Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures, Tables and Boxes
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The Divided Left in the UK: Partisanship, Ideology and Class after Brexit
- 2 Populism and the People: Elitism, Authoritarianism and Libertarianism
- 3 ‘Coloring the Utterance with Some Kind of Perceivable Affect’: Constructing ‘Country’ and ‘People’ in Speeches by Theresa May and Boris Johnson – A Linguistic Perspective
- 4 The Challenges of Polarisation: Lessons for (Re-)Politicising Inequality across Four English Towns
- 5 “Go Away, But Don't Leave Us”: Affective Polarisation and the Precarisation of Romanian Essential Workers in the UK
- 6 Racialised Affective Polarisation in the UK
- 7 “Now You Have to Listen”: A Historical Analysis of Britain’s Left-Behind Communities
- 8 Britain in a State of Emergency: Studying Ken Loach's Films I, Daniel Blake (2016) and Sorry We Missed You (2019)
- 9 Cloaking Class: Making the Working Class Visible
- 10 Class, Poverty and Inequality in Scotland: Independence and the Creation of Affective Polarisations
- 11 Language and Identity: The Taliesin Tradition
- Conclusion
- Index
9 - Cloaking Class: Making the Working Class Visible
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 January 2024
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures, Tables and Boxes
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The Divided Left in the UK: Partisanship, Ideology and Class after Brexit
- 2 Populism and the People: Elitism, Authoritarianism and Libertarianism
- 3 ‘Coloring the Utterance with Some Kind of Perceivable Affect’: Constructing ‘Country’ and ‘People’ in Speeches by Theresa May and Boris Johnson – A Linguistic Perspective
- 4 The Challenges of Polarisation: Lessons for (Re-)Politicising Inequality across Four English Towns
- 5 “Go Away, But Don't Leave Us”: Affective Polarisation and the Precarisation of Romanian Essential Workers in the UK
- 6 Racialised Affective Polarisation in the UK
- 7 “Now You Have to Listen”: A Historical Analysis of Britain’s Left-Behind Communities
- 8 Britain in a State of Emergency: Studying Ken Loach's Films I, Daniel Blake (2016) and Sorry We Missed You (2019)
- 9 Cloaking Class: Making the Working Class Visible
- 10 Class, Poverty and Inequality in Scotland: Independence and the Creation of Affective Polarisations
- 11 Language and Identity: The Taliesin Tradition
- Conclusion
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Since the 1970s, wealth inequality in the UK has been rising year on year with the only exception being the early 2000s when the Blair Labour government made a few tweaks through their tax credit policy, slowing down the rapid widening of the wealth gap for a few short years. The Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government's austerity measures in 2010 speeded the process up to such an extent that by 2014 the gap between the wealthy and the poor had never been greater (Hills, 2014). Consequently, it should come as no surprise that in the country where the Industrial Revolution began – and, as E.P. Thompson chronicled, the English working class were made – the vertical class system that capitalism needs to function is in great shape. There has been a redistribution of wealth from the poorest upwards since 2010 (ONS, 2021). The divisions between the rich and the poor both in the UK and in Europe have never been greater in modern times, and there is now a full body of work from academics studying economics, sociology, anthropology and urbanism, focusing on the elites and the evergrowing wealth gaps particularly in the UK and within Europe (Savage, 2010, 2015, 2021; Picketty, 2014; Atkinson et al, 2017). However, the narrative of a solution to the widening wealth gap has focused somewhat on social mobility and meritocracy. To an extent, these concepts acknowledge the structured nature of inequality within capitalist societies, but for the most part social mobility is still seen as an individual act of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. The social mobility narratives favoured by governments and administrations focus on shaping and introducing specific policies targeted at the bottom of society with the intention of creating ‘fairer opportunities’, with the hope that this will change the fates of some working-class people who are ‘hardworking’, ‘naturally clever’, and who accept without complaint the dominant narratives and culture (Friedman and Laurison, 2019; Social Mobility Commission, 2021). However, these policies focusing on social mobility are not intended to change the system, nor to tackle the unfair advantages the system awards to those in the middle or at the top.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Affective PolarisationSocial Inequality in the UK after Austerity, Brexit and COVID-19, pp. 185 - 198Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2023