By Doug Richard
The other day the “Equality” Chief, Trevor Phillips said the following:
Labour’s equality chief has called for a revolution to strip power from the ‘sharp-elbowed’ middle classes. Trevor Phillips said there should be ‘positive action’ to stop them ‘jostling their way’ to better education and jobs. Mr Phillips, who heads the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: ‘We need to kick-start a new equality revolution. ‘The most blaring and substantial thing that best predicts disadvantage is class and place: who your parents were, what they did and where you grew up. ‘At the moment there is too much advantage given to people who shout loudest and have too much knowledge.‘
Read more here.
Trevor Phillips does not understand people. He has no insight into human nature and his calls to remedy disadvantage by removing advantage runs contrary to deeply embedded human instincts.
I have no issue with his concerns that people from the lowest rungs of the socio-economic ladder find it difficult to rise into esteemed professions, better universities and better jobs. I believe that it is a healthier discussion to deal with the issue by economic class, than more arbitrary distinctions like dialect, geography, race or gender.
My issue is with his philosophical position: that the issue is one of unfair advantage, rather than unfair disadvantage. The “middle classes” as he loosely terms them, do what every mature parent does, of any class: the best they can for their children. The issues are that many parents have few resources to help their children with; they may not be able to send them to a private school, they may not know other adults who can offer their children work experience in the jobs or industries that matter, they may not be aware of the intricacies of the university application process and how to advantage their child’s application.
But they do not gain access to those resources by removing them from others. That is perverse logic. More importantly in a free society it is not within Trevor’s’ gift, nor the governments’ remit in general to legislate how much effort, time and money I invest in my children. In fact, the government should be relieved and cheered that so many parents do so much. This country could not absorb the students currently in independent schools if they were all told to go to state school.
This is the same government that mandated that 50% of all school leavers get a university education and now financially punishes universities that offer too many places.
Companies, especially small ones do not have the luxury of being ineffective. Employees are people, first and foremost. If you want employees to stay at your business, (and you do, since the cost of employee turnover is punitive and invisible), if you want your employees to be highly productive (since one great employee is worth more than two typical employees) and if you want your employees to work together as a team (the greatest barrier to productivity are the gaps between people in a business), then you must treat employees in a way that permits them to aspire.
Aspiration, the thought that you might progress, recognition, the awareness that everyone recognises your contribution, an even playing field, the knowledge that everyone is measured dispassionately and fairly, are the pre-requisites of a healthy work environment.
If you had some employees who had desks and chairs and computers and cell phones and skills, training and others who didn’t, and to no one’s surprise the employees with the resources were more productive: would you really consider taking away their desks, chairs, computers, phones and training?
Would you call the managers who worked hard to make their employees more productive “pushy” and seek to punish them? Or would you reward them and use them as an example for other managers?
Trevor Phillips is using a privileged position to spread an invidious poison: he not only preaches a message of division and inequality; he also inverts the dialogue so that we cannot progress on the issues that matter: finding ways to help the disadvantaged, not punish the productive for not making government saddle burdens it is ill equipped to bear.
Allison Ogden-Newton
3 March 2010
12:13 pm
I couldn’t agree more. I have noticed of late an invideous increase in the so-called sins of the middle class. Trevor’s job is to demand equality for minorities, women and those with disability, presumably as long as they are not middle class?! As you say this is a red herring and irresponsable as it creates white noise when what is needed is a clear line on increased opportunity for all.
Honey Langcaster-James
3 March 2010
12:49 pm
What concerns me most about spreading such opinions on the ‘disadvantages’ of the non-middle classes is the effects that they have on the ‘beliefs’ held by those who identify as the lower socio economic class. An ‘Equality’ issue should be about the equal opportunity to believe in oneself and one’s ability to achieve not about having access to certain schools,networks etc… As a psychologist and coach I often work with individuals who harbour self limiting beliefs about themselves and it is these beliefs and not their actual situations that do most to ‘disadvantage’ people.
That is not to say that I don’t respect and acknowledge the struggle or the adversity facing many individuals but my work has shown me that considerable success is often born out of adversity in any case. Similarly, I have worked with many individuals who supposedly have many of the advantages under discussion here and yet they do not become ‘successful’ for many reasons. As someone who has been fortunate enough to work with business leaders, exceptional performers, celebrities and others considered to have achieved success I know that for many, their drive and motivation has come from a place of adversity in the first place.
