London, 1841 - Bangkok, 2001
I've recently read the draft of a friend's book, set in 1840s London. This fed into a discussion I was having with Trumpton over the qualities of Theodore Dalrymple's writing. Dalrymple, in short, blames a rise of yobbish entitlement-queen subproles on the abandonment of 'traditional values' by the middle-class, giving the working class nothing to aspire towards. That may be something of an oversimplification of Dalrymple's actual position, but then again you could say his position is a pretty gross oversimplification itself, so fair enough...
Anyway, I commented that London in 1841 was chock-a-bloc with traditional values of personal responsibility and a very hands-off government but had a tremendous underclass. Trumpton said that this isn't relevant, as there was no real judicial system keeping criminals in check etc. Still, I fed this conversation back to my friend who wrote the book, and this is what he said:
One thing I realised when doing the research for this book--mostly a long trawl through Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor and Dickens's journalism--is that what most people think of as Victorian virtues were in fact the simple facts of life for most people. They had to be thrifty because they had no money. They had to have a good work ethic because wages were low and they did not eat if they did not work. And quite frankly most of their employers were utter tossers. The other thing that's interesting is how insecure everybody except the very rich were- even lawyers and other professionals plunged into poverty with alarming regularity.
London was the most dangerous city in the world during this period...
I am constantly getting into arguments with people over this sort of thing at the moment. My communist friend John insists that 150 years of capitalism have only made the world worse for the vast majority of people. To which my response is go read a history book or even Engels' Condition of the Working Class in England. (Another book I read during my research frenzy and a damn good one too.) Of course, in a sense he is right, in that there are more people in the world and thus more people living in poverty, but I don't think he means it that way.
The strangest thing I got from reading Mayhew was when I read his descriptions of the city and I thought, I know all this, there's something familiar about these street markets and the bars full of hookers and the vast crowds of people. How is it possible for it to seem so familiar to me 150 years later? Then I realised that London was the world's first modern third world city. It was Patpong in Bangkok and the night market in Chiang Mai and the tougher parts of Cape Town all rolled into one and without the nice weather and with a lot more hideous disease. And people kept handguns under their pillows for self-defence. Seems inconceivable now but there you go.
(emphasis added)
Well, that's an interesting thought. London as the world's first modern third-world city. If there is something in it, isn't it worth asking how we got from London 1841 to London now and what the lessons are for the rest of the world?
Anyway, I commented that London in 1841 was chock-a-bloc with traditional values of personal responsibility and a very hands-off government but had a tremendous underclass. Trumpton said that this isn't relevant, as there was no real judicial system keeping criminals in check etc. Still, I fed this conversation back to my friend who wrote the book, and this is what he said:
One thing I realised when doing the research for this book--mostly a long trawl through Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor and Dickens's journalism--is that what most people think of as Victorian virtues were in fact the simple facts of life for most people. They had to be thrifty because they had no money. They had to have a good work ethic because wages were low and they did not eat if they did not work. And quite frankly most of their employers were utter tossers. The other thing that's interesting is how insecure everybody except the very rich were- even lawyers and other professionals plunged into poverty with alarming regularity.
London was the most dangerous city in the world during this period...
I am constantly getting into arguments with people over this sort of thing at the moment. My communist friend John insists that 150 years of capitalism have only made the world worse for the vast majority of people. To which my response is go read a history book or even Engels' Condition of the Working Class in England. (Another book I read during my research frenzy and a damn good one too.) Of course, in a sense he is right, in that there are more people in the world and thus more people living in poverty, but I don't think he means it that way.
The strangest thing I got from reading Mayhew was when I read his descriptions of the city and I thought, I know all this, there's something familiar about these street markets and the bars full of hookers and the vast crowds of people. How is it possible for it to seem so familiar to me 150 years later? Then I realised that London was the world's first modern third world city. It was Patpong in Bangkok and the night market in Chiang Mai and the tougher parts of Cape Town all rolled into one and without the nice weather and with a lot more hideous disease. And people kept handguns under their pillows for self-defence. Seems inconceivable now but there you go.
(emphasis added)
Well, that's an interesting thought. London as the world's first modern third-world city. If there is something in it, isn't it worth asking how we got from London 1841 to London now and what the lessons are for the rest of the world?