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"Rigid Class System in Europe" Bob Roll Comments



 
 
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  #21  
Old August 17th 06, 09:19 AM posted to rec.bicycles.racing
Robert Chung
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Default "Rigid Class System in Europe" Bob Roll Comments

wrote:
There is certainly a great degree of social mobility [in Europe],
but not on the scale found in the US.


This does not appear to be supported by the data. There are many ways to
measure social or economic mobility (short-term, long-term, perdurance,
group transition probabilities, and so on), but by most of them the US
ranks either near the middle or below the middle compared to European
countries.


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  #22  
Old August 17th 06, 10:44 AM posted to rec.bicycles.racing
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Default "Rigid Class System in Europe" Bob Roll Comments


"Bob Martin" a écrit dans le message de news:
...
in 523429 20060816 222509 "Tom Kunich" cyclintom@yahoo. com wrote:

This is the class system that people in the United States are decrying.
Moreover, EVERY person in the USA can move up to the limits of their
ability
if they wish. In Europe that simply isn't the case as you can discover
simply by talking to any factory worker.


********, Tom (as usual).

Both Margaret Thatcher and John Major came from humble beginnings.

The majority of Britain's wealthy people are "self-made".


It is possible Sarkozy to became the next French President.
He is nothing but a son of an immigrant ....
Just for the fun, this is a short list of immigrant's sons in France (in the
Show Business for example) :

Jean-Paul Belmondo (Italian fathers)
Isabelle Adjani (algérian father, german mother)
Coluche (Italian fathers)
Julien Clerc (Mother from the French antilles)
Serge Gainsbourg (russian parents)
Yves Montand (Italian fathers)
Daniel Prévost (algérian khabyle father)
Louis de Funès (Spanish parents)
Barbara (Central Europe)
Charles Aznavour (arménian)
Marina Vlady (Russia)
Lino Ventura (italien)
Sylvie Vartan (arménian and bulgary)
Georges Moustaki (grec, born in égypte)
Serge Reggiani (italiens fathers)

Etc Etc.

What is a French if not a mix of poor immigrants ?
Btw : I am one of them and I don't remember my Brazilian origin to be a
problem in France.


  #23  
Old August 17th 06, 10:45 AM posted to rec.bicycles.racing
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Default "Rigid Class System in Europe" Bob Roll Comments


"Bob Martin" a écrit dans le message de news:
...
in 523429 20060816 222509 "Tom Kunich" cyclintom@yahoo. com wrote:

This is the class system that people in the United States are decrying.
Moreover, EVERY person in the USA can move up to the limits of their
ability
if they wish. In Europe that simply isn't the case as you can discover
simply by talking to any factory worker.


********, Tom (as usual).

Both Margaret Thatcher and John Major came from humble beginnings.

The majority of Britain's wealthy people are "self-made".


It is possible Sarkozy to became the next French President.
He is nothing but a son of an immigrant ....
Just for the fun, this is a short list of immigrant's sons in France (in the
Show Business for example) :

Jean-Paul Belmondo (Italian fathers)
Isabelle Adjani (algérian father, german mother)
Coluche (Italian fathers)
Julien Clerc (Mother from the French antilles)
Serge Gainsbourg (russian parents)
Yves Montand (Italian fathers)
Daniel Prévost (algérian khabyle father)
Louis de Funès (Spanish parents)
Barbara (Central Europe)
Charles Aznavour (arménian)
Marina Vlady (Russia)
Lino Ventura (italien)
Sylvie Vartan (arménian and bulgary)
Georges Moustaki (grec, born in égypte)
Serge Reggiani (italiens fathers)

Etc Etc.

What is a French if not a mix of poor immigrants ?
Btw : I am one of them and I don't remember my Brazilian origin to be a
problem in France.



  #24  
Old August 17th 06, 10:46 AM posted to rec.bicycles.racing
Simon Brooke
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Default "Rigid Class System in Europe" Bob Roll Comments

in message , steve
') wrote:

Im hoping some of our European friends will comment here. I know the
US is famous for class mobility, but I was under the impression that
class immobility was a thing of the past even in Europe... especially
after the
two world wars shook up the social structure. Bob obviously
disagrees..and he's been there, which gives him a big advantage over me
(a "dumbass", no doubt).

What do our European friends think? Rigid class structure and social
pressure to stay put? Or is social mobility now the norm?


It depends what you mean by social mobility, but no, in Europe (like the
US) there is little real class mobility. Old money is old money the
world over, and people with old money stick together. They went to
the 'right' schools and the 'right' universities, have the 'right'
contacts and relations, marry the 'right' people.

In Europe this universal truth is slightly gilded by titles which the
powerful have, over the centuries, given themselves, but it doesn't
really make any difference. You ain't goin' to marry a Rockefeller, and
if you go to court against a Rockefeller, you're going to lose. The fact
that he doesn't call himself 'Lord Rockefeller' is immaterial.

