Elitism or meritocracy in the UK?
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Yesterday, when I passed by a job centre I noticed several advertisements for workers in various administrative jobs. A typical advert is for a full-time administrative assistant in a commercial firm. They were looking for a fresh graduate or someone from a secretarial school with some working experience. The starting pay was between 10-12k GBP per annum (S$29,592-35,510 per annum or about S$2466-2959 per month). No 13-month bonus is paid in the UK.
Earlier today, I received a copy of the Oxford-Cambridge Careers Handbook. The starting salaries quoted by employers for fresh Oxbridge graduates were about 20-25k GBP per annum for engineering, humanities and science graduates. IT graduates and those who join the army can expect about 28k a year. Law graduates command the best salaries. Shearman & Stirling, a global law firm, is offering 36,500 GBP in the first year, 39,500 GBP in the second year and 72,000 GBP (S$213k per year or S$17,750 per month) for newly qualified lawyers after their Bar exams.
It illustrates the big pay difference between graduates from an 'average' university and those from Oxbridge colleges. In addition, it highlights the huge wage gap between different professions, with law graduates being paid 3-4 times more.
Needless to say, employers who advertised in the Oxford Cambridge Career Handbook are only interested in graduates with a 2:1 and better. -
Your point is elitism exists everywhere, even in so called free democratic states?
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Not as far as I think in SwitzerlandOriginally posted by Quincey:Your point is elitism exists everywhere, even in so called free democratic states?
Btw i think Geneva should make "elitism" a crime against humanity -
With so many tweaking of the original Westminster model of parliamentary democracy, our system of government is no longer a democracy but an autocratic self-centred pseudo-democracy.Originally posted by oxford mushroom:Yesterday, when I passed by a job centre I noticed several advertisements for workers in various administrative jobs. A typical advert is for a full-time administrative assistant in a commercial firm. They were looking for a fresh graduate or someone from a secretarial school with some working experience. The starting pay was between 10-12k GBP per annum (S$29,592-35,510 per annum or about S$2466-2959 per month). No 13-month bonus is paid in the UK.
Earlier today, I received a copy of the Oxford-Cambridge Careers Handbook. The starting salaries quoted by employers for fresh Oxbridge graduates were about 20-25k GBP per annum for engineering, humanities and science graduates. IT graduates and those who join the army can expect about 28k a year. Law graduates command the best salaries. Shearman & Stirling, a global law firm, is offering 36,500 GBP in the first year, 39,500 GBP in the second year and 72,000 GBP (S$213k per year or S$17,750 per month) for newly qualified lawyers after their Bar exams.
It illustrates the big pay difference between graduates from an 'average' university and those from Oxbridge colleges. In addition, it highlights the huge wage gap between different professions, with law graduates being paid 3-4 times more.
Needless to say, employers who advertised in the Oxford Cambridge Career Handbook are only interested in graduates with a 2:1 and better.
As for comparison of elitisms between that practised in UK and Singapore it is not possible to make comparison now as stated in the following post:-
When one thinks of the general principle "survival of the fittest", one usually refer to survival competitions among the animals in the kingdom of the wild or human beings among themselves.
One does not think of the government taking a part in surviving...
When the government is blur or acts blur about its roles, duties and responsibilities to the citizens and decided to go into business, and survive for its own sake then the whole equation of survival of the fittest is no longer valid.
Under such circumstances, people have no chance of survival as the government becomes the adversary for the following reasons:-
(1) It uses all people's resources for its own measures of success ; it creates all the high costs and use people's monies to go into business to compete against them.
(2) It passes all the laws to give themselves rewards and recognition and entrench in power.
(3) It uses the cmedia d ontrolled media to deny problems anto paint a successful picture of their policies even though people are not doing well and suffering from all kinds of problems.. -
The wage disparity between the different disciplines is a reflection of the values that the industry places on such skills vis-a-vis their perceived need to control or balance the cost structures of products or service output, against the human input.
Is it any wonder that those disciplines that are essential parts of the service or industry process will dictate the wages to be lower, as compared to that of a Lawyer, whose services are independent and have no direct input or influence to the outcome of the services or product of any industry.
When one needs a Lawyer, one is already locked by circumstances that leaves oneself at the mercy of the Lawyer.
Despite the limits to legal fees that are guided by the Law Society, it is simply amazing how the Law Firms can demand such high fees to represent even a simple case.
