THE PROBLEM OF INEQUALITY
The reaction to the publication of the report “An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK” has been perhaps overly predictable.
It must be remembered that this report was commissioned by the government itself, at the initiative of Harriet Harman, and is designed to provide the empirical basis for making decisions on how to combat inequality. If the Labour Party were uninterested in combating inequality then they wouldn’t have commissioned such a comprehensive, warts and all, report.
We need to set aside some of the hyperbole first. According to the blogger, Richard Seymour, at Lenin’s Tomb: “New Labour has run, in many ways, the most right-wing administration since the Second World War.”. According to Harpy Marx: “This is what happens when a government adheres to a neoliberal and free market ideology, and that means class warfare. ”
The results of the survey are sobering, and should certainly be used to refocus the labour movement’s thinking both in what are objectives are with regard to overcoming inequality, and in how we seek to achieve them. But to describe the record of the Labour government quite so scathingly is a mistake.
The “most right wing government since the second world war” would not have brought in the national minimum wage, introduced civil partnerships, abolished clause 28, brought in Sure Start centres and Working Tax Credits, introduced meaningful devolution for Wales and Scotland, assisted a peace process that has brought Sinn Fein into coalition government in Northern Ireland, provided a statutory route to union recognition, created the Union Learning Fund, and overseen a fundamental shift in liberalising social attitiudes.
An unmitigated neo-liberal government committed to “class war” against the poor would not have brought an extra 2.4 million people into work (comparing 2007 to 1997), lifted 2.4 million over the relative poverty line, taken one million pensioners out of poverty, and moved the UK from having the highest levels of child poverty in Europe in 1997 to close the European average by 2007.
To criticise the record of the government, we need to understand what they tried to achieve, and then to assess what they should have done differently.
Liam Mac Uaid is horrified that relative social mobility has declined. This is indeed disappointing, as there had been a tentative expectation that social mobility was going to show an improvement in this report, but this would have in fact been the first improvement since the early 1970s.
We need to understand the concepts. Whereas improvements in absolute social mobility reflects the shift towards a higher proportion of high status, high income jobs and overall improvement in absolute wages, cultural and educational attainment and other indicators of social capital; relative social mobility addresses the issue of how much your life chances reflect the circumstances of your birth. Social mobility is a distinct phenomenon not necessarily related to either inequality or poverty.
It is certainly true that children from poor backgrounds growing up in the 1970s and 1980s in the UK had far worse prospects for social improvements than those growing up in the 1960s and 1970s. But what is interesting is that the shift in the UK over that period has shifted to become closer to the American norm, which had historically been more socially mobile than the UK, due to less weight being given to inherited social status.
The reason that relative social mobility is a hard nut to crack for government is that the low hanging fruit have already been picked: with the introduction of comprehensive education, raised school leaving age, universal health care and welfare benefits removing some of the worst disadvantages for working class children; as well as social shifts that have lessened the effect of middle class snobbery.
What is more, shifts towards a more knowledge based economy reversed the trend, and increased the weight of class advantage. The proportion of young people going to university increased from 15% to 28% between 1988 and 1992; but while the proportion of young people from the most affluent 20% going to university rose from 20% to 37%, the proportion from the least affluent 20% increased from just 6% to only 7%.
The paradox is that increasing access to higher education has disproportionately benefitted the already better off.
There is also a process of residualisation occurring. This was explained by the Blairite minister, Hilary Armstrong, that decades of presumption by the left had assumed that removing the structural impediments that had crippled the prospects for working class people and lifting people out of poverty, would solve social inequality. This had seen decades of success but the last domino failed to fall: the poorest 2.5% of the population remained deeply entrenched in poverty, and increasingly disconnected from the social mainstream.
The argument here is that as the more superficial causes of social inequality have been addressed, those that remain are more deeply entrenched.
Whether or not we accept this prescription, this hard to reach, hard to help, minority of the population have been the focus of the government’s poverty reduction strategy. The typical pattern of deeply entrenched poverty involves dysfunctional parenting, with a family with patterns of low educational achievement, drifting in and out of the criminal justice system, problems with neighbours and perhaps undiagnosed mental health problems. Persons at risk of a lifetime of poverty will have clear warning signs: low birth weight, educational under-achievement, early sexual activity, truancy, etc.
The Labour government has concentrated in a series of initiatives, of which Sure Start is the highest profile to help the parents of disadvantaged infants, but also including the piloting of the “Nurse Family Partnership” model to give ante-natal and post natal mentoring and support for at risk families. Indeed this approach was at relatively high financial cost, reflecting a genuine conviction that this was the right thing to do.
