Why am I being lectured about social mobility by people who were born at the top?

Useful peice from Susanne Moore in todays Guardian

Huge income disparity ensures a complete slowing down of social mobility. The rich don't see the price we all pay. Nor do they care about the returns made on the investments that the state makes in its citizens. The state that provided my education and housing for a period of five years enabled me then to work and pay taxes for the rest of my life. Without that support I would not have been able to work and support my children as I always have. Mobility for me came from access to education, housing and childcare. It was that simple. The super-rich, however, may bypass the state altogether and, as is now clear, exist beyond the reach of government. They are untouchable.

Social mobility is fine in theory, but in practice we live in a society where it is becoming more and more difficult for many to move at all. Nudging is not nearly enough. The reality of deepening inequality is horrible paralysis. The numbing of chance is never a fine thing.

They Are Different From You And Me.

The study of empathic difference between rich and poor is very new and very interesting. I’m still mulling the implications, meanings, contexts and potential outcomes of this kind of research – and there’s a growing body of it, notably in brain structure studies. Researcher are interested in the difference between Conservatives and liberals, women and men, Black people and Caucasian people suffering from psychosis, in finding ways in which we are the same and different.

Much of this research makes for uncomfortable reading, and the resulting reviews by peers, media, interest groups and individuals all add to the richness of debate. Some people maintain their opinion strongly, most don’t care and I propose that almost all of us don’t change our minds about much at all.

For me, it makes instinctive sense that people who must decipher others in order to remain safe, to ask for favours, who cannot afford to write debts off, who live in complex, multiracial, crowded communities, will be more likely to develop empathy. This is not to say that The Poor ™ are more loving and understanding than anyone else, just that there’s more exposure to many different ways of ways of being in poorer areas.

It is stressful to live too closely to so many people and that stress can cause or exacerbate psychological fragility, which, apart from a general increase in population density, is one of many, many reasons why there’s more violence in areas of less privilege. Individuals in an overcrowded envionment really do need to know how to read other people and groups, quickly, know how to diffuse or avoid confrontation and quickly build relationships.

Less affluent people are most likely to experience large cultural changes. This is why so many of the people who admit to voting for the BNP are poorer – because whatever the statistical truth, there is a feeling of being overwhelmed by difference. They are certainly unheard: for years, white working class people have been called racist or ignorant because they’ve objected to and felt powerless against their neighbourhoods being altered in ways that more affluent people have no experience of. Whatever our individual beliefs on the validity or otherwise of these perceptions, where an existing community feels threatened by new arrivals there are consequences for those new arrivals, whether Irish, Black, mentally ill, on probation, homeless or suffering drug and alcohol problems, overcrowding, poorly maintained buildings or simply the lack of a view.

Unless there’s a colossal, (almost) unthinkable alteration in the way we live, rich and poor will always have very different experiences: a weeks worth of morning coffee for one person is one fifth of a weekly income for another. That’s simply a matter of fact. And it’s one that counselling refuses to take on board.

British Social Attitudes Survey

Interesting news today from the British Social Attitudes survey

Just 27 per cent of the population feels the government should spend more on benefits, even at the cost of higher taxes, compared with 58 per cent when Margaret Thatcher left power 20 years ago

The report is particularly interesting where is suggests that 80% of us are concerned about the gap between rich and poor and about 50% of us want a rise in the minimum wage, a reduction of which is now under review by the Coalition. The propaganda around people on benefits has succeeded in keeping people in work who would be better off on benefits.

It also means that people on benefits will be under greater stress simply by virtue of being on benefits in a way that they weren’t 30 years ago. How might they cope with that? With feelings of shame and humiliation? Overcompensation in order to maintain some sense of self-worth? Lying, keeping secrets?

It’s also worth noting that we’ve taken on board the language around ‘Equality of opportunity,’ but don’t care so much about ‘Equality of outcome.’ Interviewers, please take note: we all know there’s a standardised spiel around Equal Ops, here’s a fresh to approach that moves from what has become a rather mindless exercise to having to think and respond to reality.

Much of this information has been available for some time from research organisations such as Oxfam
Joseph Rowntree,  National Council for Voluntary Organisation.

How Fair Is Britain?

"A landmark report released today by the Equality and Human Rights Commission paints a picture of a largely tolerant and open-minded society, in which some equality gaps have closed over the past generation.

"But How fair Is Britain?, the most comprehensive compilation of evidence on discrimination and disadvantage ever compiled in Britain, also shows that other long-standing inequalities remain undiminished; and that new social and economic fault-lines are emerging as Britain becomes older and more ethnically and religiously diverse.

• Men and women from the highest social class can expect to live up to seven years longer, on average, than those from lower socio-economic groups (based on life expectancy at birth). 
• Black Caribbean and Pakistani babies are twice as likely to die in their first year as Bangladeshi or White British babies.
• At age five, 35 per cent of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals achieved a good level of development, compared to 55 per cent of pupils not eligible for free school meals.
• The mean gender pay gap for women and men working full-time in 2009 was 16.4 per cent; and progress today appears to be grinding to a halt. Women aged 40 earn on average 27 per cent less than men of the same age. Women with degrees are estimated to face only a four per cent loss in lifetime earnings as a result of motherhood, while mothers with no qualifications face a 58 per cent loss."