The Modern UK… a culture of Jealousy?
I hate to say it my mum was right. She once said, “When the Tories are in, they are in.”
All of our achievements and all of our passions are become inert in a sea of jealousy. Ok she didn’t say that last bit exactly but when I read the news, study the blogosphere look at the headlines of your favourite newspaper, which I hope is the Morning Star incidentally, you see nothing other than public vs. private, rich vs. poor, Greece vs. the United States. Where does this come from? Why have we developed a culture of Jealousy?
Well, I can only tell you what I know. As a child I spent a lot of time at my Grandma’s, with the better off cousins and me. Dad was away a lot (and at this point would add, from a wealthy background), Mum the best you could ask for, Grandma – The person I hold dearest along side my Mum. It was the typical school holiday at their Grandma’s, we cleaned Grandma’s house (albeit probably making it dirtier than when we started – polish was overused and smears on the mirror aplenty!), had tea breaks that generally consisted of cordial, an apple tart and a tea cake and if we were on a shopping day – Sardine and Tomato spread sandwiches. Pall Mall, Kilroy and Anne and Nick were still on TV. We were all treated the same, somewhat socialist don’t you think?
Yet the culture of jealousy struck early, for most a chunk of my childhood I can say (with some embarrassment) I went to a private school, as did my two cousins. It somehow didn’t stop the unbearable envy and outright jealousy that I felt against my cousins; I mean they were going home to takeaways, unspoken overseas holidays, as if money was never really a problem. Aged 9, who thinks of money though? 20p was the world then. I’d go home wanting what they had; mum was already working all hour’s god sent. Ever wanting the holidays that they had, mum saved up and my first experience in an aeroplane was a Helicopter ride for my 12th birthday – Still not a ‘real aeroplane’ though. What an ungrateful bastard. Jealousy.
It’s inherent from school, commercials, the news…you must aspire to what others have. Now of course, I look back with disgust at my own thought processes and yet I am somehow unsettled with the fact that I was too infected by this disease. Grandma always said that those with plenty would never become ‘workers’ as she put it*, Mum said ‘you have to earn your way through life’ – How absolutely right they were.
* Grandma used to always split people in to ‘workers’ and ‘non-workers’, in a paradigm fashion separating the two was quite useful. The non-workers either want or don’t want what the workers have, or vice versa - Jealousy strikes again? Well it depends how you are reading this, I have to err on the side of my Gran. Lets look at our Grand/Parents era and in fitting with our ‘belief’ in comparison, lets start with my first idea:
1. State Jealousy
This idea stems from before World War One when GDP tables were first produced. Britain ruling the waves and all that, for the majority of the 19th century, Britain subjugated most of the world ¼ by land mass, 4/5ths by economic control. A worker in Britain would feel compelled to constantly strive to get out of the economic and social nightmare that was being a worker during the Victorian age by working ever hard. The aristocrat and controlling classes believing that the worker was, could never gain in social rank by compassion – The poor were poor because they chose to be. Only by jealousy or envy could they advance in ‘societal rank’. But what do we mean by jealousy and envy? My argument here is that in order to jump from the dank, dirty, dark workhouse to working class, from working class to middle and so on, workers had to become ever more productive – By that we mean work hard and harder. The miner didn’t want to end up in a workhouse or in debtors prison and so worked harder, the middle classes ever so fond of the terraces (occupied by just their family) they had bought, didn’t want to leave the cushy clerical job in the service of empire. How was this achieved? Employment rights were kept to a bare minimum so this culture could perpetuate itself, a sort of economic Darwinism – Classical Liberal/Tory economics. This detestable circle of social destruction was all for the benefit of one entity – The [imperial] state. Enter Mrs Smith become a ‘Matchgirl’, enter Manchester become ‘Cottonopolis’, enter Britain become ‘the Workshop of the world’.
The state, having dominated the global economy (90% European Steam Shipping, 68% Global coal production, 50% Global iron production by 1880) now had to compete with other nations. The United States (1779), post-revolutionary France (1848) and later a newly formed Germany (1871) workers rights seemed insignificant when defending the so called ‘Pax Britannica’. It told its workers to become, in the workshop of the world, more competitive and ever more productive to compete and keep Britain ‘at the top’ against other countries. Private enterprise was considered the way to do this, national and sub-national competition. The markets ruled the roost, the Irish Famines through the mid 1850s being just the price to pay – The clearances on Irelands west coast being the classic example of the culture of jealousy, those with money could by the land now cleared by the starvation/migration of millions of workers – They could become equals with their British counterparts.
Lord Byron said, “Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it, for jealousy dislikes the world to know it.” You could sum up the Victorian era therefore as mass compersion to the nations competitors from the top. This led to a ‘my navy is bigger’ style race that resulted in World War One which by default through Versailles to World War Two (I prefer looking at the 20th century as a new hundred years war). I could continue with a history lesson, for most it is quite literally old news. The simple idea of state competition through jealousy led to for example, the USSR launching a rocket to the Moon, the US sending a man to the moon…you get the idea.
