In defence of the scrounger
Bubble — By Gareth Mantle on August 18, 2010 7:00 am
Unleash the bounty hunters: the Prime Minister announcing new steps to crack down on benefit fraud
NOT all recipients of benefits are “scroungers”. On this everyone – even representatives of this Westminster government – are agreed. But while many of us would go much further, Tory-led deficit hyperbole juxtaposed with a relentless right wing media has convinced the ordinary worker that money needs to be saved as a matter of urgency, and that while we’re looking for cuts, we should look down the economic ladder, and not up.
This form of cognitive dissonance may be hard to dislodge but it is important to try, for the logic of this cruellest of bandwagons is there to be unpicked. And, for me, the debate surrounding the public perception of benefit recipients can be analysed using the framework of the debate in biology and psychology about whether it is nature or nurture that makes us who we are.
In studies of early education, it is believed that nature, as in our genetic makeup, largely accounts for our ‘g’ score, a fixed measure of our brain’s cognitive skills, not too dissimilar to IQ. But the variation of these scores is low, and they are extremely weak predictors of occupational attainment.
Instead, it is widely recognised that other “non-cognitive” skills such as enthusiasm, readiness to learn, patience and ability to concentrate are, combined, much more important in determining how likely someone is to fulfil their potential.And, crucially, the development of these vital skills lies firmly on the nurture side of the argument – they come from our parenting, from our education, and from our communities.
So, two babies born with the same cognitive ability but into very different families could have outcomes that are worlds apart. Meaning that an average-ability child born into a well-nurturing environment (call him George W) could prosper and flourish whilst the same ability child born into a poor-nurturing environment would not.
The point is this: if the sole determinant of occupational outcome were innate mental ability, there would be some logical credence in the hostility that some are showing benefit recipients. A meritocracy they could argue and they’d be right, albeit a cold and brutally harsh meritocracy that totally dismissed the lottery of birth.
But no-one in their right mind could ever believe this to be the case. Instead, and it bears repeating, we are all products of our environment. If someone has not been able to make something of themselves as easily and so readily as George W did then logically we need to ask why.
Is it because they were born that way? Is there a gene for laziness? Or, more likely, is it because of the inequalities of income and opportunities that they faced growing up, the parent that didn’t have time to read to them, the teacher that couldn’t cater to them, or the contacts that they never knew how to get?
All of the evidence shows that potential at birth is distributed fairly and moderately. This means that where people have fallen into a position where they cannot find a job and so need support, they are likely to have been failed by inequalities in the society that they were brought into.
So what do we do? Do we invest in education, do we seek progressive means of taxation to try to put right what the free market has done wrong in our society? Or do we viciously attack benefit recipients as lazy scroungers that have no-one to blame but themselves.
Cuts need to be made, but the government has to look up the economic ladder when deciding where to make them, and not down. Sadly, there is little evidence that this is happening. Let’s finish with a quote from Richard Tawney that sums up the argument well:
Tags: social security“To criticise inequality is not to cherish the romantic illusion that all men are equal in character and intelligence. It is to hold that, while their natural endowments differ profoundly, it is the mark of a civilised society to aim at eliminating such inequalities as have their source, not in individual differences, but in its own organisation.”
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37 Comments
Gareth,
“Do we invest in education, do we seek progressive means of taxation?”
Labour has invested billions in education and has failed the children of the UK dramatically. Labour also overspent the budget so irresponsibly that cuts have to be made – “There is no money” but there is a massive debt which has nothing to do with the bankers.
When I left village primary school, a school that had leaking outside toilets, was freezing cold in winter, and a local charity provided shoes for the poorer children, not one child ever left that school at the age of eleven who was either illiterate or innumerate. Yet, under Labour’s care, record numbers of children are leaving secondary school neither literate nor numerate. Why?
A good education, breeds an enquiring mind that looks for answers and finds them. Also a good education helps to create a busy mind and busy hands that leads to gainful employment – even if it means leaving home and finding work somewhere on this globe.
Today, economically, it is better for many people on near minimum wage to be on benefits rather than work. Why did Labour ignore this state of affairs for so long. This is a real disincentive for those who do work for lower wages.
Children who are brought up in households where noone has ever worked do not know another life and how to find it. Children who are brought up in illiterate households are deprived on books that can open the mind to the real possibilities of life on this earth. This state of affairs is akin to child deprivation and even cruelty.
