Real Wages in the UK

This is an interesting question. Firstly, what deflator is being used to calculate the inflation in the "real wages"? I'm not sure, but I don't the CPI today includes rents which have skyrocketed in the past few years certainly. Secondly, another way of looking at the problem is looking as the share of GDP that is allocated to the working class. Perhaps some avenues for investigation?

I agree this is perhaps the best thing to look at; I earn a little more than average wage, but if I want to get on the 'property ladder' I have to consider eating beans on toast for the rest of my life, and the property would be far below the standard of the one I co-rent with two other people, whereas my dad, at the age I am now, was a homeowner. How many people are there in their thirties, say, who are living in shared rental properties or even still in their parents homes because they just cant afford to do anything else? How does that compare with 20 or 30 years ago?

My parents bought a house not long after they married, my dad was a bit older than I am now. They bought a two-bed place and 5 years later sold it and bought a four bedroom house. They also ran a car etc.
Once I'm qualified next year I will be lucky to find anything in London and certainly nothing that isn't of seriously lower quality. I also have no pension. In terms of assets I have virtually nothing. I don't know many people in better positions.

My own situation re-iterates what the 3 previous posts said.
I am technically a 'home-owner'. My parents bought their first house in 1980, just after I was born for something like 7-8 k. They both worked full time, so had to wages coming into the house
My house was 175k between me and my ex. and the reality is that unless I top myself, burn it down or file for bankruptcy, i will be paying out the majority of my (currently below average, below median) wage for the rest of my life. I'm currently forced into the situation of renting to mates, a situation I absolutely hate being in and wouldn't if i could avoid it.
I'd advise anyone against buying a house.

So yeah, my own experience, is that the vast majority of my aunties and uncles could afford to buy houses in the 70/80 when they would have been in their 20s, while nowadays, the vast majority of my friends, in 20s and 30s are nowhere near even close to buying their house and are still renting or living at home (or moved back with their parents) because as Notch8 says, simply no choice.

I think there is a problem if you attempt to define this too objectively-objectively because perception and experience of circumstances is more important. A declining share of GDP is of less concern to most people than their perception of how well they are doing (people attempt to succeed in the conditions in which they find themselves so they have to be shown that their 'doing alright' is actually a sliding backwards when compared to other indicators which are ordinarily not obvious). However, as I pointed out above, this increase in ownership of things is a result in longer working hours.

I said that my household is based on about a 50 hr week (but that is because we live in social housing so we can get away with working less – we have never used credit (I will come back to the disappearance of credit a little later)). However, many families are based on a sustained 70 or more hours a week at work (I would say that is unprecendented in the west since the 2nd ww and maybe for all of the 20th century). 70 or 80 hour weeks is madness, why isn't that registering? Why is it seen as normal? It is the increased number of hours worked that is the real indicator of falling wages.

As you say, it may be interesting to investigate this further through the appearance in the late 50's/early '60's of new forms of mortgage financing previously only available to the middle class. There must have been a reason why the economy needed this development of home ownership on a mass scale, the appearance of official/regulated credit for workers is significant precisely because it is now being withdrawn. But again, this is background stuff and not important when you are trying to connect people to the sense of why things are so rubbish now – the reason people were so angry in the '70's is that they had a tangible sense of the crapness of everything around them. Life is worse now in many ways but the means of recognising it has declined).

The important thing here, and I am amazed that Libcom continually fails to focus on issues like this, is the creation of register or index of impoverishment which is readily understandable to all. There are a number of reasons why Libcom cannot develop an analysis of alienation and exploitation, the primary one is that it will take them/you into 'wierdo' territory (i.e. actually saying what you hate about capitalism damages the 'I'm a normal bloke who just happens to be an anarchist' pose). Unfortunately, not politically committing, at the level of theory to a consistant critique of conditions and the subsequent inability to create an index of concrete impoverishments of those conditions (at the level of what I would call the subjective-objective) means there is literally nothing to say at the level of theory except 'let's read capital again'.

Well, quite but then nor is any organisation. However, all organisations set frames on particular activities... and it is the case that a viable, communicable critique of conditions, from a working class perspective, has been lost in the over-reading of Marx's economics on this board.

But to return to the topic under consideration. In a wider sense, the question must be asked why it is that huge numbers of people, I include my family here, and the community they were a part of, began at some point in the 70's to fail to notice the further impoverishment of their conditions? That which had been readily apparent at one moment suddenly became opaque the next. Why is it that so many people, in pseudo-sociological terms, went from reading the Mirror to reading the Express and Mail?

It has something to do with the apparent expansion of their purchasing power (which occurred whilst their wages continued to declinine). The ground shifted beneath their feet and they went from habitually attacking their conditions to thinking they had something important to defend – what had once been a widespread habit of scepticism and non-engagement was transformed into credulity and the 'stake-holding democracy' as it was later called. Of course all this coincided with the disappearance of 'class' as an overt mainstream political frame for understanding captial. The habitual proletarian stance which once attacked condiitons became (or seemed to become) part of the problems that were being criticised. Refusal of conditions became 'old fashioned'.

I often think about this issue because it is important in my life, it has really happened. All our lives are worse because of it – and it is important I think to remember that this has nothing to do with attempting a critique of political economy.

fort-da game. Real wages declined, this doesn't mean that purchasing power did. For example in the 50s 80% (or so I forget exactly) of a household income went on food, which had dropped to about 10% by the 90s. By this measure life has got cheaper, but the number of things that are necessary as conor and notch8 have said, has increased. So he cost of vcrs, dvd players etc has dropped. But what was a luxury 30 years ago is a necessity now. I can get a mobile phone for less than a few years bakc and I can ge na lptop for free. but I need a computer now and I need a phone. I was one of the last people to get a mobile and not having one caused me serious problems when looking for a flat and for various other things it causes problems.

My parents also instilled the fear of credit/debt into me. So unlike most people my age I have o credit card debts, all I owe is a student loan.

The only person I know under 30 who lives in social housing was on the waiting list for 8 years before she got it.

Sorry, meant to be more clear there. Purchasing power has increased in the sense that we can buy more stuff, but many of these things have become 'essential'. They don't reallly count, in my pinion towards purchasing power, if anything they are part of the social wage. For example washing machines are now necessary because of the entry of women into the workplace. I'm not sure the ability to buy a washing machine is better than being forced to have a two-salary household.