It should be no surprise that businesses, like the individuals who run them, are found all along the moral spectrum.
There are those who integrate the pursuit of financial success with the aim of safeguarding the wellbeing of those affected by their operations (i.e., their workers, customers, suppliers, local communities, and the environment). They do this with a variety of means: worker representation on the board; employee ownership; worker/consumer cooperative structures; asset locks tied to community benefits; independent audit of social (as well as environmental and economic) bottom-line measures; and the investment of their surplus to meet defined social ends instead of channelling any of it towards personal profit.
But there are also many corporate executives who not only fail to give due consideration to wider social concerns, but who have no compunction about hurting others in the process of expanding their own wealth and power. Gambling away other people’s life savings; putting employees in highly dangerous working conditions; turning consumers into addictive wrecks; pricing the poor out of essentials such as homes and energy; polluting our air and water; the list goes on.
Indeed near the irresponsible end of the spectrum, the difference between a successful entrepreneur and a shameless racketeer may simply come down to whether one has enough money and connections to get the law suitably changed.
Of late, quite a few of the corporations, which have been screaming for the state to get off their backs (so they could make more money off the backs of those unprotected by the law), have taken to donning the label ‘social’ as though it were an amulet that can protect them from all criticisms. Thus we hear of their top-level commitment to corporate social responsibility, and their dedication to generating social value. But the only fitting characterisation of them where the word ‘social’ has a place is Anti-Social Enterprise.
Unfortunately, some conniving politicians support anti-social enterprise because they can benefit from the latter in terms of campaign funding, financial dividends, or future board positions. They plot to remove regulatory ‘red tape’ so these businesses can do as they please. They pretend there is no significant difference between socially dependable and routinely irresponsible organisations.
But anti-social behaviour should be no more tolerated in a firm than in an individual.
Any decent political party concerned with building a responsible economy will understand that for socially minded businesses to thrive, a level-playing field must be cleared of the negative practices deployed to undercut them. Unless anti-social behaviour such as exploitative wage-setting, pollution, marketing of unsafe products, tax dodging, corporate funding of political collaborators, are systematically tackled, the conscientious entrepreneurs would be crowded out by the corrupt and the callous.
Furthermore, no anti-social enterprise should be allowed to get away with deceiving the public by proclaiming their ‘social’ credentials when all they possess is a shameful if well-disguised track record of deceit and exploitation.
Enterprise can indeed be a force for good, provided its anti-social elements are weeded out.
Monday, 1 July 2013
Saturday, 15 June 2013
Oppose the War on Welfare
If a foreign government had launched an attack on our most vulnerable citizens, it would be regarded as a declaration of war. And such an attack has indeed been launched, albeit not by a foreign government, but by our own government in the United Kingdom.
Instead of ensuring all those ending up sick or disabled are supported to the best of our collective ability, the government has urged those who are well-off or at least have a regular income to distance themselves from those needing to claim benefits to sustain their lives. Suspicion, interrogation, and deprivation are the new norm in subjecting the sick and disabled to harrowing uncertainty.
By using ‘fraud detection’* as cover, the government has deployed devices, from stringent criteria to unrelenting assessments, to strip people of the support they desperately need to survive. The British Medical Association has asked for the misguided Work Capability Assessment to be stopped immediately. The number of people dying from suicide, or from the conditions which have prevented them from getting paid employment, has kept rising after more and more of them were told their benefits would be slashed. But the government’s sole response is that there must be even more benefit cuts for the poor (to complement the tax cuts for top earners and big corporations).
Against this background, a growing number of citizens have rallied behind a petition to oppose the War on Welfare: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/43154
To sign it is not just to add pressure for a debate in Parliament about this scandalous affair, but to pledge oneself to oppose these insidious enemies of our common well-being.
So let me adapt the words of our great bard in sounding the clarion for a battle that will one day rival the heroics of bygone Agincourt:
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we brothers & sisters;
For all who back this cause with us
Shall be our kin; whatever else they be,
This day shall unite our condition:
And everyone in Britain now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their presence cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us in Solidarity.
