn. They offered £10bn iirc. As well as not meeting their commitment to pay a percentage of GDP (2.8%?).
Apparently to be prepared better, we need the £28bn per year to update our Forces and equipment. Having a war will be £200bn+ per year. Having better defence systems will be more of a deterent to any potential attackers (Russia), so less likely a war in the future, in effect saving us money in the long run.
IMO, we should be spending more. The Navy is a joke nowadays, the Army are at their lowest level for what, 100+ years , the RAF have got few working planes. The 'peace' dividend has well and truly gone, Russia is closer to war now than for the last 40 years, reducing our defence spending just emboldens them.
Speaking of the navy we have one of our aircraft carriers playing near our rig. I think I saw that one of them had yet another problem so it's maybe that one doing some trials.
How far North are you?
Only about 40 miles north of Fraserburgh, marinetraffic has one of the auxiliaries on show, there was another one there a couple of days ago so 3 in total but only seen the carrier and the auxiliary today
IMO, we should be spending more. The Navy is a joke nowadays, the Army are at their lowest level for what, 100+ years , the RAF have got few working planes.
Bollocks to that. We could spend 100bn on defence and still not stop the missiles falling if Putin presses the button. We're simply not a strategic big player any more so should give up the pretence and jingoistic hubris. The less we spend on defence the better in my opinion. Probably the only thing I agree with Starmer and Reeves on.
IMO, we should be spending more. The Navy is a joke nowadays, the Army are at their lowest level for what, 100+ years , the RAF have got few working planes. The 'peace' dividend has well and truly gone, Russia is closer to war now than for the last 40 years, reducing our defence spending just emboldens them.
The problem is modern wars aren't fought that way - it's about drones & hacking. Bomb a city great, but if you really want to bring a country to it's knees it's cyber attacks on their infrastructure.
His Defence Secretary has just resigned!
Gave Starmer both barrels in his resignation letter. Leaving the navy dangerously low on ammunition.
The problem is modern wars aren't fought that way - it's about drones & hacking
Well, yes, I think they are aware of that, so a big chunk of money will be going that way, but people in uniforms will still be required, and being an island nation, a decent Navy would be a good thing. I can see that planes will not be as essential any more due to the advent of drones, but there will still be a need for the armed forces.
IMO, we should be spending more. The Navy is a joke nowadays, the Army are at their lowest level for what, 100+ years , the RAF have got few working planes. The 'peace' dividend has well and truly gone, Russia is closer to war now than for the last 40 years, reducing our defence spending just emboldens them.
The problem is modern wars aren't fought that way - it's about drones & hacking. Bomb a city great, but if you really want to bring a country to it's knees it's cyber attacks on their infrastructure.
The GDP figure is only relevant as an expression of intent, just as the mantra of growth is pretty meaningless, but it's important messaging on political commitment.
In that respect alone it weakens the UK and it weakens NATO at exactly the wrong time. He's opening the UK up to criticism from the US, strengthening the RW and emboldening Russia and its allies.
Less than a year ago PM Starmer told the world that we're committed to 5% of GDP (3.5% of which is direct expenditure) to NATO by 2035, with 4.1% by 2027.
That’s why I have made the commitment to spend 5% of GDP on national security. This is an opportunity to deepen our commitment to NATO and drive greater investment in the nation’s wider security and resilience.
He could find the money, but he needs to grow a set and tell some of the other cabinet members that they have to lose some budget above the 1% decided upon.
We're talking about £14.5bn over four years to get back on track, or around 1% of a forecast £333.7bn in 2025/26 (one year) on the social security system alone, not to mention areas like high-risk and unproven Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage,
The Department (for Energy Security and Net Zero) is taking a high–risk approach by backing first–of–a–kind, unproven technologies with large amounts of taxpayer and consumer funding. The Department has learnt from its previous two failed attempts to support CCUS in its design and early implementation of the current programme.
http://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-to-deliver-on-5-nato-pledge-as-government-drives-greater-security-for-working-people
http://www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-guidance-and-methodology/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-information-and-guidance
http://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5901/cmselect/cmpubacc/351/report.html
The problem is modern wars aren't fought that way - it's about drones & hacking
Yes modern wars will still be conventional. What you see in Ukraine is unique, and Ukraine are in fact fundamentally changing the way they're organised in order to fight a more effective conventional war. While drones and Cyber will be a battlefront, ground war hasn't really changed all that much
Bollocks to that.
"Putin might throw nukes at us, so let's not spend any money on defence" is perhaps the single weirdest thing you've ever said on any thread about the subject you've repeatedly demonstrated you know literally nothing about.
Pretty easy political decision for him I think. He could cut welfare, and lose the membership, Daz and most of the parlamentary party or he could cut defense and lose a couple of cabinet ministers. Whatever your opinion of the what the nations best interest is, Keirs interest is survival, and this wasnt much of a dilema imo!
That assumes Burnham will have a plan for increasing defence spending... which he did have while throwing criticisms from the safety of Manchester (increased borrowing), but now that he's likely to actually have to make these decisions as PM he's dumped those plans (obvs). I suppose Healey could have been involved in talks that suggest Burnham will change his mind again... who knows who's being promised what?
Pretty easy political decision for him I think. He could cut welfare, and lose the membership, Daz and most of the parlamentary party or he could cut defense and lose a couple of cabinet ministers. Whatever your opinion of the what the nations best interest is, Keirs interest is survival, and this wasnt much of a dilema imo!
Im not buying that. I think Kier has just bottled it. How many of those MPs really want to vote against the government to the point it looses and has to have a General Election. If Kier was serious he should have stuck to his 5% pledge. If he stays then his MPs will have to fall in line, if he goes then his replacement would have to deliberately change the policy and take the political flack that comes with it.
He's constantly "bottling it". As have past PMs. And so will the next PM.
At the risk of over simplifying it... a huge chunk of the UK population think that anything that happens "over there" is none of our business, and think defence is about what happens at our borders. On the other "side" there's a huge chunk of the population that think that defence spending is about the military industry looking after themselves.
We need to stop pretending that there is peace in Europe. Until that is accepted by most of us, no PM will be acting to genuinely boost our forces, no matter how much they talk the idea up when meeting with world leaders.
He tried to cut welfare, the left of the party had a melt down and he bottled it. Burnhaqm will be no better, if we want to pay for other things the welfare budget needs cutting back. The only altenate strategy is more borrowing and that option has been done to death.
Welfare spending will conitnue to hoover up more and more money until someone has the balls to actually act and reduce it, Starmer is not the man for this and nor is Burnham.
Welfare spending will conitnue to hoover up more and more money until someone has the balls to actually act and reduce it,
Ok so define welfare spending? Whilst the hard right like to use that term they skip over it includes all those pensioner bribes. So what is the plan to fix that and wipe out the hard right vote?
Then lets look at how much "welfare" applies to those who are full time employed or as it should be termed company subsidies from us taxpayers. Oddly enough the non taxpaying alliance is silent on this matter.
Then we have the stupidly expensive care system but that comes down to the right wing hatred of a nonprofiting making system and their inability to understand once they create their dream outcome then for any public good we will be royally ****ed.
I would suggest this isnt a difficult concept but then these are generally the people who talk about Adam Smiths "invisible hand" but without managing to read a tad further and see his warnings about how people of the same trade meet together.
