The Working Class Can Kiss My ...

Is ‘Class’, in the social sense, an outdated assessment of our position in life? Does the feudal concept of the rich and the poor, the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ still exist in the ‘developed’ world? Certainly, here in Australia, we take some degree of pride in telling visitors that we live in the land of the ‘fair go’, where opportunities exist for one and all, but do we really all have the same opportunities, or are we prejudiced and either advantaged or disadvantaged by our class in life? Surely we are all better off than our predecessors, after all, we have more widespread access to medicine and knowledge than the generations that have preceded us? Just look at the younger generations, who appear to mix freely with those of different culture and background?

None of us, however, no matter how young or old, are totally removed from the shackles of the class to which we were either brought into this world, have adopted or aspired, or indeed have had inflicted upon us.  As Jilly Cooper stated in the introduction to her wickedly funny and often bitingly sarcastic “exposé of the English class system”, now perhaps a little dated: 

“It takes more than jeans and a taste for pop music to make even the young all one class."

- ‘Class’ by Jilly Cooper, 1979.

But surely, these days, such exposure of Cooper's Aristocracy, the Middle Classes (Upper Middle, MIddle-Middle and Lower Middle) and the Working Classes (including the ‘nouveau riche’) are outdated and limited to the ‘Old World’, where feudal distinctions of rank have been replaced by income, savings, access to education and decision making? Isn't modern day society, and certainly the ‘New World’ countries, more egalitarian than the whole class concept?  Or are we still subject to the old concept of a triangular structure in society, with those at the bottom upholding those at the top, or, alternatively, shit flowing from the top down and outwards to the layers beneath (see figure).

Well, after some consideration and a little background reading, I've formed an opinion that class in Australia may not be as readily distinguished by such things as accent, inheritance, mode of education and occupation, as in ‘Old Blighty’, but class, nevertheless, is still alive and well and living in Oz. This is reportedly propagated by, but not entirely due to, a less than egalitarian distribution of wealth.

Indeed, according to this link https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-09/australia-is-land-of-the-fair-go-no-more/7703818">https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-09/australia-is-land-of-the-fair-go-no-more/7703818 it appears that :

“Australia may have above average inequality in wealth distribution.”

- Christopher Sheil (University of NSW) and Frank Stilwell (University of Sydney).

when compared to the ‘average’ for the OECD countries, whatever ‘average’ means.

Furthermore, according to the ABC (that's Australian Broadcasting Corporation rather than American) as shown in the chart below, it appears that:

• 40% of our households have effectively little or no wealth; 
• about 50% have negative wealth due to personal debt; 
• the richest 10% have more than half our total health; and
• the upper 1% have at least 15% of Oz's total wealth.

But is distribution of wealth a valid way of defining social class, and does how much money we have in the bank really define our social status?

According to the Australian National University's report “Class, Capital and Identity on Australian Society” authored by Dr Jill Sheppard and Dr Nicholas Biddle (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-24/six-class-system-dispelling-myths-of-a-classless-australia/9339532 ) the following factors were taken into consideration when the ANU team surveyed 1200 randomly selected Australians:

• Occupations of your social contacts;
• Your cultural activities undertaken in the last 12 months;
• The approximate value of all your property, whether owned or mortgaged; and
• How much you have in savings.

Five classes were used for labelling the participants as follows:

• Established working class;
• Established middle class;
• Mobile middle class;
• Emerging affluent class; and
• Established affluent class.

I'll leave those who are so inclined to read more on how this class may or may not be representative of society's complexities, at the above Sheppard and Biddle ABC link, but the bottom line here is how much this all matters.

Although we Aussies have long held a mythical opinion that we are classless and blind to ‘social divides’, it would appear that this is more a prolonged kickback against our colonial history and all things British.  In reality, we would appear that we are a distinctly class layered society, with noticeable differences of opinion between our classes.  These opinions, however, don't appear to manifest themselves predictably in politics the way that they once did, whereby the lower classes traditionally voted left wing and the upper classes right wing.  

Let me quote again from the ANU research, as reported by the ABC:

“While the ‘established working’ and ‘mobile middle’ classes are the most supportive of the Liberal Party [arguably trending historically to the right and supportive of big business], and the ‘emerging affluent’ class is the most supportive of Labor [arguably trending historically to the left and supportive of social reform and the Union movement], the ‘established middle’ and ‘established affluent’ classes were most likely to vote Green at the time of the survey.”

It would appear then that we in the land of the ‘fair go’ are a little more class distinctive than many of us, including me, would have thought.  The above research certainly dispels the old ‘have’ verses ‘have not’ theory as being solely responsible for class, and the instinctive and historical trend to ascend the societal class rungs by throwing effluent on those beneath, as exemplified by the following old Pommy poetic adage:

"The working class can kiss my arse, 

I've got the foreman's job at last." - Anonymous.

So what about your society and your location? I'd love to hear what you think about class where you come from in the comments string below.

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When not researching the weird or the wonderful, the comical or the cultured, the sinful or the serious, I chase my creative side, the results of which can be seen as selected photographs of my travels on my website at:

https://ken-boddie.squarespace.com 

The author of the above, Ken Boddie, besides being a sometime poet and occasional writer, is an enthusiastic photographer, rarely leisure-travelling without his Canon, and loves to interact with other like-minded people with diverse interests.

Ken's three day work week (part time commitment) as a consulting engineer allows him to follow his photography interests, and to plan trips to an ever increasing list of countries and places of scenic beauty and cultural diversity.