4 Class
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Mark Doidge
Abstract
There is a clear polarisation in British society over access to jobs, job security and income inequality. The informational economy around knowledge and service sector skills has concentrated job opportunities and wealth in major cities, particularly London. The drastic wealth disparities in Western societies were also exposed during the global financial crisis of 2007–08. Occupy, the multi-platform, anti-inequality social movement, reiterated this point by declaring that ‘We are the 99%.’ The movement highlighted the concentrating of global wealth in only 1 per cent of the world’s population. As the neoliberal state has been restructured to facilitate global capitalism, rather than social provision, income inequalities have been exacerbated. This chapter outlines how class is another way that society differentiates between large groups of people and how this has changed since the 1950s.
Changes to class composition and identification are the other outcomes of the restructured economy. In 1990 the then UK Conservative Prime Minister John Major expressed his desire for a classless society as this would symbolise social mobility. Seven years later the Labour Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott is attributed to have said that ‘We’re all middle class now.’ The comment was a reference to the growth of the service sector as an indication of the post-industrial society that the UK had become. The implication was that we were all wealthier because our employment prospects were changing. This political outlook links to traditional ideas of class based on economic wealth. It also conforms to some sociological analysis that will be addressed later in the chapter, particularly as it links back to arguments about the individualisation of society.
Abstract
There is a clear polarisation in British society over access to jobs, job security and income inequality. The informational economy around knowledge and service sector skills has concentrated job opportunities and wealth in major cities, particularly London. The drastic wealth disparities in Western societies were also exposed during the global financial crisis of 2007–08. Occupy, the multi-platform, anti-inequality social movement, reiterated this point by declaring that ‘We are the 99%.’ The movement highlighted the concentrating of global wealth in only 1 per cent of the world’s population. As the neoliberal state has been restructured to facilitate global capitalism, rather than social provision, income inequalities have been exacerbated. This chapter outlines how class is another way that society differentiates between large groups of people and how this has changed since the 1950s.
Changes to class composition and identification are the other outcomes of the restructured economy. In 1990 the then UK Conservative Prime Minister John Major expressed his desire for a classless society as this would symbolise social mobility. Seven years later the Labour Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott is attributed to have said that ‘We’re all middle class now.’ The comment was a reference to the growth of the service sector as an indication of the post-industrial society that the UK had become. The implication was that we were all wealthier because our employment prospects were changing. This political outlook links to traditional ideas of class based on economic wealth. It also conforms to some sociological analysis that will be addressed later in the chapter, particularly as it links back to arguments about the individualisation of society.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of boxes and figures v
- About the authors vii
- Preface ix
- Introduction: the sociology of everyday life 1
- Lifestyle and consumption 19
- Race, ethnicity and migration 39
- Class 65
- Gender 85
- Relationships and intimacy 105
- Globalisation and post-industrialisation 125
- The UK in the future 153
- References 159
- Index 169
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of boxes and figures v
- About the authors vii
- Preface ix
- Introduction: the sociology of everyday life 1
- Lifestyle and consumption 19
- Race, ethnicity and migration 39
- Class 65
- Gender 85
- Relationships and intimacy 105
- Globalisation and post-industrialisation 125
- The UK in the future 153
- References 159
- Index 169
