Those who have been successful in society anywhere in the world either in business, the professions, academia or political achievements fall into two categories: either they consider themselves fortunate, or attribute their achievements solely to their hard work and relentless drive.
If they belong to the first they will show compassion and concern, and endeavour to be fair in their dealings with those of modest achievement. Those who belong to the second tend to be dismissive of the economic plight of the poor and vulnerable, and put the entire blame at their door.
Let us put the morality of these two positions aside and look at the evidence to see which view is supported by the facts. How good is Britain in providing equal opportunities to its citizens? An OECD study examines this issue through a measure termed "intergenerational social mobility" defined as:
"[Intergenerational social] mobility reflects the extent to which individuals move up (or down) the social ladder compared with their parents. A society can be deemed more or less mobile depending on whether the link between parents' and children's social status as adults is looser or tighter. In a relatively immobile society an individual's wage, education or occupation tends to be strongly related to those of his/her parents."
Where does Britain come under the above definition? The report compares twelve developed OECD countries. Britain comes out as the most socially immobile country, followed closely by Italy and USA. Denmark has the best intergenerational social mobility, and the two countries closest to Denmark are Australia and Norway.
The figures show that a child growing up in a poor family in Denmark has three times the chance of doing better than his/her parents than a child growing up in Britain, USA or Italy.
A child does not choose his/her parents; a fair society is one that gives him/her the opportunity to have a life economically more rewarding than the parents; it is also a waste of the latent talent in society. A country competing in the world to bring prosperity to its people cannot afford not to fully utilize their talents.
Of course, exceptional people with a bit of luck may break through barriers, achieving greatly in spite of the weight of disadvantage and deprivation on their shoulders, but such people are the exception.
The report identifies education as the means through which those of poor background can break through the disadvantage barrier. However, policies enacted by this government are making this harder.
Alan Milburn, the government's social mobility tsar, condemned the abolition of the education maintenance allowance that was designed to help poor students access further education. The hike in university fees is already disproportionately putting off many poor talented students from going to university. The policies of austerity and cuts that are predominantly impacting the poor and vulnerable are accelerating income and wealth inequalities in our society.
The dire position of Britain with regard to social mobility is being worsened with time, deepening and entrenching divisions, and diminishing equality of opportunity for all. For Britain to succeed economically our politicians should be striving to improve our position and not make it worse. What we have is not capitalism, but a parasitical incarnation of it. It is bad for the economy and bad for society.
If you want to know what privilege is, you need look no further than the influence of top private schools in Britain. The statistics given in the report by the all-party parliamentary group on social mobility say it all:
" 24% of vice-chancellors, 32% of MPs, 51% of top medics, 54% of FTSE-100 chief execs., 54% of top journalists, [and] 70% of High Court judges went to private school. Though only 7% of the population do."
Mr. Cameron said: "I am not here to defend privilege; I am here to spread it". This is akin to saying - I want everyone to win the lottery - and just as meaningless.
Action may only follow if those privileged realize their good fortune to be born with "a silver spoon in their mouth". Only then do they feel the need to address the inequalities in opportunity embedded in our society. Can it be done? If Denmark, Australia and Norway can do it, why can't we!
1
1
1
