“If I was of colour or had a disability or a different sexuality I just wouldn’t even bother
turning on the television, because you feel invisible,” Times columnist and author of How to be a woman, Caitlin Moran, told
the Radio Times last
week.
“The lack of
working class people in culture at the moment is notable,” she went on. “And
when they are represented … Take Benefits Street. It’s the only time I’ve seen
people on benefits on television, but you didn’t get to hear them talking about
their ideas on philosophy or politics, you didn’t get to see them being joyful
– it was simply about surviving, and that made them look like animals. It
didn’t show them as human beings.”
This is true
but something jars. Representation of working class people is not the same as
representation of other so-called minorities. It’s far more troublesome because
the implications of genuine representation are far less containable. Put
simply, it’s possible to have a resolutely capitalist society that is
authentically diverse, and comfortable with multi-ethnicities, equal
representation of women, fluid sexuality and disability. It’s not possible to
have a resolutely capitalist society that pays more than lip service to working
class lives and experiences.
Merely on a
superficial level, working class representation in culture is different. The
problem is not invisibility but abject distortion and hostility. When the
working class is heard in popular culture, it’s invariably with the prefix
‘white’ as if working class views can only be amplified in racial terms. Benefits Street, Benefits Britain, On Benefits
and Proud, Benefits by the Sea, On
the Sick, Benefits Hotel, Benefits
Cat* etc (it’s quite a long list) are all fixated on looking down at people
whose lives, intelligence and moral scruples are presented at a qualitatively
lower level than those of the viewer. People live in ‘benefits’ houses, have
‘benefits’ babies and smoke ‘benefits’ fags.
These
portrayals are dripping with condescension, stereotypes and malice. Invisibility
would be a major advance. You could compare this representation with the way homosexuality or ethnic minorities were
depicted in the 1970s but even that was less spiteful. It’s like the venom
that’s now not acceptable to vent on other racial groups or non-heterosexual
people has been stored up to be spewed on targets few will defend.
What does working class mean?
However
these depictions are not of the working class per se but people on out of work
benefits. The closer people are materially to those at the bottom of the heap,
the more they may well want to differentiate themselves. “I don’t think
I would want to be in the same class as somebody who takes what they
can and has the attitude of ‘Well, I’m better off not working,” Lorraine,
a fork lift truck driver, is quoted as saying towards the end of the book, Social Class in the 21st Century.
Just under half of society, if you credit official
definitions, are now working
class. 10.6 million people in Britain can be described as poor (in work
poverty has now overtaken out of work poverty), as their income is below 60% of
the median. A further 760,000 are claiming Jobseekers Allowance and 2.3 million
are getting either Incapacity benefit, or its successor, Employment and Support
Allowance. The term ‘working class’ can be applied to all of these groups, or
just one, depending on your intention.
It’s possible to react to working class stereotypes in the
same way as racial stereotypes or homophobia. Just as there is sexism and
racism, so there is classism. The solution is to fight an attritional battle on
sexist, racist, homophobic or classist attitudes so that eventually society is
free of them. In this ideal world, working class people have their voice heard
equally in culture in the same way that women, ethnic minorities,
non-heterosexual and transgender people do. The working class are not looked
down on or stereotyped.
But this would be a false utopia. Being working class is not
a collection of attitudes to be respected, or the spur behind an ambition to
colonise the commanding heights of society, but a state of being that should
not exist. The aim should be a classless society. The working class should be
abolished. And that is a truly transgressive aspiration.
Diversity
It’s easier to see the distinction if you examine society’s
acceptable and seemingly unstoppable radical edge, the push for diversity.
Since 2010’s Equality Act it has been illegal to discriminate against job
applicants on the basis of, not just sex or race, but sexual orientation,
transgender status or disability. Discrimination obviously does happen but
officially it shouldn’t. Government departments have been at the forefront of
this drive. The Home Office has been recognised as one of the UK’s Top 50 Employers for Women and offers guaranteed interviews to
qualified people with disabilities.
Secret service agency MI5 been has named ‘employer
of the year’ by LGBT rights charity Stonewall. In
the US, since the time of George W Bush, the US federal government has declared
itself in favour of ‘workplace diversity’.
Allied to this, there has been
constant pressure to make corporate boardrooms and the upper echelons of public
sector bodies more reflective of society. The 30% Club campaigns
for greater gender balance at board level in the UK. Groups such as OUTstanding claim
business can benefit from greater productivity by enhancing representation of
LGBT people at executive level.
It is, without question, a good thing that society, and its
cultural expressions, reflect its actual diversity. Gay and transgender people,
in particular, have suffered terribly from bullying and worse. The current
stigmatising tone of coverage of benefit claimants prepares the ground for
sanctions and cuts
to sickness benefit. So a more realistic, and, gulp, sympathetic portrait
may have tangible effects.
But cultural diversity and equal
treatment by employers are profoundly inadequate tools for dealing with the
inescapable inequality and autocracy of the capitalist organisation of society.
This becomes apparent when you consider how the working class fits into the
diversity agenda. The short answer is, it doesn't.
If an employer doesn’t want to
discriminate, for example, against working class people, how are they to proceed?
They could aim to ensure that people with working class backgrounds aren’t
excluded. That would be difficult to define and enforce, but beyond these
surface difficulties, whether a working class person even gets to the
application or interview stage, is dependent upon innumerable factors. These elements,
such as education, childhood experiences, parental wealth, ownership of assets,
or cultural capital are produced by entrenched political and economic forces,
and not within the gift of enlightened employers to bestow.
The result is that, despite the
ostensible backing of Left and Right for greater social mobility and equal
opportunity, the reality either gets worse or remains static. Two decades ago,
Conservative Prime Minister John Major promised a ‘classless society’.
With impeccable amnesia David Cameron now
claims the Conservatives as the ‘party
of equality’. But class cannot be undiscriminated away.
A cooperative
economy
However the incongruity goes far
deeper. Genuine representation of working class opinions and experiences cuts
against the grain of organisations built on hierarchy and career progression. For
a telesales worker, a front-line nurse, a fork lift driver, a cleaner or a
receptionist to have an equal say in the management of the organisations they
work for presupposes an end to the arbitrary power of management, and the reaping
of profits by senior management and shareholders. This simply cannot be allowed
to happen. Power should steadily accrue to those who ascend career ladder. So working
class experiences and opinions are necessarily suppressed in favour of those of
the upper middle class.
If, however, you wish society to
genuinely listen to the experiences of working class people, you have to move
towards a cooperative economy, in which the distinction
between employer and employee is abolished. This doesn’t mean that a
division of labour is no longer needed or that management disappears as a
function. But it does mean that enterprises and public sector organisations
become classless and democratic. The huge cooperative enterprise at Mondragon
in Spain, which contains over 250 businesses, indicates this is quite feasible.
The implications of such a change are
massive for a society increasingly defined in terms of status, seniority and
inequality. But, like a basic income heralding a post-work future, a
cooperative economy could be just as liberating for those convinced they
benefit from the current make-up of society, as for everyone else.
*This one is made up but I’m hopeful
Channel 5 will commission it
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