The more problematic aspects of New Labour’s strategies for reducing inequality were the compulsive aspects of incentivising people back to work; but it would be pernicious to assume that this is only about saving money. It was based upon a sincere but flawed approach to reducing social exclusion.
The headline figure from the Anatomy of Inequality report is that the wealth of the top 10% is 100 times higher than the lowest 10%. This is not particularly surprising given the structure of housing in the UK, where the richest will own valuable fixed property assets that have increased in value while the poorest are renting, and own no appreciating assets.
Paradoxically, an increase in social housing that would provide substantial benefits for working people would not address this inequality, and indeed increasing the proportion of the population in social rented accommodation would further exaggerate the divergence of asset ownership between the richest 10% and the rest of the population. The Thatcherite push towards home owning created many people who were asset rich but disposable income poor. This is an important point to grasp because the issue of housing security does not have monetary value, but is more valuable than cash in the bank in terms of people’s satisfaction with their life.
The more relevant comparator is income equality rather than wealth inequality: where the top 20% of the UK population earn around eight times more than the poorest 20%, which is about twice the differential of the Scandinavian countries, but vastly more egalitarian than, for example, South America.
It is important to understand that for the Blairites, poverty reduction was the target not promoting equality per se , as they did not want to reduce the income of top earners; their target has been to reduce the proportion of the population on less than 60% of median income, by pushing up the wages of the poorest.
So what conclusions should we draw from this.
I have very little sympathy with the arguments being put by Dave Semple at Though Cowards Flinch which seem dismissive of the equalities agenda, based upon a reductive counterposing to “class power”, whatever that is supposed to mean.
There are two problems with Dave Semple’s approach of being dismissive of “Identity”. Firstly, in terms of people’s actual self-perception, and the perception of them by others their consciousness of being a woman, or black or English or Muslim or Christian is often a more fundamental form of self awareness than their “class identity”. This is the difference between a “community of character” and a “community of fate”, to use the terms coined by Otto Bauer. Negotiating our way towards a more equitable society needs to relate to people in terms that they see themselves, as well as relating to their often less self-evident shared class interests.
Secondly, discrimination is a class issue; because the unfairness of discrimination on bases of gender, or sexual orientation, of religion or ethnicity presupposes that there is a more powerful person who can discriminate, and a less powerful victim of discrimination. Winning the argument that discrimination is unfair, and that we collectively oppose discrimination through our unions is a brilliant example of the class based argument that an injury to one is an injury to all.
We need to understand the basis that we oppose inequality. Tony Blair was explicit that for him it was about equality of opportunity, as he said in a speech in 2006 “It is about our sovereign value, fairness. It is about potential never explored, talent torn-off unused, the inability to live a life free from the charity of others. The object is timeless: we want to expand opportunities so that nobody whatever their background or circumstances should be left behind”
This is interesting because the fairness he describes is the removal of external impediments to success, but it does not criticise the idea that there should be inequality between those who “succeed” and those who “fail”.
The individualism inherent in this approach is a reflection of Tony Blair’s acceptance of the core Thatcherite ideal that there is no collective social project that we all share; society is merely the accumulation of individuals, and government is there to mediate between them. Equality of opportunity is a good thing in so far as it removes social discrimination, but if you are only opening the door to different and perhaps more intractable inequalities based upon those merits rewarded in an acquisitive and greedy society, then you have not really addressed inequality at all.
Indeed it is the erosion of communities of solidarity, and lessening of the vision of social democracy as a transformative progressive project in favour of a fairer society that has required New Labour to look to punitive sanctions as the way of addressing anti-social behaviour, rather than community building.
The removal of unfair impediments is not enough to achieve equality, because we are not all blessed with the same advantages in life, and will not all be lucky, and there will be differences in outcome. The aim of a socially just society is to give equality of regard and respect to everyone whatever their social status, and to decouple political and economic power from social status. More egalitarian societies are happier ones, and expanding the social safety net reduces stress and fear of failure.
It is precisely because overcoming inequality is not easy, that it needs to have purposive moral and ethical foundations. A strong basis for a commitment to equality within the Labour tradition is to be found with R H Tawney, as I have discussed before.
Tawney regarded Capitalism as fundamentally immoral, because it is based upon individual gain and self-interest, rather than service to the community. Acquisitiveness becomes a primary goal in its own right, and the strong and powerful use others as mere objects for self advancement, and the weak and poor are encouraged to emulate the selfishness of the strong.
