Despite the fact that most of the people who write on this blog are Cambridge grads, we have (rightly, in my view), kept posts about matters Oxbridge to a minimum so far. So with that in mind, I apologise in advance for this post – given that it follows Dave Osler’s post at LibCon on Thursday and Paul Sagar’s reply at Bad Conscience (with another response by Laurie Penny potentially still to come,), the left blogosphere is somewhat more Oxbridge-focused than it perhaps should be at the moment. However, unlike Dave Semple, I don’t think this is necessarily a tangential distraction from more important debates we need to be conducting. It actually has the potential to be a useful way into those wider discussions.

Image: Francisco Diez/flickr

There are two main issues Dave Osler raises in his original post, which he blurs together somewhat. First, a massively disproportionate fraction of those in positions of power (Osler talks about politics but the same could just as easily be said of the worlds of finance, law or the media) in our society are Oxbridge graduates. Second, those who get into Oxbridge are far more likely than average to be privately educated and from a wealthy background.

Both of these are undeniably true, but I don’t think either Osler or Sagar give an adequate account of the reasons behind or implications of these facts. The dominance by Oxbridge alumni of various elite professions is principally a reflection of the extent to which those professions are anti-meritocratic, dependent on networking and personal contacts rather than individual talent. Surely the lack of meritocracy in politics is more likely to be due to systemic flaws in the way career structures work in the political world than to the universities our politicians attended? (I don’t think Paul Sagar’s suggestion on this topic that Oxbridge graduates really are a cut above the rest holds much water – yes, we might work harder than at other universities, but I’m unconvinced that that in itself makes you more intelligent, open-minded or intellectually curious.)

It’s also worth pointing out at this point that there’s one assertion in Osler’s original post that’s both pretty dodgy and totally unsupported by the rest of his article; his claim that “a place at Oxford or Cambridge is itself a privilege, in so far as it is almost a guarantee of career success”. This seems to be based on his earlier point about Oxbridge dominance of the professions, but ‘most wealthy/powerful people in the UK are Oxbridge alumni’ doesn’t entail ‘most Oxbridge alumni are wealthy and/or powerful’, any more than ‘most trapeze artisits have thumbs’ entails ‘most people with thumbs are trapeze artists’. Going to a university with a good reputation will probably do a fair bit for your career prospects, yes (though it’s anything but a cast-iron guarantee – I’m laughably overqualified for my current job), but this is hardly unique to Oxbridge even within the UK, as Reuben pointed out some time ago.

It’s the issue of who gets into Oxbridge, however, that’s far more interesting and important – if Oxbridge’s intake was representative of society at large, the dominance by Oxbridge alumni of politics, the media, law and so on wouldn’t be so much of a problem (though it wouldn’t be wholly unproblematic, mainly because of the issue of the meritocratic deficit I talk about above). Sagar’s analysis of why Oxbridge’s intake isn’t representative in this way gets a lot right, but I think he overstates the effect of teachers and pupils at comprehensives being under-informed about the admissions process. Of course this is widespread, which is why Sagar came across it a lot when he volunteered to visit schools as an undergrad (I did the same and my experiences were similar). But it’s also about the only factor affecting the social makeup of the student body that Admissions Offices can have any influence over. That’s the reason why they devote so much time and attention to it, not because it’s the factor that has the biggest impact.

Sagar’s also right that one reason private schools get so many students into Oxbridge is because they have the resources to offer a better education. It seems hard to argue otherwise without resorting to a definition of intelligence that’s implausibly (and unpleasantly) genetically determinist. Where Sagar goes wrong, though, is his conclusion that the main problem is deficiencies in the state school sector which the Government hasn’t done enough to address. This seems to almost wilfully ignore the more likely culprit – the fact that we have an education system that lets wealthy parents buy an education for their children that massively raises the odds that those children will grow up to be wealthy as well, meaning that the rich will stay rich (and probably do all they can to make it easier for the rich to keep on getting richer when they get political power) and the poor will, with very few exceptions, stay poor. By the time people reach the age where they’re thinking about applying to university (or not), the class divide is already well-established. This is obviously not to say that all schools should be at the level of the weakest-performing comprehensives – of course there are any number of things in the state sector that could be improved – but the principle that being rich lets you buy success for your children irrespective of any natural talent that they have is what we should be concerned with.

The social makeup of the student bodies at Oxford and Cambridge (and most other traditionally prestigious universities) reflects the massive class divide and laughable lack of social mobility in the UK, but it doesn’t cause it. Our society is a long way from being socially just, and looking at who gets admitted to Oxford and Cambridge shows us that vividly. But blaming two universities for the entrenched class division in our society is nothing more than shooting the messenger.

Working class universalism is not enough. Labour does not deserve our unwavering loyalty

Power to the people!