Yet, go back 60 years, and then even the poorest person had a few books – perhaps handed down from previous generations (books were far more expensive then than now) on a shelf that were treasured and read and read to their children. Now in many households the adults only read a picture magazine like Hello as they cannot understand the words – is Labour happy with that legacy?
Taxation will not provide the answer, but ensuring that every child has an excellent education will provide for their future – but this will only happen if the education establishment and unions acknowledge the failure of the present scholastic system and are willing to work together to improve it. This will not cost more money only a willingness for radical improvement.
If not, the BRIC countries and others whose education systems are far more rigorous that ours will race past us economically and there will be fewer jobs than at present.
I’m sorry but much of that article is nothing but over technical waffle. The point could have been made dramatically simpler and more effective than that.
Great article and spot on in my experience. The Daily Mail won’t tolerate an attempt at the necessary reform based on at least 2 generation of informed social engineering, so in 20 years the D.M. will still be writing about families of 8 which scrounge off the state.
I find it irrational that I want to argue that press reform is a pre-requisite to reforms to promote educational equality.
Whilst education is obviously an important factor to achieving a successful career and supporting yourself, I do not think that it is the ‘be all and end all’ solution to a big problem for our modern day society.
As the article suggests our values, attitudes and beliefs can be shaped by ‘nature’ or ‘nurture’, and whilst some people are naturally hardworking and determined to succeed there are others who just can’t be bothered and expect things to happen for them with no effort on their part.
I know people who left school with few qualifications and have gone on to great success in the workplace because they have always done the best that they can, and I also know others who have gained good university degrees but chosen to drift from job to job or just avoid working altogether.
Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that education will fix the problem of worklessness if some people just don’t want to work.
James Purnell and a host of New Labour people made this narrative available Cameron.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/dec/10/jamespurnell-welfare
CAR said: “I’m sorry but much of that article is nothing but over technical waffle. The point could have been made dramatically simpler and more effective than that.”
As I read it, the point of the article was to show logically that it isn’t rational to blame claimants’ problems all on themselves? A bit of technical language can therefore be forgiven, no?
Good stuff.
@ Financier – I fully agree with your point about equal access to top quality education, but seriously you taking the mick right?
‘Yet, go back 60 years, and then even the poorest person had a few books – perhaps handed down from previous generations (books were far more expensive then than now) on a shelf that were treasured and read and read to their children’
This sounds like a somwhat distorted account of history and a rather romantic view of society 60 years ago, and I would seriously dispute your claim that everybody had access to books back in those days. Over the past sixty years, for example, a large number of women have not had washing machines so they’ve been too busy washing by hand to afford the luxury of reading books, a large number of families lived in seriously cramped conditions in tenament flats so there were no room for the books, toilets were outside, so it was potentially too cold to sit outside reading Lady Chatterley’s lover or the complete works of Shakespere, and widespread contraception was not so widespread back then, so women were either too busy dieing in childbirth or grieving the death of their children to ensure their shelves were full of books. Scientific evidence espousing the intellectual deficiencies of the feckless poor and black people et al was still in full swing, do you remember the rivers of blood speech? Which permeated the very minds of those it studied, meaning for parts of society books became thought of as things for other people. Your vision of lets say a miner coming home from the pit, after a fourteen hour day and reaching for the ‘treasured’ copy of Pride and Prejudice whilst his children sit at his feet staring lovingly up at him as they eagerly devour the words, is just miles off the educational reality of the past sixty years for many people, of which the Conservative government has pretty much got to admit, has contributed to.
The current government inherited the government from the previous government, as did they inherit it from the previous government, and it might be worth thinking about what the current educational system would be like if that Labour money had not actually been invested? Historic political decisions made by the Conservatives have created a context of intergenerational trauma for many UK geographical areas, contexts which if you had seen or smelt, you would understand that it is actually very hard to concentrate and intellectually develop if the rest of society perceives you as scroungers. It kind of just adds insult to injury. Us priviliged, and I include myself in that, having had a very good education, thanks to working tax credit and bursaries for single mothers from the past Labour government, need to understand that education, health and housing are all interconnected, and if health and housing are inadquate then educational attainment is impossible. Not that I want to get all scientific about it, but that is pretty much a FACT.
Far too often rather than looking at statistics, people tend to generalise on individual cases or someone they know. This is even more of the case when it comes to talking about benefits.
What we do know is that when it comes to high levels of benefit claimant’s, post industrial Britain does very well. Is it because there is something in the water, or is it because of the rapid decline in opportunities in these places. The effect this has had on educational attainment meaning many are practically un employable.