2. Communal Jealousy/Equality
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why are they poor, they call me a Communist." – Helder Camera
Well I suppose this part is summed up by the creation of the welfare state. Its not jealousy exactly, more it starts with jealousy and leads to relative equality. When individuals see that other classes have more, benefiting from the fruits of their labour, instead of emulation they embark on a communal approach to obtaining a universal betterment. In Britain, workers came together to form the Labour Representation Committee and Independent Labour Party in order to have a voice with the running of the nation. An example of Communal Jealousy would be the 1945 Labour Government of Clement Attlee. The Nationalisation of the Railways, previously having been under private control whereby profit was put above the public (sound familiar?), was nationalised for the benefit of all. As services were nationalised, the populous benefited not private enterprise.
As the idea of ‘Communal Jealousy’ usually becomes cultural, we become proud of public institutions, such as the NHS where arguments like ‘free at point of use’ are defended by most, and rightly so! The state creates the welfare state, nobody should be left behind. This idea is the institution of fairness, of Trade Unions of Socialism.
3. Individualistic Jealousy
Enter Macmillan then Thatcher, the media era and corruption of principles. The argument is not a new one, but held a beachhead in the 1980s and spread like wildfire since. Neo-liberalism at its peak – This idea leads to mass inequality and the divide of the population, either monetarily or culturally (see poverty increases under Tory/Blair Governments of the 80s, 90s, 00s).
Why can’t you own your house? Own part of this state owned company? The 80s was littered with adverts for, ‘buy a stake in BT’ or ‘British Gas’, the idea of the ‘right now, pay later’. I don’t want to rant about economic models, but in essence – Own a home, secure a loan on it, nothing is as safe as houses.
Back to my argument - Why should others have better than you?, The State Benefiting isn’t you benefiting. Don’t you wish you had a Colour TV? A Fridge Freezer? A Holiday to Spain? Other people have these things, namely the rich and aristocracy, yes I know – classless society and all that. Become the rich (well not quite old boy), emulate them – Have the House, the Holiday the Shares. Well why not?
Enter the increasingly globalised media, the divide and rule ethos of selling a story, public vs. private, why should they have more than you? As we have seen recently in Murdoch’s slimy bile papers, saying that the public sector is greedy by having better pensions than the private sector…in other words, no pension. As a Trade Unionist, I cannot and never will, accept that there is any distinction – Both parties are part of the same and by that merit the private should aspire to have what the public sector has – And pay for. This recent idea is ridiculous, its like saying that because you don’t own a car then neither should someone who fuels and pays for their car, because you don’t have one!
Even worse we see the extremes of individual jealousy, the aspect of ‘at least it wasn’t me’ – A tragic incident is no longer the horrific event that it is, it is instead the next news story, we read thankful that it wasn’t us. Whilst this is at one extreme, the theme continues with your next holiday (if you are fortunate enough to have one), media tells you that your previous holidays to Talacre, Skegness and Butlins are so last decade. Who wants to holiday in Britain? The social fabric of Britain sets itself against itself – The poor family striving now for that holiday in Florida, getting stressed with overtime to afford the trip (or not afford it), to go on holiday and de-stress to start the cycle over again. Those who cannot afford or in debt become hopeless – with severe consequences:
“People in debt become hopeless and hopeless people don’t vote. They always say that that everyone should vote but I think that if the poor in Britain or the United States turned out and voted for people that represented their interests there would be a real democratic revolution.” – Tony Benn
The 80s and 90s boom in housing and consumer credit allowed for a property-owning democracy, house prices increasing by over 300% in the late 80s allowed, for the first time, individuals to become property owners. Credit Cards allowed for a boom in consumables – the Mod-Cons were available for all, the emulation of the wealthy not later but now. Yet it was only the ‘old/new money’ classes that benefited from this in the long run – not the average worker. Credit Cards made payable to Banks, paid dividends to their controllers, the FTSE boomed benefiting large scale investors. Of course when the boom turned to bust, workers suffered through unemployment, cut backs to the welfare state.
We see it now, people become snobbish that people are not on Facebook, when companies don’t have a website or have an ‘app’ we somehow think that there must be something wrong. The idea is corrosive and ultimately builds a new (neo-liberal) class system of the haves and haves and have-nots. Full circle.
Of course I would say all of this. My Grandma lived through World War two, god knows how many recessions and yet in her generation saw the creation of the institutions that we hold dear. The NHS for example. She always used to say that, “Blood is thicker than water”, she was right. Right now, when individuals are suffering is the time to come together and bring back that idea of collective spirit – If we don’t, we will be picked off one by one
JM
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