#WoWpetition
-----
[* Fraudulent claims/over-payment to a tiny minority actually amount to less than 0.9% of the benefits budget (6 times smaller than the amount the government fails to pay over to those in need but who have either under-claimed or not known how to claim). For more information, see: The Lies We Tell Ourselves: ending comfortable myths about poverty (report by Baptist Union of Great Britain, Methodist Church, Church of Scotland, & the United Reformed Church, 2013)]
Instead of ensuring all those ending up sick or disabled are supported to the best of our collective ability, the government has urged those who are well-off or at least have a regular income to distance themselves from those needing to claim benefits to sustain their lives. Suspicion, interrogation, and deprivation are the new norm in subjecting the sick and disabled to harrowing uncertainty.
By using ‘fraud detection’* as cover, the government has deployed devices, from stringent criteria to unrelenting assessments, to strip people of the support they desperately need to survive. The British Medical Association has asked for the misguided Work Capability Assessment to be stopped immediately. The number of people dying from suicide, or from the conditions which have prevented them from getting paid employment, has kept rising after more and more of them were told their benefits would be slashed. But the government’s sole response is that there must be even more benefit cuts for the poor (to complement the tax cuts for top earners and big corporations).
Against this background, a growing number of citizens have rallied behind a petition to oppose the War on Welfare: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/43154
To sign it is not just to add pressure for a debate in Parliament about this scandalous affair, but to pledge oneself to oppose these insidious enemies of our common well-being.
So let me adapt the words of our great bard in sounding the clarion for a battle that will one day rival the heroics of bygone Agincourt:
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we brothers & sisters;
For all who back this cause with us
Shall be our kin; whatever else they be,
This day shall unite our condition:
And everyone in Britain now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their presence cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us in Solidarity.
#WoWpetition
-----
[* Fraudulent claims/over-payment to a tiny minority actually amount to less than 0.9% of the benefits budget (6 times smaller than the amount the government fails to pay over to those in need but who have either under-claimed or not known how to claim). For more information, see: The Lies We Tell Ourselves: ending comfortable myths about poverty (report by Baptist Union of Great Britain, Methodist Church, Church of Scotland, & the United Reformed Church, 2013)]
Saturday, 1 June 2013
Chartist No. 6: the call for annual elections
Of the six democratic reforms famously demanded by the Chartists in Britain in 1838, real progress had been made on all of them bar one – the call for annual elections.
Those in government have over time conceded that all adults should have a vote, the ballot should be cast anonymously, and constituencies with a relatively tiny population base should not have the same number of representatives as larger ones. But somehow annual elections remain completely anathema to them. One wonders if governments in the UK, US and elsewhere, where responsiveness to the public has been a growing issue, should give the idea of being held to account by voters on a yearly basis more serious consideration.
Perhaps annual elections would be too costly. To win control of the White House or Parliament for four/five years with one throw of the dice is indeed a big prize that attracts huge donations. With elections coming up every year, however, the dividends from backing the winner along with the corresponding appeal of digging deep into one’s pocket, would be lowered. So with less private money drawn into mudslinging about public policy differences, there is less scope for distortion by expensive negative advertisements. Besides, anyone worried about elections becoming too costly should back reforms to curb the excesses of campaign finance.
What about the claim that annual elections would switch people off? At present, many people, especially those in non-marginal seats, believe that their vote would not make any difference. Political parties tend to contact voters only when the once-in-many-years’ national elections come around, and that fuels voter alienation. But with annual elections, politicians would have to make more effort to engage their constituents on an on-going basis, and short-term swings can have far greater impact on electoral outcomes than if they were absorbed into a long cycle. Instead of resorting to casting protest votes in local elections which cannot affect national policies, people can vote directly on their government each year. Consequently, more, not fewer, are likely to take advantage of that opportunity.
