Death of the Middle Classes?

michaels

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Morrisons seem to have also caught on to the fact that families can no longer justify runs to the out of town shops, so they have stopped building them, are going to focus on internet delivery for the monthly shops and smaller convinience stores in towns that people can walk to in order to save the money spent on fuel. They also suggested families were shelving the second car (so can't get to the out of town supermarkets when the car is at work) as they can no longer afford it, which may well be true of their client base, but not sure that stacks up overall.

Or Morrisons have caught on to the fact that people are basically lazy and no longer shop for a week and cook from scratch to save money but instead buy ready type meals for 1 or 2 days at a time, pay the premia that implies and are also happy to pay the extra premia that buying from a small convenince store that they are passing costs over buying from a big supermarket.

Nice to be assume that companies' altrusitic press releases are the whole story but sometiems it is worth thinking about 'what is in it for them?'

Loughton_Monkey

ld0rman wrote: »

Did anyone see that funny BBC thing that said we have 7 social classes now? I was one of the dynamic young people I think. Sounded very cool but it basically meant (correctly) that I have no money or assets...

It's here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22007058

The new classes are defined as:

• Elite - the most privileged group in the UK, distinct from the other six classes through its wealth. This group has the highest levels of all three capitals

• Established middle class - the second wealthiest, scoring highly on all three capitals. The largest and most gregarious group, scoring second highest for cultural capital

• Technical middle class - a small, distinctive new class group which is prosperous but scores low for social and cultural capital. Distinguished by its social isolation and cultural apathy

• New affluent workers - a young class group which is socially and culturally active, with middling levels of economic capital

• Traditional working class - scores low on all forms of capital, but is not completely deprived. Its members have reasonably high house values, explained by this group having the oldest average age at 66

• Emergent service workers - a new, young, urban group which is relatively poor but has high social and cultural capital

• Precariat, or precarious proletariat - the poorest, most deprived class, scoring low for social and cultural capital

Never heard the word "Precariat". Possibly a few of those around here....

Also interesting that "Traditional Working Class" has reasonably high house values.

MacMickster

What this debate does is put lie to the utopian vision from the 1960s that increasing automation would enable us all to have much more leisure time, along with the wealth to enjoy it.

For most people, their main asset is the worth of their skills and labour. Once a robot or computer can do the job cheaper and more accurately then their skills literally become worthless. It is unlikely that the owner of the robot or computer will altruistically share their wealth, to allow the now under-employed to enjoy their leisure time.

I don't think that we should be talking about the death of the middle classes, but possibly the beginning of the end for middle-skilled (and middle-paying) jobs.

noodle_doodle

"Technical middle class - a small, distinctive new class group which is prosperous but scores low for social and cultural capital. Distinguished by its social isolation and cultural apathy"

That's me. "cultural apathy", certainly to the things they ask in the q'naire - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22000973 . Opera, classical music, stately homes, art galleries? Is this 1856? We're not apathetic to culture, just to culture that a 1930's BBC announcer would enjoy. Ask about browsing online archives of retro 8-bit gaming instead, it's as cultural as looking at some painting the ninja turtles did 400 years ago.

StevieJ

kabayiri wrote: »

It's a poor term. I only used middle class because the show did.

It really refers to the group which has emerged in the last couple of hundred years, primarily as a result of the first industrial revolution.

The contrasting society was one of Autocrats and Serfs in Russia, or even Pharaohs and the workers in ancient Egypt.

Then again wasn't the 'first' industrial revolution supposed to remove most of the jobs?

Conrad

kabayiri wrote: »

To add specifics ....

Same with medicine. Remote diagnosis, or personal monitoring systems, can enable fewer people to deal with more cases.

The counter to this is that new technology is creating whole new business opportunities that require an army of skilled workers.

Bio-engineering is one such area that will transform the Human experience - for example stem cell technology used to grow your own bank of replacement organs and parts, and bio-engineered protein farms, fuel from bacterium silos etc etc.

