"Surely these days we're a far more class-less society..."

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

On a thread in the main forum, someone objected to my polytechnic debating club charactisation of a smug coffee shop as bourgeois as obsolete because "Surely these days we're a far more class-less society..."

I don't agree that the UK, London or East Dulwich is a classless society or is even heading in that direction. In fact, the long term picture is that we are heading in absolutely the opposite direction: income inequality is increasing and social mobility is decreasing. I have seen with my own eyes the houses of people living in extreme wealth and extreme poverty, less than 1500m apart in Dulwich. (And I am extremely grateful for my own privilege).

It is true that we have the first BAME prime minister (after Disraeli...?), and it is true that the old signifiers of class (in race, dress, accent) are fading. This is not the England of the Cleese/Corbett/Barker sketch. But it is also true that Sunak was privately educated in an elite school and is part of the global 1%, and that there plenty of new class signifiers...just ask the yummy parents at Gails and Soderberg wearing Lululemon after they drop their kids off at private school on their Tern e-bike ..

Am I too cynical?

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-mobility-in-great-britain-state-of-the-nation-2018-to-2019

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7484/

https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk

[Sephiroth]

After close to 40 years living here I don't get this country and it's class thing

Sure all countries have class systems to some degree but it just seems weirder here

If you want to talk about the disparity in wealth, health and other outcomes then I think that is important stuff and should be discussed

but if a "nice" coffee shop opens up in a neighbourhood full of them then there is no reason why "working class" people should not want to go there - it's conflating different things

And if I go to Ireland, Spain, Portugal I see "working class" people happily mingling with other classes in places like.... "nice" coffee shops

[TheCat]

A rare moment of agreement with sephiroth.

Income and wealth disparity are featuresq of many nations...but no one quite adds the layer of snobbery/reverse-snobbery like this country....

I'm curious though DKH what makes a coffee shop 'smug'? Is it a threshold number of how many different types of non-dairy milk they offer? Or a price thing? Or a prejudicial judgement on the clientele?

[Jenijenjen]

Sunak’s rise to Prime Minister demonstrates that within the Tory Government, class and/or wealth are more important than racial background. (cf also Michelle Mone). When the decision of who was to become PM was made by the general Tory membership the outcome was very different reflecting different priorities and outlook.

As for the term bourgeois, these days and for many years in everyday conversation, it’s more to do with attitude than money/class and encompasses conformity combined with a lack of imagination.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

If you want to talk about the disparity in wealth, health and other outcomes then I think that is important stuff and should be discussed

 

I do and I did talk about those things.

The idea that the UK is become a more classless society is rubbish. All that's happening is the signifiers of wealth have changed (not disappeared), and the way wealth is distributed has got more unequal and imo worse.

[HeadNun]

I said we're becoming a more class-less society, and I stand by that. Historically, wealth had little to do with social class. You could be upper class yet poor, and if you were working or lower middle class and had made money, you'd be looked down upon by higher classes and described disparagingly as 'nouveau riche'.

Petit bourgeois was a similar insult which, as Jenijen rightly said, was more about the attitude of a certain socially aspirational lower middle class. The Macmillan dictionary definition is not quite how it's used.

That's what I mean when I talk about class, and thankfully a lot of that snobbery is disappearing. That's not to say other social divides aren't forming, and that the rich-poor gap isn't widening, and that it isn't totally shit, but they're two totally separate things.

[malumbu]

I find this link useful to work out my class

[TheCat]

Classy sketch.

[HeadNun]

Yip. Sums the ridiculousness of it all up perfectly.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

Historically, wealth had little to do with social class. You could be upper class yet poor,

This is one of those lies the English tell themselves.

Yes, there were poor aristocrats regarded as upper class, and the newly rich not being accepted by the upper class. But they are a small number of edge cases and generational transition: you look at where those exceptions' kids are, you see the class system is totally resilient.

That's because the overwhelmingly constant and only useful predictor of class is wealth, and wealth is becoming even more concrentrated over time. The signifiers of class and wealth are changing - it's not Cleese's bowler hat any more - but they're unquestionably still important in this country.