It may not be dog eat dog. But the idea that everybody has equal access to opportunties is a fallacy. The playing field is not level. If you begin life encumbered with disadvantages you are likely not to end up doing well. There are of course xceptions to that. If you start life unencumbered with disadvantages you are likely to do well. There are also exceptions to that.

The only jobs that can't be outsourced are service-oriented ones, but they could be done some day by vending machines or other robots. Government and military jobs (and associated contractors) are pretty safe, too.

The playing field never can and never will be level. But it seems to me that one of the biggest disadvantages you can be encumbered with is the belief/excuse that it's going to be tougher for you because of your other disadvantages -that's a self-fulfilling prophecy if ever I saw one.

From the BBC, a news item which shows that children from poor backgrounds are half as likely to succeed as those from more comfortable homes
I don't know if the situation is the same in America as it is here. But the reality is, certainly in the UK, if you are from a poor home, you are more likely to suffer a poor education, be brought up in an environment which doesn't promote learning and leave school with fewer qualifications than you otherwise might. You are also more likely to be brought up in an environment which has a culture of low expectations. That some people have low expectations in life is not merely an indication that they are too weakwilled to succeed.....it may be a factor of their upbringing. There are a good many hidden ways in which the poor are disadvantaged from a young age.

if you apply statistics about the masses to your individual expectations you will probably achieve a state of averagosity. yawn.

each of those kids, as soon as they realize the importance of it, can educate themselves in preparation for life. if their school is substandard, they have to work a little harder than the rich kids. I'd say that that prepares them better than the rich kids.

I don't disagree that the well off children have a head start. It would be silly to discount the environment that people live in. There is nothing stopping someone willing to work hard to improve, though. it's not quite survival of the fittest...more the prosperity of the fittest.

Dana, i hear your message, though. you are sympathetic to the masses, and feel compassion for those less fortunate. fuckin communist ;)

How difficult is it to break thru the class system in the UK?

There are areas of poverty in the Uk, where expectations are frighteningly low. Parents pass along those expectations to their children. In the area I represent, low expectations, teenage conception, domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse and unemployment are all major facts of life. In an environment where neither parent works, where brothers and sisters are involved in petty crime, family life is fragmented and housing poor and cramped, the odds of the kids making a connection between their actions and their future prospects are seriously reduced.

Not very difficult. The class system isn't the problem. The problem is the enormous gap between the haves and the have nots. It is very difficult to break out of the mindset one is raised with. If one is raised to expect little from life, then only the exceptional break through that.

The reason I ask, Dana, is a prof of mine, guy from Scotland (also lived in Newcastle) told me it was difficult to break thru the class system--but maybe he meant Scotland.

When was he referring to? The class system was much more entrenched before the 80s.

Well, he's younger than I and I'm 42. The reason we were talking about this was because of a Tony Harrison or Philip Larkin poem...maybe Tony Harrison. About his mom's death...Long Distance or Marked with a D? I can't recall...anyway, that's how we got to talking about it.

I wouldn't say that class is no longer a factor in Britain, but it has been somewhat superceded by income. We still refer to Middle class and working class, upper class and underclass, but the reality is, your accent and manners, which once would have set you apart from another class has taken a backseat to your income. Certainly that is the case within most areas of life. The exception is of course the upper class. You don't get to be upperclass with income.

But all you're doing is proving lumberjim's point, you're just adding on that it's not fair that these kids can't seem to get it through their heads that they can succeed if they work at it. You can't make someone "make the connection." Either their drive to succeed will be enough to overcome the philosophy they were raised with, or it won't.

Then it doesn't seem so much a problem with the economic status of the home as with the attitudes and expectations. I agree with that - my husband's parents were immigrants who arrived right after WWII with literally nothing. All his father's money was stolen on the boat. He saved pennies for a year, working two jobs and walking everywhere to save tram fare, before sending for his fiancee. They always had a very low income (and had grown up in poverty, I might add). But they expected their kids to get educations and do well. All three sons went to university and became professionals.

You don't need a high income to have high expectations for your kids.

Even where the expectations are low, in this country kids can break out of that mold. They have to want to - but it takes that for anyone to really succeed, not just low income kids.

But, here again is the attitude that if you make less money you do not work hard and smart.

Also, there is an underlying theme in other's posts that says, basically, that success is defined by wealth.

SO not true, and such a sad way to view what life is all about.