We Don't Understand The Working Class | Aaron Bastani Meets Dan Evans

33:30 - I'm sorry Dan, but you shouldn't believe the propaganda about the expansion of the middle class. I'm a teacher and I'm working class. I sell my labour full-time. I don't own the means of production. I have to pay money to a bank every month to put a roof over my head. I don't hire people. I don't fire people. Simple as that. Most people are still working class. The working class just has different layers.

The goal should not be to improve social mobility. The goal should be to make it unnecessary.

The myth of social mobility dangles the carrot that YOU TOO can pull up the drawbridge someday soon, and we can all leave these dirty serfs behind.

Happy to be called out on this as I am no social scientist but it seems to me that social mobility always implies upward mobility. To become a "better person" you need to move up from working to admin to management to executive class. It would be nice if the basic costs of a decent life were more achievable, and the status afforded to people was allocated on the basis of their pride in thier contribution to society, by whatever means, rather than their salary and capacity for material acquisition.

Watching this as an American I’m struck by how relatable point-by-point each of these socioeconomic trends are. Clinton / New Labor… Corbin / Bernie… and even the class divisions. I grew up in a small town where my dad was a successful business owner… I now work retail with a college degree.

This was fascinating to me. I'm.75 but I still realise that I can listen and learn and some of my views were changed by this. I shall read the book. Thanks for introducing me to this,Aaron.. I really rate Downstream even though I don't always agree.

These Downstreams are always great but this may just be the best one yet. The left needs to hear this over and over again.

If you can convince a peasant, he is actually a king, before you know it, you have another ally to kick the peasants with.

I'm 45. Corbyn was the best committed British politician in my lifetime

I don't understand the attitude of boomers (I am one), we have literally watched the infrastructure of this country collapse because of Tory politics.

What a thoughtful person.. Wish people like him could represent us.

Im 47 self employed got a HND, voted blair, left labour because of blair came back because of Corbyn voted leave and Dan sums my views up to a T. The disconnect between nulabour and folk like me is massive Im a socialist and I have no idea where to put my X. Corbyn was on the recieving end of a witch hunt the likes of which ive never seen.

For me there is a glaring omission in this otherwise much needed conversation: the issue of the hypocrisy of the middle class left defending their right - as they see it - to privately educate their children. And, the destructive effect that has on the working class' opinion of them. The mobility into top jobs afforded by way of nepotism from the social circles their privately educated children gain access to, is apparent and undeniable - just look at the media. The working class know this and have done for many years. When Corbyn quite rightly announced his plans to abolish private education, many of the the middle class left dropped him like a ton of bricks, using the antisemitism allegations as a convenient excuse for their abandonment of him. Many of those same middle classes, then had the audacity to label the red wall as 'thick'. The working classes didn't vote for Johnson because they prefer the toffs, they just believe them to be more honest about their privileges. The left need to understand this.

Bloody hell! For me, that's one of the best Downstreams yet, and they're all good. There have been allusions to the professional managerial class taking over the left in a number of online discussions, but that's the deepest dive on that topic and its consequences that I've seen. 2 hours that flew by.

Well-educated doesn't mean smart

His point about the intense competition for academic positions etc is prominent in Peter Turchin’s ’End Times’. However, according to Turchin (on the plus side) this ‘elite overproduction’ (one of my daughters has a PhD and has been a postie for the past two years) can have significant revolutionary potential.

Working class boy from small town too (hadn't considered it before, but also probably downwardly mobile to some extent). And, yes, people are fine, people are broadly pleasant and try to do the right thing for themselves and by others. The looking down on us from the left in recent times is very strange and counter productive!

When graduates are taking non-graduate jobs, non-graduates move further down the social mobility ladder.

I’m over here from the “right”. That was a great interview. 👍

The follow up book could be called "A Nation of Shoplifters".