MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - New Leaf September 2019 Discussion • The Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks

Bookpossum · 09-20-2019, 07:53 AM

Do you know, I had a lot of fellow-feeling with Rebanks over that quote, gmw. I rather suspect that he summed up the "silver spoon" brigade pretty accurately. Everything handed to them on a plate, and no struggle or failure as they swanned through their privileged lives, sent to a public school (in the UK sense) with no expense spared, and the way made smooth for them to get into Oxford. Supported all the way by mummy and daddy, without any need to get any work to keep themselves.

Thanks for the various links you gave above. I shall certainly have a look at them. On the matter of subsidising various industries, we used to have a textile industry, car manufacturing industry and all sorts of other forms of work in Australia, which were subsidised in order to keep them going. Not a lot of it still going now.

I think there is an argument for subsidising industries, not just as stage-dressing or as a theme park, but because it gives decent honest work to people who would otherwise not have it. And that of course is very true of the UK, which now has had several generations of people in the north who have no work.

09-20-2019, 07:53 AM	#60
Bookpossum Snoozing in the sun Posts: 10,137 Karma: 115423645 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Melbourne, Australia Device: iPad Mini, Kobo Touch	Do you know, I had a lot of fellow-feeling with Rebanks over that quote, gmw. I rather suspect that he summed up the "silver spoon" brigade pretty accurately. Everything handed to them on a plate, and no struggle or failure as they swanned through their privileged lives, sent to a public school (in the UK sense) with no expense spared, and the way made smooth for them to get into Oxford. Supported all the way by mummy and daddy, without any need to get any work to keep themselves. Thanks for the various links you gave above. I shall certainly have a look at them. On the matter of subsidising various industries, we used to have a textile industry, car manufacturing industry and all sorts of other forms of work in Australia, which were subsidised in order to keep them going. Not a lot of it still going now. I think there is an argument for subsidising industries, not just as stage-dressing or as a theme park, but because it gives decent honest work to people who would otherwise not have it. And that of course is very true of the UK, which now has had several generations of people in the north who have no work.