If you’re like me, you are probably bombarded by constant information. Emails, calls, text messages, social media, news updates, articles recommended by friends- the list is endless. Although I enjoy writing the Best of the Week series, I realise that because of the sheer amount of information you consume, and the near-impossible task of remembering it all, highlighting links to a multitude of websites may not be very compelling or interesting.  So today, I’ve decided to talk about just two articles, but give a more thorough and original reaction to them. Let me know if you prefer this format, or if you prefer the usual way, or even if you don’t have a preference.

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/06/donald-trump-gift-progressive-narrative/. The first article comes from Ed West, who writes that Donald Trump fits the progressive view of history- that they are good guys (civil rights activists, suffragettes, unions) and bad guys (fascists, racists, colonialists, privileged white men), and that history is the eventual triumph of good over evil and progress towards a more egalitarian future. In this overly-simplistic analysis, Trump represents the ultimate ‘bad guy’, both in terms of his beliefs and his socioeconomic status. West’s point is that reality is more complex than this. Liberals’ critique of Trump may be fashionable and to a degree necessary, but Trump’s actions detract from other issues like the deficit, ethnic division or social conservatism amongst religious minorities- problems which the progressive left doesn’t feel comfortable talking about because they have no real answers to.

I share West’s frustration with American politics at the moment. Trump is precisely the liberal caricature of  what a conservative is. He is reducing the quality of politics and policy by rendering the centre-right ineffective and unrepresentative of what true conservatives believe and how they behave. Conservatives now have to go out of their way to distance themselves from every unconservative action Trump takes, and explain why those actions aren’t conservative. To a great extent, this prevents them from outlining what real conservatism would look like in practice. It also lessens Republicans’ ability to hold Democrats to account for their failings, because Democrats can always retort that they aren’t as bad as Trump, allowing them to ignore their own unpopular beliefs. Even when Trump holds conservative views, those views become discredited because they are associated with Trump. I also appreciate West’s honesty that the Right is largely to blame for this. I am personally very much in favour of cultural globalisation, so I don’t share West’s fear of an America that views itself in multicultural and pluralistic terms. But West is certainly not a xenophobe, so his conservative opposition to social change ought to be given a fair hearing. It’s a terrible shame that thanks to moronic nationalists like Trump, the intelligent case for conservatism won’t be heard by the vast majority of the American public.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/opinion/britains-broken-ladder-of-social-mobility.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_ty_20170627&nl=opinion-today&nl_art=9&nlid=75810130&ref=headline&te=1. A fantastic critique of Britain’s lack of social mobility. Many progressive Americans assume that the larger the welfare state, the greater the level of social mobility. This may generally be true, but Britain is very much the exception as a country with a large welfare state but a social mobility level even worse than that of the United States. Russell makes the point that a good education is no guarantor of success later in life. Throughout the developed world, it is assumed that if you work hard at school and consequently get into a good university, you will have a lucrative career. At least in Britain, factors beyond your control- the circumstances of your birth, the school you attended, the status of your family, how well-connected you are- are all at least as important as your academic ability and work ethic.

Russell doesn’t elaborate much on the solutions to this problem. She rightly mentions some of the problems: high house prices in some areas, and a lack of professional jobs in others. What she doesn’t admit is that it is in the interests of the very wealthy for levels of social mobility to remain low. In any given time period, the number of professional jobs available will always be limited, even if they increase over the long term. This makes the job market, especially for the young and inexperienced, a zero-sum game. The British upper class and upper-middle class expect their children to have at least as good jobs as they. And more than any other developed country, they actively go out of their way to ensure this. Partly by sending their children to expensive schools, or by employing tutors to give their children a one-on-one learning experience; I plead guilty to this, I had a tutor for my GCSE  Chemistry, who boosted my grade significantly. They also exploit their social networks brilliantly, giving their children work experience opportunities the working class don’t have because they don’t know the right people. To make matters worse, potential employees are more likely to be hired if they exhibit middle-class traits, such as speaking with a certain accent, understanding certain cultural references, or being able to talk about interesting experiences like gap years abroad or volunteering, which are often dependent on your ability to afford them.

The point I’m trying to make is that increasing social mobility will require far more radical policies than any Russell is proposing- policies that will hurt the upper class and much of the upper middle class. Private schools would have to either take in far more low-income pupils or be banned outright. Employers would have to demonstrate they are employing a representative cross-section of society. Schools in poor areas would have to ensure a certain proportion of their pupils apply to the top universities. Taxes on property and inheritance would have to be raised significantly, to lessen the phenomenon of inherited privilege. A vast quantity of cheap housing would need to be built in previously exclusive areas, which locals may complain downgrades the prestige of the neighbourhood. As I say in my post on the free market, (http://hanrott.com/blog/epicurus-free-market/) Britain’s upper echelons are incredibly fortunate, even as their success comes at the expense of the country as a whole. If social mobility increases, so would competition for the best jobs. This would be good for the general economy, as the best people would be performing the best jobs. But it is in the elites’ interests to prevent real social mobility from happening, which is why it almost certainly won’t.