When the 'Dollar Value' of any case becomes significant, the legal fees will become even more substantial.
With a Legal System - in Singapore - that clocks its administration of Justice by monitoring the costs of the infrastructure and manpower to attend to any legal matters, is it any wonder that the Legal Profession has become the most profitable occupation ?
Is Singapore any different from UK, in terms of job opportunities and remuneration package for those who graduate in the various disciplines ?
If the value of money is the denominator and arbiter as to who is termed an Elite, is it any wonder if the legal mind of the POWER OF ONE has pushed its own salary into the stratosphere ?
Does meritocracy come into the equation ? -
So let me get this straight. You're comparing the salary of a "average university" graduate in an administrative role with that of an Oxbridge lawyer, and on that basis you're saying that Oxbridge graduates get higher salaries than those from "average universities"? Surely it's got nothing at all to do with the job to which the salaries pertain?
Do you have the faintest notion of developing hypotheses? Has anybody ever mentioned the phrase "double-barreled question" to you, and if they did, were you too busy strutting your stuff to listen? What kind of confused premises and research questions are you basing that supposed PhD thesis on?! -
Someone here is very pro-PAP....to the point of being biased.
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Originally posted by Gedanken:
I think you should re-read his posting. You appear to have misconstrued what he wrote.
So let me get this straight. You're comparing the salary of a "average university" graduate in an [b]administrative role with that of an Oxbridge lawyer, and on that basis you're saying that Oxbridge graduates get higher salaries than those from "average universities"? Surely it's got nothing at all to do with the job to which the salaries pertain?
Do you have the faintest notion of developing hypotheses? Has anybody ever mentioned the phrase "double-barreled question" to you, and if they did, were you too busy strutting your stuff to listen? What kind of confused premises and research questions are you basing that supposed PhD thesis on?![/b]
obiterdicta -
We should open our view to a wider percepective, so we must welcome everyone to have their own ideas. If not, what difference are we from the Gahmen, who is, controling the media?Originally posted by Rock^Star:Someone here is very pro-PAP....to the point of being biased.
Well, so OM is trying to attack our idea that elitism does not exist outside Singapore. Btw, I never say, "elitism does not exist outside Singapore" before. It's just that elitism is spreading it's evil touch to the respectable institutes in Singapore, where it is the cradle for our future leaders. If this idea continue to manifest and not nibbed in the bud, how many Mr Tan Jee Suan will we see in the near future?
Being an elite of a society does not mean that the particular person is an elitist. Getting into a better school, ended up with a better job with that qualification have NOTHING to do with making that person an elitist. It's the way of thinking that makes one an elitist. -
No I haven't.Originally posted by ObiterDicta:I think you should re-read his posting. You appear to have misconstrued what he wrote.
obiterdicta
He concluded:It illustrates the big pay difference between graduates from an 'average' university and those from Oxbridge colleges.
Where is the comparison of salaries between Oxbridge and other universities for the same role to support this conclusion?
Here's a tally of roles for the two groups of universities:
Other universities:
- full-time administrative assistant in a commercial firm
Oxbridge:
- engineering,
- humanities (field rather than role specified)
- science (field rather than role specified)
- the army
- law
Is there any overlap between the roles listed for Oxbridge and other universities?
The answer is obviously no, so a comparison to determine if Oxbridge degrees garner higher salaries can absolutely not be performed given the set of data provided, because the difference in roles (and attendant variations in salaries) is not controlled for - in layman's terms, there's nothing there that allows for an apples-with-apples comparison. Any first-year undergraduate would be able to see that the data provided is inadequate for answering the question at hand - how can you compare how different universities' graduates have different starting salaries when you compare the graduates on the same jobs?
If we're talking about salaries earned for various types of jobs, you'll hear no debate from me. If you're talking about the difference between Oxbridge and othe universities, mushie's conclusion is fallacious because it is clearly inadequately substantiated by the evidence proferred. -
No point discussing anything with him. He is not capable of any intelligent discussion at all and is only good at flaming others.Originally posted by ObiterDicta:I think you should re-read his posting. You appear to have misconstrued what he wrote.
obiterdicta
Any administrative job offering 10k a year cannot hope to attract an Oxbridge graduate when such graduates in general disciplines of Science and Humanities are offered 20-30k in consultancy jobs. -
You've made a fallacious argument and I've substantiated my case above with no flaming. Are you going to address it?Originally posted by oxford mushroom:No point discussing anything with him. He is not capable of any intelligent discussion at all and is only good at flaming others.
