WORLD WORLDWIDE uk United Kingdom - news journal UPDATE - (en) UK, ACG: The Garrick Club: Just One Emblem of Class Rule and Patriarchy (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The Garrick Club is just one of the elitist institutions in London set

up to enable networking within the various parts of the ruling class and
the State. Other clubs for the rich and powerful, the so called "great"
and "good," include Annabel's, the Athenaeum, Boodle's, Brook's, the
Conduit,  the Marylebone Cricket Club, and many others. To this can be
added the Bullingdon Club open to elite members of Oxford University.
---- The Garrick is one of the oldest of these clubs, founded in 1831.
It geared itself to the arts and theatre, naming itself after actor
David Garrick, and had or has members like Charles Dickens, H.G. Wells,
Kingsley Amis, actors Stephen Fry, Benedict Cumberbatch, Hugh
Bonneville, David Suchet,  Damian Lewis, and the Dire Straits guitarist
Mark Knopfler. Alongside this have been generals like Sir Andrew Barnard
and big capitalists like the railway magnate Francis Mills. The Guardian
newspaper recently revealed its current membership, which includes King
Charles, the head of MI6, the head of the civil service,  deputy Prime
Minister Oliver Dowden, and many judges.

With the revelations over the membership of this exclusive club, which
still maintains a men-only proviso, provided by the Guardian newspaper,
there was a spate of resignations. These included Dowden, the bosses of
the civil service and MI6, and a handful of judges. They were
embarrassed by the spotlight put on the maintenance of male membership
and exclusion of women.

All these clubs provide venues for the networking of the rich and
influential, where rewarding deals can be passed by those in government
to the super rich, as for example the provision of  medical equipment
during the COVID crisis.

Practically all these clubs are composed of those who attended public
schools like Eton and Harrow, and  Oxford and Cambridge Universities.
Provision is made for up-and-coming capitalists and celebrities, who did
not come from this privileged environment, but these are in the
minority. It's all about influence, whether in politics, arts, the
military, or big business. It is about beneficial networking for those
in different sectors of the ruling class and the State, including
Westminster, the civil service, the monarchy and the judiciary and the
magistracy.

The majority of these clubs were founded in the 19th century when there
was fear of an insubordinate working class and where cloistered safe
havens were needed by the elite, to socialise and to hatch their plans.
These clubs were replicated throughout the British Empire as local
organising centres of imperialism.

As such, they represent emblems of ruling class power and patriarchy.
But the recent media attention has been far more focussed on the
exclusion of women than on the elite socialising and networking.

Of course, the maintenance of these bastions of male privilege is
deplorable. But do we really think they would any better if elite women
were allowed into their spaces, just as the military and police would
not be reformed and altered from their prime tasks of killing and
maintaining class rule, by having female generals and chief constables?

As fortresses of capitalist domination and maintenance of patriarchy
they must be swept away.

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2024/03/29/the-garrick-club-just-one-emblem-of-class-rule-and-patriarchy/
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