THE NEW MIDDLE CLASS: IRELAND’S REMARKABLE ROCKETS
Nov 6th, 2007 by Conor McCabe
Now I am going to explode,” he cried. “I shall set the whole world on fire, and make such a noise that nobody will talk about anything else for a whole year.” And he certainly did explode. Bang! Bang! Bang! went the gunpowder. There was no doubt about it.” (Oscar Wilde, The Remarkable Rocket)
The Ego is a wonderful thing.
In 2002 Adam Curtis put forward the thesis that for the past 80 years we have seen the ‘engineering of consent.’ His documentary, The Century of the Self, pinpointed Edward Bernays as the founding father of this new political and marketing process. It focused in on the growth of public relations agencies, and how, by using the theories of Sigmund Freud, these agencies sought to influence public opinion by 1) stimulating desires in order to create artificial demand for disposable products, and 2) tailoring political debate to appeal to the same narrow self-interest on which rampant consumerism depends. The ideas of Edward Bernays gave rise to new forms of marketing that classified people, not in terms of their societal power and influence, but in terms of consumption patterns. The effect of these ideas has been immense.
One small, but vital, effect has been in the area of class analysis. Today, in Ireland, it is an accepted truism that the consumerist classes used by marketing agencies - ‘ABC1s’, ’self actualisers’, ‘esteem seekers’, etc - can also be used to reflect the class divisions of Irish societal power. Indeed, the appeal of David McWilliams’ generation labels is that they resonate with the accepted ideas of consumerist groupings as the true picture of societal influence. With all the talk of breakfast rolls and Mick Jaggers, McWilliams is offering nothing more than a powerpoint presentation for the Director General of whatever company you care to think of. Societal power is neither approached nor dissected with such a PR template. In order to see the structures of power in Ireland, it is necessary to look at an aspect of Irish society in which almost 80% have a financial stake, but in which less than 1% get to make the rules.
That aspect is housing.
Laws are not random things, and of them it is prudent to ask: who benefits? For example, who benefits from land speculation? - the reform of which has been sidelined since the Kenny report of the early 1970s. Who benefits from the unregulated nature of construction in Ireland? Who benefits from the tax-breaks? The over-reliance of the Irish economy on domestic construction has not been a random occurrence, but rather the logical outcome of dedicated and tenacious government policy. Yet, the fall-out from having an economy centred around vested interests within the construction industry and banking sector has by-passed the land speculators, mortgage pimps, and Irish Times entrepreneurs, and landed on the shoulders of those who’ve bought the over-priced, and in some cases, sub-standard, units: Ireland’s new middle class, the remarkable rockets of contemporary media analysis.
Last year saw the publication of Housing Law and Policy in Ireland, by Dr. Padraic Kenna, a lecturer in law at NUI Galway. Dr. Kenna makes the following points:
The massive imbalance in power between producers and consumers in Irish housing is breathtaking. Indeed, Irish State approval is symbolised by the lack of support for any consumer organisation devoted to housing, or representing house-buyers, private or social housing tenants. In this era of participation, partnership and inclusion, it is truly remarkable that the organised lobby of producers and suppliers largely influences legislation, policy and subsidy schemes. The Irish consumer is faced with a housing market that lacks effective competition, consumer protection or regulation - widely accepted controls on any properly functioning market system… Many Irish housing laws are rooted in centuries old legal principles. It is vital that concepts of property law are modernised to suit the needs of a global economy, but also to encompass consumer rights and indeed human rights. Effective legislation could ensure proper consumer protection, real competition, truthful descriptions, high standards and speedy, inexpensive remedies for defects.”
Senator Shane Ross recently wrote about the travails of the government’s proposed auctioneering bill - designed to tackle malpractice in the auctioneering world. Five years after it was first proposed, there is no sign of the bill reaching the Dáil or the Seanad. Senator Ross told the Seanad (House):
The cowboys in the auctioneering world are still having a field day. The House should note that the delay has not been explained, although the legislation was promised. The House has no legislation to discuss. I gather the Bill has been drafted and is ready but there is, and there remains, a very strong auctioneering lobby group in this and the other House. I hope the delay is not related to the number of auctioneers in the Dáil and the Seanad.”
The analysis put forward by David McWilliams that the power conflict in Ireland is between the older generation who sold their houses, and the younger generation who’ve bought them, is one that completely ignores the fact that those who’ve gained from the mortgage boom of the past 12 years - those who’ve made the billions in euros - are those who get to set property and construction policy in Ireland: the ‘high net worth individuals’ and ‘corporate investors’ highlighted in the Department of Finance’s budget 2000 tax strategy paper. The atraction of McWilliams’ analysis, however, lies in its resonance with the societal groupings that have entered popular culture through marketing and public relations.