Finally, it is said that annual elections would be disruptive to policy-making, because politicians stuck in perpetual electioneering mode would not focus on addressing the needs of the country. But political campaigning has ended up being divorced from actual problem-solving for society largely as a result of the impossibility of setting out in a single election what a government would do in up to half a decade. So we end up with vague promises, pledges that have to be jettisoned, and interminable disputes over how to respond to changing circumstances. By contrast, annual elections would focus politicians’ minds on getting real results because that is what year-in, year-out, they would be judged on.
Would this mean that annually elected governments would neglect sustainable solutions for superficial improvements? Actually annual elections and the constant scrutiny they bring would make it more difficult to get away with either cosmetic changes or irresponsible cuts/expenditure. One has to be genuinely effective if one is to last more than a year.
The elite used to think the Chartists were absurdly radical in calling for democratic trust to be placed in the public in assessing and choosing the representatives who will look after the interests of their country. They came to accept the wisdom of nearly all those proposals, and 175 years on, it’s time to sign up to the sixth and final one – annual elections.
Those in government have over time conceded that all adults should have a vote, the ballot should be cast anonymously, and constituencies with a relatively tiny population base should not have the same number of representatives as larger ones. But somehow annual elections remain completely anathema to them. One wonders if governments in the UK, US and elsewhere, where responsiveness to the public has been a growing issue, should give the idea of being held to account by voters on a yearly basis more serious consideration.
Perhaps annual elections would be too costly. To win control of the White House or Parliament for four/five years with one throw of the dice is indeed a big prize that attracts huge donations. With elections coming up every year, however, the dividends from backing the winner along with the corresponding appeal of digging deep into one’s pocket, would be lowered. So with less private money drawn into mudslinging about public policy differences, there is less scope for distortion by expensive negative advertisements. Besides, anyone worried about elections becoming too costly should back reforms to curb the excesses of campaign finance.
What about the claim that annual elections would switch people off? At present, many people, especially those in non-marginal seats, believe that their vote would not make any difference. Political parties tend to contact voters only when the once-in-many-years’ national elections come around, and that fuels voter alienation. But with annual elections, politicians would have to make more effort to engage their constituents on an on-going basis, and short-term swings can have far greater impact on electoral outcomes than if they were absorbed into a long cycle. Instead of resorting to casting protest votes in local elections which cannot affect national policies, people can vote directly on their government each year. Consequently, more, not fewer, are likely to take advantage of that opportunity.
Finally, it is said that annual elections would be disruptive to policy-making, because politicians stuck in perpetual electioneering mode would not focus on addressing the needs of the country. But political campaigning has ended up being divorced from actual problem-solving for society largely as a result of the impossibility of setting out in a single election what a government would do in up to half a decade. So we end up with vague promises, pledges that have to be jettisoned, and interminable disputes over how to respond to changing circumstances. By contrast, annual elections would focus politicians’ minds on getting real results because that is what year-in, year-out, they would be judged on.
Would this mean that annually elected governments would neglect sustainable solutions for superficial improvements? Actually annual elections and the constant scrutiny they bring would make it more difficult to get away with either cosmetic changes or irresponsible cuts/expenditure. One has to be genuinely effective if one is to last more than a year.
The elite used to think the Chartists were absurdly radical in calling for democratic trust to be placed in the public in assessing and choosing the representatives who will look after the interests of their country. They came to accept the wisdom of nearly all those proposals, and 175 years on, it’s time to sign up to the sixth and final one – annual elections.
Thursday, 16 May 2013
Whose Money Is It Anyway?
When our country needs help, shouldn’t we all contribute more according to our ability for the sake of the common good? Some to their credit are willing to do just that, but others keep coming up with reasons why they should be left alone. One argument suggests what money individuals make is their business and no one else has a right to demand a share of it. Another claim that because of the ‘Debt Crisis’ there is simply no money left to share with anyone. And finally, there are those who insist that what spare money there is should only be lent to private individuals and firms, but it must not be invested in any form of public provisions.
Let us look at these arguments one by one.