In contrast, Tawney regarded the communities of solidarity of the labour and trade union movement as especially virtuous, and the traditional labour movement priorities for overcoming poverty and unemployment to be moral. As such for Tawney, the industrial and economic struggle of workers against employers took on a moral dimension, because it was a struggle for power within the economy between profit driven selfishness, and collective social solidarity.
With regard to modern politics, the astute observation of RH Tawney is that liberty is related to equality. If freedom is defined as absence of restraint, then liberty promotes inequality, because the more powerful in our society have less constraints upon them, and the majority of the population will always be unfree.
For Tawney, true liberty is the freedom to act positively for the benefit of the community, and being empowered to resist the tyrannical demands of the rich and powerful.
It is absolutely clear that the preoccupations of New Labour with winning elections by spin and media management, is an abuse of their privileged access to communication in order to defend their own power, and thus relies upon a fundamental inequality. What is more, the New Labour strategy of triangulating around the hot issues that sway the undecided voters in marginal constituencies is immoral in the sense that RH Tawney would have understood it, because he believed that Labour politics should be purposive and transformative in order to develop a socially progressive consensus. For New Labour, holding and maintaining power has become the all-absorbing motivation.
But most importantly, if we look at the last few years of rampant consumerism, celebrity culture, bling and self-advancement, we see that New Labour has worshiped at the alter of the acquisitive society. The ethics of Tawney was that society should value collaborative and productive labour for the benefit of the community, not for selfish personal acquisition.
But it is a mistake to see the record of the Labour government over the last 13 years as all bad in this regard: indeed their policies were informed by an intelligent understanding of the structural causes of inequality in our society, and sincere desire to help the most disadvantaged. But their framework has been a timid one, and in the final analysis failed to acknowledge that equality has to rest upon shared sense of community, and that community is alien to the spirit of free market capitalism.
Andy is substantially correct here,theNL govt has spent an average £10000 per council property on renovation,spent 10s of billions extra on theNHS bringing it up from 30% below EU average in 1997 to bang on the average by 2006,invested heavily in education and even seen investment and improvment in transport.The rise in real income of the bottom 20% of society averaged 16% in the 1st 8 years of the NL govt in sharp contrast to the previous Tory governments which saw alarming falls in the real income of the people at the bottom of society(bottom 10% fell by 20% from 79 to 88)These are objective material historical facts.Much of the left never got their heads around the sharp contradictions of the NL govt,how they could launch an awful brutal bloody war on one hand and deliver real reforms with the other,This also explains why the NL govt had high approval ratings for 8 years unparalleld in the 90 years of universal suffrage.This world of course ended in the Autumn of 2008
Comment by Scot in London — 28 January, 2010 @ 10:15 am
The most positive shift in social mobility would be for everyone to be compelled to work for a living.
Abolishing inequality is impossible so long as anyone can derive an income from rent, interest or profit rather than by honest work.
Comment by Nick Wright — 28 January, 2010 @ 10:35 am
I wouldn’t say I’m horrified that relative social mobility has declined. It was always apparent that Blair was not willing to make significant wealth transfers from the rich to the less well off and his governmental approach lacked the militant reformism of earlier Labour governments.
The interesting thing in this field is the link between levels of working class organisation and the reforms and higher social wage that a self conscious class can win. New Labour has been able to get away with a bare minimum which has just been enough to hold onto a big working class vote. However as I suggest in my piece this is gradually starting to erode and it’s happening on two levels. In the electoral field abstentions are rising and some ex Labour voters are defecting to the BNP. Ideologically there is a weakening of the social democratic consensus expressed in survey results saying that only one person in five thinks unemployment benefits are too low.
I have some sympathy with Lenin’s hyperbole. If a Tory government were letting cops detain people as terrorists for taking photos of tourist sites and bracketing environmental activists with Al Qaida there would be a flurry of predictions about an imminent fascist coup. New Labour has a very nasty authoritarian streak - or at least it provides the legislative framework that lets the cops exercise theirs.
Comment by Liam — 28 January, 2010 @ 10:39 am
Andy, it seems to me you didn’t read the series of identity posts at my place the whole way through. I think it’s an unbelievably lazy argument (one that the pomo Left is often guilty of) to say that I’m being reductive and attempting to discard religious, racial, ethnic or other identities entirely. But I do give good reasons why we should fight to make them subordinate to class - reasons you do nothing to engage with. Moreover, your position is substantially indolent. What about actually convincing people of the need to look again at class? Does such an argument not attempt to work with people from where they’re at, in terms of self-perception?
