In recent weeks there have been a spate of articles, as much from Conservative pundits as from Labour ones, deploring Britain's loss of social mobility.
Not enough people, apparently, are trying to climb up the social ladder; far fewer, sad to say, than in the bad old days. In the name of social justice, they all intone, 'something must be done about it'.
What none of these pundits ever consider is the possibility that a lack of social mobility might be a healthy development; a sign that most people nowadays - apart from the underclass - are content with where they are and do not want to elbow themselves up a rung or two of the social ladder.
To my mind that should be regarded as progress rather than retrogression, since the whole point of the welfare state, I would have thought, was to make life agreeable
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Peregrine Worsthorne
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Loss of social mobility is not a disaster. It means the welfare state is working
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in Britain at all levels, not just at the top: to do away, that is, with the old necessity for social climbing.
What these authors fail to realise - perhaps because they have been upwardly mobile themselves - is that social ambition to get to the top is not particularly admirable or attractive. In fact it can be rather off-putting.
In any case surely one look at those who are at the top nowadays should be enough to put off others from wanting to follow suit. So loss of social mobility isn't a disaster. It's a sign the welfare state is working.
It is a sign that not everybody has to be on the make. It is a sign that not every soul is corroded with class envy and ambition. There is nothing to stop the thrusters from thrusting, but happy is the nation where joining the rat race is a not particularly admirable choice, rather than a dire necessity. 
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