For a start, it is obvious that though some people know how to make a lot of money, it does not necessarily follow they have a right to keep that money. For example, there is no legitimacy to the money-making activities of those who push narcotic drugs, traffick people, steal, con, or extort from others. There are also problems with people who pollute, promote addictive consumption, or tempt others into taking excessive risks with their money or their health. In all such cases, society has an interest in deciding what laws and policies should be put in place to curb the activities in question, which may involve taxing, fining or even confiscating the proceeds generated by them.
Apart from taking money from those who have acquired it by dubious means, a democratic state also has a responsibility to ensure sufficient resources are pooled together to deal with threats which would otherwise harm society. This can’t be left to individuals to chip in as they see fit, for the simple reason that there are inevitably freeriders who would try to benefit from the pot without sparing any of their own fortune.
At this point we hear the familiar cry of “There’s no money.” But has all the money really disappeared? In the UK, unclaimed assets – money sitting in accounts with no claimant – are conservatively estimated to stand at £77billion. Evasion and avoidance of taxes stash away another £120billion. And corporations outside the financial sector (ie they are not banks) are sitting on cash reserves of £756billion (Ernst & Young estimate). In truth there is plenty of money, the question is what should be done with it.
Many people seem to forget that when the banking sector was in danger of collapsing, it took bailout money from us via the state (estimate fluctuates between £500billion to 1trillion). Now the UK banks sit on assets of nearly £7trillion and pay out £13billion in bonuses (2012), yet some still pretend it would be sacrilegious to suggest that they should help the country by loaning, investing, or paying a windfall contribution to fund public works to revive the economy. These same people urge the banks to lend more to the private sector when private debt as % of GDP is six times higher than that of the public sector debt. Furthermore, while this approach is showing no sign of generating growth, a definitive study* has confirmed that a fiscal expansion funded by borrowing will lead to growth, and with the current unemployment level, reduce the deficit.
Let’s start using our country’s money more wisely.
[*The Economic Consequences of Mr Osborne - Fiscal Consolidation: lessons from a century of UK macroeconomic statistics, by V Chick & A Pettifor, University College London & Policy Research in Macroeconomics, 2010, revised 2011]
Let us look at these arguments one by one.
For a start, it is obvious that though some people know how to make a lot of money, it does not necessarily follow they have a right to keep that money. For example, there is no legitimacy to the money-making activities of those who push narcotic drugs, traffick people, steal, con, or extort from others. There are also problems with people who pollute, promote addictive consumption, or tempt others into taking excessive risks with their money or their health. In all such cases, society has an interest in deciding what laws and policies should be put in place to curb the activities in question, which may involve taxing, fining or even confiscating the proceeds generated by them.
Apart from taking money from those who have acquired it by dubious means, a democratic state also has a responsibility to ensure sufficient resources are pooled together to deal with threats which would otherwise harm society. This can’t be left to individuals to chip in as they see fit, for the simple reason that there are inevitably freeriders who would try to benefit from the pot without sparing any of their own fortune.
At this point we hear the familiar cry of “There’s no money.” But has all the money really disappeared? In the UK, unclaimed assets – money sitting in accounts with no claimant – are conservatively estimated to stand at £77billion. Evasion and avoidance of taxes stash away another £120billion. And corporations outside the financial sector (ie they are not banks) are sitting on cash reserves of £756billion (Ernst & Young estimate). In truth there is plenty of money, the question is what should be done with it.
Many people seem to forget that when the banking sector was in danger of collapsing, it took bailout money from us via the state (estimate fluctuates between £500billion to 1trillion). Now the UK banks sit on assets of nearly £7trillion and pay out £13billion in bonuses (2012), yet some still pretend it would be sacrilegious to suggest that they should help the country by loaning, investing, or paying a windfall contribution to fund public works to revive the economy. These same people urge the banks to lend more to the private sector when private debt as % of GDP is six times higher than that of the public sector debt. Furthermore, while this approach is showing no sign of generating growth, a definitive study* has confirmed that a fiscal expansion funded by borrowing will lead to growth, and with the current unemployment level, reduce the deficit.
