Paine’s argument has been a fixture of British thinking ever since. “England is the most class-ridden country under the sun,” George Orwell complained in 1941: “a land of snobbery and privilege”. In William Golding’s novel, “Rites of Passage”, published in 1980, a character laments that “Class is the British language”. And it is to America that the British habitually look for opportunity unencumbered by nonsense about parentage and the pronunciation of the letter “h”.
Social mobility stagnated in both countries as the winners from the Thatcher and Reagan revolutions consolidated their gains. But Britain is trying much harder than America to get it going once again. : Britain is becoming more meritocratic, even as America becomes less so. The two countries’ differing trajectories are perhaps most obvious in education, especially in admissions to the universities that act as gatekeepers to the elite. A comparison of Oxford and Harvard is telling. Oxford is trying hard to attract poor and working-class applicants, and several of its colleges have introduced a “foundation year” to get them up to speed before they start degree courses.
By contrast Harvard, like other elite American universities, practises plutocracy modified by affirmative action for African-American applicants and, to a lesser extent, Hispanic ones. The intention is to compensate for the terrible injustice of slavery and, more broadly, to find merit where it was once overlooked. But it is undermined by an almost wilful blindness to disadvantage that stems from class, not race.
vanOnselenP Neo liberal cons pursuing broken free market economics don’t get to quote Orwell. Have some self respect and conviction.
Not talking about Britain, but talking about England. It was always going to be a decision by the English, borne out of arrogance that was going to be their great undoing. Well now it has happened, and the English are sinking faster than the Titanic.
vanOnselenP It depends on what side of the line you are.
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Like most other countries tbf.
No.
Orwell is always right
this is terrible news
Who is Orwell?
Happy now?
My Dad left because he wasn't prepared to be the 'office boy' the rest of his life plus xenophobia.
Now worse than ever. This will not change until you get rid of your royalist caste, your House of Lords...
Nope.
The US is a meritocracy? What are you imbibing?
Well anything is 'more' when you're starting from not at all
Delusion and this thing “brexit”. Madness.
예수님을 영접하고 거듭난다는 것은 거룩하고 의롭게 되는 것을 뜻합니다 GloriousLamb
Media needs new topics.. needs to stop COVID and medical topic coverage
🤮
A country with Royals and HM? What a joke
horrible
Yunanistan'da yangınlar sürüyor: 60 yerleşim yeri tahliye edildi ▪️Yunanistan'da alevler başkent Atina’ya yaklaştı. Kuzeyden başkente gelen yollar kapandı. ▪️Ülkede elektrik kesintileri yaşanırken, Antik Olimpiya kentini tehdit eden yangın ile Eğriboz'daki yangın devam ediyor.
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