My own personal history leads me to believe strongly that one’s start in life does not necessarily limit one’s future life story. I was born and spent my formative years on Hull’s Orchard Park estate, arguably one of the most ‘disadvantaged’ council estates in the country. I lived there with my single-parent mother on the fourteenth floor of a high rise block of flats which was recently demolished due to the poor quality of housing it offered. After many twists and turns in life, some good some bad, I realised that my start in life was simply my past and not necessarily my future.
I guess that Trevor Phillips would have listed me in the ‘disadvantaged’ category but I made choices of my own. I chose to educate myself and go out into the world with a belief that what I wanted to achieve was achievable. In recent years I have run a successful business of my own, a business which is growing and provides myself and my family with a good standard of living. I have enjoyed working on national television and I have travelled the world. It is my beliefs about myself that take me down certain roads and not others. It is not and never was my socio-economic heritage.
In my work I help others to challenge self-limiting beliefs like those which come from being told you are ‘disadvantaged’. True disadvantage comes from psychological not socio-economic handicap. Instead of focusing on bringing the middle classes down a peg or two perhaps we should focus on giving people of all backgrounds a leg up and help people to develop a ‘can-do’ belief system. Encouragement, support, motivation and above all belief, is what is needed to turn someone’s life around and help people to become all that they can be.
http://www.honeylangcaster-james.com
Twitter @HoneyLJames
Hayley Chalmers
3 March 2010
1:31 pm
Thank you saying it! We are too pushed into a ridiculous world where everyone is ‘equal’. They are not. The fastest runner wins, everyone else loses. The fact that schools are teaching kids that ‘everyone is a winner’ is teaching them that losing is actually winning. They will be ill equipped for a competitive world. One cannot help someone who does not help themselves. But one can waste an awful lot of resources trying. It’s a very scary position that he is taking, and can lead only to failure. The failure of those that he now tries to disadvantage, and the failure of those that he tries to help. We are not all equal in every way. Perhaps he should read some modern history, cultural revolutions do not end well.
Terry Boyland
4 March 2010
1:48 pm
The goal must be opportunity for all, but reward for those who take advantage of those opportunities. In the UK it seems that policy mandates spreading success regardless of input. Not so here in Brazil (one of the world’s strongest economies). I recently had the joy of listening to Brazilian education ambassadors who had been invited to visit the US and conduct interviews at the highest level (including the first lady). What is remarkable is that these were youths of no more than 17 years of age. Each came from a disadvantaged background with all that means in Brazil. Each spoke English that they had taught themselves, each had passed their schooling and none of them were considering a life of benefits (because they don’t exist). Inequality exists in Brazil on a scale not seen in the UK, however so does opportunity. It has nothing to do with a person’s ethnic background or their class. It has to do with their motivation. Opportunity exists to progress well in the UK, if people take advantage of it they will be successful. If they don’t they should take responsibility for their own inaction and not look to disadvantage others who work hard to make a success of themselves.
Tom Cone
4 March 2010
10:37 pm
“….have too much knowledge”
Whaaat!
The ONLY thing you get from school is an understaning how to learn.
Your eduction starts when you apply that skill to ther rest of your life
There is no excuse, ever, for lack of knowledge – except for laziness. Knowldege comes from the application of education and experience
Those who create systems to help disadvantaged must recognise that such sytems will inevitablly shackle the talented
We must stop running our society with a pathetic ambition to perform at our lowest possible levels.
It’s 2010 – We compete on an international stage for a knowledge economy
“clip board management” – the invention of Public Service Mandarins wrote large to manage the UK community – is crippling our creative individuals. Giving us a system that produces drones who are barely able to work, vote or contribute
It’s meant to be tough – it’s called evolution
TomC
Deon
6 March 2010
10:56 am
I couldn’t agree more! It is about time people realise there are winners and loosers. And whether you are one or the other, in the long run, is not down to if you have had advantages heaped on you or not, its down to application – your willingness (your desire to move on, to succeed) to apply what you do know, learn what you don’t by working with what you have.
I think Hayley is spot on – “We are too pushed into a ridiculous world where everyone is ‘equal’.” What is equal is our human nature – our desire to contribute to give, and receive. Unfortunately society has develop in such a way that the latter – our want to receive – appears to be our major driving force. This for me is the ego. What about the self? What about the desire to contribute – to work hard and apply yourself. For, if I do this then I will receive. Abundantly.
Deon.