Remember less than two generations ago these were some of the hardest working communities in the UK.
Financier tells a romantic tale of the past of even the poorest household having books. The reality is that poverty has always defined your educational chances it is just that there were in the immediate post war years opportunities for even the worst educated that just do not exist know. We live in a much tougher world where failings are punished harder.
The question we have to ask ourselves is where do they get it right, where do the children of the poor have better opportunities. Is it societies like America where the state gives hardly any help, no it isn’t in fact it tends to be societies where the state plays an active role.
We can carry on letting stories of scroungers shape are views for ever or we can take a more facts based view of the situation.
Estelle Morris noted that although political parties prattle on about (in New Labour Terms) “Education, Education, Education” they tend to concentrate on very week models of “systems, systems, systems”. There has been a simplistic belief that changing the composition of the Board of Governors and changing funding route counts as educational reform. In reality, what happens in classrooms and other aspects on the internal organisation of schools changes very, very slowly, and within parameters of “what counts as schooling” laid down in the nineteenth century.
The system – even in schools in the most working class areas, value the student outcomes as being a knowledgeable dilettante above being an entrepreneur. There is little alignment between the aspiration and needs of the working class child and what the system offers.
Oddly, in the past 60 years only one Education SoS who seemed to understand: Sir Keith Joseph. His actions were much more influential on education when he was at the DTI and at the Employment Ministry. His efforts were scuppered by Kenneth Baker, whose introduction of the National Curriculum sent schooling back to parodies of Grammar schools.
There is a need for radical rethink about education. This week Scotland has made a start with the Curriculum for Excellence. It still has too many unquestionned assumptions from what happened in the previous weeks – but it is a start. Although Wales is being more radical than England in its curriculum reform (Gove really scares me) it still is wedded too many past values.
An education to survive and thrive is what we need to lift people out of poverty.
Scrounger & Michaelt
I must disagree with your version of FACT. I was speaking from memory in 1960s, not romantic tales.. This was fifteen years after the war ended and at a time when the UK was receiving increasing competition from the new industries in Germany , USA and Japan.
I was brought up in a village of some 500 people, most of whom rented their small cottages, many of which did not have electricity or mains water. Most had outside toliets – no bathrooms. The local economy was based on dairy farming. During my time there I entered most of the houses and all that I entered had a bookshelf, full of books ranging from Mrs Beaton & the Bible to fiction. The village shop also had a very much used lending library. It was the same village from whose primary school noone left illiterate or innumerate.
Very few people had a car and most walked or cycled to work (some up to 5 miles each way) and my father walked 3 miles to the nearest railway station to catch the train for work. If somebody lost their job, they were not content until they had found another, even if it meant moving the family. There was a real spirit of aspiration by self-improvement and self-education or attending evening classes for HNC, HND etc. Nobody gave up if a job was not available in the village – the rest of the village would help to support that family in their time of need. We seem to have lost that spirit of aspiration today and many people seem unable to want to improve their skills level.
I work for a mental health charity and the irony is that whilst only one in five people with a long-term mental illness in Wales are in work, most both want and are able to work. It’s easy to label someone a ‘benefits scrounger’ but what is needed is a lot more personalised and tailored support, so that people can find appropriate employment, accompanied by a change in attitudes. Fewer than four in ten employers say they’d consider employing someone with a mental health problem, and not all health professionals are as encouraging and knowledgeable about employment as they could be.
Financer you may not like it but the statement I made is a fact, poverty has massive effect on educational attainment. This has been proven in studies to various to mention, the first of which I am aware of was carried out at the start of the 20th century.
What you are doing is giving anecdotes, the point I would make is that anecdotal evidence is a bad way of making policy.
‘Cuts need to be made, but the government has to look up the economic ladder when deciding where to make them, and not down’ I very much agree here.
In reality some scroungers are indefensible. They do not want to work or even contemplate it. Other scroungers tend to do alot of the nasty and heavy work that other breed of scroungers in our culture will avoid, cleaning out sheep sheds, digging ditchs, wrestling bulls and so on. Those other breed of scroungers get massive EU subsidies and increasingly generous grants from WAG to make them consider the natural world which they are not very predisposed to do.
We should look up the ladder for cuts, Council management, Quangocracy dudes are only worth about 30% of what they get. Council heads of dept’s on average receive double publicly elected Assembly Members salaries.
