Upstairs Downstairs

We have just finished watching all the episodes of the first serious of Upstairs Downstairs. For those of you not addicted to English drama (why are they so much better than ours?) this BBC series from 1971 to 1975; 68 episodes. Instead of Public Television we watched them at the rate of 2 or 3 a day on Netflix. It was an addiction. Now if I can find the new series somewhere we’ll watch them.

Jean Marsh and Eileen Atkins whose parents were both “in service” in Britain created the series and Jean Marsh acted in the series. They originally were going write about the downstairs, the servants of an aristocratic family, but then wisely decided to include the upstairs folks and the dynamics between these English classes.

What is striking is the loyalty of the servants to their masters, despite quarrels from time to time. And, their politics are essentially the same. Lord Richard Bellamy, the head of the upstairs household, though dependent upon his wife’s money, is a member of the House of Lords and a Tory (conservative) bent on maintaining the traditions and customs of the country including the class system. The butler, Angus Hudson, politics mirror those of his masters seeing it important that everyone understand their place in society and the honor of serving their employers/masters.

Does that seem quaint or does it actually mirror today’s American society? Though we don’t call them royalty, we have economic royalty in this country; you can find a partial list annually in Forbes magazine richest people in the country. Folk in this include the Waltons: Bud and Sam who founded Wal-Mart; Jim (John), Rob, Alice, and Helen all are listed in the top 10 of the Forbes 400 since 2001. They control 48% of the company and are worth about 102 billion or these six have the same amount of wealth as the bottom 30% of the country.

Wal-Mart sells one quarter of the groceries in the country, primarily to those in that bottom 30% because their prices are cheaper as well as many many others. They have 3,-29 supercenters plus discount stores, supermarkets, Wal-Mart itself, Sam’s Club totaling 4,479 stores; that is in American, there are an additional 5,651 stores internationally giving a total of 10,130 stores. They seem to be the “company store” of America and beyond (Remember Tennessee Ernie Ford’s rendition of Sixteen Tons? Here’s the chorus:

You load sixteen tons, what do you get

Another day older and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the company store

The Tories are still England’s strongest political party. It is traditionalist and conservative views that grew out of the Cavalier facts of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Strangely the origin of the term tory comes from Middle Irish and means outlaw, robber or brigand.

Today we have in our society a more elite royalty than ever seen in the early 1900’s in England. We know the numbers of upper one tenth of the upper 1% of the country; about 1400 people control over half the wealth of the country and wield enormous political power with their wealth and influence. Today, though the number of Independents are growing Democrats have fallen from 36% to 32% today, and Republican remain fairly stable at about a quarter of the population. But despite being in the minority the Republicans control both houses of congress and promote ideas most of the country does not endorse if you take issues individually. [Note Obama's claim that the majority of American agree with him on spending cuts and tax increases to fix the budget; PolitiFact concurs Obama said of a balanced approach to deficit reduction that "the majority of the American people agree with me and this approach, including, by the way, a majority of Republicans." We found two polls that supported his statement in its entirety, several polls that supported at least the first half, and polls from Rasmussen and Republican pollster Winston Group presented more of a mixed picture. The majority of the polls we found support the president. We rate the president’s statement Mostly True.]

Perhaps it is upstairs downstairs American style. A lot of loyalties to folk we assume know more than we do; or they just buy elections and manipulate us genially and well. Confusing.