The Argument
It is a common argument that social mobility, if present, could undermine plutocracy, or any other form of domination. However, social mobility is quite complicated, and that it ‘can‘ undermine some forms of domination, does not mean it always will, or that it can undermine plutocracy in other than rare circumstances; perhaps of the collapse of that plutocracy (say through, ecological change driven by the plutocracy, which is unable to find a way around the problem without facing the possibility of its decline).
By suggesting research questions in this topic, I am not trying to imply that other people have not done the research, simply trying to get a beginning perspective on what we would need to investigate an important issue and come to a conclusion. Other people might well do a better job.
There are at least four patterns of social mobility.
- a) The regular rise of fortunate and talented individuals from the apparent bottom to the visible top. Modern, post world war II, US examples might inclcude Bill Clinton, or George Soros.
- b) The regular rise of groups from bottom to visible top. This is usually confined to particular skills and celebrity rather than to power. Modern, post WWII US examples, might include black sports-people, rap stars, or white rock/pop stars. This can pretty much leave the power structures unchanged. To make this clear, we may need to rigorously distinguish between a cultural elite and a power elite, as they are not necessarily the same.
- c) The abililty of people to rise from the bottom into the realms of real and largely invisible power, to what is in contemporary plutocracy often called the “0.1%” (even though one in a thousand is still a gross magnification of their numbers). As this mode of life is heavily protected, and does not allow much research, this ability to move is hard to measure. Having an income in the top 5% or even 1% may not cut it when there are truly massive imbalances in wealth and power. In contemporary society it is possible to have an income well beyond the dreams of ordinary people, and still not be in the wealth and power elites.
- d) When the groups forming the elite change and bring new ideas, and abilities to face the problems of society in general. This is what I have called the Toynbee cycle, and usually involves a change in social organisation, technological organisation, or a revolution provoked by the collapse of established social functioning. This kind of dynamics implies that the more that society remains neoliberal in orientation, the less chance there is of this change occuring without collapse.
Merged into this there is what we might call:
- a) The amount of general mobility. How common is it for people and groups to ascend or descend?
- b) The degree of mobility. The levels of change (ascent and descent) which can be experienced by people and groups.
- c) The ways that mobility is socially allocated. Is it commoner in some parts of the hierarchy than others? Do those near the top find it easier to ascend, or those near the bottom? Are people in the lower groups finding life more precarious, or less free, with less opportunities over time?
- d) Is the difference in peoples’ placement in the hierarchy becoming greater or lesser over time? For instance are the people at the top getting relatively more and more wealthy than those at the bottom, or less and less wealthy with respect to those at the bottom who are ‘catching up’?
- e) Is the hierarchy intensifying and being reinforced over time, irrespective of the degree and amount of mobility?
Mobility: Normality or Change?
Mobility can either: a) undermine; b) not effect, or; c) reinforce the social hierarchy and/or its patterns, standard ideas, ‘class interests’ and drives.
All societies have some degree of social mobility, even caste and feudal societies, especially at the middle and lower levels of the hierarchy. So the existence of social mobility, in itself, is not necessarily a threat to organisations of power or the team-ups of established wealth. But it could be. We need to find the circumstances in which it does make a challenge.
The patterns of hierarchy can be preserved in many ways, despite mobility. People can move up the hierarchies and then work, or team up and work, to prevent other people rising in similar ways, so there is less threat to them and others in their position from those currently ‘beneath’ them (mobility upwards, implies the possibility of their mobility downwards). People can change their interests, culture etc, to match that already accepted in their new milieu to hide their comparatively ‘common’ beginings. They can sever contacts and loyalties with previous people they knew for the same reasons. They can even attempt to outdo the more established people in their application of existing elite conventions and culture, intensifying the pathologies of the ruling groups. On the other hand, while their rise can appear dramatic, socially mobile people may never penetrate the upper hierarchies which remain largely unchanged, and whose favour they may have to court, if they know its importance, or ever get to meet them.
I’d propose, and its a comparative research project, that the more unified the basis of power the more this preservation happens, because people need to get on in their new class, build new relationships and pass social tests to maintain their new position.
However, when there are varieties of power there can be change. For example, in post Tudor UK you had the intermarriage and combining of the mercantile and aristocratic classes, and royal promotion (later State promotion) of talented outsiders, which changed all classes to a degree, but eventually the power of wealth won out over the power of land ownership, because land could only be owned with wealth – the traditional aristocracy and its values declined.
