This is a fascinating opinion piece in the Telegraph, a British newspaper. The writer is a lifestyle columnist who says the biggest lifestyle issue for his reader is the erosion of the social contract between Britons of all income levels. A social contract (my phrase not his) is a joint utility function for a society. How do you respond to his arguments?
Why aren't the British middle-classes staging a revolution? - Telegraph
Hmm this is interesting. It seems to me that the author of this wrote this article fuming (maybe he was one of the laid off employees at Phones4U?) but it does resonate with me. I think we are so afraid, as an American society at least, of so-called "welfare" policy. There is a part of our population that still think the deregulation in the 80's was the greatest thing to happen to America since World War II. But the emerging "super-rich" class has just about got everyone else beat down.
ReplyDeleteI think back to a conversation I had this summer with a good friend of mine that attends UC Berkeley (an Ivy of the west coast, basically.) He was explaining that many of his friends were working extremely stressful, high-paying internships, with the expectation that they would get hired in a year after graduation. If they did, they could expect a base salary of 80 grand. In the words of my friend, "What the #$%@ will a 22-year-old do with $80,000?" The disproportionate levels of wealth seem ridiculous, and we definitely have not settled the issues that were brought up by the Occupy movement a few years ago.
I think the fact that unions have lost power has put a lot of lower to middle-class workers at risk. Unions were designed to ensure job security, equal pay, and fair treatment. Without their opinions in politics too many workers are being abused by the class of "super-rich." Not abused in a physical sense, but being put at the whims of giant corporations. In Picketty's book there is a discussion on the emerging class of "millionaire managers" that are the new upper echelon of society. I believe that, if the middle and lower classes do not stand up for their own rights (i.e. the pensions and retirement benefits they were once promised,) that this will become a greater problem. A revolution, though? I am unsure...
If not a "revolt", I think England is starting to see some more serious class issues than the US does. I think that the Scottish independence vote and the relative popularity of UKIP both come from a feeling in rural england and socialist Scotland that the finance centered politics and lifestyle of London doesn't represent them.
ReplyDeleteI think people hesitate to stand up for themselves because they think the elite had their interests at heart and they are waiting for government to step in. There is no longer people- interest, it has been replaced with naked self-interest. The government put themselves before the people and the people keep hoping for change.
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