"NINE YEAR gap between social groups. Why class dictates how long you
live". This was the front page, not of the socialist but of the
right-wing newspaper – the Daily Express!
"Poverty and disease are not the only reasons why manual workers are
more at risk", it stated. "Researchers have discovered that the stress
and insecurity of society’s strict hierarchy will also take its toll by
up to nine years".
Clare Doyle
As if to back up socialist arguments, the scientists based at St.
Thomas’ Hospital London say in their report, published in the medical
journal ‘Ageing Cell’, that the stress of being in jobs with low social
status and self-esteem and of "having lots of bosses and areas in your
life you cannot control" is responsible for prematurely ageing people.
Then, as if to back up the entirely feasible story in the musical
‘Blood Brothers’, they compared the situation for 17 identical twins,
born in the same social category and then separated by one moving up and
the other down in the social scale. They found their research about the
stress of being working class was entirely confirmed!
A Transport and General Workers’ Union spokesperson commented to the
Daily Express: "This tells us in scientific terms what we already
know… Only two in 100 bus drivers make it to retirement because of the
stress of their jobs".
The research team leader, Professor Tim Spector, inadvertently
confirms that socialism seems to be the only way of getting rid of this
huge injustice based on class when he says, "I don’t think we’ll ever be
in a socialist utopia where everyone is equal and has the same level of
stress". But the evidence which he provides must precisely spur us to
fight harder for a society where opportunities are equal for all, and
where control and management of the economy are in the hands of directly
elected representatives who can be recalled at a moment’s notice. An end
to bosses, classes and orders from above!