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|   | Subject: Can you live on £26,000 a yr[ £500p/wk]? (UK Centric)
Posted Feb 1, 2012 by HonestIago
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We're actually less socially mobile than we were before Z: social mobility levels are at their lowest since the 70s.
>>Are we more socially mobile than we were before.
The standard economic measures suggest that it is decreasing. According to one school of political philosophy, we should expect this.
| | Subject: Can you live on £26,000 a yr[ £500p/wk]? (UK Centric)
Posted Feb 1, 2012 by  Z
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That makes sense.
Is it a direct relation to student fees?
| | Subject: Can you live on £26,000 a yr[ £500p/wk]? (UK Centric)
Posted Feb 1, 2012 by CASSEROLEON
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Chief Cat Herder
I think that a clear distinction needs to be made between England and the other parts of Great Britain, though that may be English/ignorance/prejudice.
Because of the educational revolution in Scotland in the 1690's that country became associated with examples of what people call "social mobility".e.g. Thomas Carlyle.
But in fact- rather as ourtlined in that Sixties study of Education and the Working Class- I suspect that, rather as is my case, individuals from WC background were able to climb out of their "roots" to a situation of limbo. This is what Hargreaves and Marsden wrote c1962 was the fate of such as we..
A few years ago a disenchanted friend from uni accused me of having used her and her friends "to gain admission to the upper middle class".. But I adhere to no class.. I suppose this too is perhaps a reason why I am married into French "Society"- though that too is not "Society" as understood by an Englishman.
As for English Society I find Harold Perkin's "The Origins of Modern English Society 1780-1880" an excellent and thoughtful treatment of (a) the kind of England that still existed in 1780, in which it was quite possible for people to move up and down the social ladder, and to maintain social relations, and (b) the way that things changed when England was swallowed up in the UK, and had to adapt to a "Britishness" that could accommodate the Scots and Irish. Apologies to the Welsh.. But I am told that I write too much.
Cass
| | Subject: Can you live on £26,000 a yr[ £500p/wk]? (UK Centric)
Posted Feb 1, 2012 by Storm
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But parents also lose benefits if the teenager drops out of college- you only get benefits for children over 16 in FTE so unless they can find a full time job you have an incentive to keep your children in education.
Where my parents faced problems is when we all grew up and left home- then housing benefit levels fall, and so do other benefits. However by this time my dad hadn't worked for 25 years during which time he'd smoked a lot and written some truly awful books so was more or less unemployable.
He kind of chose it but I can see friends now falling into the same thing because they can't make work and childcare pay. That's why the government have started trying to force single parents back to work when the children are younger.
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Z:
>>Is it a direct relation to student fees?
Well free education obviously mitigates class stratification and non-free increases it. But the main force is the division between (oof. can I do this without jargon?) the fact that those with the factories and finance need to squeeze more and more from those in the labour pool.
(and not simply from greed: they need to compete in order to be able to carry on paying the workers' wages.)
| | Subject: Can you live on £26,000 a yr[ £500p/wk]? (UK Centric)
Posted Feb 1, 2012 by CASSEROLEON
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I think that the lack of social mobility can be directly linked to the Crisis of Faith in "The Ascent of Man" as perceived and commented on by Dr. Jacob Bronowski.
In the Sixties we could see the inadequacy of the patched-up, damaged and flawed Civilization that we had been encouraged to study by patched-up, damaged and flawed teachers and academics. It was a brief flowering. The 1973 Opec Oil Crisis revealed that the best anyone was going to be able to achieve was just short-term navigating through storm and chaos. And education x3 just became a matter of learning what you needed to do to get a job, when lots of jobs could still be done with the educational levels of 8-9 year olds.
Better to do the lottery or enter Big Brother etc.
Cass
Storm:
>> That's why the government have started trying to force single parents back to work when the children are younger.
= more productivity per parent, less need for support from a levy on production.
| | Subject: Can you live on £26,000 a yr[ £500p/wk]? (UK Centric)
Posted Feb 1, 2012 by CASSEROLEON
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Storm
(a) But a theme that has come through a couple of posts- and I can say 'mea culpa'- is the "vanity creativity" of people who really apply themselves and work at things of their own and on their own to satisfy themselves and their own drives.
