Hierarchy. Meritocracy. Superiors with subordinates and slaves. And the power is often ‘elegant’ in that the oppressed conspire in their oppression. There is no alternative; no Plan B. The poor (both deserving and undeserving) will be with us always.
Last week I visited the Strathnaver Community Museum http://www.strathnavermuseum.org.uk/. It bears witness to the cruel replacement of politically sheepish people by actual sheep in the 18th century.
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| Lesley Riddoch |
“For all the talk about being Jock Tamson’s bairns, Scotland is a surprisingly elitist society where a relatively small number of people own land, run businesses, possess wealth, stand for election and run government. The result is a deep-seated belief that ordinary Scots cannot own and run things, don’t want to own and run things and indeed that it hardly matter who does … It matters” (p12)
Interest piece. However Lesley's statement that: "Scotland is a surprisingly elitist society where a relatively small number of people own land, run businesses, possess wealth, stand for election and run government" requires evidence. What time periods are being examined. If compared with 50 years ago: there are more homeowners; more people self-employed and owning and running a business; more family assets - house, car, pension, etc; and a wider group of people standing for election - women, retired, etc. Take for example the Highlands. 50 years ago there were only a small number of car owners; fewer businesses; and the majority of Highland Councilors were male and drawn from landowning and the military. Furthermore in the 1950/60s the majority of Westminster MPs were Conservative drawn from the landowning and business elite.
ReplyDeleteI would agree that Scotland has significant wealth and inequality problems but much of this is due to UK Westminster free market privatization policies pursued by Conservatives, Labour and Liberal governments with regard to: personal and corporate taxation; welfare reforms, and trickle down economics.
Sir John Major - "In every single sphere of British influence, the upper echelons of power in 2013 are held overwhelmingly by the privately educated or the affluent middle class," he is reported to have said. "To me, from my background, I find that truly shocking."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/11/john-major-social-mobility-speech
John Harriss - "I'm not holding my breath, obviously. But, eventually, a principle so self-evident will have to be acknowledged, one way or another. If you overlay increasing differentiation on deep inequality, you end up with privilege: something I rather thought we'd grasped about two-thirds of the way into the last century."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/11/grammar-schools-social-mobility-deluded-thinking
"John Major is right to be shocked about the public-school elite's grip on Britain
ReplyDeleteThe former Tory prime minister has a point: privately educated men dominate the Conservative party in a way unseen since the 1950s"
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/11/john-major-public-school-tory-elite