I'll leave it up to obiterdicta to make what he will of your response, how much intellectual integrity you have and the quality of your arguments. -
why would they wanna get administrative jobs when they're offered consultancy jobs?Originally posted by oxford mushroom:No point discussing anything with him. He is not capable of any intelligent discussion at all and is only good at flaming others.
Any administrative job offering 10k a year cannot hope to attract an Oxbridge graduate when such graduates in general disciplines of Science and Humanities are offered 20-30k in consultancy jobs. -
To prove that they are not elitist?Originally posted by shinta:why would they wanna get administrative jobs when they're offered consultancy jobs? -
Are 20-30K consultancy jobs offered ONLY to Oxbridge graduates? Are you saying that non-Oxbridge Science and Humanities degree holders are NOT eligible for consulting jobs? If an Exeter or LSE graduate were to be offered a consulting job worth 30K, would he or she choose instead to take a 10k administrative job?Originally posted by oxford mushroom:Any administrative job offering 10k a year cannot hope to attract an Oxbridge graduate when such graduates in general disciplines of Science and Humanities are offered 20-30k in consultancy jobs.
I'm laying my cards on the table and saying that on the basis of the issues I have just mentioned, your argument does not hold water. No flaming. I leave it up to you to address it, or to duck the issue by claiming that I'm flaming you. Your choice.
I'll leave it to anybody else reading this thread to read what mushy has written and read my challenge to his argument, and decide for themselves what's going on here. -
MMMMMMM and i tot that only junior members and members resort to flaming only
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Well NewAge, mushy would like to have you get distracted by the flaming issue so that he can avoid addressing the flaws in his argument. I would suggest that you read the questions I have raised in my post, decide for yourself if mushy's conclusions make sense in light of the issues I have raised and see if what he says actually adds up.Originally posted by NewAge:MMMMMMM and i tot that only junior members and members resort to flaming only -
Nah, it's just that some took argument too hard.Originally posted by NewAge:MMMMMMM and i tot that only junior members and members resort to flaming only -
Originally posted by Atobe:
It's interesting that you should mention that, Atobe. I'm sure that you would be aware that Roman advocates in 204 BC were prohibited from taking fees in exchange for their services. Of course, these days ambulance chasers have changed that situation and the conduct of the medical profession can also arguably be said to conform to the Hypocritical Oath.
The wage disparity between the different disciplines is a reflection of the values that the industry places on such skills vis-a-vis their perceived need to control or balance the cost structures of products or service output, against the human input.
Is it any wonder that those disciplines that are essential parts of the service or industry process will dictate the wages to be lower, as compared to that of a Lawyer, whose services are independent and have no direct input or influence to the outcome of the services or product of any industry.
When one needs a Lawyer, one is already locked by circumstances that leaves oneself at the mercy of the Lawyer.
Despite the limits to legal fees that are guided by the Law Society, it is simply amazing how the Law Firms can demand such high fees to represent even a simple case.
When the 'Dollar Value' of any case becomes significant, the legal fees will become even more substantial.
With a Legal System - in Singapore - that clocks its administration of Justice by monitoring the costs of the infrastructure and manpower to attend to any legal matters, is it any wonder that the Legal Profession has become the most profitable occupation ?
Is Singapore any different from UK, in terms of job opportunities and remuneration package for those who graduate in the various disciplines ?
If [b]the value of money is the denominator and arbiter as to who is termed an Elite, is it any wonder if the legal mind of the POWER OF ONE has pushed its own salary into the stratosphere ?
Does meritocracy come into the equation ?
[/b]
That said, we need to acknowledge that the workings of the world have changed and unless the concept of money is eliminated altogether, the talent will go where the money is. Max Weber's theory seems to hold water, insofar as status has supplanted class in societal structure. The best we can hope for is that some vestige of morals and ethics remain, although noblesse oblige is more likely what we end up being stuck with. -
Robert, the Westminister system allows for a shadow government to keep the ones in power honest. Singapore has never had such a system, and any and all questioning of the government's policies is squashed by a legal system that effectively supports and helps create an autocracy. In light of a lack of questioning, how can concepts such as truth and justice exist?Originally posted by robertteh:With so many tweaking of the original Westminster model of parliamentary democracy, our system of government is no longer a democracy but an autocratic self-centred pseudo-democracy.
