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| Who or what is the middle class? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 7 2008, 09:51 AM (557 Views) | |
| Dandandat | Apr 7 2008, 09:51 AM Post #1 |
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Time to put something here
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| ds9074 | Apr 7 2008, 12:04 PM Post #2 |
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Admiral
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And I thought it was just us British who are so concerned by matters of class
A well known commentator in the UK recently talked about society as a caravan of travelers. They posed the question that if the back of the caravan falls ever further behind the front does there come a point where it can longer be considered a single entity. |
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| RTW | Apr 7 2008, 12:18 PM Post #3 |
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Vice Admiral
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So what do you do? Stifle the front of the caravan? Punish them for being more fit, working harder and/or longer hours? Tell the front of the caravan to ease up? "Hey, you guys up front already make too much money and pay too much in tax, much of which goes to help those at the back." Why punish/stifle/reign in the one segment of society that pays an enormously disproportionate share? |
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| Dandandat | Apr 7 2008, 01:01 PM Post #4 |
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Time to put something here
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Certainly not palatable, but what is the attentive to the dilemma that DS9 posed? To make doe with a society that truly is divergent? To accept a class system where upward mobility becomes too burdensome to be achieved by lower class members? Just to be clear I don’t think we have reached that point now, but that is the imagined outcome of DS9s proposed dilemma. Lower classes who's members have fallen so far behind that they can never catch up with the upper classes of a society. What would happen in such a society? Would the two classes mingle between each other? or would advancement in technology and easy of physical mobility create a situation where the classes can segregate each other? Where one class comes to dominate one side of a country and the other class comes to dominate the other side. Leading to the eventual acceptance of the existence of two separate countries that are dependent on each other, but where different rules and customs may apply? Where the upper class country depends on the lower class country for labor and consumption and the lower class country depends on the upper class for the provision of work and consumables. Depending on which country had the advantage in the relationship would lead to all sorts of outcomes. A very interesting train of thought. |
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| ds9074 | Apr 7 2008, 03:12 PM Post #5 |
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Admiral
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Not a criticism of you RTW but statements like this do annoy me somewhat. Take for example our office cleaner. She comes in and works 12 hour days, cleans multiple offices over a sprawling site and it involves hard work - both in the cleaning and in the dragging of her cleaning trolley all round the place. She works longer hours and, in many ways, does harder work than a lot of people in that office yet her financial reward is lower. You have companies with non-executive directors who might be earning 10 times as much as that lady for 3 days work a week or less. To cap it off she may well be paying a higher percentage tax rate than some of those high earners. Its people in the broad middle, not the middle class as such but the people who go out and work hard, who believe in an honest days work for an honest days pay, people who play by the rules and try and do best for their families that end up feeling resentful. Both to those who cant be bothered to work and play the welfare system and those who seem to do very little actual graft for massive rewards. |
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| RTW | Apr 7 2008, 03:59 PM Post #6 |
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Vice Admiral
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It was a reference to your caravan example. How did the people at the front of your caravan example get farther ahead? Are they just faster walkers? Do they have better camels? Perhaps they move at a faster pace, take fewer breaks or start earlier and keep going longer? |
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| Minuet | Apr 7 2008, 04:49 PM Post #7 |
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Fleet Admiral Assistant wRench, Chief Supper Officer
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Get better breaks in life, like wealthy parents who can help with exhorbitant education costs? Or send them to a private school? |
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| ds9074 | Apr 7 2008, 05:02 PM Post #8 |
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Admiral
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What I dont like from what you are saying is things like "they take fewer breaks" or "they start earlier and keep going longer" in relation to those at the front 'of the caravan'. The reverse may in fact be more accurate in lots of cases. Quite a lot at the front may be living off the fact that they were lucky enough to get good schooling, good healthcare when kids and inherit some decent investments. Its not an easy thing to improve this situation. Simply leveling everyone down leads you towards a Soviet-bloc or Zimbabwe style solution which is benefical to no-one save a small minority who supposedly represent "the people". My personal preference is for measures which help people to make the most of their skills and talents. The article talks of bad schools in poor districts, in part because they recieve less funding because money is raised locally. Middle class people, where they can, are moving to wealther districts in search of better schools - but what about the poorest where that option is not avaliable? I would say run schools locally but pay for them on a much wider national basis, making education a spending priority, so that local deprivation doesnt mean poor education. Otherwise you are in danger of creating a poverty trap. Education has got to be the single best way to get people out of poverty. I would also say spend public money on making sure there is universal health coverage and other health improvements, like decent housing for all, so that everyone has the opportunity to recieve good healthcare which is vital for them to be able to live up to their full potential. The article talks about people being reduced to poverty from a middle class lifestyle due to poor health. So yes health and education would be my priorities for tackling this issue. |
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| Dandandat | Apr 7 2008, 05:08 PM Post #9 |
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Time to put something here