Let’s start using our country’s money more wisely.
[*The Economic Consequences of Mr Osborne - Fiscal Consolidation: lessons from a century of UK macroeconomic statistics, by V Chick & A Pettifor, University College London & Policy Research in Macroeconomics, 2010, revised 2011]
Wednesday, 1 May 2013
The Greed Tyranny
Why do people with much more power and money than the rest of society take it upon themselves to reshape public policies to secure even greater domination over everyone else? What drives them to seduce politicians with their substantial donations and media influence? Or to strike fear into voters against imaginary threats so they would back policies that actually serve the corporate elite at their expense?
The answer lies with the sixth giant, Greed.
After the defeat of fascism in the Second World War, progressives rallied to Beveridge’s vision of slaying the five infamous giants of Ignorance, Idleness, Squalor, Disease, and Want. A civilised society in partnership with a responsive state would ensure the provision of education, employment, housing, healthcare, and social security. Public debt of over 200% of GDP was brought down through growth fuelled by state investment in building a better future for everyone. Quality of life improved substantially, especially for those on lower income.
But they forgot about Greed. And Greed struck back with a vengeance.
From the 1980s on, Greed in the form of plutocratic manipulators have driven forward a relentless agenda to make the wealthiest 5-10% in society even more rich and powerful by releasing them from any bond of solidarity with the other 90%.
Ideological arguments do not so much shape this agenda as are deployed to justify the overriding aim of amassing more power and resources for those with the most, while making everyone else more dependent on them.
These plutocrats – Reaganites, Thatcherites, funders for ‘protest’ parties like the Tea Party & UKIP – push for taxes to be cut to widen the gap between rich and poor. They press for public provisions to be slashed so that it will hurt the 90% but will have little impact on the wealthiest. They arrange for public assets to be handed over to private corporations so the few can make profit from the rest and penalise those who cannot afford to pay. They repeal laws as red tape if these hinder the wealth accumulation of corporations, but bring in regulations to clamp down on any resistance from workers and unions to arbitrary business diktats. Worst of all, they orchestrate scapegoating campaigns to deceive people about the real causes of social and economic problems, and divert public anger towards vulnerable people least able to defend themselves: immigrants, disabled people, the unemployed, those in dire poverty.
Greed, with the other giant causes of human misery in its tow, is now a tyrannical force in politics. Those most adept at squeezing dry the fruit of ordinary people’s labour, and siphoning off the resultant nectar to their private reservoir, are granted a place at the apex as ‘wealth-creators’ and can pick their own privileges. Everyone else is robbed of equal access to quality education, decent jobs, affordable homes, free healthcare, and a real safety net.
Politicians looking to rally the great majority of the public to join forces in rebuilding our society, step forth and declare: it’s time to end the tyranny of Greed.
[There are two public talks in Cambridge this May on ‘The Problem with Plutocracy’ by Dr. Henry Tam:
7 May, Tuesday, ‘Left with a Hard Choice: the contest of democracy v plutocracy’
13 May, Monday, ‘Will this be the Plutocratic Century?’
For more details, see ‘The Problem with Plutocracy’]
The answer lies with the sixth giant, Greed.
After the defeat of fascism in the Second World War, progressives rallied to Beveridge’s vision of slaying the five infamous giants of Ignorance, Idleness, Squalor, Disease, and Want. A civilised society in partnership with a responsive state would ensure the provision of education, employment, housing, healthcare, and social security. Public debt of over 200% of GDP was brought down through growth fuelled by state investment in building a better future for everyone. Quality of life improved substantially, especially for those on lower income.
But they forgot about Greed. And Greed struck back with a vengeance.
From the 1980s on, Greed in the form of plutocratic manipulators have driven forward a relentless agenda to make the wealthiest 5-10% in society even more rich and powerful by releasing them from any bond of solidarity with the other 90%.
Ideological arguments do not so much shape this agenda as are deployed to justify the overriding aim of amassing more power and resources for those with the most, while making everyone else more dependent on them.