As for comparison of elitisms between that practised in UK and Singapore it is not possible to make comparison now as stated in the following post:-
When one thinks of the general principle "survival of the fittest", one usually refer to survival competitions among the animals in the kingdom of the wild or human beings among themselves.
One does not think of the government taking a part in surviving...
When the government is blur or acts blur about its roles, duties and responsibilities to the citizens and decided to go into business, and survive for its own sake then the whole equation of survival of the fittest is no longer valid.
Under such circumstances, people have no chance of survival as the government becomes the adversary for the following reasons:-
(1) It uses all people's resources for its own measures of success ; it creates all the high costs and use people's monies to go into business to compete against them.
(2) It passes all the laws to give themselves rewards and recognition and entrench in power.
(3) It uses the cmedia d ontrolled media to deny problems anto paint a successful picture of their policies even though people are not doing well and suffering from all kinds of problems.. -
Why do we have so many problems with million-dollar salaries to our ministers and half or quarter million-dollar salaries to plain ordinary administrators whose duties are merely to collect fees and push papers.Originally posted by Gedanken:It's interesting that you should mention that, Atobe. I'm sure that you would be aware that Roman advocates in 204 BC were prohibited from taking fees in exchange for their services. Of course, these days ambulance chasers have changed that situation and the conduct of the medical profession can also arguably be said to conform to the Hypocritical Oath.
That said, we need to acknowledge that the workings of the world have changed and unless the concept of money is eliminated altogether, the talent will go where the money is. Max Weber's theory seems to hold water, insofar as status has supplanted class in societal structure. The best we can hope for is that some vestige of morals and ethics remain, although noblesse oblige is more likely what we end up being stuck with.
That was how our system is being run - citizens have allowed a system which leave it to a few men to keeping talking about their own talents and using their power to get to what they want for themselves and their own kind.
Actually talents and their worth are best judged by the market supply and demand but in our case, through lack of participations by the citizens and many years of gerrymandering power play the whole system has run the system as if they are the ones who could solve problems but have they really solved the problems.
Through lack of oppositions in parliaments and debates, the few men have been able to present themselves all kinds of policies and running of the country in a self-centred or one-sided manner. Actually most of the government services are mostly mundane with civil servants or ministers not responsible for any results of bottom lines.
Their jobs are mostly concerned with passing some laws and regulations and being charged of collections and payments. They are not answerable for lack of progress in economic restructuring or collapse of highways.
Yet through clever one-sided look-good presentations they were able to make it look like they do a great deal or worth much more supported at best by some artful fictitious benchmarks or measures which are not market proven.
For example, if one minister who was an ex-bank CEO was worth paid a million dollar let him be paid this amount if he is to be inducted to stand for election by exception.
But in our system, ministers were benchmarked against the highest paid CEOs including the incumbents who were previously paid much lesser that half-a-million per annum.
Surely someone who was previously worth only one third or less of a million cannot be worth suddenly the same million-dollar salary as someone else who was previously worth that pay by market supply and demand.
Is this an objective comparison or correct way to back-pay or back-increase our ministers or MPs or civil servants by this kind of benchmarked salaries?
If that is the benchmark by which employees are to be paid then those who were previously not paid that kind of monies should always be able to ask for similar pays.
Do we run a system of extrapolating employees' salaries to the highest paid among them or do we have a system based on the market place so as not to create NKF windfalls for bystanders or incumbents. -
Good points all, Robert, and I do agree. While we hope in vain for morals and ethics to assert themselves, all we get in fact is noblesse oblige, and when that illusion cracks we see its true face, as in the Wee case.
That said, I do believe that once upon a time, the compensation for ministers was commensurate with the role that they played in ensuring that the people of Singapore prospered along with themselves. Whether Joe Public's move up in the world was accidental or deliberate is a matter of debate, but suffice to say that the ends to that point justified the means.
However, that "once upon a time" ended in the early 80's, and what we have these days is a new breed of shysters who live off the achievements of the old guard, turning themselves into a thinly-disguised monarchy.
