Thomas Picketty is a great person to read if you're interested. He has laboriously gone through the data of social economies since the war, and showed that financialisation has led to a system where it's becoming easier to make money from the assets you already own than to make it if you have none.

This isn't a sign of an effective system. Rather, he says this is what happened to the Dutch, Venetian and British empires at their peak, where capital got moved in to banks and endlessly speculated on, lowering levels of investment and enterprise. That period preceded the decline of those empires.

We can go down one of two roads. Allow that system to continue to operate as it wants to, which means the proportion of wealth found in the rest of society will continue decreasing. Or we can take them on, support those in need and give future generations something to work for.

As W12 and Cryst point make clear, the reality of private schools are that most parents make loads of sacrifices to send there kids there.

Social mobility may also be a contributory factor in why people don't notice the difference between state and privately educated people anymore.

Also, it hasn't been pointed out, that getting into a good state school is a post code lottery. Parents will pay £10's or £100's of thousands more to get a house in a good catchment area. There's been stories I know of where parents have bought 1 bedroom second homes in good catchment areas and rented them out. It doesn't necessarily make for a fairer system.

Two more things for tonight that haven't been pointed out. Paying parents and private schools make the kids work really really hard. They want there monies worth. It's the kids hard work that gets the good results, and they take that hard working attitude into the working world with them (only for envious Corbynista socialist to tell the child that they didn't get good results due to their hard work, but due to their privilege - I put this in bold as it's so easy to overlook). State schools are all too often too soft on the children, which doesn't help them in the long run (exceptions exist). There's certainly no parents who just regard school as a day care center for teenagers and allow their kids to distract the education of others.

Finally, the difference between modest career success and becoming part of the elite is based on the ability to undertake internships which give you the exposure to build networks and reputations within those circles. Private education certainly helps, but family connections are more important and the ability to fund and house your child for 5 years after university to do this. That's a system that will never change, and probably become more of a closed shop if the choice of elite education is taken away from the masses.

For one, social mobility hasn't improved in this country for living memory....in fact when did it actually improve? Grammar schools were meant to help the bright working class..... What you seem to be talking about is the social mobility of the lower middle class into the middle class proper.

Your points in your post kind of beg the question.....so what? How is that of any relevance to Joe Bloggs the plumber? Why should he be contributing towards the aspirations of the lower middle class? For the average Joe the net affect is that the best teachers and students get taken out of the system....it lowers his experience to heighten theirs.

Like I said in my criticisms....If you look at what the middle and higher classes have done for this country in the last fifty years....I'm not seeing anything other than feathering their own nests and in many cases working against their own country's interests.....Why should average Joe be helping them as part of the tax system.

None of what you wrote really addresses any of my criticisms.

Edited by Stirlingsays (23 Sep 2019 8.45pm)

A lot of those Middle & higher classes are the working classes of the 70s & 80s why shouldn't we feather our own nests?

I was only thinking about office jobs, maybe I've lost touch a bit. The amount of time people waste in offices is pretty awful, most people can normally squeeze there full week into a shorter week if they really go for it, then will have more spare time to procrastinate.

With lower income jobs, there's too many factors that come into play to list. Hopefully it will help to improve living conditions by driving up wages, but who knows, it could easily back fire, and one of the biggest problems Corbyn's Labour party has is political nativity.

Fair point but as those leaders have a responsibility to try to make sure that the education of your old colleagues was better, whose failure is it?

In actual fact I can see both sides of the argument. The motivation to ensure that your kids get the best possible start in life is strong, understandable and ultimately a driving force which is of benefit to us all. Those who sacrifice their own life style to achieve this deserve great credit.

Making sure that the privileged cannot buy their way into positions of influence via elite schools, networks and favours so that only the most meritorious are chosen to hold high office also seems a desirable path to tread.

Of course those elite schools also attract the children of the elite from around the world who will themselves often go on to be leaders in their own countries. Forming friendships at school with such people can be of enormous future benefit so we do need to ensure our own future leaders are there to make those friendships. Can we actually do that?

I'm torn.

A lot of those Middle & higher classes are the working classes of the 70s & 80s why shouldn't we feather our own nests?

1800's possibly.
1900's not. A small percentage at best.

What exactly is a poor background.
No bike growing up or living in social housing.
The pen is mightier than the sword
Also you cant have it if private schools are being Robbed by the state.
There will be no private schools.
We will all be equal.
Equally f***ed.