Actually it would appear that you’d just prefer if class sat quietly in the corner, and this is a political difference between us. You quote Liam MacUaid’s horror that relative inequality has increased; but in other ways it has improved, such as between men and women. And my point is that while ultimately capitalism can come to terms with relative inequality, it can’t come to terms with actual inequality. This is explained only by class, and thus class must form the bedrock of how we organise to overcome it. To say this isn’t dismissive of the agenda of ending the economic, political and social exclusions visited upon specific identities.
It may be dismissive of certain tactics that have been used in the attempt to end these exclusions, but that’s a different matter.
Comment by Dave Semple — 28 January, 2010 @ 10:47 am
If the Labour Party were uninterested in combating inequality then they wouldn’t have commissioned such a comprehensive, warts and all, report.
Was this government elected yesterday?
Nope, they’ve had 13 years with a large parliamentary majority and finally produce a report shortly before being voted out of office. Call me a cynic but I don’t think the motive here was a sincere desire to help the most disadvantaged.
Comment by Duncan — 28 January, 2010 @ 11:26 am
” And my point is that while ultimately capitalism can come to terms with relative inequality, it can’t come to terms with actual inequality. ”
Can you explain the difference between actual and relative inequality?
Comment by Boab — 28 January, 2010 @ 11:47 am
#1: “theNL govt has spent an average £10000 per council property on renovation”
I would be surprised if that were the case in my borough - Hackney. It certainly has not been spent on individual flats, although the total you give may be reached if you count the estates where flats are being knocked down and new properties put up.
Whilst my council flat has been renevated, it has been a school dinners service - you get what you are given. I have therefore had a new front door (there was nothing wrong with the old one) and the hated garchy sink has been removed, some 10 years after that change was first mooted.
If they asked me what I wanted, I would request some very basic insulation, that would greatly improve both my comfort and reduce my heating bills. Instead, rumour has it new kitchen cupboards are next.
How difficult would it be to say to tenants - there is X amount available to spend on each flat, what needs doing, what would you like doing, and we will see if it can be done within the budget we have?
Comment by Paul Stott — 28 January, 2010 @ 11:50 am
New Labour may have spent a lot on the NHS but where has much of this gone? A lot of public money has been wasted on bureaucracy and privatisation plans. It’s not how much is spent but what is being paid for. A little investigation will probably highlight the squandering of public money for the benefit of bureaucrats and fat cats in many areas, such as housing, too.
As for lifting people out of poverty and into work it will be interesting to find out what exactly this has entailed. Does it mean low paid jobs with long hours and little protection? And has the fallout of a further 12 years of neo-liberalism, this time under Labour instead of the Tories, meant thousands more people unable to work due to sickness and disability.
If the record of 12 years of a Labour government is so poor compared to the rest of Europe then that’s nothing to congratulate them about. How many of their original manifesto claims have they achieved?
Coming up to an election I think this article is clutching at straws and lacks the thorough scrutiny necessary to give a meaningful evaluation of Labours achievements or lack of them.
Comment by Ray — 28 January, 2010 @ 1:01 pm
“The “most right wing government since the second world war” would not have brought in the national minimum wage, introduced civil partnerships, abolished clause 28, brought in Sure Start centres and Working Tax Credits, introduced meaningful devolution for Wales and Scotland, assisted a peace process that has brought Sinn Fein into coalition government in Northern Ireland, provided a statutory route to union recognition, created the Union Learning Fund, and overseen a fundamental shift in liberalising social attitiudes.”
If I am suffering from that well known ‘disorder’ known as hyperbole then so be it. I think ‘rose tinted glasses’ is far far worse to experience.
How long did it take NL to repeal Section 28? Yes, they had opposition from the Lords but it still took them into their second term.
Sure Start centres and Tax Credits (bureaucratic minefield btw) policies that scratch the surface and don’t go far enough.
Funny how you forget this is the government that brought in 2 pernicous and vicious Welfare Reform Acts. These Acts will further poverty and deprivation. The hideous proposals that attack, for example, lone parents.
This is also the government that let unelected advisers in such as David Freud and Lord Carter who knew nowt about their respective areas but knew a lot about privatisation and allowing the private sector into the public sector.
Privatisation, marketisation… if that’s not the ideology of the free market and neoliberalism then I don’t know what is.
Labour had massive massive majorities that they squandered. Instead we got the sops thrown at us nothing transformative nor just nor equal.
Oh, and Harriet Harman needs to get her priorities right when it comes to attending meetings on the equalities bill!!! Maybe she should treat her constituents with more respect as opposed to attending Compass.
And of course she (and Blair supported the continuation of Tory spending) cut Lone Parent benefit.
