Introduction

A coherent education system that prioritises the development of a range of skills and aptitudes necessary for progress in 21st-century life (in particular, for those from lower socioeconomic groups) and a labour market that concentrates on how to enhance the capabilities of workers and the quality of their work (especially for those in low-skilled work) are the twin foundations of holistic social mobility. But both require reform in the economic and social system, if they are to be built on anything other than shifting sand.

The existing social mobility discourse stops short of connecting with a debate around the broader social and economic model. Equally, debates around the nature of the system rarely touch explicitly on social mobility. At the same time, more long-standing concerns about what ‘success’ means in early 21st-century capitalist economies, and whether the pursuit of purely economic goals is actually the best way of maximising societal welfare, have led to a growing literature on economic and social well-being. However, neither the literature on alternative ways of running capitalist economies nor the social mobility discourse engages with this work in a substantive way. There has been a growing literature in the last 20 years that goes beyond well-being to look at happiness and to argue that we now have sufficient evidence and methodological capability to build on the philosophical claims regarding the primacy of happiness. This chapter attempts to join the dots and connect these different sets of ideas.

A broken Britain?

There has been increasing interest since the late 2000s in the degree to which the dominant economic model in the UK, and throughout the capitalist West, is ‘fit for purpose’ in the wake of the most recent recession (Hutton, 1996, James 2007, Crouch 2009, Green 2009, Lawson 2009, Sainsbury 2013). There is an alternative vision for early 21st-century capitalism that rejects the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ consumerist/materialist view, which has grown in prominence since the 1970s. In general, however, what this vision lacks is an appreciation of the extent to which individual behaviour needs to change. And where this is understood, the need to change what social mobility means in order for these changes to occur is not recognised by this spectrum of authors. As much as the government(s) they often set out to criticise they accept a narrow and sterile vision of social mobility.