The Toxic Pond

I've got my feet up on a make-shift chaise lounge here in Clifton, Bristol, listening to Leftfield as the cappuccino goes stale on my tongue. Bacon and eggs, sausages and tomatoes, churn in my bloated belly. An aura of satisfaction melds with the dappled golden light that plays on the carpet. I smile, Saturday morning middle-class contentment suffusing my being.

If only this satisfaction could be enjoyed in full - enjoyed, that is, without this slight but unmistakable element of dis-ease.

***

You see, nothing much has changed:

The room I reside in is in a house from the Victorian era. The basements of houses from around this time often housed the servants, where they used to work and live beneath the aristocratic upper class on the floors above. The world of the privileged was built on top of the world of the less privileged, the "under-class". Much luxury, and much leisure time, was only possible through the efforts of those who worked far harder, had less luxury, and less leisure time (a maid could work from 6am to midnight).

To be sure, it wasn't effort that earned you this freedom from toil. It was a birth right, a privilege handed down through the generations.

Nothing much has changed.

Just as it was difficult to move between these classes, back in the day, today it is likewise expected that you stay in the class you were born into, especially if you were born in the US or UK. Likewise today, the upper class's privileges are built on the backs of those below, except today "the class below" is not just the working classes, but also the generation behind, our children.

It seems self-evident really:

In a society of limited resources, the privileges I have today are only possible by depriving others of these same things. Not everyone can have exactly what I have (above minimum wage salary, a nice place to rent, a job), or more than this (a car, and house to buy, regular holidays abroad), because there isn't enough of this stuff for everyone. What I have today has not been earned, though it is very easy to imagine that it has. Actually, what I have has been granted to me by virtue of being born into a class of society - the middle-class. Had my mother not been middle-class, and had my third level education not been free, I would not be writing the way I am now. I would not speak as I do. I would not get the jobs I can get now. I would be decidedly less well off.

In short, it is those on minimum wage, and also, those to come, the next generation, who are being faced with the burden of this, our unsustainable extravagance, our credit-fuelled intoxication, our middle-class privileges. We need to face up to that, and take responsibility.

Our wealth was an illusion, credit-based, and now we are trying to maintain the illusion by making others pay. Now, faced with the prospect of withdrawal, we attempt to shift the burden of our lifestyles onto the most vulnerable people today, and tomorrow, by dismantling, piece by piece, the welfare state, and by unravelling free-education and creating massive student debts. We even try to make the old pay, by siphoning money out of pensions. So, we attempt to live on top of those with less than us. In the very same way as the even richer, the people on the second and third floors, attempt to live on top of us, the middle-class, so they can live a life of even more privilege.

We are not better than the stinking rich, who strive to siphon money away from us and into their own pockets through the banks, for we likewise attempt to ease the burden of the debts we owe by forcing those who do not have as much as us to have even less. For example, we are in the process of guaranteeing that our children will have less than us by dismantling free-education.  

***

Not a very palatable analysis of our humble middle-class lives. Not an easy pill to swallow. Not the treatment you were looking for, that would help you rest in peace.

A wise man once said:

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society"

As such, these words of mine are not designed to sooth. As I said, my movement towards a middle-class contentment is tainted, interrupted. But interrupted by what exactly? Having too much? No. Having too little? No. It is interrupted by having more than, for no other reason but because I was born into a certain class, a certain neighbourhood, a certain set of privileges.

That which my conscience cannot adjust to, that which disturbs me, is the unequal distribution of wealth in society. And I'm not the only one to feel uneasy.

The UK and the US not only have some of the poorest rates of social mobility, making it difficult to move beyond the class you were born into, but also, the the US and UK have some of the highest levels of wealth inequality. This is the profound sickness, the toxic pond if you will, in which we as fish both swim and breathe.

This is the reason why I feel dis-ease. This is the reason why the young and the less well off take to the streets. Such protesting and rioting are merely symptoms of the disease of inequality, the only cure for which is a more equal distribution of wealth. Until then, we all, rich and poor, must resign ourselves to swimming in poisoned water, and therefore, we must resign ourselves to feeling ill at ease, to feeling the dis-ease that is inherent in the make-up of our society.





Some Evidence:

A TED Talk on social mobility and the consequence of an unequal distribution of wealth in society:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/richard_wilkinson.html

Stats on social mobility across developed countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility#Country_comparison