Comment by HarpyMarx — 28 January, 2010 @ 1:41 pm
@Boab - I was defining relative inequality as inequality between ‘identities’ - e.g. different genders or ethnicities. ‘Actual inequality’ (a bad term, I know) is the increasing inequality of the whole - where the wealth accumulation and related benefits for the rich (regardless of identity) are accelerating much faster than those for the not-rich.
Comment by Dave Semple — 28 January, 2010 @ 1:41 pm
And obviously Tawney is flavour of the month because the last one who name checked him was one James Purnell…. the most loathed Secretary for State Work and Pensions (Jon Hutton being a close second).
The man who thinks the Tories were ‘too soft’ on benefits and conditionality. The man who pushed through workfare and sanctions!
Comment by HarpyMarx — 28 January, 2010 @ 1:45 pm
It is a useful stat to know that in the US and Britain under Thatcher had less social mobility than say Sweden because the whole ideology of the US and Thatcherism was anyone can make it, the American dream etc etc. However Social mobility is a purely bourgeois concept, escaping the misery of wage labour not by revolutionary socialist means but by becoming a parasite or a capitalist.
Comment by Marko — 28 January, 2010 @ 1:46 pm
And indeed, I agree with Liam’s comment @ 3 about NL’s nasty social authoritarian streak, its curtailing of civil liberties and plethora of anti-terror legislation.
Comment by HarpyMarx — 28 January, 2010 @ 1:49 pm
With the exception of the electioneering at the start and end this is a very good article and provides much food for thought. Andy is bang on the money when he wrties: ‘The typical pattern of deeply entrenched poverty involves dysfunctional parenting, with a family with patterns of low educational achievement, drifting in and out of the criminal justice system, problems with neighbours and perhaps undiagnosed mental health problems. Persons at risk of a lifetime of poverty will have clear warning signs: low birth weight, educational under-achievement, early sexual activity, truancy, etc’.
Only point I would raise is about sexual activity-not sure there is a correlation between early sexual activity and poverty. Even if there is it might not mean anything because you would need to compare with data from studies of middle class children and early sexual activity and I dount that any long term studies have been carried out
Comment by Owen — 28 January, 2010 @ 1:50 pm
No.1 `This also explains why the NL govt had high approval ratings for 8 years unparalleld in the 90 years of universal suffrage.This world of course ended in the Autumn of 2008.’
The problem was Gordon forgot to fully research endogynous growth theory and missed the 100% certainty that it would end in tears.
One reason the Tories have ring-fenced the NHS budget is that they hope to reproduce New Labour’s boom by funneling huge sums of government cash through its committees to the private sector. Too late. Capitalism is glutted and there is no basis for another speculative boom in the West. Perhaps a brief flush before dieing, a little 20s style decadence, but nothing more. Even many of those middle classes who had children in the recent baby boom and built lives on the back of New Lab’s largese will soon find themselves part of the structurally impoverished: abandoned not to a gentile but a savage poverty whilst the capitalists try to import, build, recruit, breed, clone new populations in new areas with new `skills’. They can’t this time. The economy is fucked and there is no basis to expect it to rejuvenate. There is going to be plenty of social mobility for everyone. Down the shit hole.
Comment by Gerald Plant — 28 January, 2010 @ 1:51 pm
#15
‘There is going to be plenty of social mobility for everyone. Down the shit hole.’
Brilliant. This should go on a leaflet and be delivered to every voter in the country prior to the election.
Comment by John — 28 January, 2010 @ 2:02 pm
The minimum wage is a fucking joke. It is far lower NOW than the rate recommended to the government before its introduction. It is paid at different rates decided arbitrarily by age & regardless of actual circumstances. It has loopholes you could drive tanks through (training allowances, internships, trial placements). It is completely undermined by unemployment, a total lack of job security, denial of benefits on the slightest pretext, & discrimination (particularly against immigrants & asylum seekers), all of which mean that there are plenty of people willing to work for less rather than have no money at all. Plus, it’s just too fucking low. The only way you can make decent money is to work a lot of hours, but you don’t always have that choice.
Comment by JN — 28 January, 2010 @ 2:04 pm
“Liam Mac Uaid is horrified that relative social mobility has declined. This is indeed disappointing, as there had been a tentative expectation that social mobility was going to show an improvement in this report, but this would have in fact been the first improvement since the early 1970s.”
What could have happened in the 1970s to reduce social mobility ?
“The reason that relative social mobility is a hard nut to crack for government is that the low hanging fruit have already been picked: with the introduction of comprehensive education, raised school leaving age, universal health care and welfare benefits removing some of the worst disadvantages for working class children”
But comprehensive education only really kicked off in the 70s and was pretty complete by the 80s. And, by your own admission, had no upward effect on social mobility, or if it had it was overwhelmed by other factors. So what evidence have you got for saying it removed disadvantages for working class kids ?
