Читать книгу Social Class in Europe - Étienne Penissat - Страница 11

The European Union has become the subject of intense conflict, as evinced by the ‘no’ votes in the French and Dutch referendums on the constitutional treaty in 2005, the Greek debt crisis of 2010, and the vote for Brexit in June 2016. In every country in Europe, an enduring political split has opened up between supporters and opponents of the European project.¹ Supporters take the view that this project represents the best way of ensuring economic progress and business competitiveness through the increase in trade; for opponents, it encourages social dumping and brings down standards of living for the majority. The tensions caused by relocations and competition between workers lead certain groups to demand protection for their national space. In response to these anxieties, journalists and politicians usually adopt a simplistic frame of reference that pits insiders against outsiders, globalisation’s winners against its losers, with the stereotype of the Polish plumber competing with the French, German or British worker. Although the social question lies at the heart of this political conflict, very few recorded data are available on social inequalities between European workers. In political discussions on the subject, the EU bureaucracy is rigidly tied to austerity,² and no mention is ever made of class distinction as a key tool of comprehension. It is time to ask what the famous Polish plumber has in common with a Romanian senior manager or a Spanish manual worker, and what sets them apart from one another.

The aim of this book is to present a map of inequalities in Europe that goes beyond the usual comparisons between countries: drawing on statistical data that are very rarely analysed from the point of view of occupations, our aim is to give an account for the first time of the differences between social classes at the European level.³ The point is not to ignore national specificities: people born in wealthiest countries keep what Milanovic called ‘citizenship rent’.⁴ Thanks to the World Inequality Database, it is now possible and easy to compare the level of income in one country with other incomes in Europe.⁵ Here, we would rather like to show how the national differences are embedded in a convergence of social inequalities that prevail in all European countries. In our view, the issue of inequality cannot be reduced to a simple analysis of levels of income and assets: it also relates to conditions of employment and work, lifestyles, housing conditions, cultural practices and leisure. These various domains of social life can now be measured through statistical studies conducted consistently in all European countries. Our task, then, is to consider the disparities between socio-economic and national groups, as well as gender and generational differences, together as a whole. Our commitment to an analysis in terms of social class is also a political act: more than just describing inequalities, our aim is to investigate the conditions of possibility of a European social movement.