The Class System in the Context of Britain - Term Paper Example

Is Class Still Important In Britain? The answer is a simple yes to this not-so-simple question. There cannot be a classless society, neither has it ever been. Cannadine acknowledges that "classes will always be with us, as long as there remain inequalities in income, differences in occupation, and variations in wealth that can be objectively observed"--which is to say in any imaginable human grouping, past, present, or future. Despite the title of his new book, he knows very well that class can't rise or fall in a concrete sense. Categories of Classes It is important that I define the various categories of classes that prevail in Britain. Not only that but also the different ways in which the classes are categorised. In Britain there are three main classes; The Upper Classes The upper classes are a grouping of those people who inherit or have inherited wealth. These classes include some of the oldest families, many of whom are titles aristocrats. Besides the fortune that the people belonging to this class have inherited, they attribute their title to a number of other factors too. These include their education, their hobbies and their pastimes which includes the traditional sporting life involving hunting, shooting and fishing, as well as a great deal of horse riding for both leisure and as a competitive pursuit. Middle Classes The Middle Classes constitute the population of Britain who are industrialists, professionals, businesspeople and shop owners. Working class The people belonging to the class category are mostly agricultural, factory workers and mine workers. The Working Class includes those who sell their labour power, their capacity to work, in return for a wage or salary, and who work under the direction of the owners of the means of production and their agents. This category includes skilled, semi skilled and unskilled workers. There is also a small underclass, the homeless and very poor people and other groups who drop out of society. Prevalence of class system In Britain people with different incomes live in different areas of London and other towns. Income is not the only difference; they are in different classes as well. People in general seem quite uncomfortable when the issue of social class is raised. In order to deal with this discomfort a typical response to the subject is that "class no longer exists". This view is at the very highest levels of public life. People feel uncomfortable with the idea of class partly because it was developed by Karl Marx (1848), and Karl Marx and communism go together, also because they may feel inferior, that is not as good as other people. Margaret Thatcher informed us "there is no such thing as society; just individuals and their families" and John Major told us "we are all classless now". (John Pateman, ISC10) And Tony Blair, soon after becoming Prime Minister, declared that one of the aims of his government was to "make everybody middle class". At the Labour Party conference, Tony Blair announced, "the class war is over." (Weekly Worker, 1999) All such statement coming from the government office people, those too the prime ministers, are sufficient call that class is still important in the Britain today like it has always been. This is plenty of evidence to suggest that the class system is alive and well. Indeed, most people believe that nothing has changed in Britain in terms of class. Although frequently classes are segregated in terms of economic indicators like income, wealth and occupations, a class is also formed on the basis of behaviour, attitude and values. And this is another way the Britain society is stratified, in the sense of lifestyle. People forming these classes do so by demonstrating their way of living, wearing, eating and by their very being. People who do not own larger houses, bigger fridges, who do not go for vacations abroad every year or so, are striving today to push themselves into that upper class or upper middle class category one way or the other. Although today everyone in Britain has social security instead of only the poor and unemployed or orphans in the earlier years of Britain, still the concept of class belonging in the British people is breathing and existing as ever. Every woman wishes to get settled first before making babies, so that she and her family is not deprived of any luxury and comfort that the upper or the upper middle class enjoys. However remaining in the middle class or the working class, she can raise a family with the necessities of life provided and supported by the state too if the need be. But every class’s individuals wish to climb the ladder up in the hierarchy of the classes. Had the concept of these classes been totally eradicated from the British society, all the individuals would have been living as the same class, with the same kind of social status and belongings. Max Beloff reviews Cannadine’s work and writes “In all three centuries between Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II, Cannadine traces a basic continuity in assessments of the social scene both by contemporaries and by historians following in their footsteps. The dominant interpretation has been of a continuous social fabric within which individuals and new groupings resulting from technological change could find their place, that is hierarchy. The second way of looking at things was in terms of a tripartite division -- upper, middle and lower classes with variant qualities distinguishing them. It was the interpretation most favoured by the middle class, since it enabled them to claim the mot virtuous and constructive role. The final approach, only found in periods of particular tension, was a simple division into two conflicting strata -- the bosses and the workers, the washed and the unwashed, us and them.” Education Undoubtedly education is another factor that draws a line to stratify the social groups into classes and takes those classes into consideration to decide the future of the students. Olga Zderadicková, a cultural studies teacher writes, “Although class is, from the sociological point of view defined as a position determined by one's occupation, education and income (prestige often being included), in the British context, education seems to be of very specific importance. Let me quote David Cody to support that the above statement was certainly valid in the past: ‘The old hereditary aristocracy, reinforced by the new gentry who owed their success to commerce, industry and the professions, evolved into an ´upper class´, its consciousness formed in large part by the Public Schools and Universities.’ (http://landow.stg.brown.edu)” (Olga Zderadicková, 2006) In the recent years majority of students accepted into high-level secondary schools are from the upper and upper middle classes while those from working class hold a minor chance of getting into the same schools. Grammar schools continued to recruit a disproportionately high percentage of their intake from non-manual backgrounds. The influence of neighbourhood or of the school plays an important part. Working class pupils in larger suburbs have different home pressures than those in the small towns and larger cities. Working class families have a lower rate of school performance and college aspirations. An article published in the newspaper Daily Mail in March 2005 stated, “Education was the other aspect of social mobility investigated in the BBC report. Here the inquirers were on strong ground. There is not a shadow of doubt that social mobility through education has been dramatically reduced and hobbled in recent years. It began with the abolition of the grammar schools and the imposition of the comprehensive system. This has had an even more serious effect in Scotland than in England.” The above-mentioned article also outlines the previously prevailing grammar school system in Scotland, where just anybody with even the most humble circumstances could work his/her way up to the top by intelligence and diligence. Today’s school system is making education impossible for talented children from poor backgrounds that in the past would have been able to ascend socially through. The articles further states, “Now the Scottish parliament, by attacking the charitable status of independent schools, is threatening to destroy the last sanctuaries of educational excellence in Scotland. The result will not be 'equality', but an exodus of gifted young Scots to independent schools with less expensive fees south of the Border.” Such policies are likely to produce very exclusive, expensive schools and colleges where a small aristocrat elite class will govern educational achievement and the less opportune will be left at the back. All of these issues are based, like the BBC programme, on an analysis of social class in terms of economic status and education. However there is so much more involved, for example the details, shades and tones of dress, speech, posture, behaviour, sport, interests, way of thinking etc., in the light of which it would be unrefined and deceptive to attempt to equate social class with money. Language and Accent In Britain the way people speak, that is their accent, and also the vocabulary they make use of in their speech also determines which class they belong to. This is so because the one very essential of class system that they usually stick together. Working class people mix with working class people and middle class people mix with middle class people. It does not work the other way round because middle class people perhaps feel privileged and choose not to mingle with the working class people. Similar is the case with the working class people who perhaps feel unequal and prefer to associate and socialise with their own class people. As soon as someone speaks we can determine if they are rich or poor, working class or middle class. People from different classes have different accents. A working class person has a working class accent, and a middle class person has a middle class accent. A member of the working class would typically drop ‘th’ sounds, and replace them with a ‘f’ sound, so that three becomes free. Such accents can disadvantage the speaker in a middle class world of work, as the speakers may not be seen as employable people. There are also some vocabulary differences as well. A sitting room or drawing room for the middle class would find the word ‘lounge’ in the working class vocabulary. Similarly middle class’s vocabulary of lavatory would be toilet in the working class vocabulary, pudding would be desert, sofa would be settee, notepaper would be writing paper and to take a bath would be to have a bath. The upper classes have their own accent, which is Received Pronunciation, or RP. A very little of the population in Britain have this accent. This is a prestige accent and is the accent of the rich, and the often-called ‘BBC English’ (although not now) or the ‘Queens English’. Orwell said: "The peculiarity of English class distinctions is not that they are unjust--for after all, wealth and poverty exist side by side in almost all countries--but that they are anachronistic," in that they don't exactly correspond to economic distinctions. What Orwell's "anachronistic" meant, and what the cult of the gentleman demonstrates, is that English class-consciousness was out of kilter with Marxian concepts of class. Conclusion Almost sixty years after Orwell, David Cannadine in his new book concentrates on the view that British are "obsessed with class in the way that other nations are obsessed with food or race or sex or drugs or alcohol." Cannadine further states, “In A Class Act (1997), Andrew Adonis and Stephen Pollard have challenged the idea of ‘Britain's classless society,’ but the England that they describe turns out on examination to be very different from the class-ridden England of Orwell's time. There are still a monarchy and a peerage, though the peers are soon to be deprived of their last legislative rights; there is still an upper class; the rich are still richer than the poor.” The article published in the Atlantic Monthly reviewing Cannadine’s book states, “A sympathetic commentator has said that Blair's greatest ambition is to take the class out of politics, undoing that horizontal division and leading a party with as wide a social support as Gladstone's. When the new middle class, with its greater ambition and opportunities, embraces most of the British people, then class will have fallen at last, Blair's project will be complete, and, like Mr. Gladstone, Blair can govern us until his eighties.” The discussion made of the class system in the context of Britain clearly indicates that after all the class is still important in the Britain today. One way or the other class-consciousness is part of every individual’s mindset today. People may not choose to make a discussion on the topic and try to convince themselves that they breathe in a classless society. But the prime minister’s comments and the quite obvious social practices as discussed in this essay prove the weight of classes in Britain today. References Book: Working Class Cultures in Britain 1890-1960: Gender, Class and Ethnicity; Author: Joanna Bourke   Article Title: Rise and Fall of Class in Britain. Magazine Title: The Atlantic Monthly. Volume: 283. Issue: 6. Publication Date: June 1999. Page Number: 128130-4. Article Title: Class in Britain. Contributors: George Wedd - author. Magazine Title: Contemporary Review. Volume: 274. Issue: 1598. Publication Date: March 1999. Page Number: 156+. Article Title: ARE THE MIDDLE CLASS TO BLAME FOR YOB BRITAIN? Ashamed of the Values That Once Made Britain Such a Civilised Nation, It's the Social Cowardice of the Middle Classes That's to Blame for Many of Our Problems Says a Provocative New Book. Newspaper Title: The Daily Mail. Publication Date: June 4, 2005. Page Number: 32. Article Title: KNOW YOUR PLACE; Britain Is Still a Nation Divided by the Class System. but Is the Left's Ugly Obsession with 'Inclusion' Now Destroying Social Mobility?. Newspaper Title: The Daily Mail. Publication Date: March 12, 2005. Page Number: 16. Article Title: Essay, Author: Nick Cohen Source: New Statesman Monday 20th March 2006 Article Title: Class Identity in Britain, Its Firm Past and Hazy Future; Author: Olga Zderadicková; Source: http://www.britishcouncil.org/studies/england/zderadickova.htm; Accessed April 25, 2006. Simon Harvey of the SLP; Faithful few gather; Socialist Labour’s 3rd congress; Source: Weekly Worker 310 Thursday October 28 1999 http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/310/sharvey.html Accessed April 25, 2006. Article: ISC 10. Public libraries, social exclusion and social class; Author: John Pateman; Source: http://www.libr.org/isc/articles/10-public.html Accessed April 25, 2006 Read More