“Poor kids, through no fault of their own, are less prepared by their families, their schools, and their communities to develop their God-given talents as fully as rich kids. For economic productivity and growth, our country needs as much talent as we can find, and we certainly can’t afford to waste it. The opportunity gap imposes on all of us both real costs and what economists term “opportunity costs”.
Robert D. Putnam, Author
Who would have thought that the legacy of Karl Marx’s Communism would be to entrench polarisation of wealth? Yet the violent authoritarianism and energy stranglehold which defines Putin's Russia is the reason why interest rates are now rising so fast, and the impact of rising inflation and interest rates is to impoverish the poor and further consolidate the wealth of the rich.
Polarisation of wealth is a global challenge, and it restricts social mobility more than anything else. The only way to solve it is by long-term constitutional measures, not short-term national governments — although these could do much to help if they were so minded.
The United Kingdom's new Prime Minister comes from a very privileged background, largely as a result of the hard work and commitment put in by his parents following their move from Kenya in the 1960s. However, he does understand the need to tackle social mobility, as his focus on lifelong education has shown.
But the pressure of increasing physical mobility (migration) shows that the struggle for resolving inequalities spreads far beyond Britain's borders, and lifelong education must reflect that context as well.
Last Thursday's front-page headline in the Times, ‘Sixth of population was born outside UK, census reveals’, showed how the United Kingdom has indeed become a crossroads for international migration. The Office for National Statistics has shown that the number of people born outside the UK has more than doubled from 4.2 million in 2001 to 10 million today. Notwithstanding Brexit, these include 3.9 million EU passport holders: indeed 5.9 million hold a non-UK passport.
It is increasingly making little sense to stand in the way of migration: technology, and the availability of international travel means that it’s like pushing water uphill. It is gradually making the traditional system of borders and nationalities irrelevant, and this means that we need to look increasingly at bodies like the United Nations to put trans-national arrangements in place in order to facilitate a smooth and ordered transition to globalisation.
Pushing against these moves to international social mobility, we find national so-called ‘populist’ cheerleaders such as Putin and Trump: it is seriously worrying to face the prospect of the latter's return as a candidate for the 2024 US election, and we must hope the Democrats can pull themselves together after what looks like a disastrous showing in Tuesday’s mid-term elections.
So these barriers to social mobility are clear for all to see, and the combination of education, technology and a new approach to introduce a more egalitarian form of capitalist economics are crucial in delivering solutions.
These combine with the changing nature of work, which can itself become the catalyst for change. Throughout history, occupations have done almost more than anything else to define an individual’s social standing. In the 19th century the expectations even controlled the chronological sequence of [male] descendants within families: the forces for the first son, the church for the second, then business. Even today, many professions hang on to the vestiges of social inheritance.
The easy way to define privilege has been by treating private education as a surrogate although, as we suggested on 24th October, this could be tackled by voucher provision for economically-disadvantaged families. However, at present, this definition works, so the Social Mobility Commission has used it to compare the occupational bias of three professions with widely varying levels of social mobility: barristers, journalists and chief executives in their Cross-Industry Toolkit.
It is interesting to note in this chart is that those most involved in wealth creation - the chief executives - are those with the least degree of privilege: showing clearly that achieving economic potential is not restricted to one’s birthright.
Rishi Sunak is therefore right to place real focus on education, and to broaden its scope to extend throughout life, and to become much more practical in its application: hence James Forsyth's Comment headline in last Friday’s Times, ‘Education could be Sunak’s big revolution’. We wish his new Education Secretary, Gillian Keegan, every success in her new role: and we hope it will not be long before we see Financial Awareness being introduced more directly within the education curriculum, and in formal qualifications.
Breaking the cycle of deprivation should be at the centre of building a more civilised world. It requires a long-term international commitment to social mobility in both economics and geopolitics.
Gavin Oldham OBE
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