Everyone who profits off war and softer forms of imperialism. Prime examples are the defense industry, tech industry, and petroleum companies but many others benefit as well.
Poor, formerly working class, people in the UK have benefited least from the decades of foreign and economic policy that have ultimately caused the migrant crisis, and are being harmed most by it: the market for low-skilled jobs is either much more difficult or impossible, and social services are stretched past breaking. But those people are not crying, they are turning to the far-right in the (probably vain) hope for a solution because everybody else have proved themselves non-credible.
Even though the current close-to-a-London-a-decade is simply unsustainable, it is absolutely nothing compared to the coming flood of climate refugees. The line will be drawn somewhere. The longer it goes on the stronger the response will ultimately be.
It is a disaster but that is the reality of the situation.
For context, the suffering migrants experience now is again nothing compared to the coming harm future migrants will experience due to climate change, and none of us can stop it, because if we don’t burn those fossil fuels somebody else is going to. It isn’t solvable under capitalism because the cooperation required isn’t possible. Write it as an epitaph on human-kind’s gravestone: “We didn’t possess the wit to overcome the dopamine-driven desire for more, now.”
I assume because the traditional definitions of working class do not translate well to modern society.
The terminology used to apply to anyone who could not afford to stop working without a significant limitation to survival. (I.E. no income generating assets). Nowadays, it has been used to exclude benefits claimants. Often even when those claimants work. And many landlords with income generating assets or farm owners etc. Would def include themselves as working class.
As the language has evolved, the term working class just doesn’t mean what it used to. Poor gives a better definition (though far from perfect). Of people who have zero choice in how they live.
Working class no longer has the meaning it did to the populace. According to today’s dictionary, It should be unskilled, But most include skilled engineers etc. That no longer applies. The deffintion before that was between income earning asset ownership or not. Defined working vs middle class. No one really follows that any more.
Language evolves as its usage and definitions change, is a fact of history. And the evidence clearly points to a dilution in the meaning of classes in general. Heck, even upper class in no longer limited to those of aristocratic birth.
I also remember something about the meaning of goat changing a few hundred years back. Mainly due to science excluding sheep from the definition. But i’ve no idea where I heard that. Likely on eons. Glass used to refer to a volcanic process that created clearing stone. The current man-made product def did not exist. But the volcanic stuff is still called glass. So yeah, that one likely counts as expanded rather than evolved.
I’ll give you a freebie. Cloud has not really changed its meaning since the Norman conquest.
Unskilled vs skilled is in the dictionary. Working class according to the dictionary is only unskilled labour. Whereas society provides multiple examples of modern skilled labour in the form of plumbers electricians engineers heck even steel working is a skill many do not have. So evidence of that one is everywhere. But later Ill provide some documented and anecdotal evidence on the changes of the definition of skilled labour. And with it, working class.
Older working class def (income based assets) are from Victorian times. I am visually impaired and heading out for a few weeks. So atm do not have the time to find the documentation in my references. But will contact you in a few weeks when I’m back at home. And have time to search.
Some language does.
Yes but even those are not 100% Go back before modern geology (Likely 1300s and before) Granite just meant and unyielding rock. (at least in the south of England) Modern geology gave it a more specific type of stone with crystalline structure. (a modern geologist may cringe at that def as well.)
As for sky. We now have a definition of the sky being just earths atmosphere. Yet 1000 years ago, Brits would suggest stars are in the sky. Even early astronomers had no real concept of space vs the sky. Around the 1200s we started to conceive of something beyond the sky, and by the 1600s newton had a pretty clear idea of the movement of other planes. But really not until flight was it accepted that there may be a limit to our atmosphere. The idea of something beyond what we think of as sky is still relatively modern. But today no one thinks of Venus/Mars etc as being in the sky.
All language evolves, just some over decades, some over centuries. Some based on scientific understanding. More based on how the community understands and needs to communicate. Words like phone have evolved in my lifetime. (landlines were all that existed until my 20s.) Words like Computer in my parent’s lifetime. (Referred to a mathematically skilled person until the late 1960s)
But even in the 1960 computers were considered working class. While engineers were not. At that time, women were never considered skilled labour due to… Well if we’re honest, men of the time being arseholes.
Now, if we go back to my grandmother. Look up the ford sewing strikes of 1968. My gran was part of that. A time when the UK was forced to change the very definition of skilled labour to include women. And likely the start of the language used to define working class as more than just unskilled labour. Pulling other degree level skills into the definition.
So yeah, Lang evolves at different speeds. Some pretty darn fast.
"Working class is an outdated term (IMVHO). The people of the social class that used to be termed ‘working class’ (say, pre-Thatcher > Blair) no longer have the job and social security that term denoted. The social contract for those people has been eroded away. On zero-hours contracts or in precarious (often ‘essential worker’) jobs, those people are more ‘working poor’ or ‘underclass’ now depending on exactly how much money they have in their pocket from month to month.
Edit - deleted some stuff about home ownership and voting that was too convoluted.
The term “working class” means someone whose income is based entirely on selling their labour. It’s nothing to do with job security or social security and never has been. The term is not outdated, it is as relevant as ever.
In this thread you have been inaccurate and argumentative. It is obstructive, unhelpful, boring. Take your anger out on somebody other than me, I am not playing.
Media gets paid billions to talk shit about migrants.
You bomb their countries and then cry about it when they come to your country.
Eh? By whom?
Everyone who profits off war and softer forms of imperialism. Prime examples are the defense industry, tech industry, and petroleum companies but many others benefit as well.
Any evidence to back up what you’re saying?