The success of these marketing strategies in selling products, and, more recently, political parties, to the general population, have given them the illusion of truth about societal power. They contain nothing of the sort, because societal power is revealed not by who buys, but by who benefits. And in the case of housing in Ireland, the 80% or so who own domestic property are nothing but fodder for the mortgage companies, banks, property speculators and developers, who get to set the rules. The government has encouraged the citizens of this country to spend a sizeable chunk of their projected earnings for the next thirty years, in the last ten, in order to benefit that government’s financial backers.
It has become the fashion these days who state with pompous certainty that we are living in a new Ireland. But, in terms of vested interests and power plays, from what has this supposed new Ireland emerged? Are those who rule the roost in Ireland today a different societal class from those who ran Ireland in the 1960s, or the 1950s? Gum-shoe plodded columns in the Sindo about charity work, wine bottles, and fellatio, do not a seismic shift make. The best tool we have to reveal the levers of influence in capitalist Ireland - and nobody argues against Ireland being anything but a capitalist society - remains a capitalist class analysis: not a marketing analysis, but a proper capitalist class analysis. Talks of remarkable rockets and new middle classes are meaningless unless those who advocate them can show a true shift in power away from those who make the rules in Ireland, and towards this new middle class which has bought over-priced houses in deserted estates. The state of housing in Ireland - with its lop-sided laws and regulations in favour of speculators and developers, banks and estate agents - reveals enough hard evidence to show that there is no new Ireland, no new players in the power game. Let’s drop the “who buys?” and return to “who benefits?”
Good post.
I still think you are hard on McWilliams, though.
With all the talk of breakfast rolls and Mick Jaggers, McWilliams is offering nothing more than a powerpoint presentation for the Director General of whatever company you care to think of. Societal power is neither approached nor dissected with such a PR template.
This is true, but I think you’re underestimating the usefulness of McWilliams’s form of analysis. Let’s say for the sake of argument that this -the cutesy segmentation and thumbnail profiling of societal types- is indeed McWilliams’s way of seeing and representing the world. The fact is that this is also precisely how those in power -director generals, chief executives, senior politicians- like to view and administer their part of the world.
So yeah, it obscures the structures of power to a certain extent, but it also reveals and elaborates -quite openly- a pervasive capitalist method of representation. As such, it provides an excellent starting point for people interested in resisting such representation, if that doesn’t sound too far up my own arse.
Curtis also refers to negative freedom as a concept, first put forth by Isaiah Berlin. In the everyday life this means that we are free to define ourselves within our society (with obvious restrictions relating to legal behaviour). This places a new onus upon us, we now need to define ourselves whereas in the past we were defined by class or job etc. This is great for the marketing world, they can present us with a dazzling array of options and we can purchase to our hearts content, efficient little consumers beavering away to create our own “unique brand”. Reminds me of The Matrix in some ways. But I believe we actually do like to have someone else label us, just as David has done. I bet huge numbers of people have completed his little questionnaire on his website to see what classification he gives them, if only to disagree with it. Perhaps a better solution is a healthy mix of positive freedom and negative freedom (although the obvious midpoint of zero freedom is possibly not the most apt phrase, perhaps neutral freedom), perhaps the overriding goal of ceaseless economic growth in an unfettered environment is not the most stable system and our goals and aspirations should become more diverse and sophisticated at an individual level (no I don’t consider owning diverse array of designer clothing a goal, I mean with regard to our wider society). Lets remember what biology tells us about this kind of system: Lag. Log. Stationary. Decline. Fuck it, no, lets rush headlong towards our collective demise.
What you’re saying, Hugh, is that McWilliams’ analysis is good only so far in that it reveals how corporate types think. And that is what I’m saying as well.
As an analysis of the power structures in Irish society, it is useless. furthermore, it is counter-productive, as it gives the impression that these consumer groupings reflect societal power structures. I mean, that’s the whole idea behind his Generation Game, and “bono boomers.” He asks people to spot themselves among these consumer groups, and by doing so shines a light away from the massive corruption and power-plays at the heart of Irish society. David Mcwilliams is to societal analysis what horoscopes are to the future.
The thrust of this post has to do with the angle Mcwilliams is coming from, and how those PR and marketing consumer groupings are what most people think of when they think of societal analysis. I’m basing this on some of the comments my working-class posts have received over the past six months - and it was those comments which led me down the path of PR and marketing, and how those ideas have obscured the ropes that bind.
