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Welfare state and riots
The proudly provocative online magazine Spiked yesterday published an article on the riots that have been taking place, with a different slant from many of the other commentators. Thought some of you might be interested to have a read of it.
The political context is not the cuts agenda or racist policing – it is the welfare state, which, it is now clear, has nurtured a new generation that has absolutely no sense of community spirit or social solidarity.
What we have on the streets of London and elsewhere are welfare-state mobs. The youth who are ‘rising up’ – actually they are simply shattering their own communities – represent a generation that has been more suckled by the state than any generation before it. They live in those urban territories where the sharp-elbowed intrusion of the welfare state over the past 30 years has pushed aside older ideals of self-reliance and community spirit. The march of the welfare state into every aspect of less well-off urban people’s existences, from their financial wellbeing to their childrearing habits and even into their emotional lives, with the rise of therapeutic welfarism designed to ensure that the poor remain ‘mentally fit’, has helped to undermine such things as individual resourcefulness and social bonding.
London’s burning: a mob made by the welfare state
There’s also a new blog piece from Terry, Lasa’s CEO, entitled Supporting our young people in difficult times that you may also be interested in. Thoughts on any of the above?
Gordon Bennett, it gets worse. I’ve now come across an e-petition on the official Government website with over 70,000 signatures already, stating that they think….. “Convicted London rioters should loose all benefits”
Yes, because I’m sure that would have made all the looters think twice before looting Debenhams and the local corner shop…....
What do you expect from a magazine which is a mouthpiece for the (counter)Revolutionary Communist Party.
There are two well reasoned and reflective pieces by Aditya Chakraborrty and Seumus Milne on this in today’s Guardian.
Thanks for the heads up Paul.
UK riots: political classes see what they want to see
I wouldn’t presume to offer an expert’s view on what triggered the riots. It’s been ages since I moved out of Edmonton; and a few recent flying visits to the retail parks of Tottenham Hale do not a sociologist make.
Instead, permit me an observation: in the intervening years, whenever telling other journalists or people in government about my childhood home, I might as well have been describing a tribal settlement in the hills of Orissa. Not that I blamed my audience. Edmonton and Tottenham may be parts of the capital, but they aren’t central or glamorous or promising punts in the property market; for most Londoners, they’re just bits you drive through to get to Ikea or the M25.
Until, that is, this week. Now, when members of this same media-political complex have pitched up in the past few days to explain what’s going on, they seem to know all about N9, N17, EN1 and all those other overlooked postcodes. For Paul Routledge in the Mirror yesterday, these disturbances have a common cause: “The broadcasting of poisonous rap.” On an attempt to decipher Max Hastings in the Mail, it’s all to do with one-parent families and a dependency on benefits: “They are essentially wild beasts.”
These riots reflect a society run on greed and looting
While bankers have publicly looted the country’s wealth and got away with it, it’s not hard to see why those who are locked out of the gravy train might think they were entitled to help themselves to a mobile phone. Some of the rioters make the connection explicitly. “The politicians say that we loot and rob, they are the original gangsters,” one told a reporter. Another explained to the BBC: “We’re showing the rich people we can do what we want.”
Most have no stake in a society which has shut them out or an economic model which has now run into the sand. It’s already become clear that divided Britain is in no state to absorb the austerity now being administered because three decades of neoliberal capitalism have already shattered so many social bonds of work and community.
What we’re now seeing across the cities of England is the reflection of a society run on greed – and a poisonous failure of politics and social solidarity.
Is it not just a combination of time, weather, opportunity?
and that’s pretty much it?
(The term is Flashrobbing.)
[ Edited: 11 Aug 2011 at 12:23 pm by John Birks ]Is it not just a combination of time, weather, opportunity?
and that’s pretty much it?
(The term is Flashrobbing.)
No. Because it’s 30 years since such events last occurred on a national scale. There’s been plenty of time weather and opportunity since 1981. What there hasn’t been since then is a deep recession, growing immiseration and the crashing sound of doors being slammed in young people’s faces.
Richard Atkinson
Well it doesn’t happen when it’s raining or cold unlike the student protests. So there’s your weather element.
Time = time on your hands. unemployment and school holidays.