Our son has caught that bug and often feels that it is unfair that he works so hard at his music without being able to earn anything.. I suppose that I have been lucky in having been able to fit all my creativity in terms of music and writing alongside my full-time career, and so (a) I never expect it to earn me any money, and (b) I do not feel obliged to cater for the actual market..
But Economically "work" is something that someone is prepared to pay you to do: and in the eighteenth century there were patrons of the arts etc who would fund such creativity and taylor it to their needs and the market.
These days, as in that famous John Lennon interview, an artist is someone who can produce whatever he/she wants, even if it is ***. Others will be found to admire the originality of elephant dung etc.
(b) To some extent children are not well-served by single-parents who think that they have a right to "do their own thing" and that any child of theirs "belongs to them" like a trophy child. It means that of course their children have to put up with what biology has given them, even more than modern parents, who can have some idea of what they want to breed. And it is also pretty-well established that early pre-school type experience, and wider socializing, is also good for children. One of the problems of lone-parent situations, is that children are deprived of the chance to listen-in to adult conversation on adult topics. They mostly just hear an adult talking down to children- a situation of inequality and frequently intolerance, anger and assertion. Not the best social assets to have to start off a new life.
Cass
| | Subject: Can you live on £26,000 a yr[ £500p/wk]? (UK Centric)
Posted Feb 1, 2012 by CASSEROLEON
This is a reply to this Posting.
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Getting back to the £26,000;
Did anyone else see the interview with Frank Field on BBC News 24, who said that Labour Party policy would prefer to see a lower cap for places outside of London? Seems a strange policy to suggest that the Labour heartlands should be disadvantaged in this way. Perhaps they are worried that people might actually be attracted by the fact that £26,000 goes a lot further in some parts of the country.
Cass
| | Subject: Can you live on £26,000 a yr[ £500p/wk]? (UK Centric)
Posted Feb 2, 2012 by Storm
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| | Post: 131
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I am shocked horrified and appalled that the government used the finance amendment to push through the changes to benefits. This little known piece of constitutional law was included in the 1911 Parliament act so that the HofL couldn't stop the work of government, to prevent the Lords from refusing to pass the budget as they had done with the people's budget (Lloyd George 1909). It is not supposed to be used to push through what are essentially policy issues.
It is unconstitutional to use it, especially for changes which can't be seen to have a broad consensus in the commons supporting. It is cowardly.
I meant to add last night - but my laptop conked out and I'd left the power supply at work...
Inheritance is another major factor in accelerating inequality. When they're alive, wealthier parents are more likely to be in a better position to deliver better socio-economic outcomes for their children (live in nicer areas; maybe send them to better schools; pay their tuition fees and support them though university; pay for driving lessons and a car). They also build up housing equity which they pass on so their children are in an even better position. Meanwhile less wealthy families bounce along the bottom with their wealth in a flat trajectory.
A US study published in 2010 (I can dig it out if you insist) showed the rapidity with which income inequalities have built up between white and African-American families over the last few decades.
| | Subject: Can you live on £26,000 a yr[ £500p/wk]? (UK Centric)
Posted Feb 2, 2012 by CASSEROLEON
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Storm
I can not I agree with you about the use of the Finance Act.
When it was brought in there was a great deal of talk about people who lived on unearned incomes having a right of veto over matters decided by those who had to work for a living and historically produce the majority of the tax yield. And in particular this related to Lloyd George's "People's Budget".
In those days those days the unearned incomes based upon birthright and inheritance were those of the aristocracy. I am not sure what proportion of our modern lords are in that category, or just how many of them might be counted as "working class". But I think that the issue of "unearned incomes" and the standard of living entitled by those living on them goes right to the heart of this matter.
