|
Zoe Gannon
©Zoe Gannon 2008
In 1937, George Orwell predicted that the middle class was
doomed to ‘sink without further struggles into the working class’.
However, 70 years on this prediction has not come to pass; in fact this group
has grown. Reaching out from the traditional notions of the bourgeois it now
encompasses great swathes of the population. This boom in the ranks of the
middle classes can be traced most obviously to the great council house sale
of the 1980s when Thatcherite neo-liberalism turned many of those who traditionally
identified as working class into the aspirational middle class – indeed
‘the economy is the means, the goal is to change the soul’. This
continued under Blair who in 1999 declared ‘we are all middle class
now’. Contrary to Orwell’s statement, this group appears to have
gained in influence and coherence – partly through the media, with the
Daily Mail construction, but also in the political sphere. Interestingly though,
the term middle class has been dropped and a sub-group now popularly referred
to as middle England dominates; and its projected interests commonly dictate
political decisions.
Middle England, as much a mythical place as middle earth, is populated by
Gordon Brown’s ‘hard working families’, and ‘Thatcher’s
children’ – otherwise known as the amorphous ranks of the middle
classes. As Daily Mail reading individualists, they are assumed to be insular,
resentful and generally phobic – homo, zeno, agro, etc. These voters
can be bought and sold on the promise of being ‘tough on crime’
– they live in fear of change and are ultimately conservative with a
lower case c. But is this Daily Mail construction really accurate? –
are the suburbs of London and the Home Counties really populated by this group?
Is this now the middle class? Do they represent the mainstream? And if not,
why are they given this coherence and significance? Is it now the job of the
progressive left to challenge the assumptions that surround this group, and
ask who are the middle class if not middle England? – what do they really
care about and how can they be represented? And perhaps most importantly,
how would a new understanding help us build a cross class coalition.
Whether it was the 1832 Reform act or the1946 legislation, it is commonly
recognised that at some point during the middle of the Victorian period, financial
and economic success was converted into political power. This period of time
is associated not just with urbanisation and industrialisation of the UK,
but also with the birth of the concept of the middle class. Since this point,
we have seen a burgeoning of a social economic grouping defined more by who
they are not – namely working or upper class – than who they are.
Below the aristocracy and above the workers, this group, which started off
small, made up of only a tiny percentage of individuals, gained a coherence
– epitomised by sobriety, thrift, prudence and morality.
The cultural and economic shifts since this point have changed this distinctive
and influential group into a large, vague, shifting entity, constructed from
individuals as different and as similar as everyone else – from lawyers
to teachers to small business owners - all can technically be middle-class
now. Yet in political terms their differences are barely recognised. Instead,
they are all placed in a neat box known as middle England. After neatly putting
them in this box, all parties strive to win over the middle England voters
in the swing seats, and this group, while growing exponentially, appears,
at least in the eyes of politicians, to have maintained its coherence. No
longer under the guise of class – because we of course are now a classless
society – these are middle England voters. It is with this group that
elections are seen to be won and lost. The projected ideas and interests of
this social and economic grouping are increasingly hegemonic.
Yet in reality, financial status, attitudes, and class history interrelate
with each other in confusing and often contradictory ways. Self definition
and economic position offer very different conclusions on who exactly can
be - and can be defined as - middle class. Any conclusion on whether we should
go on self definition, amount of savings, income, home town, education, or
profession, appears non-existent. No official definition exists for who the
middle class really are, and no consensus exists on what they care about.
How can we therefore meet the interests of a group which is undefined? Like
fighting a ‘war on terror’, meeting the interests of a group which
is indefinable appears to be a losing battle.
Yet a few things are clear. As the top race away – the top ten per cent
has seen real wage increases – and the bottom falls behind – seeing
real value wage losses – the inhabitants of middle England have seen
their financial position stagnate. The single bread winner family has declined
and an exponential growth of two earner families is obvious. Yet these families
are no wealthier, in real terms, than their parents, and if anything their
financial position is at greater risk. It is a time of crisis for all those
within the pile and the middle classes certainly cannot escape it. The Dot
com bubble was replaced with a housing market bubble – which was bound
to burst – but, as Alan Greenspan stated: ‘if it wasn’t
sub-prime, it would have been something else, this was an accident waiting
to happen’.1 Growing prices in the housing market, outsourcing of white
collar jobs, tuition fees, fears about the environment, decreasing support
for social care, increasing costs of childcare and the credit crunch have
hit them hard. But aren’t these the exact same concerns of the working
class? Like the working class, all of those within the pile have suffered
under a neo-liberal agenda that supports the racing away rich. The working
class and the middle class in reality should be united, through their commonalities.
The Daily Mail construction of Middle England, echoed Thatcherite notions
of the middle classes and remains unchallenged. We must now challenge the
construction of Middle England – the fearful and phobic – and
ask what these people really care about and whether their interests are being
met by a neo-liberal agenda. In 1997 New Labour achieved a landmark victory
through uniting and appealing to both working class and middle class voters.
It is, and will always be, the challenge of the centre left to construct a
cross class coalition – based on the hopes and fears of all; and understanding
who the middle classes are and what they really care about is essential. How
we do this is a challenge which will always be at the heart of the progressive
left.
Zoe Gannon is Research Fellow at Compass
Subscribe to Soundings a journal of politics and culture
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |