Pickman's model
sunset spires and twilight woods
but those are swappie sites!Dan Jakopovich said:
stats on class
- Thread starter Taxamo Welf
- Start date
montevideo
New Member
Pickman's model said:but those are swappie sites!
& used the words 'flexibilisation' & 'flexibilised', so probably foreign too!
Ps sneaks in a 'precariously' as well. We're fucked.
Dan Jakopovich
New Member
Pickman's model said:but those are swappie sites!
i have yet to see a decent libertarian socialist analysis of the contemporary class structure (autonomists excluded I guess), let alone in the UK...Not that it matters all that much, as these are largely exact data.
Taxamo Welf
kebagels pls
so?Pickman's model said:but those are swappie sites!
newbie
undisambiguated
Dan Jakopovich said:
The second of those opens with the statement
"It has become common to deny either the existence or relevance of class to Britain today. Yet the numbers of people who describe themselves as ‘working class’ grew from 51 percent in 1994 to 68 percent in 2002".
What the Mori article actually shows is that the figure fluctuated from 51% in 1994 to 58% in '97, fell back to 52% in '99 and rose again to 68% in '02.
Aren't stats wonderful, and so, so useful, for the opportunity they give to prove anything at all.
Isn't it comforting to see them used as responsibly as in the para quoted above, which inspires so much confidence in the rest of the article.
Taxamo Welf
kebagels pls
1) class should fluctuate, as should perception of it.
2) overall it has been a majority in those years - so they can still draw a good conclusion from it.
3) you're right though
2) overall it has been a majority in those years - so they can still draw a good conclusion from it.
3) you're right though
Taxamo Welf
kebagels pls
that the w/c is a mjority which may be useful for a socialist party to assert. Don't you think?
newbie
undisambiguated
I agree that a socialist propogandist can assert whatever they like. But an honest one, surely, has no need of sleight of hand.
If (a big if) these figures mean anything at all, the rise from 1999 to 2002 (52% to 68%) is surely more meaningful than the figures actually used: 1994 to 2002, 51% to 68%.
Or maybe an honest analyisis could take account of the fact that after rising from 51% to 58% between '94 and (election year) '97 it fell back to 52% over the next 2 years. Why?- isn't that interesting?
But this isn't honest analysis, a process which creates a hypothesis from available evidence, this is manipulating available evidence to fit a preferred conclusion.
If the conclusion is dependent on cherry picked, unrepresentative figures it's hard to have any confidence that it bears any real relationship with reality. If that's the way socialist parties conduct themselves in order to advance their arguments, is it any wonder they're in the parlous condition they are?
If (a big if) these figures mean anything at all, the rise from 1999 to 2002 (52% to 68%) is surely more meaningful than the figures actually used: 1994 to 2002, 51% to 68%.
Or maybe an honest analyisis could take account of the fact that after rising from 51% to 58% between '94 and (election year) '97 it fell back to 52% over the next 2 years. Why?- isn't that interesting?
But this isn't honest analysis, a process which creates a hypothesis from available evidence, this is manipulating available evidence to fit a preferred conclusion.
If the conclusion is dependent on cherry picked, unrepresentative figures it's hard to have any confidence that it bears any real relationship with reality. If that's the way socialist parties conduct themselves in order to advance their arguments, is it any wonder they're in the parlous condition they are?
Pickman's model
sunset spires and twilight woods
i hope yr not going to go an engelsian on us.Taxamo Welf said:
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
icepick said:
Because Cherie Blair idenfities her origins as working class, we are to dismiss anybody else who states a class identification? Seems a very odd attitude to take toward such stats; nearly as odd as taking them as objective records of some sort of scientific truth which must be obeyed. They are information - there to inform us in our actions and discussions - they are not commands.
Cheers - Louis Mac
No but it means as any kind of "study" it's largely useless. It means that as well as a lot of false negatives there are going to be false positives as well.Louis MacNeice said:
Nah they're just not very useful stats. Certainly not for basing a worthwhile analysis of society on. I mean they're not even really "stats" or actual data as such, just a kind of opinion poll.
What do you think those figures show, exactly?
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
icepick said:
They show - as far as figures actually 'show' things...makes them sound a bit like a magician pulling a rabbit out of hat - that over the whole period in question in excess of half the population have felt able to talk about themselves in terms of being working class; and that during that period there has been a general, albeit interrupted, growth in the numbers able to do so.
An obvious next set of questions to arise from this would be to look into what they meant by being working class, in relation to:
1. how they identified themselves as such;
2. what value they placed on being working class;
3. how they identified members of other classes;
4. which class or classes they saw as being socially valued...
Also if the same particpants could be returned to across the different data sets, then they could be asked questions regarding any changes in the reported perceptions (theirs and others); it might be particularly interesting to ask some questions about the two years following New Labour's first election victory.
So the stats aren't useless; they can very usefully inform a load more questions.
Cheers - Louis Mac
Taxamo Welf
kebagels pls
oh i didn't realise the results were from the opinion poll.icepick said:
Thought it was economic.
oisleep said:
Not neccesaarily
Check out the 're-po' statistics - many houses are bought cheaply and end up in the rental sector.
, , , and since that sector is growing and rent levels are at the very least static, there must therefore be a rising demand for rented accomodation - there couldn't be all those make over programmes on TV without this sector of the market expanding, after its near collapse and virtual extinction in the late 70s
. . and what will happen when interest rates start to rise?
Gra
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