Since times beyond history, when bipedal monkeys started to organise themselves into a society, differences spawned between the haves and the have not’s, the equal and the lesser equal, the working class and the non working class.
In this Piscean era, class differences are the inheritance of our forefathers, but are they real?
Today every politician, who thinks he’s worth a penny, vouches for his allegiance with the working class, and promises a utopia where those, who are left behind in this race we call life, will be taken care of by the state. But hey is this not Communism? So why did the Communist experiment fail? Oh yes, this is social democratic, sorry. On second thoughts even a Republican says the same, so did an extreme rightist (Nationalist) in Germany 60 odd years ago!
The question remains, who is this worker that everyone wants to glorify for just one week every 5 years and milk for the following 60 months? What is the working class? If one is to define the set “working class” who would be the members?
The stereotype image of a worker is the manual, often unskilled labourer, the rest are managers and professionals. What differentiates the manual labourer from a manager and a professional? The labourer wakes up early in the morning and goes to his place of employment to finance his living and that of his family and at 5 pm he shoots off home to kiss his wife and kids and spend some time watching TV with them or go out to nanna’s. The manager on the other hand wakes up a bit later, goes to the same place of work, armed with his best weapons, which he sharpens daily to climb the career ladder, and leaves quite late, returning home to find his kids asleep, his wife sulking over how high the expenses of the family are, worrying about the ever increasing kid’s school fees and how little time they have together ever since his promotion. While the manual worker has his skin peeled of his back to make both ends meet, the professional works his behind off to follow his vocation. Thus, from dusk till dawn he meets and visits clients nonstop, cash flows much less than he ever expected, meets his buddies for an expensive lunch, expresses intellectual political views, and goes home late to find his wife and kids fast asleep, but his career is moving on and his family lacks no perk that his neighbours have.
Everyone seems to wake up in the morning to fund his living in one way or another! So who are the members of the set “working class” really? Is it the manual labourer, his manager or their lawyer? Maybe the big boss, the owner of the company, is the one who is not member of the “working class”. No? He just sits in that big leather seat all day for fun and when he is in the mood goes for a walk in the shop floor because it gives him a kick to boss people around. I forgot, he too wakes up early in the morning to go to his office, works hard and worries about his business, suffers from stress, drinks a tot or two on the job (some people are lucky ay?), meets his buddies some of whom are fellow investors or professionals, talks the high talk and arrives home to be greeted by his snoring wife and kids.
Is therefore everyone a worker at the end of the day? What about the manager and the professional who feel they are higher up in the rung of society? Are they common working mortals like the manual labourer? Is the society providing such a deceit as to delude people into believing that they are something different from what they really are?
The set “working class” does involve the vast majority of the society otherwise politicians would not make it such a point in addressing them in that week every 5 years. But are these politicians being mislead in their pleas? Is their propaganda not reaching the whole target sector? Do they have an audience that albeit being part of their target sector are not listening? Are there people who, whether they like it or not, form part of the “working class” and live in their ivory towers believing they are outside of this segment of society? Do these people feel that any political change or any politician’s address targeted at the “working class” are targeted towards another stereotype we call the ‘common man in the street’ and will not have any effect on them? Do they simply feel that they do not belong to that sector, albeit they actually do? Or are they just resigned to fate, with their faith in the political system broken down and thriving for their own independence from the State through their continuous struggle to improve their financial wellbeing, and never seem to reach the goal they have originally set themselves to achieve?
Maybe it is time to re-define our sociological classifications and take care of the needs of the whole society in general and not just the few non members of this set, whether imaginary or real.
Posts
3 comments:
THE UNTHINKING CLASSES
They also call us the Great Unwashed an expression coming from the indusrial revolution in England. That was when a pregnant teenager was made to lie on her back under a machine and provide the missing power in the machine's return movement for 14hours a day.
The ruling class always provided for keeping the masses uneducated. Then the working class would always have to depend on clientelism.
Take Malta's case. In the 70's it was obligatory to study arabic and pysics at secondary school. This would have opened an immense market exclusively to us as the only Western country that speaks Arabic. Physics was to anticipate the Western deficiency in turning out scientists and ward against the influx of Chinese and Indian scientists.
The PN ministers cancelled all that in the 80's becuase it was too hard on pupils comng from spoilt families.
Twenty years later we are back to record illiteracy and a drought in science and engineering experts. We have missed the arab market where we should be teaching the English language, media studies, communication and business management.
Now we have 35% of the work force working with government entities. Every such employee is obliged to a minister or other for employment, promotions, lucrative postings and forgiveness of corrupt practices.
In my opinion the expression 'working classes' is a misnomer. From now on we should be calling them the "unthinking classes".
Narcy, I know too many individuals, that do not belong to the traditional working classes, that belong perfectly to the "Unthinking Classes". I would not consider them as the same group.
When dealing with so called managers and administration staff...more than often one has to face members coming from the non-thinking-doing class, which is quite frustrating, especially when the member of the non-thinking-doing class tries to influence how the thinking-doing class carries on with life...and what is worse is when members of non-thinking-doing class pose as being part of the thinking-doing class - often through a higher education certficate, somehow make their way up the ladder of management and... make a serious attempt at down-sizing the thinking-doing class...On the other hand the good managers are those who exploit thinking and talent for a good cause...but then to which class do the latter belong?...probably the same thinking-doing class.. Maybe somebody will write an article on this....I am not supporting a centrally controlled revolution here but merely articles that keep the thinking-doing class on the alert, well connected and also encourage well-seasoned talented people to step into management when needed.
Post a Comment