Edit:
I see. Nevermind :-)
Why even ask this if you don’t want answers? You seem to be rejecting or dismissing every attempt in this comment section.
What are you doing out of your tankie cage, trying to interact with normal people? Get back! Back I say!
Poor, formerly working class, people in the UK have benefited least from the decades of foreign and economic policy that have ultimately caused the migrant crisis, and are being harmed most by it: the market for low-skilled jobs is either much more difficult or impossible, and social services are stretched past breaking. But those people are not crying, they are turning to the far-right in the (probably vain) hope for a solution because everybody else have proved themselves non-credible.
Even though the current close-to-a-London-a-decade is simply unsustainable, it is absolutely nothing compared to the coming flood of climate refugees. The line will be drawn somewhere. The longer it goes on the stronger the response will ultimately be.
It is a disaster but that is the reality of the situation.
For context, the suffering migrants experience now is again nothing compared to the coming harm future migrants will experience due to climate change, and none of us can stop it, because if we don’t burn those fossil fuels somebody else is going to. It isn’t solvable under capitalism because the cooperation required isn’t possible. Write it as an epitaph on human-kind’s gravestone: “We didn’t possess the wit to overcome the dopamine-driven desire for more, now.”
Just curious why you refer to the poor people you’re talking about as “formerly” working class?
I assume because the traditional definitions of working class do not translate well to modern society.
The terminology used to apply to anyone who could not afford to stop working without a significant limitation to survival. (I.E. no income generating assets). Nowadays, it has been used to exclude benefits claimants. Often even when those claimants work. And many landlords with income generating assets or farm owners etc. Would def include themselves as working class.
As the language has evolved, the term working class just doesn’t mean what it used to. Poor gives a better definition (though far from perfect). Of people who have zero choice in how they live.
I disagree.
Your welcome to. But evidence disagrees.
Working class no longer has the meaning it did to the populace. According to today’s dictionary, It should be unskilled, But most include skilled engineers etc. That no longer applies. The deffintion before that was between income earning asset ownership or not. Defined working vs middle class. No one really follows that any more.
Language evolves as its usage and definitions change, is a fact of history. And the evidence clearly points to a dilution in the meaning of classes in general. Heck, even upper class in no longer limited to those of aristocratic birth.
Are you able to provide references to some of that?
Some language does. The word “granite” means the same now as it did in 1900. Same with “sky” and “goat” and “glass”. And “working class”.
I also remember something about the meaning of goat changing a few hundred years back. Mainly due to science excluding sheep from the definition. But i’ve no idea where I heard that. Likely on eons. Glass used to refer to a volcanic process that created clearing stone. The current man-made product def did not exist. But the volcanic stuff is still called glass. So yeah, that one likely counts as expanded rather than evolved.
I’ll give you a freebie. Cloud has not really changed its meaning since the Norman conquest.
Unskilled vs skilled is in the dictionary. Working class according to the dictionary is only unskilled labour. Whereas society provides multiple examples of modern skilled labour in the form of plumbers electricians engineers heck even steel working is a skill many do not have. So evidence of that one is everywhere. But later Ill provide some documented and anecdotal evidence on the changes of the definition of skilled labour. And with it, working class.
Older working class def (income based assets) are from Victorian times. I am visually impaired and heading out for a few weeks. So atm do not have the time to find the documentation in my references. But will contact you in a few weeks when I’m back at home. And have time to search.
Yes but even those are not 100% Go back before modern geology (Likely 1300s and before) Granite just meant and unyielding rock. (at least in the south of England) Modern geology gave it a more specific type of stone with crystalline structure. (a modern geologist may cringe at that def as well.)
As for sky. We now have a definition of the sky being just earths atmosphere. Yet 1000 years ago, Brits would suggest stars are in the sky. Even early astronomers had no real concept of space vs the sky. Around the 1200s we started to conceive of something beyond the sky, and by the 1600s newton had a pretty clear idea of the movement of other planes. But really not until flight was it accepted that there may be a limit to our atmosphere. The idea of something beyond what we think of as sky is still relatively modern. But today no one thinks of Venus/Mars etc as being in the sky.
All language evolves, just some over decades, some over centuries. Some based on scientific understanding. More based on how the community understands and needs to communicate. Words like phone have evolved in my lifetime. (landlines were all that existed until my 20s.) Words like Computer in my parent’s lifetime. (Referred to a mathematically skilled person until the late 1960s)
But even in the 1960 computers were considered working class. While engineers were not. At that time, women were never considered skilled labour due to… Well if we’re honest, men of the time being arseholes.
Now, if we go back to my grandmother. Look up the ford sewing strikes of 1968. My gran was part of that. A time when the UK was forced to change the very definition of skilled labour to include women. And likely the start of the language used to define working class as more than just unskilled labour. Pulling other degree level skills into the definition.
So yeah, Lang evolves at different speeds. Some pretty darn fast.
"Working class is an outdated term (IMVHO). The people of the social class that used to be termed ‘working class’ (say, pre-Thatcher > Blair) no longer have the job and social security that term denoted. The social contract for those people has been eroded away. On zero-hours contracts or in precarious (often ‘essential worker’) jobs, those people are more ‘working poor’ or ‘underclass’ now depending on exactly how much money they have in their pocket from month to month.
Edit - deleted some stuff about home ownership and voting that was too convoluted.
The term “working class” means someone whose income is based entirely on selling their labour. It’s nothing to do with job security or social security and never has been. The term is not outdated, it is as relevant as ever.
Language evolves.
In this thread you have been inaccurate and argumentative. It is obstructive, unhelpful, boring. Take your anger out on somebody other than me, I am not playing.