Selfishness, Greed and Capitalism

If you’re born poor, you die poorprofessional employment, which began after the SecondWorld War, has slowed down. In 1900, 18 per cent of jobswere classified in the top two social tiers. By the time JohnBraine wrote Room at the Top [in 1957], that had risen to42 per cent. But the demand for lawyers and accountantsis not inexhaustible.The point that politicians often fail to grasp is that thedramatic transformation of the labour market in the postwarperiod cannot be repeated. Those who call for ‘a secondwave of social mobility’ (Shackle 2009) seem unawareof the fact that the first wave had little, if anything, to dowith improvements in relative mobility or the expansionof higher education. It was due to structural changes inthe labour market which are unlikely to happen again.Goldthorpe’s view is that future improvements in absolutemobility will continue to be gradual and, insofar asthey depend on government action at all, ‘will need to bethrough economic rather than educational policy: that is,through policy aimed at economic growth’ (Goldthorpe2012: 17).There is no cause for complacency about social mobilityin Britain. The weight of evidence indicates that there hasbeen, at most, only a small improvement in fluidity betweenthe classes in recent decades. There is much work tobe done to make sure that people are not unduly hinderedby accidents of birth, especially if government policy entrenchesthe position of particular professions and groupsin society. There may be few votes in ensuring more downwardmobility, but there is an important issue of fairness183