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This is often a sticking point for me when discussing advantage and disadvantage. I don't see each generation as a stand alone entity deserving of its own equality of opportunity. I see life in more of a familiar way. Having wealthy parents is not a "break in life"; it is presumably the culmination of a family's hard work. Pore parentage is likewise not a thing to be pitied; it just means that the family is lower on the latter of success. |
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| ds9074 | Apr 7 2008, 05:12 PM Post #10 |
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Admiral
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I dont necessary disagree with your analysis there Dan, but what I would say is that personally I think people should not be condemned to a life of poverty because of who their parents are. Society, in order to keep the caravan moving together if you like, should make sure those people from poor backgrounds have the opportunity to live up to their potential regardless of their circumstances at birth. |
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| Dandandat | Apr 7 2008, 05:21 PM Post #11 |
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Time to put something here
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Well of course that assumes your proposition is correct; that the caravan has split and that a child in poverty has no way of moving out of poverty. Thus being born in poverty means you are condemned to a life of poverty. I do not agree that is the case in either of our countries. There for as it stands now a child born into poverty has the opportunity to live up to their potential whether or not the more wealthy in the society help them. |
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| ds9074 | Apr 7 2008, 05:32 PM Post #12 |
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Admiral
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^^^ Its not that a child born into poverty "has no way" of moving out of poverty. Even before the days of the large scale state intervention we have today some managed to, though not many and usually only the very brightest and best (and luckiest). Lots remained in poverty with their potential wasted. Now we have measures, such as universal schooling and assistance with university fees which means many more people can work their way up. What I am saying is that more can and should be done to improve what we have. Poor areas should have schools which are just as good and have the same resources as schools from wealthy areas for a start. |
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| Dandandat | Apr 7 2008, 06:08 PM Post #13 |
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Time to put something here
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I have two problems with what you just said; First it's this:
Because what you said before was:
These two points don't mix; at lest for me they don't. If there is a chance to move out of poverty then you can't possibly be condemned to poverty. I know that this sounds like semantics arguing, but I think in this case the distinction needs to be made. I feel this is so because it makes a difference in my opinion on the subject; I would agree that a child should not be condemned to a life of poverty because of who their parents are. But if there is a way to move out of poverty then that child is not condemned to poverty. They may start in poverty and it may be hard to move out of poverty. But their actions in life will dictate where they end up, their parentage will not. Their parentage only dictates where they start in life. Couple this with the idea I put forth that life is a familiar journey and not individual to each generation and the possibilities only increase. The child himself may not ever be able to move fully out of poverty, but his actions may make it possible for following generations to move out of poverty. And that is and should be considered positive movement, even if the child himself does not break the barrier of poverty. Then I also do not agree with this:
Basing life on the familiar time scale I do not agree that this statement is at all correct. I think most families over time have managed to move out of poverty or are on their way to move out of poverty. Some families may have relapsed over time, but they too have and will move up again (Some wealthy families have relapsed into poverty). Take your office cleaner who works hard (maybe even harder) for less pay then every one else in the office. Perhaps when we add her total life's income and subtract her total life's expenses she never makes it out of poverty; but her children, through her hard work, have a higher platform with which to rise even higher from. In this way the woman's work is not for nothing, it's not something to be sorry for; it is just one step on the latter of success. Hopefully her children will take the next step. In this way it doesn’t mater if the rich school's and poorer schools are interchangeable; because those who go to pore schools and make the best of it (live up to their potential) will move their family up to possibly be able to attend more rich schools. I would also ask how you would measure whether someone has lived up to their patiently or not? |
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| ds9074 | Apr 7 2008, 06:29 PM Post #14 |
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Admiral
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^^^ I'm afraid the pace of that change is too glacial for my liking. It also makes a kind of underlying assumption that if people work hard they can achieve whatever they want without any help. I dont think thats actually true. Also why should a kid born into a poor area have to make do with a bad school. The deserve to get an excellent education regardless of their background and if they get one then I believe they will have a much greater chance of improving their lives and the lives of further generations of their family. On the last point whether someone has lived up to their potential is not necessarily something measurable and tangible. Its usually only clear when someone has not been able to have the chance to live up to their potential. For example in this country we have student finance schemes which means anyone, no matter how poor, can go to the top Universities like Oxford or Cambridge if they qualify to get in. If we didnt have that scheme and people werent going there, despite qualifying, on the basis of price I think you could say they havent had the chance to live up to their potential. |
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| Franko | Apr 7 2008, 08:33 PM Post #15 |
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Shower Moderator
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Just as a side issue, I've noticed that many of my friends starting families are trying to exploit the tremendous credit available these days so that they can live like "middle class" or even "upper middle classers" when in fact their combined incomes don't quite justify it. Overwhelming mortgages and car payments....wow. And on top of that, they want bi-annual trips to Hawaii, and other perks which almost rival the ablities of what would have been considered affluent upper class people just a decade or two ago. Whew.... I fear this constant reaching for the top shelf cookie jar is going to lead to a tragic fall for some, if not many in the coming years ahead. Not to mention the stress. |
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