Feb 142012
 

“On the eve of the Thatcherite crusade, half of all workers were trade unionist. By 1995, the number had fallen to a third. The old industries associated with working class identity were being destroyed. There no longer seemed anything to celebrate about being working class. But Thatcherism promised an alternative. Leave the working class behind, it said, and come join the property-owning middle classes instead. Those who failed to do so would have no place in the new Britain.”

“Those working class communities who had been most shattered by Thatcherism became the most disparaged. They were seen as the left-behinds, the remnants of an old world that had been trampled on by the inevitable march of history. There was to be no sympathy for them: on the contrary, they deserved to be caricatured and reviled.

There was a time when working-class people had been patronized, rather than openly despised. (…) Today, they are more likely than not to be called chavs. From salt of the earth to scum of the earth. This is the legacy of Thatcherism – the demonization of everything associated with the working class.”

(citerat från s. 60 respektive s. 71 i Owen Jones Chavs – The Demonization of the Working Class)

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