Cass
| | Subject: Can you live on £26,000 a yr[ £500p/wk]? (UK Centric)
Posted Feb 2, 2012 by CASSEROLEON
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Edward the Bonobo
During the Cold War the gap between rich and poor was kept artificially low, as to some extent it was during the Second World War. At the same time the defence industry and spending required to be ready for another World War was a great economic driver accounting for usually 20% of the US economy, which was the engine of the free-world economy: and much of the consumer electronics boom was a by-product of the Space Race.
The end of the Cold War has produced a whole new politics. One could perhaps say that it just shows what happens when there is no real credible opposition, since while the Cold War lasted it was necessary to make sure that "the masses" were persuaded that Capitalism was preferable to Communism.
Cass
Hmm. That makes sense...ish. But I doubt there was a nefarious Grand Plan behind it. Is it not more likely that inequalities were lower (and living standards relatively high) *therefore* US-model capitalism dominated over Soviet Communism?
| | Subject: Can you live on £26,000 a yr[ £500p/wk]? (UK Centric)
Posted Feb 2, 2012 by Storm
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| | Post: 136
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Cass
This is about our consitution. We have a bicameral system where the House of Lords acts as a check on the House of Commons. There have of course been various reforms to the House of Lords to make it more representative of the people. I am in favour of further reforming (or even abolishing the House of Lords), however whilst we retain it we should allow it to do it's job. This doesn't allow it to do it's job.
It isn't as if we can argue that it would be standing in the way of the democratic will of the people as this is so poorly expressed through the election that led to the coalition government.
It isn't about the policy being right or wrong it's about due process.
| | Subject: Can you live on £26,000 a yr[ £500p/wk]? (UK Centric)
Posted Feb 2, 2012 by CASSEROLEON
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| | Post: 137
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Storm
But the constitutional issue was that "He who pays the piper calls the tune"..
And it underlines the debate about the House of Lords needing to be an elected house answerable to the electorate. In fact since the threat made to pass the Reform Act of 1832 the Lords could be seen increasingly as a nominated chamber with "jobs for the boys".
The English Parliamentary system worked from the late Middle Ages especially because of the way that it controlled the purse strings of the Crown, and linked State policy to areas which promised economic growth and an increased ability to pay.
Unfortunately in recent decades it has become connected with ideas of entitlement and the right to run up debts to enjoy Now with no thought of how Future generations are going to pay them off. In France they were already talking in 2008 about our pensioner generation being a generation that has stolen away the future of the young.
Cass
"What is given as of right is harmful alike to the donor and the recipient. It shrivels the donor’s heart and turns kindness into an unwanted obligation; it renders the recipient incapable of gratitude, to such an extent that he might not even realise that he has received anything (the rioters in London, for example, said they had nothing, when those of them who had never worked or been net taxpayers had never gone hungry, never lacked for clothes or shelter, were provided with electronic gadgets, were guaranteed free healthcare and had received a free education – for them, this was nothing because it all came as of right).
That judgments in the past were harsh or unfeeling is, alas, the case. But that is a reason for refining our judgment, not for refraining from exercising it at all. If we do that, we shall end up with a society of cold comfort, where the faculty of kindness will wither, and where the expression of human solidarity will be confined to paying taxes, an indefinitely large proportion of which will never even reach their supposed beneficiaries."
Theodore Dalrymple http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/107248/sec_id/107248
He has a point I think.
|  | Subject: Can you live on £26,000 a yr[ £500p/wk]? (UK Centric)
Posted Feb 3, 2012 by CASSEROLEON
This is a reply to this Posting.
| | Post: 139
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swl
Very much in agreement... I remember all those calculations about what % of the money that people give to charities get absorbed in the running and administrative costs- with a small residue actually getting to the needy.
I suspect that the State is probably about twice as inefficient.Because (a) There is a much more complex set of targets than most charities which are usually less ambitious than any State that aspires to be a "universal provider.
and (b) Economists like to talk about "economies of scale". There can be some sometimes, but in the case of States it often just means single huge blunders, instead of many smaller ones- some of which might actually counter-balance each other out. (Obviously not an exhaustive list.. e.g. People working for charities are often NOT doing it for the money, or the power etc)
Cass
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