For the very poorest people in society, its the wrong situation having a Conservative government manned by ex-public school people who have little experience of people living in inner city council flats with drug infested and dangerous neighbourhoods. I can foresee social problems increasing though I hope not.
All this talk about educational attainment from the chattering classes. The same people with piss easy jobs tapping keys, talking on telephone and turning up for meetings. I have a Masters Degree and theirs a friend of mine who lives near who cannot read and does simple arithmetic using his fingers, this same guy is fantastic on tractor engines while I am fumbling about, hes a better plumber than me by a mile and he even maintains small wind turbines for people. I learn from him rather than the other way around.
A good point Senn – I agree.
But, to be fair, the article’s focus was on occupational attainment, and only educational (be it academic, or vocational) as a means to that end.
How many of the people who have commented on this post have lived in a council estate? For that matter the author himself? My family were working class both parents worked, and yet all around us lived people who claimed benefit, and fiddled the system. Our resentment was not based on reports in the Daily Mail or Tory propaganda (in fact Maggie was quite happy to have people on the dole). That’s not to say that all were that would be an unfair generalization. Whats worse now the children are now on benefit it now is trans generational.
The school that I attended was neglected whether it was a Labour or Tory government. I was told that it was the last stop for every lousy teacher in Cardiff. Schools like whit church always had new equipment even in my day (late 1970s).
The link of lack of achievement with poverty is absolute rot. My wife teaches at a school where 90% of the children are below the poverty line, yet has 80 graduation rate. Why is that? good leadership and dedicated teachers.
The answer is not charter schools, or free schools. its dedication and leadership.
A good eduaction is not a choice for a child. Its right that every child should have!
” So what do we do? Do we invest in education, do we seek progressive means of taxation to try to put right what the free market has done wrong in our society? ”
It depends where you live in the World and if you take trade seriously and the exchange of human ideas that is what we should do to reduce inequality.History tells us that the UK has been progressive not regressive Council Estate or Barratt Homes Estate or a Terrace House – it does not matter-but it does depend on school environment and the inspirational teacher or parent to guide into a hopeful fulfilling flourishing society.
As we know , in the modern world, innovation is a collective enterprise that relies on human exchange. As Brian Arthur sets out in his book “The Nature of Technology,” – technologies are combinations of other technologies and new ideas come from swapping things and thoughts.You see trade is what has been the fruit of education as human beings have evolved.This is the outlet to which a progressive society has been created.
History shows that when human beings started swapping things it led to mutually beneficial collective knowledge. The free market encourages innovation. In getting better at making your product or delivering your service, you come up with new tools. The story of the human race has been a gradual spread of specialisation and exchange. Prosperity consists of getting more and more narrow in what you make and more and more diverse in what you buy. A country with self-sufficiency and isolation will lead to cultural and economic poverty.
I recently read of an old example of agriculture invented where people were already living in dense trading societies. I read and learnt on a trip that the oldest farming settlements of all in what is now Syria and Jordan are situated at oases where trade routes crossed, as proved by finds of obsidian (volcanic glass) tools from Cappadocia. It is known that when farmers first colonised Greek islands 9,000 years ago they relied on imported tools and exported produce from the very start. Trade came before—and stimulated—farming.Free markets are not bad. The rate of cultural and economic progress depends on the rate at which ideas are flowing based on an evolving society.The free market is part of our society.Go to Russia and see what the lack of trade did to Eastern Europe -now relying on Western German exports as we do in the automotive sector.A cultural basket case in parts. Wales has much to rejoice in.
It takes all sorts to create a society but having a go at the freedom of the market is misplaced and does not do justice to the importance of exchange of ideas and trade.
Mike I grew up on a council estate an.
Yes we all know people who claim benefits all their lives. I haven’t come to the same conclusion as you though. I ask myself the question why are people on this estate more likely to live on benefits then people living in middle class areas? Why are their levels of educational attainment lower? Why are they allot less likely to go to university? I have come to the answer that it is not as simple as laziness.
The fact that you do not accept the link between poverty and educational attainment is frustrating but does not mean it does not exist. I will however read with interest any statistics you can produce that prove that children raised in poverty achieve equivalent results to their better of counterparts, at any age.
The reality is that poverty does give kids a bum start in life. It is this problem that this government should be working to resolve. I see, in fairness, that Nick Clegg has spent the day talking about exactly this issue. The fact he recognises that inequality exists is a good start, let’s see how he goes from here.