Opportunity? Social Media is the new element with a few strangers coming together to loot.
http://getwritegossip.com/2011/07/27/we-aint-flash-mobbing-we-flash-robbing/
There is no excuse for theft or robbery, be it a high street chain or a corner shop.
Politics can be blamed because there is little link between crime and punishment so the deterrent is lost.
Historically the SPG would have acted with greater enforcement (or violence) than the present day tactics so the looters, theives and robbers should thank ytheir lucky stars that they live in 2011 rather than the 1980’s.
Young? Have you seen the MEN? Looks like they were just to old to get away.
Here I want to deal largely with the narrower point of Spiked’s reasoning. There has been a traditional view among parts of the British left, of which I proudly consider myself part, (and probably some from others across the political spectrum, but it resonates mainly on the left as a weapon to beat the Labour Party with, as the party of constitutionalism) that the welfare state was fashioned as a bulwark against socialism with the end of the second world war letting loose 5 years suppression of disaffection with pre-war economic and social conditions, and thousands of armed working men in uniform returning home.
There is much to be said of this view. Revolutions have a habit of occurring during or following wars. The revolution of the middle classes and lower nobility, through their political organ Parliament, against Charles 1st came hot on the heels of Charles’s wars against the Scots and his taxation of the English, without Parliaments’ consent, to pay for them. The French revolution followed (albeit at a much longer distance) the 7 years war and, particularly how it played out in the Americas (known as the French Indian Wars) whereby the French were, by and large, kicked out of North America thereby losing control of vast territories and their resources. Added to the English Naval supremacy at sea, bankruptcy slowly followed with the Ancien Regime surviving as long as it did because of a lack of powerful middle class institutions and the power of the Catholic Church behind it.
The Russian revolution sprang (although was not caused by) directly from the chaos and horrors of the first world war, while in Britain in 1918-1919 revolution was very much in the air, particularly in Ireland.
By the end of the early nineteenth century the British Tory reaction to the French revolution was giving way to a new kind of pragmatism as a response to the social conditions produced by the eighteenth century enclosures and the fledgling industrial revolution. The newly emerging reform movements were largely led by the non- conformist religious movements (Methodists, Baptists, etc), radical movements such as the proto-trade union London Corresponding Society and middle class idealists such as John Cobden and Richard Bright. The British state had started to learn lessons also, making just enough concessions over time to stave off mass unrest in order to maintain its grip on power (the 1830 Reform Act and the Factory Acts for example)
Thus, if we look at the creation of the welfare state as part of this tradition and as the culmination of the growth of social welfare provision since the latter part of the nineteenth century we can see it more clearly. It is true, as I’ve said before, that the modern welfare benefit system has been transformed into something that Beveridge would neither have recognized nor wanted. However, the welfare benefits system is not the whole of the welfare state and to reduce the welfare state to the cause of the recent riots while completely ignoring wider global economic and political forces is Marxist revisionism of the worst sort. It is intellectual laziness and puerile nonsense. Kelvin McKenzie would be so proud
Personally I really don’t see European history affecting or giving reason to the problems of the UK.
We lopped off a Kings head, regretted it. Then tried to stick it back on.
I’m no fan of the Royals but that’s what Britain wants by consent of the masses. This is not a revolution.
The masses do however, see great unfairness in the UK on many many fronts. None of which has to do with electronic goods or trainers.
Of the masses that see unfairness only a few will riot or cause civil commotion. Problem is the British don’t like a bully whatever ‘class’ they come from.
The poor have always been poor and there have always been the rich and it’s unfair that footballers claim to work and to have earned their great riches. But it’s also unfair to make a choice to steal what you can’t pay for.
Well it doesn’t happen when it’s raining or cold unlike the student protests. So there’s your weather element.
Time = time on your hands. unemployment and school holidays.
Opportunity? Social Media is the new element with a few strangers coming together to loot.
http://getwritegossip.com/2011/07/27/we-aint-flash-mobbing-we-flash-robbing/
There is no excuse for theft or robbery, be it a high street chain or a corner shop.
Politics can be blamed because there is little link between crime and punishment so the deterrent is lost.