Thanks for the comment, thriftcriminal. Thing is, the structures of capitalist production limit, not expand, opportunities. We are not free to do and to be what we want, because the vast majority of us still have to sell our time and labour in order to purchase a wage (which we need to obtain goods and services), and no amount of white-collars changes that fact.
And you’re spot on about the labelling thing. As far back as 1986, Val Burris wrote an article about media and social commentators’ obsession with defining “the New Middle Class”:
“The reasons for this preoccupation with the new middle class are not hard to identify. As salaried professionals, most social theorists are themselves members of the new middle class. Their concern with this group is thus motivated by an interest in self-understanding, if not by an inflated sense of their own importance.”
The “inflated sense of their own importance” ties into the Ego thing alright, and serves to shield the power players from a more robust analysis.
Conor, absolutely we are not free, but sold the illusion of freedom with optional extras (hence the Matrix reference). Nice one on the lack of robust analysis, wasn’t aware of Val Burris, will check him out, thanks.
“And in the case of housing in Ireland, the 80% or so who own domestic property are nothing but fodder for the mortgage companies, banks, property speculators and developers, who get to set the rules.”
You cannot say that only mortgage companies, banks, property speculators and developers have benefitted from the housing boom. They are the ones who benefitted the most, certainly, but there is a large group of houseowners who have also benefitted substantially in more modest ways. These people are quite unconcerned that the property developers and banks make big bucks provided they get a piece of the action as well. They don’t set the rules, but once the rules work in their favour they are quite happy to play along.
These are the people who benefitted personally from rising house prices and they are usually above a certain age so McWilliam’s generation analysis has value. These people have demonstrably benefitted and don’t fit into your “80pc manipulated masses Vs property tycoons/banks” scenario.
There are those who have latched onto the coat-tails of the construction industry, banks, and estate agents, but that’s all. Mcwilliams, and the Irish media in general, have them slap-bang in the middle, and that’s not the case. The billions of euros that have been made in the last 12 years have not gone to the small number of people who have been able to downgrade, but to those vested interests that have seen the laws crafted to suit their agenda.
We have all heard about these people who have been able to downgrade and make some money out of the mortgage boom, but we have no figures as to how many, or how much they’ve made. We have, instead, “anecdotal” evidence that they exist in their tens of thousands - enough, it seems, to get the banks off the hook for fuelling the mortgage boom. These tens of thousands are in the same phantom place as the holiday homes that were put out by all and sundry as the black hole in Irish construction until the Census showed that to be a lot of nonsense.
The periphery has not set the agenda. householders have not set the agenda. The aforementioned vested interests Ireland have. and have made billions in the process.
He asks people to spot themselves among these consumer groups, and by doing so shines a light away from the massive corruption and power-plays at the heart of Irish society. David Mcwilliams is to societal analysis what horoscopes are to the future.
OK, I just think that his method is so explicit that it almost becomes a parody of the whole practice of segmentation and treating human beings as units of mere consumption and prodction. Maybe I have too much faith in people, but I feel it would take a complete fucking knobhead to go to work having convinced himself that he’s an uggler-buggler or whatever.
The thing about horoscopes is that they demonstrate a desire for a certain degree of order, of knowing that things can be foretold and that everything is part of the one system. I think this gets replicated somewhat in the popular pastime of filling out questionnaires to determine how much of a go-getter/sex bomb/property tycoon/emotional genius you really are. That is, you have this external omniscient authority -based on capitalist interest- and you need to see how much you fit in with its plans.
Maybe this is also part of McWilliams’s present appeal, but I don’t think that economic categories such as these can be flogged indefinitely. At some point it will dawn on a lot of people that, actually, it stinks. That’s what I hope anyway.
Oh I agree. I think the tarnish is beginning to take over. Hopefully anyway. I see that Eddie Hobbs’ mass appeal is beginning to wane anyway.
I agree here with Conor : the real winners here aren’t those individuals who have made a tasty little nest egg through escalating house prices, rather it’s those who wield real power through their membership of a particular elite, whether a professional elite such as the auctioneers or a powerful lobby such as the developers. These guys have the ability to influence the entire structure of the system so that they gain far far more than others because the institutions and laws are geared in their favour. No government is prepared to undertake reform that would result in a more equal distribution of power. This has been clear in relation to the construction industry where taxes, exemptions, incentives, regulations, etc have failed to tilt the balance back in favour of the consumer or even in terms of long term societal goals.
Personally I find McWilliams’ analysis trite and shallow. He rarely provided anything by way of a useful tool for understanding our society, obsessed as he is with rendering easily digested populism sweetened with dollops of cliche.
[…] when we argue, as we have, that the idea that almost everyone in Ireland is middle class now is propagated by those who […]