These plutocrats – Reaganites, Thatcherites, funders for ‘protest’ parties like the Tea Party & UKIP – push for taxes to be cut to widen the gap between rich and poor. They press for public provisions to be slashed so that it will hurt the 90% but will have little impact on the wealthiest. They arrange for public assets to be handed over to private corporations so the few can make profit from the rest and penalise those who cannot afford to pay. They repeal laws as red tape if these hinder the wealth accumulation of corporations, but bring in regulations to clamp down on any resistance from workers and unions to arbitrary business diktats. Worst of all, they orchestrate scapegoating campaigns to deceive people about the real causes of social and economic problems, and divert public anger towards vulnerable people least able to defend themselves: immigrants, disabled people, the unemployed, those in dire poverty.
Greed, with the other giant causes of human misery in its tow, is now a tyrannical force in politics. Those most adept at squeezing dry the fruit of ordinary people’s labour, and siphoning off the resultant nectar to their private reservoir, are granted a place at the apex as ‘wealth-creators’ and can pick their own privileges. Everyone else is robbed of equal access to quality education, decent jobs, affordable homes, free healthcare, and a real safety net.
Politicians looking to rally the great majority of the public to join forces in rebuilding our society, step forth and declare: it’s time to end the tyranny of Greed.
[There are two public talks in Cambridge this May on ‘The Problem with Plutocracy’ by Dr. Henry Tam:
7 May, Tuesday, ‘Left with a Hard Choice: the contest of democracy v plutocracy’
13 May, Monday, ‘Will this be the Plutocratic Century?’
For more details, see ‘The Problem with Plutocracy’]
Monday, 15 April 2013
The ATOS Inquisition
There was a time when the Spanish Inquisition hunted down those with the ‘wrong’ beliefs and made them recant their heresy. Now the British Government has rekindled its spirit, but with the aim of confronting the sick and the maimed so as to make them recant their disability.
Imagine you have been struck down by an illness, and according to your doctor, you will no longer be able to carry out work that would earn you a wage in today’s economy. For a time, you draw solace from the fact that you live under a state that maintains a genuine safety net for all, and you will not be left jobless, homeless, or having to beg for charity to keep you alive.
But then a Conservative-led Government comes along and decides that the best way to deflect public attention from its refusal to curb the excessive powers of the corporate elite is to serve up scapegoats. So it tells two and a half million people incapacitated by diverse forms of illness and injury that it will no longer pay any attention to what the doctors who have actually dealt with them have to say. Instead, it brings in the corporation, ATOS, to light the flame of recantation.
ATOS Inquisitors, armed with the mandate to interrogate and declare as many disabled people as undeserving of public support, have plunged countless vulnerable people into the deepest despair.
Examples of ATOS callousness and incompetence abound. Calling themselves ‘assessors’, they ask those summoned to appear before them questions such as “how long have you had Down’s Syndrome?” or “when did you catch autism?” A middle-aged woman, registered blind, was simply told that her benefit would be withdrawn. In another case, a 24-year-old epileptic, who was subject to grand mal seizures, had his benefit cut after he was ‘assessed’ to be fit for work. Just three months later, after living in fear that he could not pay his rent or buy food, he had a major seizure and died. People with debilitating and terminal cancer have also been told they had to surrender their benefits.
For those who managed to find help to appeal against ATOS, a third have had their assessments overturned. But many are too stressed or isolated to mount a challenge. Justice can only prevail if the entire inquisition regime is cast aside. The National Audit Office has investigated and found ATOS work to be unsatisfactory. The British Medical Association has asked for the assessment system to be scrapped.
But the Government is not relenting for one moment, even if people are dying from the fear and reality of losing what little money they had hitherto relied on to stay afloat. The Government is bringing in even more stringent inquisitional criteria to cut the provision of life-saving benefits. Meanwhile, they reward ATOS so handsomely that its chief executive is given a £1 million bonus.