It’s Friday evening. I should be out partying or down the pub. Instead I’m sitting in front of my computer, wondering what wondrous topic to opine upon for my column. I’ve scoured the news. David Cameron’s doing God and Boris, hopes for a climate change deal this year are looking scandelously dismal, British soldiers are getting shot in Afghanistan and American soldiers are getting shot at home. But what’s really caught my attention tonight has been the debate on Though Cowards Flinch which emerged from an article Guy Aitchison wrote for The Third Estate on Power2010. The discussion on democratic reform, whilst interesting in and of itself, is not really what’s piqued my interest in this thread, rather the disagreements on left wing organisation within and without the Labour Party.

I very rarely get involved in internal left-wing organisational disputes anymore. Partly because, despite their utility to a point (and it is a definite point), they bore the hell out of me. And this is speaking as someone who considers themselves switched on. For the wider public, sectarianism is to socialism as talking about your ex is to sex. It’s a turnoff. More crucially, however, these sorts of debates in the end only serve to distract us from our common goals, our common enemies, and the wider issues facing us in a very unjust world. While we’re bickering about the best way to rally the British workers to our cause, Iraqi civillians are getting blown up, Afghanistan’s tearing itself apart, kids are slaving away in sweat shops, Palestinians are having their homes knocked down, the ice caps and glaciers are melting and David Cameron’s doing God. And Boris.

Just this once, however, I’m going to throw in my two Euro cents. The impetus for this is a comment by Carl Packman in response to my damnation of the Labour Party and everything it stands for these days.

I see what you’re saying Salman, but take something that Mark Fischer said, when he gave a lecture on Marxism recently at Eton: ‘I assured the audience that the whole point of Marxists’ identification with the working class was its universalism.’ The very reason British Marxists should remain tied to the Labour party, and not join fringe yoke like SWP, or any of the other Trot splits, is because the party is historically linked to the Labour movement, and is henceforth the site of working class universalism. New Labour neo-liberalism is its inappropriate thorn, those careerists should not be vindicated by socialists jumping ship.

I tend to avoid discussing Marxism in 19th (or indeed 20th) century terms anymore. The last time I used the words bourgeoisie and proletariat were in an essay on The German Ideology. I believe many of Marx’s ideas remain fundamentally relevant to the modern world, but the modern world is dynamic and disjunctive and theory must remain equally adaptable in its adoption. Creationists, after all, are laughed at in modern Europe. Christians who have successfully incorporated Darwinism into their world view remain part of relevant discourse. The reason I personally feel this point warrants discussion however, is because it’s a debate I’ve had with Reuben many times. It’s a very old idea and one that has never failed to leave me feeling cold.

No political party reserves the right to go unchallenged. And no left-wing organisation deserves the right to be reified, to become a concrete fact in and of itself, to demand the unwavering loyalty of the workers regardless of its political positions. If that party is not the right vehicle for change, we should not be in it. I simply cannot accept that because the Labour party was once the locus for progressive working class political activity that it should always be and will always be, irrespective of its current leadership and its present policies. That is the political equivalent of Creationism. It relies on nothing more than blind faith. Not least the faith that New Labour – a neo-liberal, neo-conservative, repressive war machine that, by gutting the Labour movement and accepting the basic tenets of Thatcherism has done far more damage to the country and the world than the Iron Lady ever could -  is simply a transient thorn. It isn’t. It’s been here for the best part of two decades and will remain for the forseeable future. Labour may be heading for a spell in opposition, but the fight against Cameron as he does God and Boris won’t be led by the old class warriors. It will be led, most likely, by David Miliband. Or another obsequious, spineless, supine, Blairite clone with a pretty face and ugly politics.

And it is precisely this kind of faith-based thinking which will continue the New Labour project long after Brown’s government has faded to a dim, uncomfortable and embarrassing memory.  New Labour is not a transient thorn. Its intelligent, educated and very bourgeois (look what you’ve made me do!) architects made a calculated, and very correct, decision that they can afford a sharp swing to the middle ground because whatever they do, their core support of left-wing voters will back them come what may. As long as they believe they can get away with that, New Labour will remain entrenched and the British working class will find nothing more than a few empty platitudes.

The workers of Venezuela once owed their loyalty to the loosely social democratic Acción Democrática party. Indeed their largest trade union remains linked it it. But AD was not the right vehicle for a country that desperately needed change. That’s why Chavez rose to fill a gap in political representation, without any reliance on historical links or organisational ties, because he is the right vehicle and the right voice at the right time. That time is now. Parties cannot just be viewed in terms of their history. A week’s a long time in politics and a decade’s even longer. We have to look at their policies here and now and make informed decisions about the change they are likely to bring. Otherwise we’re betraying our own principles, all in the name of some ideological committment to a homogenous, united, organised, class-conscious working class of the last century that thanks to Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown, no longer exists.

Were it not so tragic, it would be funny.  Below is a copy of a job advert that I recently came across again when throwing out some old papers.  I cut it out last year as part of what is my seemingly endless search for some work that doesn’t involve in some way raping the masses and/or selling them a placebo for the pain afterwards.

