CLASS IN IRELAND: AN IMMODEST PROPOSAL

… the mind of man becomes
A thousand times more beautiful than the earth
On which he dwells, above this frame of things
(Which, ‘mid all revolution in the hopes
And fears of men, doth still remain unchanged)
In beauty exalted, as it is itself
Of quality and fabric more divine. (Wordsworth. Prelude, 1805)

People are the greatest thing.

A point all too easily forgotten, I hasten to add. In the midst of markets and economic statistics, it is important to remember that people are at the heart of all wealth creation. Without people, nothing gets done. Those who work, make; those who administer, sell; those who own, benefit.

In Ireland, this point is not so much forgotten as altogether dismissed. Ireland, it seems, has an underclass/working class, a huge middle class, and, a small upper class of wealthy entrepreneurs. It begs the question: just who are the Irish middle class? In current Irish cultural expression, it is quite simple. The middle class, in the words of Bill Clinton, are those who “work hard and play by the rules.” An honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. They work for a living. So. That leaves us with a working class that’s seen not in terms of above – a photo of a Dublin working class family on holiday – but in terms of below – a Dublin working class family on Mogadon.

The mistranslation of Irish working class experience into:
1) positive=middle class;
2) negative=working class/underclass;
has serious implications for the way this society is managed, for it gives the impression that the needs and resources of the working class resonate with those of the middle classes and, indeed, the entrepreneurs. Nothing could be further from the truth, but before we tackle that, it’s important to arrive at a working definition of class and class structure in Ireland.

And here it is.

The dominant view of class in Ireland argues that one’s position in the social hierarchy is defined by personal income. The past ten years has seen an explosion in wage levels, and as a result, an expansion of the middle class. We have more money to buy more stuff. We go on more foreign holidays. Life is better. The good times, even with the caveats, are now.

But, what the last ten years has not seen is a significant change in the power structures within Irish society. At its heart, class is about power, not income, although there is a relationship between power and income. Unless there has been a significant change in the power structures within Irish society – the control of government policy and direction, cultural production, education and societal development – then what we have experienced is nothing more than a pay rise. We have more money, but we do not have more say.

The American economist, Professor Michael Zweig, has written extensively, and with much clarity, on the issue of class and power. Zweig challenges the view that ‘consumer sovereignty’ – the idea that “consumers rule the economy by expressing their desires for goods and services, which producers scramble to satisfy” – is somehow the great leveler in society; that consumption equals societal power.

The idea that we as consumers can exercise control over government in ways that we cannot do as workers or voters rests again on the idea of consumer sovereignty. But the fact is that consumers are not powerful in their relations with business in the market. corporations decide what to produce and limit the choices we find in the market. Advertisers manipulate us in ever more sophisticated ways, as advertising uses up ever greater shares of business budgets and creative talent. Even brand names, which give the appearance of promoting competition, actually work to limit competition. (The Working Class Majority, p.50)

Zweig is writing about the American experience, but the argument’s relevance to Ireland becomes much clearer when applied to that most Irish of ventures, the property market.

Despite having experienced a glut of housing, Ireland has seen the interests of the vast majority of the country decimated by powerful vested interests – landowners, banks, speculators, estate agents, and builders. Where prices should have fallen ,they have risen. Where government should have cried “halt!”, tax-breaks were given. Consumer power is way down on the list of those who have a say in the running of the property market. Not surprisingly, given their lack of influence, the consumer is the one left holding the bill. More wages, less power.

Zweig’s ideas on class and power, again, have much relevance to the Irish situation.

I define classes in large part based on the power and authority people have at work. the workplace engages people in more than their immediate work, by which they create goods and services. It also engages them in relationships with each other, relationships that are controlled by power. a relative handful of people have great power to organize and direct production, while a much larger number have almost no authority.
… The great majority of Americans form the working class. They are skilled and unskilled, in manufacturing and in services, men and women of all races, nationalities, religions. They drive trucks, write routine computer code, operate machinery, wait tables, sort and deliver the mail, work on assembly lines, stand all day as bank tellers, perform thousands of jobs in every sector of the economy. for all their differences, working class people share a common place in production, where they have relatively little control over the pace or content of their work, and aren’t anybody’s boss.” (Majority, p.3)

Working class and middle class, then, are defined more in terms of the amount of power and influence one has over one’s employment, rather then in terms of simple income alone.

We can understand the economic, political, and cultural role of each class if we see it in terms of its relationships to the others, in the textures of social power. This way – with power laid bare – the abstractions of class come to life.” (Majority, p.4)

The structures of a blog do not lend themselves to long and detailed articles. Its beauty is in its immediacy and simplicity. Next month will see the launch of a new online Irish left-wing journal, and it is there that I hope to expand on the ideas of class expressed by Zweig, and their possible translation to the Irish experience. For now, though, the focus is on what Zweig sees as the true middle class – that is, middle class in terms of cultural and political power, rather than in terms of SUVs and chilled white wine.

What is the middle class in the middle of? If we answer this question in terms of power instead of income, we see that the middle class is in between the two great social forces in modern society, the working class and the capitalist class. These two classes are connected at work, in the production of goods and services. but they have sharply opposing interests, in production and in politics. The middle class is caught in the middle of these conflicting roles and interests. In the context of the sharp conflicts that arise between labor and capital, the middle class is caught in the crossfire. (Majority, p.20)

For Zweig, the middle class is comprised of small business owners, supervisors, and professional people. “Small business owners” writes Zweig, “are caught in the middle. They share with working people a common vulnerability to market forces dominated by large corporations, but they share with those same big businesses an interest in keeping the power of working people to a minimum.” With regard to supervisors and managers, “this person is the company’s front line of management, there to make sure the work gets done, responsible for pushing the workforce to perform.” On the last section of the middle class, the professionals, Zweig has this to say:

A third section of the middle class is made up of… professional people such as doctors, lawyers, college professors and accountants. These people tend to have considerable authority and flexibility in their jobs, whether they are self-employed or work in a corporate department. They often put in long hours, and they do their work in accordance with rules that guide their actions. but on the whole they function within professional associations that exert considerable influence in setting the rules and standards to which the members of the profession are subject. In this way, the discipline professionals face is not the same at that experienced by workers. (Majority, p.23-4)

So. If you’re not a professional, if you are not part of management, and if you do not run a small business, in workplace terms you’re part of the working class. This is because power within one’s workplace is what matters. Finally, this power is reflected in the wider society, as the interests of those classes with the power to influence policy gain dominance over those who do not.

This power relationship has not changed in the past ten years, even as incomes have risen. This is mainly because ALL incomes have risen. The working class are not better off when compared to their contemporaries in the middle class, who’ve also benefited from the prosperity. They are only better off when compared to the ghosts of the past, the “shriveled dragons” as Joe Cleary calls them. Their position within the workplace and within society remains the same.

The reason why we have a need for unions and a working class political party is to address this power imbalance. The need for a political party to protect the interests of working people has not gone away, because the blatant rip-off within society has not gone away. In fact, it is barely challenged. The work to tackle that imbalance is both political and cultural. The idea that wage begets influence allows for discriminatory tax breaks and the privatization of public services. It needs to be challenged, and challenged now. The pictures may have faded, but the power relations remain the same.