Comment by Laban — 28 January, 2010 @ 2:16 pm
Gerald Plant : “those middle classes who had children in the recent baby boom “
I think you’ll find the baby boom is, like so many things nowadays, sourced elsewhere. In 2006 I took a look at the ONS stats on fertility by local authority. Here’s the top 10 most fertile boroughs.
Newham
Blackburn with Darwen
Bradford
Barking and Dagenham
Luton
Oldham
Peterborough
Pendle
Slough
Boston
Comment by Laban — 28 January, 2010 @ 2:22 pm
Sorry Andy, but I see no mention of the economic crisis that was caused by NL’s shameful protection of parasitic capital, nor the mess in the NHS- again largely caused by private outsourcing, or the lack of publicly- owned housing that would have helped keep working people from paying extortionate rent and kept property prices a bit more affordable for those on average incomes. And for chrissakes please stop promoting mediocrities like Harriet Harman.
Comment by Omar — 28 January, 2010 @ 2:23 pm
The minimum wage, or the minimal wage as I sometimes call it in my lighter moments, should be enough to give a single parent working part time enough to afford to live without benefits (excluding Child Benefit). For that it would need to go up to around 8 pound an hour and then be doubled: hey presto, full employment, zero welfare, decent accommodation and tax reductions or tax spent on better things.
Comment by Gerald Plant — 28 January, 2010 @ 2:24 pm
It is difficult to feel alarm at the probable onset of the Tories after all the wonders under New Labour.
Comment by Mark Victorystooge — 28 January, 2010 @ 2:26 pm
Dave Semple
Thanks. I understand your point better now.
Comment by Boab — 28 January, 2010 @ 2:34 pm
#4 Dave
Fair enough, I dodn’t engage with your point of view as thoroughly as i shoud have done, becasue you are making an intelligent and substantive argument.
To be honest i started this articel with the intention of respnding to you, but then got distracted by a broader discussion of inequality.
I think your points were thought provoking (even though in the final analysis reductive IMO) so I will respond to you in more detail as soon as I have time.
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 January, 2010 @ 2:41 pm
I think most of us would agree that NL could have done more. However, one certainty is that the Tories will do less.
I think that the left has to take a new tack in this, and we can learn a lot from Hamas. If we want to see stronger communities, we should build them by taking an active role in providing and organizing social services rather than acting as little more than a protest movement.
Comment by Boab — 28 January, 2010 @ 2:52 pm
#9
Well, there is certainly grounds for a critique of the welfare reform acts, and indeed i have made the criticisms myself, that they are ill-conceived in many ways.
But you don’t engage in any way with the thinking behind them, which is a partly sincere although in some ways misguided attempt to deal with the issue of inter-generational dependency on welfare, and the consequent social exclusion.
It is your unwillingness to engage with the arguments that means you are so unconvincing on this issue, especially as the government has basically won the argument in the political mainstrem over their wrguments for welfare reform.
You simply cannot base an ethical and moral case for combatting inequality on the presumption that individuals shouod be able to receive state benefits without themselves contributing to society.
This is wrond becasuue i) it is a politically untenable argument; and ii) it institutionalises intractable cycles of dependency and therefore relative poverty
I don’t know what James Purnell said about RH Tawney, but surely Tawney is pretty much an acceptable starting point for all traditions in the labour party in discussing how to combat inequality? I am surprised tat you dismiss tawney so lightly.
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 January, 2010 @ 2:57 pm
Complicated thing social mobility.
What goes up can go down and it is not simply a question of the many millions trapped in the most highly exploited and low paid jobs or on benefits. Thousands of formerly skilled workers in disability benefits or forced into into low wage jobs have experienced downward social mobility.
So have many ‘middle class’ professionals.
For example, many people in radio, TV, films, theatre, the media etc now work on short term contracts without proper holidays or pensions or job security. They are invariably more highly trained than their predecessors but are worse paid and are having to pay off big liabilities that the increasingly exclusive education system has lumbered them with.
The same thing is happening in the public sector with core jobs vanishing, privatisation and contractors taking over basic functions.
Boab’s daft idea (25) that we should assume the role of the state in providing social services ties in very nicely with Tory plans. It is a recipe for ’socialising’ the responsibility for dealing with the casualties of capitalism.
Comment by Nick Wright — 28 January, 2010 @ 3:11 pm
” 2.4 million people into work (comparing 2007 to 1997)”
Convenient cutoff point there? Or does the Labour government bear no responsibility for the current mess, despite taking credit when things are going COMPARITIVELY well? Also, what kind of work? Menial, low-paid, dead end by any chance?