Like many fellow Arts graduates with a semi-messianic belief in their own ability and their own politics, since graduating I have thus far steadfastly refused to join my saner friends who are now earning £40,000 a year working for Bain and Co.  It is not enough, I contend, to be concerned with social justice as you read your paper on the way to work, then spending the next eight hours of each day charging people £35 for going twenty pence over their overdraft limit.  “All that it takes for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing,” etc.

Doing nothing, however, is exactly what I am currently doing.  Not for want of trying; not for want, I would like to think, of qualifications, and certainly not for a want of wanting.  Rather, the reason I cannot get a stable job in ‘something worthwhile’ would seem to be that I simply cannot afford it – just like I cannot afford to do a law conversion course, or a masters degree, or to explore one of the many other limited avenues that many people like me, despite our priveleged education, have already resigned ourselves from.  I would now like to add the liberal media, many charities, NGOs, a host of  well-meaning political organizations, progressive think-tanks and even trade unions to this list of shame.

The concept of unpaid internships as a way into any profession – although no doubt useful to the employer – is a disgrace and should outlawed. When my fellow esteemed bloggers and I were at university, many of us cut our teeth as young political activists in the fight for fairer access to Higher Education, partially because of our belief that it was essential to the creation of a truly meritocratic job market in the future.  Sadly, it will have absolutely no effect. 

Yesterday, I sat down and figured out an ABSOLUTE MINIMUM that I could just about afford to get by on in London per month.

Rent £390 

Utilities £35           

Council Tax £20

Food £75  

Travel £99.10

Phone £15

TOTAL                 £634.10

Thus before any well-meaning young graduate steps foot outside their door each morning (or pretends to have any semblance of a social life at night) in order to be able to pursue a worthwhile career, many employers insist that they are supported by their parents to the tune of at least £7,500 a year.  Shame on you: the BBC, left-wing Labour MPs, Liberty, CND, Reprieve and the Co-Operative Party, to name just a few.  The reality of your recruitment practices make a mockery of the values you espouse.  And class, once again, has been willfully neglected in favour of PC, achieve-nothing ‘equal opportunities’ bullshit blurb.  Don’t be surprised when your organisations and policies stumble blindly towards bland, middle-class, London-centric, apologetic  mediocrity.

This week is the final of BBC’s Masterchef. Why am I writing about this on a blog about politics? Well I think the series, which has been consistently getting viewing figures of over 4.5 million, has rather a lot to tell us about culture. Oh how the middle classes scorned all those people for watching Big Brother, for following the lives of the rich and famous-for-no-apparent-reason in the tabloid press, and for wasting their money voting for winners on X factor. And yet now the liberal Islingtonians have their own little slice of the pie, as it were. A Pop Idol for the Guardianistas. I’m not just having a random pop at the middle classes here, mind. I think that the difference in response to these various programmes (as well as their content) says something about markets, about the media, and about how middle class people not only identify themselves, but also how they view the working class.

How many times do I have to watch someone making seared scallops, or serve some fish on a “bed of samphire”, because this seems to be mostly what they do on Masterchef. Am I ever going to get around to making my own tortelloni when Sainsbury’s does it for me? Apart from anything else, this programme, by its very form, is far more ridiculous than any of the other shows listed above. In X Factor I can actually hear the people singing, when I watch Big Brother I can see and hear what people’s personalities are like. But can I taste or smell the food on Masterchef? Of course not. Maybe they do make food that tastes great, but all I have to go on is some food critic-cum-Simon Cowell wannabe telling me about his palette.

There is often a feeling of blame for the lack of quality of objects the market turns out that is landed on the poor, on the working classes, on the everyday consumers rather than the producers. If only they had gained a tad more pretension through watching Masterchef and owned a little bottle of truffle oil all of their happy meals would be deemed acceptable. Maybe people need to be a little more honest that they watch shows like this for exactly the same reasons other people watch Big Brother, X factor, or the others: because of the format of the show, watching people cock up, watching the reactions of harsh judges, and feeling elated when the guy you support gets through. As much as many of the liberal Islingtonians or the yuppies will tell you that it’s to do with a genuine love of food, the reality of this TV is that the food only acts as a justification for them watching a show like this.

I’ve been reading around bits of Walter Benjamin recently, and think that he makes a good point in how he treats cultural products: that is, as products of a system rather than as the consequence of the demands of the consumer. He insists on that system being imbedded in the object, its defining feature throughout its history. We should remove the disdain for “those working class people who only like popular culture and are completely taken in by the market” and replace it with a disdain for a system that produces objects for the sole purpose of those objects being popular. There is nothing particularly working class about the adoration of the cultural products of capitalism, and capitalism isn’t exactly selective about who it dupes. Masterchef shows this to be true, and would suggest the belittling of the poor and the ill-educated is a defensive measure on behalf of the middle class whose identity is so unsure – pulled and pushed between demanding autonomy and still being ruled by commodities. This is why the middle classes are always “upwardly mobile” but never move anywhere.

I feel I’ve somehow come off the point of Masterchef somewhere along the way in this article, but that doesn’t seem to be such a bad thing.