Skip to main content
The Morning Star Shop
Class reproduction and untangling the class pay gap in Wales
Our class origin casts a long shadow over our lives — one of the areas in which this manifests is through the existence of occupational sorting and the class pay gap, writes LUKE FLETCHER MS

AN insidious aspect of neoliberalism’s ideological blitz has been to convince certain parts of society that working-class people being unable to “get on” is an individual, moral flaw — some sort of gene-deep character deficiency.

Aside from being — at best — a glib display of ignorance, it also neatly sidesteps any structural analysis of class, what functions people perform in the economy and how this reproduces class privilege.

What our backgrounds are — where we come from, our access to certain social networks, what kinds of support we can access (in short, the kinds of economic, social and cultural capital we can harness) — and how these affect our trajectories, cast very long shadows.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Tata Steel in Port Talbot, as the last blast furnace at one
Workers' Rights / 3 May 2025
3 May 2025

LUKE FLETCHER pours scorn on Labour’s betrayal of the Welsh steel industry, where the option of nationalisation was sneered at and dismissed – unlike at Scunthorpe where the government stepped in

FOR THE CROWN NOT THE PEOPLE: Gwynt y Mor II, Wales' largest
Features / 22 March 2025
22 March 2025
LUKE FLETCHER fleshes out Plaid Cymru's plan for the revitalisation of Wales's economy
An elderly woman walks with the aid of a cane in Old Havana,
Features / 25 February 2025
25 February 2025
After Joe Biden’s cynical last-minute clemency for Cuba, the new administration has quickly returned to maximum subversive tactics. This socialist island needs our support now more than ever, writes LUKE FLETCHER MS
STED SYSTEM: Housing in Grangetown, Cardiff
Features / 1 February 2025
1 February 2025
The Welsh government is shying away from the obvious answer to a spiralling rental market and increased housing precarity – well-designed and implemented rent controls, writes LUKE FLETCHER
Similar stories
STUC 2025 / 28 April 2025
28 April 2025

From the ‘marketisation’ of care services to the closure of cultural venues and criminalisation of youth, a new Red Paper reveals how austerity has weakened communities and disproportionately harmed the most vulnerable, write PAULINE BRYAN and VINCE MILLS

GROOMED TO RULE: Eton College pupils taking part in the ‘P
Books / 5 January 2025
5 January 2025
WILL PODMORE is intrigued by a study the British ruling class that follows statistical analysis with totally inadequate proposals for change
OPINION / 31 October 2024
31 October 2024
From ‘middle class’ to ‘microaggressions,’ from ‘fascism’ to ‘terrorism,’ ZOLTAN ZIGEDY makes an anguished cry for us to turn away from the most misused and misleading terms and tropes – or at least use them accurately