Look Sideways...

I caught a glimpse of some [YouTube?] short that Jane was watching this morning which was about how the political left - in this case particularly The Labour Party in government - needs to double down on its historically traditional socialist roots and address the fundamental inequalities in our society. No argument there as far as I'm concerned: we have gone so far down the rabbit hole of Neo-Narcissist economic theories that a good dose of plain old socialist thinking would definitely not go amiss. Class inequality is still unfortunately a very real thing, albeit cast from a much different mould than it was in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when notions of land ownership inherited via the 'divine right of Kings'; the 'gifts' of monarchs to their faithful of great swathes of the commons, held sway.

A system of divided heritage between the 'great & the good' and the hoi polloi, where land ownership lorded it over the general population's right to representation in government and any real influence over their personal destinies in life: in short, you were either born into freedom or you weren't, by God's will. Fast forward to the end of The Second World War and a socialist government with considerable political clout, busy reforming health and social care in creating the National Insurance system and The National Health Service, with its mantra of 'cradle to grave' care, free at the point of need; a state education system that properly prepared a [my] generation for life beyond school; public investment in infrastructure, public services, and so on.

What was the one crucial thing that they wavered on doing? Land, and the inheritance of land and the rentier classes that 'owned' it. As my late, dear old dad was always at pains to point out from when I was a small boy: they had their chance to nationalise land, but they chose not to: they simply chickened out, probably, in retrospect, because the implied pressure of the history of land ownership was too great to bear; it simply was too early to question and test the ancient and established pecking order quite so far. And I guess, the gentry were still considered influential enough [despite their already waning fortunes] to potentially be either a credible threat to, or a useful asset for the new world order.

The thing that strikes me about the continued timidity of the Left and its historical failure to galvanise its target constituency of 'The Working Class' these days, is that 'The Working Class' as traditionally defined no longer actually exists as such, and not many people would choose to be categorised as such, either. Therein lies the rub, and the nub of this little observation tonight: the very definition of 'working class', and the negative effect this has had on the progress of right-thinking socialist progress. As far as I can see, an urgent re-framing of the definition of what constitutes 'working class' is required; and I would suggest that anyone engaged in any waged or salaried occupation, whether shop worker or brain surgeon, plumber or accountant, priest or publican; should be classified as working class: they all work, after all.

I would seek to differentiate the working class from those whose entire existence and income subsists in the trivial, but oh, so lucrative business of simply moving money from A to B and back again for profit. Land ownership and banking versus the rest of us: that simple, if somewhat apparently naive functional contrast alone should be enough to convince the majority of us that don't have the luxury of such an easy existence that socialism ain't such an ogre after all. We should all be framed as workers as opposed to those parasites that exploit outdated but powerful notions of 'class' as their preferred mode of enrichment. Maybe only then we can start to address the real issues that beset our society and go some real way towards a more equitable system of governance and a better quality of life for all. Not revolutionary but evolutionary...