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; ... exposing the violence incoherent in the system...
  #25  
Old August 17th 06, 11:24 AM posted to rec.bicycles.racing
Simon Brooke
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Default "Rigid Class System in Europe" Bob Roll Comments

in message .com,
') wrote:

Here's a recent article that suggests Brits define class more by birth
than by income:

http://www.economist.com/world/brita...ory_id=7289005

My partner still defiantly insists she's working class. By any normal
definition of working class, she definitely isn't now, although she was
admittedly born into a classic 'working class' family. By contrast, my
father was a 'mandarin' - one of Britain's top civil servants, so I was
definitely born near the top of middle class.

But wait for it...

My father's father was a sharecropper who went bust in Texas in the
1890s, and ended up scraping a living farming a mosquito-infested swamp
close to the Saskatchewan/North Dakota border. My father's mother left
him there and returned to England where she made a very marginal living
as a washerwoman. My father, however, did well at grammar school, and
got a public scholarship to Cambridge University which was sufficiently
generous that it paid for a servant (no, really; I think the servant may
have worked for three of four undergraduates, not just my father, but
still).

Having got a double first from Cambridge, after service in the army
during the war he then sat the Civil Service exam and, passing that,
immediately went into the upper reaches of the civil service where he
spent the rest of his career.

The membrane between the middle and the working classes always has been
extremely permeable, in both directions, at least in Britain. Many
British institutions, but particularly the civil service (and, in the
old days, the imperial service) have always been highly meritocratic.

The barrier between the aristocracy and the rest, however, is different.
To get into the aristocracy, you father and grandfather have to have
been extremely rich and powerful. Getting out of the aristocracy is even
more difficult, since just going broke isn't normally sufficient -
you've still got the extended family and contacts which drag you back to
privilege.

Me? I'm a working sorceror. I study occult learning in weighty grimoires,
and by arcane spells and incantations conjure powerful daemons at vast
distance to do my will (don't you?). What does this make me? I am,
essentially, an artisan. I'm an artisan in a trade which is currently
highly valued, and consequently I earn somewhat more than a mason or a
joiner, but... essentially, I make things.

Does that make me 'working class' or 'middle class'? And does anyone
(apart from my partner) really care any more?

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
Ring of great evil
Small one casts it into flame
Bringing rise of Men ;; gonzoron

  #26  
Old August 17th 06, 12:18 PM posted to rec.bicycles.racing
mal
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Posts: 67
Default "Rigid Class System in Europe" Bob Roll Comments


What is a French if not a mix of poor immigrants ?
Btw : I am one of them and I don't remember my Brazilian origin to be a
problem in France.


France shortened all their upper class many years ago. Now their issues are
not determined by birth, but by the real deal.


  #27  
Old August 17th 06, 12:21 PM posted to rec.bicycles.racing
mal
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Posts: 67
Default "Rigid Class System in Europe" Bob Roll Comments


Does that make me 'working class' or 'middle class'? And does anyone
(apart from my partner) really care any more?

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
Ring of great evil
Small one casts it into flame
Bringing rise of Men ;; gonzoron



Probably means that you family income allows you to do stuff that you would
otherwise starve doing.
Do you camp out at Glastonbury, or stay at a B & B?


  #28  
Old August 17th 06, 12:29 PM posted to rec.bicycles.racing
B. Lafferty
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Posts: 612
Default "Rigid Class System in Europe" Bob Roll Comments


"mal" wrote in message
. ..

What is a French if not a mix of poor immigrants ?
Btw : I am one of them and I don't remember my Brazilian origin to be a
problem in France.


France shortened all their upper class many years ago. Now their issues
are not determined by birth, but by the real deal.


Clear as a picture.


  #30  
Old August 17th 06, 02:21 PM posted to rec.bicycles.racing
steve
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Posts: 87
Default "Rigid Class System in Europe" Bob Roll Comments

On 16-Aug-2006, smacked up and reeling, Gabe Brovedani
blindly formulated
the following incoherence:

Of course, one can read more widely and get closer to the truth. The
recent Economist article has already been cited. Here are others:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0127/p21s01-coop.html


A distinction should be made between the ability and opportunity for one to
ascend socially/economically and the actual practice of doing so. If one is
content to suck the public teat, make no effort, and gain no ground...well
that is certainly a failure of govt policy and personal initiative, but not
necessarily one of economic and class structure. The CSM article doesnt
draw this distinction.

I cant say how Europe compares to the US (other than to repeat some opinions
I've heard from the Europeans Ive talked to on the subject...all agreeing
that the US offers more opportunity) but it is clear (to anyone with eyes)
that virtually anyone who is willing to work hard can get ahead here in the
US. Perhaps unfortunately, even those who are unwilling to work can do
quite well, and that, I believe, is a big reason why so many do not work to
get ahead. That is not to say that there arent unfortunates who are worthy
of charitable assistance, but that the institutionalization of assistance
has created a perverse economic disincentive for a large underclass. It's
shameful.

steve
--
"The accused will now make a bogus statement."
James Joyce
 




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