“meaningful devolution for Wales and Scotland”
Except on all those “reserved” issues.
“overseen a fundamental shift in liberalising social attitiudes”
By demonising Muslims? By scapegoating immigrants? By adopting the BNP’s slogan of “British jobs for British workers?” By allowing homophobia to be promoted in state schools?
“relative poverty line”
Which means what? Who gets to define poverty? Rich people?
“taken one million pensioners out of poverty”
And raised the pension age. And told us to get private pensions, which are a huge con. Do you imagine the state pension is safe from ‘freezes’ & ‘cuts?’
“moved the UK from having the highest levels of child poverty in Europe in 1997 to close the European average by 2007″
Well, that is just incredibly impressive! Isn’t the current statistic for “child poverty” (how is that defined?) 1 in 5? Maybe they could have done better if they weren’t spending so much money on slaughtering foreigners & their own fucking salaries?
“introduction of comprehensive education, raised school leaving age, universal health care and welfare benefits”
All of which was done years ago, has been steadily eroded by both parties, & is going to be subject to ‘cuts’
“lessened the effect of middle class snobbery.”
Aye, right. So why the obsession with “chavs?”
“2.5% of the population remained deeply entrenched in poverty”
Again, how was that figure calculated? How is “deep poverty” defined (differently than “child poverty” it would seem)? & by who?
“incentivising people back to work…a sincere but flawed approach to reducing social exclusion”
By denying them incapacity benefits, say? Or denying them unemployment benefit for the first 6 months?
“the top 20% of the UK population earn around eight times more than the poorest 20%”
Where would MPs be on that scale? What about ministers? What about Tony “£2.5 million from JP Morgan” Blair? What about the bankers? The capitalists?
“poorest are renting”
Because what housing there is gets bought by buy-to-let landlords who rent it out at extortionate prices.
“Equality of opportunity” is meaningless liberal bullshit. It is impossible without actual equality.
Comment by Anonymous — 28 January, 2010 @ 3:24 pm
#26
Andy, you’re stretching credulity if you think that we can justify regressive polices such as welfare reform on the basis that the govt meant well.
Increasingly, you are putting forward the view that New Labour is a benign social democratic formation which, though misguided in implementation, has proved a net gain for the working class and the poor.
Welfare to Work was clearly designed to force people into the low wage, casualised labour market which has increasingly dominated the real economy. There was no motivation to help the poor involved, this was just spin. On the contrary the sole intention was meeting the needs of employers for cheap, casualised labour.
There are many reasons why people find themselves trapped on benefits, and ipso facto trapped in a cycle of poverty. Moral degeneracy is not one of those reasons. Asking people to take up employment involving the minimum wage, which has only succeeded in instituionalising low pay and low expectations, long hours, and no pension entitlement or union rights is asking people to accept a life of misery and indignity. Surely we should be putting the argument for raising the minimum wage to a level signficantly higher than its current level, until it provides a decent living wage, paid for with a huge and necessary redistribution of wealth back from the rich to the poor. People are more than mere economic units, and this consistent pandering to what you consider the mainstream is leading you down the path to supporting policies designed to punish the poor rather than ending poverty.
Comment by John — 28 January, 2010 @ 3:29 pm
New Labour has only sought to appease the shareholders of UK Ltd; it has done a brilliant job,creating
vast and disgusting amounts of profit for PFI companies,railtracks etc,bailing out banks,consultancy
quangos (1,162 at a cost of 64billion :Guardian)a massive growth in arms exports (CAAT).
I could fill pages with this stuff.
Well Done New Labour!!
(why the red faces all of a sudden??)
Comment by bob hope — 28 January, 2010 @ 3:43 pm
JOhn
#29 the reasons that the governments intentions are importnat, is that by and large they have won the arguments in the political mainstream, so if we want to roll the tide back we need to take their arguments serioulssy and engage with them, and present an alternative vision - and I have sketched out that one possible foundation to base our arguments upon would be to argue the moral and ethical case for egalitarianism and community building, based on the Christian-socialism of RH Tawney
What is not effective is describing the welfare reform as “attacks” on the poor, when that is neither the subjective intentions of the government, nor - ore imortantly - how the issue os perceived by the majority of people.
Assuming that the aim of our politics is to convnce people and acheive infleunce leading to progressive change, then i am suggesting that the ruse of using indignat outrage at the governments proposals doesn’t work when most people agree with the government more than they agree with the left.