Here is a link to an article that spelt out the problems even in the boom years.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/sep/26/comment.politics
Time to decipher the article; I say this because after reading all the responses there seems to be critical components missing submitted by individuals from all walks of life. The article pointed out that it is not just education, but also community and nurture, that has an impact on each person who is brought up in our society – we are products of our environment (largely) and as such we are therefore influenced by what home life and society does to us.
Imagine you live in a society where there are three generations, or more, of unemployment and after the debacle of banking collapse and rampant consumerism fuelled by the greed of the former intelligentsia (a result of the supposedly self-regulated, free market system espoused by the Thatcherite years and beyond) you find that your income, what little there is in the first place, is reduced to pay for the mistakes made by people who have wealth beyond your wildest dreams. And, by the way, many of these people would relish the opportunity of a job and a meaningful existence……but of course they must be scroungers because they do nothing about it……
There is a grave stone covering the remains of a wealthy coal mining magnate in Ponsticill not a million miles away from London, or Cardiff (but they obviously think it is – out of sight, out of mind); local legend has it that the stone covering him is so big to ensure “the bugger doesn’t get back up again”. The sense of community back then was immeasurable, in spite of the hardship, but society has moved on conveniently replacing the ‘downtrodden’ with the label ‘scroungers’. Not all recipients of benefits are scroungers, the article is right, and each individual is the product of the society from which they came…think about it….our parenting, our education, our community, the messages sent out by our politicians….their actions. Remember Tawney and look back up the ladder.
I disgree with much in this article, but most of my views are aired above.
A few points:
The articlecontains phrases that smack of complacency. ‘Deficit hyperbole’? OK, shall we ignore it then, as Labour did at the last election – and let our kids worry about it in a few decades? Then we get the tired old ‘relentless right wing media’? Where is this media conspiracy? The Guardian? The Independent? The Daily Mirror? The Times? (which urged readers to vote Labour until Gordon took over). BBC? ITV? We don’t all read the Telegraph or the Daily Mail.
As far as I can make out, the argument is that we travel down the same blind alley but tax richer people more to throw it into the existing black hole. No thanks. Let’s make it more economically attractive for people to consider wanting a job and provide a lot of support. And if you really are a scrounger, I don’t want to subsidise you.
Will – I don’t agree with much of what you’ve said…
I think most people would agree that this Government is exaggerating the extent of the need to cut the deficit for effect (definition of hyperbole) – for example, do you really think if we didn’t make massive cuts right away we’d be in the same situation as Greece?
And if you think that there is NO ideological drive in what they’re doing, which follows from there being no hyperbole, then I’m afraid that in my opinion this is very naive. That there is an ideological drive is suggested by the billions they are prepared to spend where it suits them, e.g. NHS reorganisation.
So I think he’s right to say there is hyperbole (that is different from denying it completely). I also think the writer has a point with the media. And, no, it doesn’t need to be an organised conspiracy, as you suggest. Why would it?
Ask yourself though… three of the most read papers in particular, the Sun, the Daily Express and Daily Mail, how many stories have you seen of someone cheating the benefit system or someone on benefits being made out to be undeserving? And now ask yourself how many stories you have seen of tax evaders? Even though tax evasion costs the Government EIGHTY times what benefit fraud does.
The argument, as I saw it, was that it’s all to easy to say what you say “I don’t want to subsidise scroungers” but a deeper analysis would question why that person is in the situation that they’re in. And whether you should logically come to the same conclusion as you did before considering it, and crucially, with as much passion as you did.
In other words people that say such things should realise that they could easily have been in the same situation had they been born into a different family.
@ Will. I think the essence of the overall argument, is indeed that the wealthier part of society should pay higher taxes. I personally think that’s a jolly good idea. The higher earning friends I know in Sweden show no resentment for paying 60% tax on their income, and their country does not have the rate of teenage pregnancies, nor prison population, nor levels of teenage drug and alcohol abuse that we do. These are caused from the effects of existing in contexts of inter-generational poverty, not from innate moral defects.
Our free press in the UK is a positive part of our democracy and indeed plays a great role in ensuring the integrity of those in power is kept in check. It isn’t until you go somewhere like China et al, that you realise that having even Rupes Murdoch at the helm is better than the levels of censorship they have there. But the very fact that the Chinese government spend a large sum of dosh on censorship indicates the powerful influence media ideas have on the way people think, feel and operate in society. It influences our perceptions of others, and shapes how we would approach, for example the genre of say ‘scroungers’. However, I can understand that you would not want to part with your hard earned cash, but seriously, how much does one person actually need? There’s surely only so much cavier and champagne one person can eat in a life time, metaphorically speaking of course. And there’s no denying it, scrounger or banker, you can not take it with you. No one, except perhaps god, can escape that one.