Historically the SPG would have acted with greater enforcement (or violence) than the present day tactics so the looters, theives and robbers should thank ytheir lucky stars that they live in 2011 rather than the 1980’s.
Young? Have you seen the MEN? Looks like they were just to old to get away.
On the SPG, I’d point out that there is now instead the TSG or Territorial Support Group who are tasked with the same essential approach to public disorder. In the Commons just now, Cameron has, effectively, laid the blame on the police for the public perception of them being slow to respond, and not being seen to be trying to protect businesses and people.
The role of social media is a very interesting one. Whilst the use of Blackberry BBM’s has now been widely highlighted, I think we should be careful about over emphasising the role that it played. Parallels have been drawn with the Arab Spring and the way that social media both helped reporting and organising. However, there were also quite obvious figures to rally against (and to some degree, a cause to rally around).
What happened over the past week really does seem to have been very random in many ways and beyond the simple fact of some people (apparently) sharing messages imploring others to go here or there, it’s very clear that there must be other motivations and drivers for why this happened. Blocking BBM’s won’t stop this happening again.
“Personally I really don’t see European history affecting or giving reason to the problems of the UK”.
With respect John, you have not understood what I have been trying to say. I am not attempting to link the problems of European history to the present problems of the UK. I was trying to demonstrate the reasoning behind Spiked’s premis that the welfare state is the cause of the riots and the genesis of the thought processes in response to developments in recent British history, and its comparison to how things played out in Europe, to show how that premis was arrived at. And how short the leap is from that view of the coming into being of the welfare state and the view that it is the cause of the riots.
No way would I suggest blocking BBM or any other social media. You may as well ban talking.
The social media use is just an evolution of human behaviour. Guy Fawkes would have used social media if mobile phones and stuff had been invented then.
The difference is that you can reach people very quickly.
Any way it won’t happen again because the police have water cannon available at 24hours notice. ‘Just wait there lads… we’ve put a chit in….’
“Personally I really don’t see European history affecting or giving reason to the problems of the UK”.
With respect John, you have not understood what I have been trying to say. I am not attempting to link the problems of European history to the present problems of the UK. I was trying to demonstrate the reasoning behind Spiked’s premis that the welfare state is the cause of the riots and the genesis of the thought processes in response to developments in recent British history, and its comparison to how things played out in Europe, to show how that premis was arrived at. And how short the leap is from that view of the coming into being of the welfare state and the view that it is the cause of the riots.
Sorry for any offence but too many words…
None taken.
“Personally I really don’t see European history affecting or giving reason to the problems of the UK”.
With respect John, you have not understood what I have been trying to say. I am not attempting to link the problems of European history to the present problems of the UK. I was trying to demonstrate the reasoning behind Spiked’s premis that the welfare state is the cause of the riots and the genesis of the thought processes in response to developments in recent British history, and its comparison to how things played out in Europe, to show how that premis was arrived at. And how short the leap is from that view of the coming into being of the welfare state and the view that it is the cause of the riots.
I don’t know whether they provide a right to reply, but you should write all the above into a piece and send it to Spiked, to see whether they’ll publish it I reckon.
None taken.
Good.
The original article had too many words too.
But I should say that’s ‘too many words for me and my brain.’
There is marked difference between and organised peaceful protest and rioting and looting your own neighnourhood. They shut down the youth club , so lets trash the neighbourhood-duh! . I hope they all get community service and shackled in orange suits and made to rebuild and a make good what they have spoiled. The bottom line is life is what you make it, your not tied to the streets you were born in, so get off your a*** and earn a living and stop blaming everyone and everything else for your attitude problem.
John, to the extent you’re being serious and not mischief making, and dbcwru, I cannot help recalling Christopher Hitchens’ three sentence response to Martin Amis:
“Don’t. Be. Silly”.
Hope that’s not too many words.
Seems we have the classic debate…two stools between the
“aren’t they senseless?.....so self-defeating…idle bu**ers”
brigade
and the (I have to say) slightly more thought-through “contextualised” view born of history (European and otherwise)
“A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard”.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
versus
“He didn’t riot. He got on his bike and looked for work”.
