Smug well-off liberals (SWOLs) and the myth social mobility

Why do smug well-off liberals (SWOLs) emphasise social mobility and the industriousness of individuals? Because it’s the story they like to believe about themselves; they got where they are today because of their own gumption and hard work, and if they did it, anyone can do it. So they don’t need to feel guilty about poverty, homelessness or inequality; people in those situations only have themselves to blame!

It’s nonsense of course – the economy designed to be stratified, to keep the rich rich and the poor poor. The ratio of people in each level is built in to the economy. Even if 100% of working-class people had all the supposed gumption and industriousness of SWOLs, the same percentages would remain in each stratum.

Capitalism needs a pool of unemployed, underemployed and underpaid people to keep wages low and as a threat to workers as to what awaits them if they don’t keep knuckling under. This pool has grown since 2010, with the growing ‘gig economy’ and the expansion of anti-trade union laws. It has also merged with millions of a ‘precariat’, whose wages are barely enough to cover the rent with enough left to have a decent life, who are a couple of strokes of bad luck from ruin.

Housing as well as employment is a key tool in maintaining the divide. Increasingly in recent decades there has been a lack of a route from renting to owning. A brick ceiling marking the limit to the social mobility most people can expect, without an inheritance or some unlikely luck. Impossible house prices and high rents leaving no room to save for a deposit keep most of whole generations trapped in insecure, overcrowded, often inadequate private-rented housing.

In conclusion, SWOLs are either dishonest or ignorant about their own luck, and they push the myth of social and economic mobility over tackling inequality and advancing the working class as a whole because they don’t want to lose their privilege.

Here’s the SWOL currently in charge of the Labour [sic] Party