If the ATOS Inquisition had featured in a dystopian novel about what a rightwing government might do, it would be decried as irresponsible scaremongering. Sadly it is all too real.
[To learn more about the Employment & Support Allowance (ESA), take the ESA Quiz. Note: the number of people claiming benefit as they are unable to work has not actually risen since 1997]
Imagine you have been struck down by an illness, and according to your doctor, you will no longer be able to carry out work that would earn you a wage in today’s economy. For a time, you draw solace from the fact that you live under a state that maintains a genuine safety net for all, and you will not be left jobless, homeless, or having to beg for charity to keep you alive.
But then a Conservative-led Government comes along and decides that the best way to deflect public attention from its refusal to curb the excessive powers of the corporate elite is to serve up scapegoats. So it tells two and a half million people incapacitated by diverse forms of illness and injury that it will no longer pay any attention to what the doctors who have actually dealt with them have to say. Instead, it brings in the corporation, ATOS, to light the flame of recantation.
ATOS Inquisitors, armed with the mandate to interrogate and declare as many disabled people as undeserving of public support, have plunged countless vulnerable people into the deepest despair.
Examples of ATOS callousness and incompetence abound. Calling themselves ‘assessors’, they ask those summoned to appear before them questions such as “how long have you had Down’s Syndrome?” or “when did you catch autism?” A middle-aged woman, registered blind, was simply told that her benefit would be withdrawn. In another case, a 24-year-old epileptic, who was subject to grand mal seizures, had his benefit cut after he was ‘assessed’ to be fit for work. Just three months later, after living in fear that he could not pay his rent or buy food, he had a major seizure and died. People with debilitating and terminal cancer have also been told they had to surrender their benefits.
For those who managed to find help to appeal against ATOS, a third have had their assessments overturned. But many are too stressed or isolated to mount a challenge. Justice can only prevail if the entire inquisition regime is cast aside. The National Audit Office has investigated and found ATOS work to be unsatisfactory. The British Medical Association has asked for the assessment system to be scrapped.
But the Government is not relenting for one moment, even if people are dying from the fear and reality of losing what little money they had hitherto relied on to stay afloat. The Government is bringing in even more stringent inquisitional criteria to cut the provision of life-saving benefits. Meanwhile, they reward ATOS so handsomely that its chief executive is given a £1 million bonus.
If the ATOS Inquisition had featured in a dystopian novel about what a rightwing government might do, it would be decried as irresponsible scaremongering. Sadly it is all too real.
[To learn more about the Employment & Support Allowance (ESA), take the ESA Quiz. Note: the number of people claiming benefit as they are unable to work has not actually risen since 1997]
Monday, 1 April 2013
Don’t Know Much About Politics?
In the recent ‘No, Minister’ poll (conducted between February and mid March before the latest Budget announcement), people were asked to vote for up to three Cabinet Ministers in the UK who they would like to see removed from their post.
The three Secretaries of State the British public most wanted gone turned out to be Iain Duncan Smith (Work & Pensions Secretary, picked by 46% of those who voted), Michael Gove (Education Secretary, 35%), and George Osborne (Chancellor, 34%). [As each respondent could cast up to 3 votes, the % of voters wanting different Ministers removed add up to over 100%. It is also worth noting that in a Telegraph poll of Conservative Party members, the top two favourite Ministers were Gove (41%) and Duncan Smith (14%)]
Although the response mechanism was self-selecting, a number of observations can nonetheless be made. For example, the three ‘most unwanted’ politicians share one notable characteristic: they were unapologetic in pushing forward policies that are widely debated in the media for their likely harm to vulnerable groups (e.g., the disabled, jobless, children, the poor).
By contrast, despite the severe cuts and privatisation to which NHS services are subjected, Jeremy Hunt (Health Secretary) came a distant fourth (with just 17%) after routinely apologising for the faults of the NHS while consistently deflecting blame onto NHS employees. No other Secretary of State was anywhere near being picked by 10% of those who voted, even though their actions on cutting and privatising public services would also have major negative impact. But since the impact would be channelled through opaque processes of transfers to private contractors, or weakening of intermediary bodies (e.g., local authorities, legal aid providers), the Ministers concerned remain largely under the civic radar.
