Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg says he wants to stop people getting on in life purely because of "who they know".
A worthy aim but one that is, along with rhetoric about "fairness" and "progress", devoid of meaningful content. We all want people to be able to pursue their talents, regardless of who they know or their family background - but what concrete measures are being proposed to achieve this? None of course. When it comes to policies which may put the brakes on unearned privilege even members of the Labour Party are loath to challenge the vested interests of the rich and powerful.
No mention either by Clegg of banning unpaid internships, which would in-reality not be a ban at all, but a lifting of a ban on those from poorer backgrounds following their dreams too (if of course you ignore for a minute the existence of private schools and educational-selection by house price, to name but a few).
All talk of "social mobility" and "getting more kids from poorer backgrounds into university", while admirable in the latter instance, misses the point entirely, in that society still needs people to do traditional, working-class jobs. To live in a country which treats those in low-skilled occupations shoddily because they should, in the eyes of some, "work harder" so as to "get on" is to accept a permanent and entrenched class-system, based on the fact that nurses, cleaners, carers and refuse collectors will always be needed. The same of course could not be said of bankers.
I tend to agree with Owen Jones that social mobility is a dead end, and a distraction from narrowing income inequality - which might require genuine political courage. If Clegg wants some indication of how un-meritocratic Britain actually is then he should take a look at his cabinet colleagues. It was Alexis de Tocqueville who once said that "The surface of society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colors breaking through."
It maybe a little different in the UK, but in the States, unpaid interns do have a place. They get college credit if they are a student, so its not all slave labor. They get to put something on their resume which helps them in the job market when they graduate and if they did a good job, a letter of recomendation from the employer. In a tight labor market for college grads, who has the upper hand. The college grad with unpaid intern work experience on his resume or the student that has zero experience on his resume for the same job.
ReplyDelete"I would say some unpaid interns are in a better positions looking for jobs then college grads who have zero work experience."
ReplyDeleteThat's kind of the problem - pretty much only wealthy young people or those who live in London can do internships for a lot of the best jobs, leaving them in better positions than the less well-off who can't afford to work for free. A case in point is journalism which I myself am going in for. To be a journalist nowadays you basically need to have worked for free for a substantial period of time. I still havn't worked out how on earth this is possible without having parents who live in London or wealthy parents from further afield.