The political rhetoric over the UK referendum on EU membership is reaching its peak. For anyone who has any kind of interest in politics it is fascinating to see how the different institutions and individuals are aligning themselves with the Leave or Remain campaigns. With the party political allegiances put on the back burner it is a good time to test one's Marxist assumptions about how power is distributed and maintained in the UK social system.
The Upper Class Leaves seem mainly to be from the old aristocracy who have been in power since William the Conqueror crushed the Anglo-Saxons. They are the traditional power in the South of England: Canterbury, Oxford, Cambridge, London, Windsor. You name it, they hold all the main strategic political and economic high ground. The idea that we give too much money to the EU is their favourite argument but it is a bit of a red herring. They will always complain about the redistribution of wealth from rich people to poor people, whether its through the EU or elsewhere. What they really fear is a loss of power that comes from a federal Europe with a broader democratic base with a greater mandate for social and economic justice.
The Upper Class Remains are akin to the industrial capitalists who grew rich in the provincial cities of the UK during the Victorian era. They need to maintain their access to the massive EU markets that come with the broader democratic base. Greater federalism as a political model is not really a threat to them; but only so long as they can keep their financial interests safe, and that means keeping the pound. This is their main area of weakness because the pound is obviously the property of the old aristocracy, not the new. The main problem here is that whereas UK exports are heavily affected by strength of the pound against the euro; the people who own the money don't care about that. The financial services in the City of London are just as happy if UK exports are falling as they are if they are rising; they make their money out of variations in the market, they are not bothered which way that variation goes.
The UK Middle Classes are net gainers from Europe and they tend to want to Remain. The UK Middle Classes can be portrayed as professional people (i.e. anyone who needs a qualification to do their job, which I agree, in the UK, is a very broad constituency indeed) who have had to borrow most of their money from the Upper Classes to 'get on in life'. These loans are used to fund their education, finance their homes, and keep the wheels of capitalism turning through various credit-worthy addictions including holidays, cars, clothes and digital technologies.
This UK Middle Classes' capital assets are mainly its knowledge, skills and abilities, i.e. its human resources. They gain from having a wider market to sell their assets to because this increases demand for their specialist skills; with English as the main language for business in the EU at the moment, they would appear to have everything to lose. As a group they were probably hit the hardest by the recent 'credit crunch' so they may have a fear of a more federal Europe. But they were also the group upon who most of the responsibility fell for sorting out the mess; for most of them this meant more cooperation with their partners in Europe rather than less. Thus, they have a considerable amount of political capital to spend and it is probably their vote who will count the most in any UK election/ referendum.
The UK Working Classes are net losers from Europe and as such they tend to want to Leave. As a group they do not attract the same sort of investment in their knowledge, skills and abilities that the Middle Classes do. Thus, the bigger market tends to drive their net value to the economy down. Their own need for cheaper products is going to keep their potential wages down. The only way for them to protect their interests is to maintain trading tariffs with external markets. The EU does offer them the potential to do this, but so did the Old British Commonwealth, so there is some uncertainty here about the relationship between these two markets.
The UK Working Class Leavers fall into two main social groups: the traditional indigenous workers, who tend to want all the benefits of global capitalism (such as low cost commodities) and none of its costs (such as full economic migrancy); and the first generation immigrant workers who's jobs and living conditions are most at threat from the cheaper labour coming in from abroad. These groups can easily become divided along racial, ethnic and/or religious lines, and this complicates the competition for scarce resources. The issues of organised crime across international borders, slavery and terrorism are clearly important here. But so is the extended family and traditional versus progressive models of the welfare state.
After having reviewed the scene across all the UK Classes another issue looms large in my mind. The UK's relationship has and always will be a paradox. We are part of Europe but we are also isolated from it. We can never exist fully in Europe and we can never exist fully outside of it. This might seem like an irrational conclusion but actually it is a more accurate representation of the geographic, economic, and political facts than either the Leave or Remain camps can muster. If this referendum is about the National Identity then the country will need to decide what its identity actually is.
The Upper Class Leaves seem mainly to be from the old aristocracy who have been in power since William the Conqueror crushed the Anglo-Saxons. They are the traditional power in the South of England: Canterbury, Oxford, Cambridge, London, Windsor. You name it, they hold all the main strategic political and economic high ground. The idea that we give too much money to the EU is their favourite argument but it is a bit of a red herring. They will always complain about the redistribution of wealth from rich people to poor people, whether its through the EU or elsewhere. What they really fear is a loss of power that comes from a federal Europe with a broader democratic base with a greater mandate for social and economic justice.
The Upper Class Remains are akin to the industrial capitalists who grew rich in the provincial cities of the UK during the Victorian era. They need to maintain their access to the massive EU markets that come with the broader democratic base. Greater federalism as a political model is not really a threat to them; but only so long as they can keep their financial interests safe, and that means keeping the pound. This is their main area of weakness because the pound is obviously the property of the old aristocracy, not the new. The main problem here is that whereas UK exports are heavily affected by strength of the pound against the euro; the people who own the money don't care about that. The financial services in the City of London are just as happy if UK exports are falling as they are if they are rising; they make their money out of variations in the market, they are not bothered which way that variation goes.
The UK Middle Classes are net gainers from Europe and they tend to want to Remain. The UK Middle Classes can be portrayed as professional people (i.e. anyone who needs a qualification to do their job, which I agree, in the UK, is a very broad constituency indeed) who have had to borrow most of their money from the Upper Classes to 'get on in life'. These loans are used to fund their education, finance their homes, and keep the wheels of capitalism turning through various credit-worthy addictions including holidays, cars, clothes and digital technologies.
This UK Middle Classes' capital assets are mainly its knowledge, skills and abilities, i.e. its human resources. They gain from having a wider market to sell their assets to because this increases demand for their specialist skills; with English as the main language for business in the EU at the moment, they would appear to have everything to lose. As a group they were probably hit the hardest by the recent 'credit crunch' so they may have a fear of a more federal Europe. But they were also the group upon who most of the responsibility fell for sorting out the mess; for most of them this meant more cooperation with their partners in Europe rather than less. Thus, they have a considerable amount of political capital to spend and it is probably their vote who will count the most in any UK election/ referendum.
The UK Working Classes are net losers from Europe and as such they tend to want to Leave. As a group they do not attract the same sort of investment in their knowledge, skills and abilities that the Middle Classes do. Thus, the bigger market tends to drive their net value to the economy down. Their own need for cheaper products is going to keep their potential wages down. The only way for them to protect their interests is to maintain trading tariffs with external markets. The EU does offer them the potential to do this, but so did the Old British Commonwealth, so there is some uncertainty here about the relationship between these two markets.
The UK Working Class Leavers fall into two main social groups: the traditional indigenous workers, who tend to want all the benefits of global capitalism (such as low cost commodities) and none of its costs (such as full economic migrancy); and the first generation immigrant workers who's jobs and living conditions are most at threat from the cheaper labour coming in from abroad. These groups can easily become divided along racial, ethnic and/or religious lines, and this complicates the competition for scarce resources. The issues of organised crime across international borders, slavery and terrorism are clearly important here. But so is the extended family and traditional versus progressive models of the welfare state.
After having reviewed the scene across all the UK Classes another issue looms large in my mind. The UK's relationship has and always will be a paradox. We are part of Europe but we are also isolated from it. We can never exist fully in Europe and we can never exist fully outside of it. This might seem like an irrational conclusion but actually it is a more accurate representation of the geographic, economic, and political facts than either the Leave or Remain camps can muster. If this referendum is about the National Identity then the country will need to decide what its identity actually is.