This raises the question that if the electorate in general reacts primarily to reports of blatant affront to our moral sensitivity, then politicians who are skilled at dressing up their policies with soothing words and delivery complexities may escape being held to account by the public. To counter this, we would need to increase our political understanding, and back our emotive responses with critical dissection of public policies.
Worryingly, the younger generation appears to be heading in the opposite direction. It is often said that young people are active in protests, but how many are engaged in shaping and securing support for policies to be implemented by government? The signs are that very few show much interest in what government does and how it can be changed. Indeed despite the support of many youth organisations in publicising the ‘No, Minister’ poll via Twitter and other social media, hardly anyone below mid-twenties took part in the poll.
According to a recent analysis of the British Social Attitudes Survey (from 1983-2010), today's young people are “less supportive of the NHS than their parents were; are less likely to favour higher benefits (though they are far more likely than their elders to be unemployed); and feel less connection to society at large than previous generations.” (‘Generation self: what do young people really care about?’, Guardian 11 March 2013)
The disengagement of young people from public institutions and collective provision undermines democracy. It could easily leave the wealthy elite to retain governmental control to serve the needs of the few. And unless political ignorance is radically dispelled, the prophecy of the government doing little for the people might just become perpetually self-fulfilling.
The three Secretaries of State the British public most wanted gone turned out to be Iain Duncan Smith (Work & Pensions Secretary, picked by 46% of those who voted), Michael Gove (Education Secretary, 35%), and George Osborne (Chancellor, 34%). [As each respondent could cast up to 3 votes, the % of voters wanting different Ministers removed add up to over 100%. It is also worth noting that in a Telegraph poll of Conservative Party members, the top two favourite Ministers were Gove (41%) and Duncan Smith (14%)]
Although the response mechanism was self-selecting, a number of observations can nonetheless be made. For example, the three ‘most unwanted’ politicians share one notable characteristic: they were unapologetic in pushing forward policies that are widely debated in the media for their likely harm to vulnerable groups (e.g., the disabled, jobless, children, the poor).
By contrast, despite the severe cuts and privatisation to which NHS services are subjected, Jeremy Hunt (Health Secretary) came a distant fourth (with just 17%) after routinely apologising for the faults of the NHS while consistently deflecting blame onto NHS employees. No other Secretary of State was anywhere near being picked by 10% of those who voted, even though their actions on cutting and privatising public services would also have major negative impact. But since the impact would be channelled through opaque processes of transfers to private contractors, or weakening of intermediary bodies (e.g., local authorities, legal aid providers), the Ministers concerned remain largely under the civic radar.
This raises the question that if the electorate in general reacts primarily to reports of blatant affront to our moral sensitivity, then politicians who are skilled at dressing up their policies with soothing words and delivery complexities may escape being held to account by the public. To counter this, we would need to increase our political understanding, and back our emotive responses with critical dissection of public policies.
Worryingly, the younger generation appears to be heading in the opposite direction. It is often said that young people are active in protests, but how many are engaged in shaping and securing support for policies to be implemented by government? The signs are that very few show much interest in what government does and how it can be changed. Indeed despite the support of many youth organisations in publicising the ‘No, Minister’ poll via Twitter and other social media, hardly anyone below mid-twenties took part in the poll.
According to a recent analysis of the British Social Attitudes Survey (from 1983-2010), today's young people are “less supportive of the NHS than their parents were; are less likely to favour higher benefits (though they are far more likely than their elders to be unemployed); and feel less connection to society at large than previous generations.” (‘Generation self: what do young people really care about?’, Guardian 11 March 2013)
The disengagement of young people from public institutions and collective provision undermines democracy. It could easily leave the wealthy elite to retain governmental control to serve the needs of the few. And unless political ignorance is radically dispelled, the prophecy of the government doing little for the people might just become perpetually self-fulfilling.
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