Charles Dickens was a fierce and devoted critic of poverty, unregulated market speculation, inefficient institutional apparatus and social stratification of English Victorian society. But Charles Dickens lived in the 19th century and now we are in the 21st century. How many things have changed?
During the last years I saw the birth of a new class of workers in the Spanish society of 21st century. Some of the characteristics of this new age of urban workers are the following:
Urban proletarians:
They are well educated young professionals, squeezed by companies and qualified as A+, 1+ or outstanding, as a way to offer a promising future in the company and make them work more hours.
They live in single rooms rented for around 400 € in the biggest industrialized cities.The follow the same routine from monday to friday: home - job- home. There's no time for anything else.
Weekend wasters:
Saturdays is time to go to the supermarket, and Sundays is time to tide the room and have a rest.
Some weekends, they take the car and drive 200 km to see their families. On Sunday they come back.
In the nights, they drink and go out, looking at alcohol as a cheap way to turn off penalties and forget a horrible week.
Proletarians 2.0:
They have no time for friends during the week, but have more than 500 friends, contacts or follwers in social media.
They are 2.0 proletarians, they have no social life but all of them have a Tablet and a smartphone.
They don't watch TV, but follow twitter news and other RSS.
They don't go to the cinema, but watch film premieres through the internet.
Dressing code and stratification:
Stratification and clasicism through the dressing code: Blue collars and white collars.
The tie is business men's handcuff as foremen with wips were for roman slaves.
Money & Life conciliation:
No one is waiting for them at home. The sleep alone.
They don't enjoy the life, although they earn good money
The most desirable value is freetime, but companies give money instead of holidays.
Maybe you see yourself indentified with some of them. Maybe it's time to think about what's really important and change.
habia escrito una larga parrafada. La tableta me ha jugado una mala pasada y en un movimiento no deseado sobre la pantalla táctil, se ha borrado todo.
ReplyDeletediré la esencia de lo que fue mi larga reflexión, que partía de las situaciones que se daban en el Londres del siglo XIX. Hoy el proceso de alienación esta determinado o pretende establecerse como método para controlar los movimientos de una considerable masa de gente técnica e intelectualmente muy preparada. Hay otro sector que será cuasi el lumpen. Pero ese "peligroso" sector bien preparado debe ser controlado (sois demasiados/as). Es creando el miedo a creer que el futuro, vuestro futuro, no esta en vuestras (tus) manos, el método de alienación de ese hoy desaprensivo capitalismo financiero y de naturaleza especulativa. Eso creo.
Gracias por el comentario, con todo lo que me has escrito, la contestación me llevará al menos otro Post.
ReplyDeleteMe gusta especialmente tu referencia a la doble estratificación del nuevo proletariado urbano, pero si atendemos al criterio de creación de una nueva clase proletaria (los bien formados), no podemos olvidarnos de las ya existentes que son, en este caso, el proletariado obrero y el lumpenproletariado (o sub-proletariado).
¿Debemos pues añadir un nuevo escalafón y crear 3 tipos de proletariado o integrar 2 grupos (antiguamente separados) en un único e inmenso "proletariado"?