Synthesised materials is another huge opportunity as natural materials run down.



The opportunities are staggering and will require a lot of hands on workers.

There is one particular danger though and that will come when AI is finally made a reality. In this case an AI robot could presumably work happily 24 hours per day on the end of a legal helpline! An AI GP would have better knowledge than any Human and be piped into the web if it requires an instant update. An AI bot could do the work of a million Human research scientists and won't even want a pension!

AI will require us to completely re-think the whole damn Human eco-system so we can all still enjoy a meaningful life somehow.

Loughton_Monkey

[QUOTE=noodle_doodle;63121699.....That's_me._"cultural_apathy",_certainly_to_the_things_they_ask_in_the_q'naire_-_http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22000973 ...[/QUOTE]

This looks to me complete nonsense.

I did it honestly first, and it told me 'Elite'. Don't believe it! So I did it again, but this time just fed in the top income/wealth bits - but for the next sections, I claimed I only know a cleaner and a lorry driver, and spent all day on facebook and listening to rap. Still told me I was 'Elite'. Seems you only need a house >£500K and a pension pot >£100K [Ha! 3K a year extra pension. Wow!] and you are elite.

Please feel free to refer to me as the Right Honourable Lord Monkey of Loughton.

chewmylegoff

kabayiri wrote: »

To add specifics ....

Legal Search now takes much less manpower resources than before due to technology. It doesn't take a genius to work out that fewer people can do more. Those "fewer" can command a bigger share of the pie, or the increased profitability will go to the bosses. That's just the way it is.

The flip side of this is the volume of documents that exist in the electronic world is much larger (emails, instant messages etc mean that much greater volumes of written communications are created these dates). That means that when you get into litigation you need more paralegals / junior lawyers to look at it all. So efficiencies gained in some places may be balanced by increased demands in others.

kabayiri

StevieJ wrote: »

Then again wasn't the 'first' industrial revolution supposed to remove most of the jobs?

I was thinking about this.

Technology, of course, can act in different ways and at different points in time.

It can enable access to new markets. This would potentially warrant more jobs until market saturation.

It can create new marketable products, even sectors. The computer market hardly existed a mere half century ago.

When it comes to replacing service sector jobs, where is the parallel though ?

If you sell a house, you sell a house dont you? Technology may help you sell more of them and increase your productivity, and your industry colleagues wedded to slower methods may wither and fade.

I admit to find it interesting. It is probably multi-faceted, and will take decades before true pictures emerge.

As an example, I've been involved in demo's, so I feel confident in predicting that the days of computers answering phone calls will arrive during my life time. How this will impact the mass of jobs in the call centre industry can only be guessed at, but long term I imagine the numbers employed will shrink dramatically.

An India without call centres? What would that look like?

michaels

Conrad wrote: »

The counter to this is that new technology is creating whole new business opportunities that require an army of skilled workers.

Bio-engineering is one such area that will transform the Human experience - for example stem cell technology used to grow your own bank of replacement organs and parts, and bio-engineered protein farms, fuel from bacterium silos etc etc.

Synthesised materials is another huge opportunity as natural materials run down.



The opportunities are staggering and will require a lot of hands on workers.

There is one particular danger though and that will come when AI is finally made a reality. In this case an AI robot could presumably work happily 24 hours per day on the end of a legal helpline! An AI GP would have better knowledge than any Human and be piped into the web if it requires an instant update. An AI bot could do the work of a million Human research scientists and won't even want a pension!

AI will require us to completely re-think the whole damn Human eco-system so we can all still enjoy a meaningful life somehow.

Don't worry, they may still need us to generate elctricity. I'll continue to take the blue pill please.

In all honesty we will soon be out thought by computers plus direct brain interface AI will let us be whoever we want to be without leaving our beds. Either of these two likelihoods mean all bets on what 'society' looks like in 50 years time are off.