That caravan metaphor

You should never argue from a metaphor, only to one. The Stupid Party's adoption of Toynbee's caravan metaphor shows the truth of this advice:

I described society as a caravan moving across a desert. All may move forward, but how far behind do the poor at the back have to fall before they cease to be part of the same caravan at all?

This metaphor fails for at least five reasons:
1. We care about people at the back of the desert caravan because if they fall far behind, they face a certain death. No such fate awaits the poor in the UK.
2. The UK is not an enterprise association in which we are all travelling in the same direction with a common purpose.
3. Why should I privilege my caravan above others? Why should I want to help a Scouser more than a Somalian? Toynbee verges towards the racist in caring more about the British poor than other poor people.
4. The metaphor assumes that there is a stable rank order, so some are always at the front and others always at the back. But this is not true, at least for many of the poor. There's a lot of mobility between the very poor (having no job) and the poor (having a low-paid, insecure job). One problem the poor have is that, in (relatively) good times they are unable to insure themselves against bad times - because they are taxed heavily, robbed by the rich, or simply lack the means to insure against unemployment.
5. The caravan metaphor invites us to think of the poor as weak or slow and the rich as strong and quick. This is a foul lie. Toynbee and Cameron are at the front of the caravan not because they have any skills, but because they have rich parents. At best they're just lucky and the poor are unlucky. I say "at best" because in truth, some people are at the back of the caravan because those at the front have stolen their camels. The poor are poor partly because the rich have - down the centuries - arranged that this be so. They stole the property of the poor, arranged that they get bad education, exploited them in work, benefited from rent-seeking in the state and in companies, and constructed an ideology which says that the rich need big wages to attract and motivate scarce "skills."
And herein lies the biggest weakness of all in the caravan metaphor. It perpetuates the illusion that the poor need help. Most of them don't. They need justice.

Comments

[Chris P.]

By the comment "arranged that they got bad education" were you alluding to the ending of the Grammar Schools? If so, I think that you are quite right as they promoted some (but a significant number) of working class childrens educational aspirations. There has been a reduction in social mobility since they were, more or less, deleted.

[John]

"It perpetuates the illusion that the poor need help. Most of them don't. They need justice."

Well put, sir. Justice, not help. Changes the discussion entirely.

[chris]

Chris P - I wasn't thinking so much of the ending of grammar schools as the fact that the best state schools are in the richest areas. As this problem could be ameliorated immediately at no cost (by ensuring that every school gets the same exam grades) it proves that New Labour is opposed to equality of opportunity.

[Cleanthes]

This appears to be cheap and simplistic:

"the best state schools are in the richest areas"

In which direction is the causation Chris?

More importantly, are you suggesting that state schools in the richest areas receive more money from the state per pupil than those in poorer areas? I do not have the research to support this - you are far better at this than I am - but I very much suspect that the precise opposite is true.

No: the key determinant here is the value which the parents of children in each school place on the education of their children.