Norman Tebbit
Diffcult to really take sides when emotions are clearly so raw but on balance (and even with the great US depression, race inequality and poverty considered) I’d rather have been Martin Luther King’s father than Norman Tebbit’s dad…..absolutely!
The bottom line is life is what you make it, your not tied to the streets you were born in, so get off your a*** and earn a living and stop blaming everyone and everything else for your attitude problem.
Too simplistic. Otherwise the perils of being born into poverty, and all that that means for a child’s development, wouldn’t exist.
Too simplistic-yes for those who would rather have complicated…...
Paul
I rather suspect that Spiked would actually agree with my overview. It would be my ultimate conclusion it would reject. There is a rather well written, well researched, informative and persuasive but, in my view, ultimately flawed piece on the site by James Panton, lecturer of Politics at St John’s College, Oxford.
Just for the avoidance of doubt here is what I said above.
1. According to the reasoning of Spiked the welfare state was founded to fend of socialist class struggle and is thus, ultimately, the enemy of the working class.
2. The welfare state was a product of the pragmatism of the British state as a product of its particular history.
3. Spiked’s conclusion that the current riots are caused by the existence of the welfare state in its current form is palpable nonsense.
Here is what I did not say.
1. The current riots are in any way shape or form “a revolution”.
2. The current riots have any one simple explanation.
If I’m honest, in relation to the welfare state, I think a key cause behind what’s taken place isn’t anything to do with welfare dependency intrinsically, although some may try to dress it up as such. However, I do think the decision to scrap the EMA, on the grounds of it being badly targeted has been a a key driver (that isn’t any excuse, so please don’t take it as such). Whilst it may have been a pretty blunt edged tool to help “persuade” older children from poorer backgrounds to remain in education, I feel that it did play a valuable role in maintaining the links between some of those more troubled youngsters and some activity within formal education. It kept them with some stake in wider society quite simply, rather than being excluded.
I have a friend who works in further education in Tower Hamlets and though some of his students may not necessarily be shining exemplars, many have found something creative and useful to do with their post secondary school time. Even those who don’t shine, do at least remain more engaged than if they simply didn’t come along at all. Now many of those students got very angry when it was announced EMA was to be abolished, and they ended up on the streets with older students protesting over fees and they experienced the power of the crowd and the associated excitement of those actions.
They also learned about the organisational capacity of social media in such situations. They also learned to lose a bit of fear of the police and by extension, the state. Let me be very clear, I am not for one second saying that this in any way means that they have any basis for robbing, looting or arson, particularly as someone I know has been directly affected very badly by what took place.
But it is my opinion that those factors above, when linked with John’s points on this being the summer holidays, so the kids are out of school anyway, the good weather, cuts to C&YP; services, and the additional factor of many adults involved who should clearly be much more responsible, have all created the tinderbox that went bang this week, seemingly sparked by the death of Mr Duggan.
I hope that knee jerk responses don’t gloss over some of these factors, by instead further dehumanising young people as “scum”, “criminal” and “animals” - don’t forget, there are thousands of young people, the significant majority in fact, who are as horrified as everyone else by what’s taken place and they must not be smeared by the simple fact of being young. Seeing the quiet dignity of Tariq Jahan yesterday, after the awful death of his son, asking people to calm down and go home provides a good lesson for many of the more febrile reactions from those with much less to lose. It’s time to think the way forward very carefully, I think, so that I really hope we don’t see any repeats in future.
[ Edited: 11 Aug 2011 at 06:30 pm by Paul Treloar ]Oh, and in relation to Jan’s points alluding to double standards, its worth pointing out as an example that MP for Manchester Gorton, Gerald Kaufman, claimed £8,865 for a Bang & Olufsen Beovision 40in LCD television.
Sir Gerald Kaufman’s £1,800 rug and an £8,865 claim for a television: MPs’ expenses
On July 7, 2006 the fees office wrote to Sir Gerald to say: “I regret to inform you that this item falls within the not allowable category of luxurious furnishings, and as such has been rejected.”
Last night Sir Gerald offered to repay the money for the rug and admitted that his claim for the £8,000 television was “a bit daft”.
I wonder whether any MP would be brave enough to stand up for one of their constituents caught looting a 40in LCD TV and plead for them to be let them off, because they have been a “bit daft” I wonder?