If social power is based in a single primary factor (such as wealth), then it is probable that the highest families will grossly outweigh the next levels in society, and seek to confine influence to themselves, and confine the sources of power to themselves. If the basis of power is wealth then, if they hire good advisors, they do not even need to know much about the sources of power (land, energy, business, communication media, technological structures etc) they own or control, they just use wealth to accumulate more wealth and more power. Even if they loose half their fortune through bad decisions, they may still control more wealth and property than 99% of the people, and they have connections to help them through ‘hard’ times, by not only giving them new projects, but changing market legislation to give them subsidies or a boost.
Even with high social mobility, if the conventions and interests of the rising factions are the same as the established factions, nothing alters. Communism remains communism, aristocracy remains aristocracy, theocracy remains theocracy, plutocracy remains plutocracy. The systems may even become more intense, as the newcomers demonstrate their firm adherence to the old principles.
Post World War II mobility in the West
After World War II up until the 80s, State provided education was a major path enabling social mobility – people could move from manual labour into admininstrative, scientific, technical, educational and business jobs without necessarily belonging to the old boys network. They still largely depended on jobs, with all the submission that meant, but they were much freer and more prosperous than previously. The UK and US working class Renaissance and political ferment of the late 50s, 60s and early 70s seems to have largely grown out of this availability of education and the resultant weakening of the old class barriers.
This mobility seems to have been seen as a massive threat to, and disrution of, the established capitalist/military arrangement of power and privilege, and had to be stopped. Hence the promotion of the neoliberal counter-revolution and the death of the generally participatory and enabling State. The rising working class may have formed a new cultural or even bureaucratic elite, but they were only precariously a power elite.
The education path now seems to have run out. Graduates no longer automatically get high paid work without class based connections. Money has poured into the Elite schools again, so that members of the elite can keep the educational advantage, and build connections to keep them in employment and power – and the fees have usually risen in an attempt to keep lower-class people without contacts out.
But these patterns of change need empirical investigation.
The research project needed
The big research questions here are:
1) Has social mobility increased or decreased after the 80s in capitalist societies? One theory is that social mobility should increase along with talk of “free markets”, and one is that it should decrease. Personally I would expect that it would either stay much the same or decrease. Certainly what I have read suggests general mobility, and degree of mobility has declined after 1980 in comparison to the post WWII period.
2) What are good rates of social mobility, and what are normal, or poor rates of social mobility? Without this kind of knowledge people can claim their society has a high rate of social mobility when comparitivly it does not. What ‘everyone’ thinks mobility is like, is often different from the reality, especially when it is a selling point used to justify hierarchies and make them seem good.
2a) In relatively egalitarian societies social mobility may not be particularly marked, as the difference between high and low is not that great. Nevertheless, influential people may change and influence not remain stable within groups of families.
It may only be needful for justifiers of the hierarchy to talk of social mobility when people are actively excluded from power, and while power and wealth supposedly express a meritocracy.
3) Are people’s chidren more or less likely to shift upwards, and to what extent?
4) What is the social mobility which is relevant? Mobility downwards and mobility upwards. Is moving upwards within in a quintile social mobility, or moving between quintiles, or are we talking about the likelihood of moving up into the stratospheric wealth realms of the “0.1%” from the middle quintile? If for instance the 01.% remain relatively stable over generations, coming from a specific set of families and they keep acccumulating most of the wealth, can we say there is effective social mobility, even if there is a reasonable rate of crossing from one quintile into a higher one?
There may be little to no circulation of power elites, even if there is circulaton elsewhere in society. People may rise from poverty to hip-hop stardom without vaguely challenging the plutocracy, or even through celebrating signs of wealth as signs of success and virtue. Again what we are measuring needs to be clear.
5) To what extent does social mobiity affect power and the treatment of those who rise? The most visible socially mobile figures of power in the US have been the Clintons and the Obamas and they faced massive attacks, resistance and portrayls of their power and wealth as illegitimate, suggesting the ease of cultivating a succesful political hostility towards social mobility when it crosses established powers of wealth. Whereas the Bushs and Trump seem face relatively little hostility because of their born privilege. Indeed one can be frequently be told that Trump’s wealth is a mark of his intelligence and aptitude, whether it was inherited or not, while the wealth the Clintons earned is evidence of their corruption and evil.
6) Does social mobility, in a particular country or social system, reinforce, challenge, undermine or not affect the patterns of power? And over how long a history are we looking at?
7) Do the ideas and techniques used to rule remain similar, or change radically? Do the “social and cultural patterns of society” stay similar or alter?
To reiterate, whether or not social mobility can undermine plutocracy is a complicated question, and may need considerable research. However, it would seem a priori unlikely.
Tags: neoliberalism, politics, Social change
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