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 January, 2010 @ 3:52 pm
Andy Newman,
The argument that “New Labour has run, in many ways, the most right-wing administration since the Second World War” is far more convincing than your own idealised view of these corrupt neo-liberal warmongers. Maybe that’s because Richard Seymour is a Socialist, & doesn’t just follow whicher pseudo-’progressive’ happens to be in power.
Voting Labour, or supporting them in any way, should be considered only as a last resort. What the working class & the left really need is to build a genuinely Socialist alternative. To do that we don’t need to jump on the bandwagon of what the ruling class defines as mainstream. Socialist ideas are not the problem. Many people agree or are willing to listen. The problem is that Socialists are not taken seriously because we are fragmented & weak. The solution to that is unity, organisation, & action.
Comment by JN — 28 January, 2010 @ 4:04 pm
“when most people agree with the government more than they agree with the left”
You honestly think most people agree with the government? Who the hell have you been speaking to? Most people, & not just on the left, hate & despise both Labour and the Tories. To describe them as “liars, theives, & murderers” is not considered particularly radical or controversial.
Comment by JN — 28 January, 2010 @ 4:14 pm
Oh just join them Newman and stop churning out the pathetic apologetics for this shower - Christ everyone could produce a shopping list of crap they’re responsible for and you produce insipid justifications, some of which would embarrass Polly Toynbee.
Comment by Doug — 28 January, 2010 @ 5:01 pm
And this is the mob (New Fuckin Labour) that Andy Newman wants us to vote for in the General Election. Shame on you!
Comment by Henry — 28 January, 2010 @ 6:18 pm
“You simply cannot base an ethical and moral case for combatting inequality on the presumption that individuals shouod be able to receive state benefits without themselves contributing to society.
This is wrond becasuue i) it is a politically untenable argument; and ii) it institutionalises intractable cycles of dependency and therefore relative poverty”
The problem with this argument is that it puts the cart before the horse. For example the fact that the Tories destroyed a viable mining industry throwing thousands into unemployment and poverty creates the conditions of people relying on benefits. It has nothing to do with fecklessness or lack of mobility or aspiration as the Tories and the architects of NuLab welfare reform claim.
The solution to unemployment is not workfare and other bogus schemes. Nor is the solution destroying unionised industries to replace them with privatised low paid jobs. This is the true legacy of 12 years of Labour and if we on the left are not honest about this, regardless of the spectre of a Tory government, thousands of workers will see straight through any talking up of New Labour and reject us.
Concerning social mobility, this is a mantra used by neo-liberals like Thatcher and Blair but it’s really a mirage. The rate of profit in late capitalism is gradually falling which means that every successive government, whether it’s Labour or Tory, has to manage a system where it is necessary for capitalists to squeeze workers ever more to maintain profits. There is less and less room at the top and upward mobility since the 60’s has only ever been a realistic or meaningful option for a very tiny, lucky minority.
Comment by Ray — 28 January, 2010 @ 7:56 pm
#37
no ray, all the evidenc esuggests that there is an intractable poblem of inter-generational dependency with a small minority trapped in a self-perpetuating cycle of poverty.
For the left to deny this flies in the face of reality, and is part of what undermines our credibility.
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 January, 2010 @ 8:13 pm
#37
“The rate of profit in late capitalism is gradually falling which means that every successive government, whether it’s Labour or Tory, has to manage a system where it is necessary for capitalists to squeeze workers ever more to maintain profits.”
yawn.
So we are locked in a cycle of perpetual falling living standards for working people?
pull the other one.
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 January, 2010 @ 8:14 pm
#39
…or, as J. R. Campbell is reputed to have retorted when someone expounded the immiseration thesis in the 1950s: “If this is immiseration, when was the golden age?”
Comment by Francis King — 28 January, 2010 @ 8:46 pm
Welfare dependency is a product of the capitalist system, and that system does little to address welfare dependency in a meaningfull manner.
The arguement that no one should be entitled to welfare assistance, who are capable but do not contribute to society, is what it is capitalist crap.Why should anyone be force into casual employment for a limited period at minimum wage rates and then be discarded to appease a political ethos or a disgrunteled sector of society, who themselves are grossly exployed and many minimum wage slaves.
If governments have real concern for the glaring in equality of society, why dont they increase benefits,raise the minumum wage and make it compulsory for all workers to be unionised, or is that to socialy progressive.
Comment by howard — 28 January, 2010 @ 11:31 pm
Andy,is your keyboard broken? you typed poverty?
‘no ray, all the evidence suggests that there is an intractable poblem of inter-generational dependency with a small minority trapped in a self-perpetuating cycle of…privilege ‘
Comment by bob hope — 29 January, 2010 @ 1:37 pm