We desperately need the help of people like you, or at least your understanding, to ensure that as you yourself say, we do not ‘let our kids worry about it in a few decades’, but in this context I refer to the long term, effects poverty has on the whole of society. It does not matter how many gates are put up, poverty and the people that live in it will not go away.
I give you an example of a woman I worked with once, she was 28, she had no job, she took drugs, she sometimes stole things from a shop
The whole nature v nurture argument is well trodden. But one fact that must not be overlooked is that the communities that are now so dependent on welfare are the product of the same communities that provided the blood, sweat and tears that produced the industrial revolution. These communities do not consist of people who are genetically lazy and their current position is largely a product of global and local economics.
There is some great arguments been put forward on this post. Maybe we should get Question Time to put us all on the panel instead of the dull witted politicians and personality professionals that you usually get on!
@Geoff Wood- that coal merchant you mention, yes their is a certain notoriety about some of the very wealthy in the minds of many people. Maybe notoriety is not the exact word. A suspicion maybe.
@Dwayne J – ‘And now ask yourself how many stories you have seen of tax evaders? Even though tax evasion costs the Government EIGHTY times what benefit fraud does’ Good point
@scrounger. Good idea about wealthier people paying higher taxes. But you could also look at it that the weather is so variable in this country (UK) and we all quite well packed into a relatively small island that alot of those rich would just emigrate and take the dosh with em. Public money used more intelligently
For me the bottom line is Government and Media are inseparable. They are both keeping an eye on each other. Predicting each others responses and so on. So if the tabloids are hitting on ‘scroungers’ the government pays attention to htis rather than rich tax evaders….
It’s cold, old fashioned human nature at work disguised neatly…..the ones at the bottom are the ones targeted, target the weak and the less powerful, nothing new in the annals of civilisation.
I think the inseparability of government and media is an excellent point, and is more true now than it has even been. There needn’t be a conspiracy, as previously suggested, but if they act in what they perceive to be their own self-interest, then in time they become intertwined with each other.
“And if you think that there is NO ideological drive in what they’re doing, which follows from there being no hyperbole, then I’m afraid that in my opinion this is very naive.”
Dwayne J is right to say this, but it would also be naive not to recognise that the previous Labour government was committed to the same ideology, namely neo-liberalism. They moved vast parts of the health service into the private sector, saddling the NHS in England with a massive PFI debt (reported last week)- only devolution (and directly, Plaid Cymru in 2007′s One Wales agreement) prevented the same thing from happening here.
They also sold off all of the profitable parts of the Royal Mail to foreign bidders, refused to build significant numbers of affordable homes (again in England at least), and under James Purnell drew up welfare reforms very similar to the ones being criticised in this article.
I agree that the Tory-Lib Dem commitment to slashing the state is ideological- but Labour shared exactly that same commitment.
The PCS Privatisation Forum noted in 2009 (only last year!) that “The Labour government’s ideological preference for private sector delivery of public services has been a betrayal of Labour’s traditional public service values, especially its reliance on the private finance initiative (PFI) to deliver funding.
Having opposed PFI whilst in opposition, Labour increased its reach and scope across public services once in office. ”
http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/resources/privatisation-and-outsourcing-toolkit/privatisation-forum-report.cfm
Similarly, the Labour Union Digest reported the comments of Mark Serwotka only four months ago that Labour privatised more jobs than Thatcher and Major combined.
They all share that same neo-liberal ideology.
Although, as you suggest, there is clearly an ideological difference between Labour and Welsh Labour. But that is well-known and to elaborate would be to drift from the original point.
What is interesting is that British Social attitude surveys always show a huge majority who believe that the gap between rich and poor is too wide. But then only half this figure believe that governments can do anything about inequality or should spend more money on welfare benefits for the poor.
The problem for the Left is how do you convince the majority that we will all be better off if you follow the argument in ‘The Spirit Level’ if society became more equal. This is where the ‘scrounger’ does such a disservice to the majority on benefits who do want to work and do want to contribute to society. There have always been wasters in society even during the prosperous years. The benefits system was never designed for people never to work or finish work at a early age. If those on the Left of society don’t understand that you have to reform welfare then the right will always win at the ballot box. Labour’s mistake was not to try to reform the system from the very beginning.
