Is the desire to blame your problems on someone less fortunate than you a British phenomenon, or is it a feature of all capitalist societies?
For example, the middle classes blaming the working classes for “having children to get a council house” for their own inability to buy a house, or the working classes blaming immigrants for their unemployment or the fact they can’t get a doctor’s appointment.
Why don’t we blame up more? Why don’t we blame the housing shortage on those who own second homes that lie empty half the year and on landlords who charge unreasonable amounts of rent? Why don’t we blame the government for underfunding education and health?
Like, I know these are broad generalisations and not every British person does this, but it real feels like a feature of our society is to “blame down” and I’m trying to work out if it’s a feature of capitalism due to propaganda, or if it’s something specific to our especially classist society?
Perhaps see also the weird way that people insist that the “real” upper class is made up of entirely lovely people with perfect manners who would never, ever be snobby and never ever blaming them for anything despite the fact that many of them own huge swathes of largely inaccessible, unused and unproductive land.