The unfortunate fact of the matter is that politically, Singapore is stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, we have a fragmented opposition that cannot gather itself up for long enough to develop a viable alternative platform. On the other hand, we have an increasingly incompetent mob of leaders who are backed up by a legal system that prohibits any challenge to their dominance.
Will we ever have a system that allows the government to be kept honest by allowing the people to ask the tough questions? Look at the "elitist" mess - the Prime Minister invites the raising of such touch questions at face value, but when Derek Wee takes up the offer, the press gags him and an MP supports his daughter in pooh-poohing him, suggesting that Derek cannot face the brutal truth when the brutal truth is in fact that the government is failing in its job.
The obvious question is, where do we go from here? The obvious answer is to implement the Westminster system, but even in the unlikely case that the government has the guts to allow differing views, does Singapore have an opposition that is capable of keeping the government honest, or do we instead have a mob of rabble-rousers who make noise purely out of vanity? -
Quite right, once upon the time, as our respected ex-Chief Minister David Marshal has lamented, people have greater passion because even with lower pays for part-time MPs and Ministers, who are more committed to accountability of office, there were many talents willing to serve the public.Originally posted by Gedanken:Good points all, Robert, and I do agree. While we hope in vain for morals and ethics to assert themselves, all we get in fact is noblesse oblige, and when that illusion cracks we see its true face, as in the Wee case.
That said, I do believe that once upon a time, the compensation for ministers was commensurate with the role that they played in ensuring that the people of Singapore prospered along with themselves. Whether Joe Public's move up in the world was accidental or deliberate is a matter of debate, but suffice to say that the ends to that point justified the means.
However, that "once upon a time" ended in the early 80's, and what we have these days is a new breed of shysters who live off the achievements of the old guard, turning themselves into a thinly-disguised monarchy.
The unfortunate fact of the matter is that politically, Singapore is stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, we have a fragmented opposition that cannot gather itself up for long enough to develop a viable alternative platform. On the other hand, we have an increasingly incompetent mob of leaders who are backed up by a legal system that prohibits any challenge to their dominance.
Will we ever have a system that allows the government to be kept honest by allowing the people to ask the tough questions? Look at the "elitist" mess - the Prime Minister invites the raising of such touch questions at face value, but when Derek Wee takes up the offer, the press gags him and an MP supports his daughter in pooh-poohing him, suggesting that Derek cannot face the brutal truth when the brutal truth is in fact that the government is failing in its job.
The obvious question is, where do we go from here? The obvious answer is to implement the Westminster system, but even in the unlikely case that the government has the guts to allow differing views, does Singapore have an opposition that is capable of keeping the government honest, or do we instead have a mob of rabble-rousers who make noise purely out of vanity?
Li Ka Shing recently decided to donate along with people like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates their wealth acquired with their own true entrepreneurship and abilities to the masses to help them to good causes or problems rather than bequeathing them solely to their own children.
Even among people we do not know among the general humanity there is this "pay back to society" mentality or morality or passions.
I cannot see why elites who benefited from greater opportunities and head-start in life due to clever presentations of so-called academic mugging abilities as real-world talents cannot measure up to half of such general standard or noblesse oblige.
Morality is therefore is real issue. Do our leaders and elites possess this kind of minimal or basic humanity to serve their fellow citizens who as ordinary world citizens have earned their keeps by sheer abilities and entrepreneurship which are not taken from the people in questionable benchmarking or legalistic compulsions. -
That last paragraph raises an interesting chicken-and-egg question, Robert. Given how the legal and political system in Singapore has been moulded to form a cocoon to protect the powers-that-be, one needs to ask if one needs to fight a loss of morality once in parliament, or indeed if the elimination of morals is the ticket to power in this mutated system in the first place.
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It is a sad fact of life which our founding father was hardly able to fathom that no matter how talented, once the talents see and feel the power of monies all noblesse oblige or morality will be just evaporated away like the dew in the morning sun.Originally posted by Gedanken:That last paragraph raises an interesting chicken-and-egg question, Robert. Given how the legal and political system in Singapore has been moulded to form a cocoon to protect the powers-that-be, one needs to ask if one needs to fight a loss of morality once in parliament, or indeed if the elimination of morals is the ticket to power in this mutated system in the first place.
Without a strong sense of right and wrong, without morality, money will overwhelm the desires to serve with passion and distinction.
Hip hop is a telling sign of such basic lack of morality.