It’s easy and lazy politics to place the blame on capitalism or on the Blairites in the Labour party. Far harder to look for solutions which try to break the cycle of deprivation within the lumpen proletariat. This small group of individuals who are completely alienated from society do immense harm to the image of the areas they live in whether it is Wales or other parts of the UK. Desperate for Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame they play up to the outsider and confirm the prejudices of the majority. On September 7th Sky will show Jeff Randall’s documentary ‘A town like Merthyr’. It will like a recent Channel 4 documentary ‘Under age and having sex’ do real damage to any attempt to argue for extra money for Wales via the Barnett formula. Only this week there is an interesting article in the Guardian about child poverty in Wales. The comments which followed the article are overwhelmingly negative.
The key isn’t just formal education. It’s also about values and identity. The key is to inculcate again the values of hard work and a belief in community.In the age of contraception there is absolutely no need for anyone to have an unwanted pregnancy There are two parts to the slogan ‘A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.’ Any real socialist would only support handouts for those who cannot help themselves. Keir Hardie would be appalled if he came back to certain parts of Wales today. Randall asked young people in Merthyr why they didn’t look for work in places such as Cardiff. Instead of talking about travel costs the answer which must have been music to Randall’s ears was ‘I wouldn’t even know where it is’. The Left should be asking why there are Community First wards in Cardiff when the city has been booming in the past 20 years?
Socialism isn’t just about the state spending money. It’s also about attitudes and values particularly moral values. The key influence in inculcating these attitudes are our parents as anyone of my generation knows. The only time my father was ever unemployed was during the early 1930s. He would do any job rather than accept benefits. He would appalled and ashamed at the thought of the state giving me a free breakfast. His attitude would be if you can afford a can of lager or a packet of cigarettes then you can afford to ensure that your children start the day with a breakfast. It’s called getting your priorities right.
Labour lost on May 6 th not because 3.5 million potential voters couldn’t even be bothered to even register to vote. The party lost because on so many issues it didn’t listen to its traditional supporters who work hard, pay their taxes and do believe in society. One of the issues that those supporters whether they live in London or the valleys want politicians to deal with is abuse of the welfare system. If the Left doesn’t realise that then it may as well forget about winning elections in the future.
Nonsense Jeff, you completely misunderstand the book the Spirit Level if you think the lumpen proletariat or the poor as I will refer to them are keeping themselves poor. Even the Economist article you have clearly borrowed so heavily from, recognises that serious redistribution is necessary if people are to have a fair crack and are not left by our neo liberal economy to lives of waste and unfulfilled potential.
Jeff by blaming individuals and their life style you have-not explained a point I raised earlier in the discussion, and one you highlight. If it is simply about laziness. Why is laziness so unevenly spread? Why does it seem to occur with such consistency ‘A town like Merthyr’? Could a less simplistic answer be it has nothing to do with 15 mins of fame and more to do with poverty?
Jeff It is far lazier politics to blame the “lumpens.” I have no illusions there are some unpleasant individuals out there, as I said earlier I grew up on a large council estate. However coming to the conclusion that they are the course of this countries ills because of laziness or attention seeking is bizarre. It takes us back to the Victorian notion of deserving and undeserving poor.
I hear a lot of talk these days about rewarding effort lets consciously make ourselves a society of effort rewarders stop making excuses and turn ourselves in to a meritocracy where peoples life chances are not defined by their parents wealth but their effort and hard work. The first step is to narrow the income gap to make the ladder easier to climb. The statistics are clear the bigger the income gap the less socially mobile and less rewarding a society is.
Michaelt. I do not think you have any clue what you are talking about, you may dismiss anything I may say as just “anecdote”. Jeff Jones is right as is my wife who as a teacher will tell you after a visit to many a household on both sides of the pond, that a house has no food for the kids but in the corner a huge screen TV. I grew up in a street where there were people on benefits who left their kids to head down to the club or pub. Then when I come back I see their children in the same state. I don’t blame them – it’s the system that allows then to do it. The real poor are the low paid who would rather work than accept handouts. People who work their knackers off for peanuts, that is where I would agree with you on the iniquities of neoliberalism. The school that I attended was neglected whether Labour or Conservatives were in charge. Education is the answer, however schools have to work with the communities that they are in. There must be more contact between school and parents working together.
