A Citizen's Guide to Social Mobility
Introduction
Stalin pronounced in 1934 that equality was now "a piece of petty bourgeois stupidity, worthy of a primitive sect of ascetics but not of socialists". Clearly Joe had given up on the idea of creating a Communist utopia in the Soviet Union. In fact, by the mid-30s he had created a caste system, in which citizens were graded like eggs. In that circumstance social mobility didn't exist; party members begat party members. The masses had no prospect of going anywhere, except to an early grave or the Gulag.
Joe's excuse for giving up on the ideal of equality was that the revolution had more pressing business like meeting production targets, individual striving hindered national goals.
In the Capitalist world the fiction of a more equal society, where social mobility is encouraged, is central to all political and philosophical discourse. All that talk of equality, fairness and justice, most necessary within a system reliant on social harmony for increasing profits, and the notion of hope, even more so. The concept of social mobility is a homage to hope.
What is Social Mobility?
One definition might be, the degree within society that an individual can move up the food chain, the movement from scrabbling around on all fours for the crumbs from the rich man's table to actually dining at the table.
However, social mobility isn't really about some metaphorical individual's progress, it's a key measure of social progress.
Listen to the present ConDem Government...
"A fair society is an open society, one in which every individual is free to succeed. That is why improving social mobility is the principal goal of the Government’s social policy.
No one should be prevented from fulfilling their potential by the circumstances of their birth. What ought to count is how hard you work and the skills and talents you possess, not the school you went to or the jobs your parents did."What ought to count is an honest admission of policy failure in a world where hard work, skill and talent guarantee only an outside chance of producing a free and open society.
Social Mobility: the facts of life in Britain today
Note: the gray and green lines, the crossing point occurs at age 6 and the pattern is set by the time children progress to secondary school.
Life as a zero sum game.
The chart above is particularly important since international comparisons may give the lie to the right-wing nonsense that increasing equality decreases economic incentives. For such types, government meddling in social mobility interferes with the natural order of the game - which is course all about winners and losers, life is a zero sum game. In the competition for scarce resources; for the best school places, the best jobs and the best houses not everyone can be successful. Indeed, in the current circumstance few will be successful - the game is not fair.
The National Equality Panel tells us:
"Britain is an unequal country, more so than many other industrial countries and more so than a generation ago. This is manifest in many ways – most obviously in the gap between those who are well off and those who are less well off."
An earlier report from the Sutton Trust showed a decline in social mobility, there was a increasing relationship between family income and educational attainment, children between 16 and 18 from better-off backgrounds disproportionately benefited.
The conclusion is straightforward, family income and background is central to social mobility in Britain.
Ask Ed Miliband, at 15 he got work experience in Tony Benn’s office at the Commons. He was born into North London Marxist 'aristocracy' and he had parents who could open doors for him. Or perhaps we might ask Julia Hobsbawm, daughter of Marxist academic Eric. Once she ran a PR business with Gordan Brown's wife (it went bust) now she has a new business, Editorial Intelligence. EI's purpose? to put opinion formers and commentators in touch with each other, for a membership fee of £4000. We can only guess whether all that 'getting in touch' might secure some advantage for members.
People like Ed and Julia are variables that spoil the game but also provide good examples of how family connections can help personal mobility.
Britain is a very unequal place.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation in its 'Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK' concluded:
"Moving up a ladder is harder if its rungs are further apart, and those who start higher up fight harder to ensure their children do not slip down".
The current government has all the data, it knows all about Britain's embarrassing performance in terms of social mobility. It has drawn up an impressive blueprint detailing how it will address the problem. It intends to intervene at every stage in the life cycle to encourage and support the most disadvantaged in their struggle up the ladder.
So will the strategy work? Conveniently, you'll have to wait a life cycle to find out.