Right, last from me for now. New article in Guardian by Elizabeth Prochaska, a barrister at Matrix Chambers
UK riots: Should rioters lose their entitlement to benefits?
As for housing, it is possible under various Housing Acts and anti-social behaviour legislation for the court to grant a landlord a possession order where a tenant has caused a nuisance in their “locality”. Grant Shapps’ suggestion that a person could be evicted for committing a riot-related offence, regardless of where it occurred, takes this much further. A landlord may have grounds for evicting a person who has caused their neighbours distress.
It’s harder to see why a person who has broken into a shop in Ealing should be evicted from his flat in East Ham. But conceptual confusion and knee-jerk populism are no obstacle to legislation. Parliament can do pretty much anything it, or inflamed e-petitioners, desire. Subject, of course, to the controls Parliament imposed on legislation under the Human Rights Act.
Regardless of what you think of universal welfare entitlement, the critical problem for these proposals, like many of the government’s ill-fated schemes (just think of the DNA database and sex-offender registration), is that they impose blanket penalties on people without taking into account individual circumstances.
Thanks very much everyone who has contributed so far, particularly for keeping the debate polite and sensible.
John, to the extent you’re being serious and not mischief making, and dbcwru, I cannot help recalling Christopher Hitchens’ three sentence response to Martin Amis:
“Don’t. Be. Silly”.
Hope that’s not too many words.
3 too many Tom. ;-)
The bottom line is life is what you make it, your not tied to the streets you were born in, so get off your a*** and earn a living and stop blaming everyone and everything else for your attitude problem.
Too simplistic. Otherwise the perils of being born into poverty, and all that that means for a child’s development, wouldn’t exist.
This sounds like an excuse to me born of over complicating matters.
Not all of us born into poverty or surrounded by poverty act in a negative way.
Lifes harder. But life IS hard, anyone who tells you otherwise knows NOTHING of life.
Just for the avoidance of doubt here is what I said above.
1. According to the reasoning of Spiked the welfare state was founded to fend of socialist class struggle and is thus, ultimately, the enemy of the working class.
2. The welfare state was a product of the pragmatism of the British state as a product of its particular history.
3. Spiked’s conclusion that the current riots are caused by the existence of the welfare state in its current form is palpable nonsense.
Here is what I did not say.
1. The current riots are in any way shape or form “a revolution”.
2. The current riots have any one simple explanation.
People will in the main, take the least line of resistance. If things are hard they give up. They flounder. This is human behaviour.
On that basis there may well be something in what spike is saying.
Combine that with a society that is built on buy now pay later and where there’s blame there’s a claim you have an interesting mix.
On top of that add a criminal justice system that doesn’t work (although some would say it works very well for the criminal) then you have where we are today.
I’d have to refer to 3:10 to Yuma quotes again with respect to what the social security system is as it’s ‘they’ that walk away.
and its not nonsense. It’s a reasonable conclusion but if so what’s the answer?
Removing benefit is hardly going to crack crime.
The Guardian has compiled data that may help the debate
[ Edited: 12 Aug 2011 at 11:52 am by John Birks ]The Daily Mail is reporting that Iain Duncan Smith, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, has asked his department to look for an effective way to sanction people convicted in the recent unrest. They want to look at sanctioning those that get non-custodial sentences, so that they “realise there are serious consequences to their behaviour.”
The Mail say that their source said that benefits could only be taken away from adults, so would not affect the mothers and fathers of children convicting of looting, and that any cut in benefits would be temporary and take into account an individual’s needs and offence - this would appear to be a direct response to the points made by the barrister in the Guardian article I quoted yesterday.
Meanwhile, the petition which calls for benefits to be taken away has dwarfed others on the Government’s e-petition website and has been formally passed to a backbench committee to decide whether it should be debated.
Rioters face losing their benefits cash… and they could be kicked out of council houses
I’ve found the coverage on Democracy Now! helpful. Here is a link to interviews on Democracy Now! on Wed 10 Aug with Darcus Howe, and author and blogger Richard Seymour of “Lenin’s Tomb.” http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/10/over_1_000_arrested_in_uk
The interviews start about 14 minutes in.