Purely from an economic perspective the government (fairness is being postulated like never before) has no business picking on ‘scroungers’ or the low waged or even the lady who cleans toilets for an extra fiver a week on top of the dole.
When government can sit back and watch banks which have been brought into near 100% public ownership pay out bonuses to brokers. When central governemnt sits back and watch’s Council chief’s increase their own salaries by large amounts or from an economic perspective watch the EU in it’s CAP pay out Billions to
UK farmers in handouts (which the UK taxpayer funds as a member state). Rhodri-Glyn Thomas has recently mentioned that CAP accounts for 90% of the income of farmers in a newspaper article. I can bring you to a guy in a wheelchair who receives three and a half thousand quid a year and just up the road a cattle farmer who gets ninety-six thousand quid a year with his house fully paid for.
@michael T ‘The statistics are clear the bigger the income gap the less socially mobile and less rewarding a society is.’
I agree Michael but don’t count on politicians ‘really’ doing anything to upset the natural order of things.
Sorry MikeT for that intemeperate outburst. However I do believe that the poor are the low paid who have to work 2 jobs to make ends meet.
A good sound education system that meets the individual needs of different abilities is what is needed.
No I do not dismiss what you say. I would say that statistics often tell a very different story than anecdote.
I am not painting benefit claimants as saints or sinners. What I am saying is we have a problem in this country with an underclass who are long term unemployed, often struggled at school and will suffer disproportionately with things like mental health problems.
If we want to affect this state of affairs we have to understand why this happens. Why it happens massively disproportionately to the children of the poor, and why it happens more in countries like the UK than other societies. I don’t think the laziness explanation gets us anywhere near answering this question or resolving it.
We know that in more equal societies, as the book Jeff talks about describes, they have more success. They often do this while having stronger social systems. Whereas at the other end of the spectrum you have the USA where there is barely any safety net and people are effectively told to get on with it. They have even bigger problems than us.
It is not that I do not recognise the stories you tell. I would say it is completely unfair to tar everyone on benefits with this brush, your failure to point this out is dangerous.
The question has to be how do we stop this happening to the next generation? Do we follow countries that have been more successful or do we finger wag at these terrible people.
To be fair MikeT I did say in my original comment that not all claimants are “scroungers”, and I do not say those who may be described as such are morally culpable,the impersonal system that enables them.is.
The comment about the US is not entirely fair. It depends on the community that you. live in. However I have lived in Colorado, LA and now SW Kansas where local churches provide meals for poor families, help with housing and jobs.
Also those who are below the poverty rate in the US is about 12% which may be lower than the UK and Wales.
However I have to take issue with Financier who made the comment that the deficit had nothing to do with Bankers. Well it does at least in the US, has everything to do with bankers.
Mike my comment about the USA was more about the lack of a universal guarantee or safety net. I think most people in the UK while being very impressed with the work of some churches, would feel it is inadequate to rely on. Hearing in a channel 4 documentary the news that tent cities of the unemployed and poorly paid were popping up across the US disgusted me.
You are perfectly right financer seems to be of the persistent belief that free markets will save everything. So to admit that the ridiculously under regulated banking sector nearly brought down the global economy would be difficult. To further admit that it was state intervention that brought it back from the brink would be asking too much.
This however is the crux of the matter. It is due to the massive cost of this intervention and the general extra burden on public finances of a recession, that we are here now. I am unwilling as I am sure you are to allow the myth that a few lazy people on council estates brought us here. Or to allow the failure of the free market to strip away our important safety net. A net that is one of the few barriers we have between us and chaos.
Just like to say how much I enjoyed senn’s last post – an excellent point about CAP that mustn’t be forgotten!
Yeah I actually hate Wall street scroungers, they are evil beyond redemption!
The study of the ecological factors that govern fighting over resources has been analyzed by resource defense theory and evolutionary hawk-dove games. In essence, the models predict that increasing economic defendability of a resource should lead to increased frequency of aggression among competitors. We question this prediction because it is based on testing the assumption that individuals that do not possess a resource and must decide whether to attempt aggressive appropriation of another individual’s resource face the same economic decision as those that already have possession of a resource and must decide whether to defend against an appropriator’s attack. Using an evolutionary game analysis, we explore how changes in group size, clump density, patch richness, and predation hazards affect both the decision to appropriate and defend a resource and interact to predict effects on the frequency of aggression and aggressiveness of individuals.