John Hutton to take benefits away from "hardcore unemployed"

[kyser_soze]

Hence, it's not unreasonable to ask why financing the maintainance of this 'reserve army' isn't done directly by means of increased taxes on investment profits?

No, it isn't.

 

[omlette]

I don't believe that the numbers of "can work, but won't" are high enough to justify a change in the law. And it seems to me that if those people are targeted, it will be a slippery slope (apols for cliche) down to the situation in parts of the USA, where single mothers are FORCED out to work (literally bussed out by the state), even though the minimum wage jobs they are forced to take are not even close to being enough to pay for childcare, which the state doesn't help with in any meaningful way.

I'd rather have a compassionate society, with a few "scroungers", than the alternative.

 

[Fruitloop]

so sell it to the other man or your fellow man... or get over yourself.

Yeah thanks for the great advice. I'm planning to have it tattooed somewhere.

Find something you're good and useful at and work for yourself; join a commune of group of people where your skillset (or one you could learn) would be usuable as barter.

I don't find cleaning the toilet to be appealing; I don't really enjoy washing dishes either, but they both have to be done.

Mum? Is that you?

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

Yeah thanks for the great advice. I'm planning to have it tattooed somewhere.



Mum? Is that you?

ah sarcasm the last resort of the junveile... lovley...

 

[Fruitloop]

You give me so little to work with.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

No, it isn't.

Well. I think it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask, if only as a kind of thought-experiment

It seems to me only just and right that those who benefit, at the expense of society as a whole, from the existence of unemployment should be made to pay for the cost of maintaining the unemployed. Why should workers, whose wages and conditions are being worsened by unemployment, have to finance it by being taxed on their wages as well? Why shouldn't it be paid for out of the net profits that it facilitates?

 

[TAE]

I don't understand what this is all about.

When I was unemployed in the 90s I had to prove that I was looking for work. Has this changed? Seems kind of normal to me, especially now that we have a minimum wage, that if you refuse to find a job then you lose your right to job-seeking related benefits.

Of course the situation is far more complex when it comes to single parents or disabled people, for whom working might in theory be possible but in praxis would mean unacceptable hardship.

I'm also totally in favour of completely free higher education with proper maintainance grants etc to help untrained people find good jobs.

 

[kyser_soze]

Well. I think it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask, if only as a kind of thought-experiment

It seems to me only just and right that those who benefit, at the expense of society as a whole, from the existence of unemployment should be made to pay for the cost of maintaining the unemployed. Why should workers, whose wages and conditions are being worsened by unemployment, have to finance it by being taxed on their wages as well? Why shouldn't it be paid for out of the net profits that it facilitates?

Sorry mate - meant as 'No it isn't unreasonable'

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

You give me so little to work with.

ever thought of gettign a job then you'd not need hand outs from me then ...

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Sorry mate - meant as 'No it isn't unreasonable'

Ah OK. Perhaps as the result of too many years studying formal logic, I get terribly confused when there is more than one negation at work

 

[Fruitloop]

I have a job, I just hate it is all. I've had quite a few, in fact, all more or less equally arse. Capitalism alienates me from my labour - that's its essential function in fact. Joining the petit-bourgeoisie seems difficult and in any case is hardly the solution for everybody. Joining the capitalist class is near-impossible and not really ethically desirable either.

I don't mind my taxes going on paying a living wage for people out of work - it's probably one of the better things that they get spent on - certainly from a purely personal point of view, it's one of the few things they go on that actually benefits me directly.

I say yes to more weed-smoking layabouts, and no to Trident.

 

[bigbry]

No-one in receipt of welfare benefits for any length of time enjoys a comfortable life, the rates are too low.

They are low but it's amazing how many get to accept that level and when offered a job say I'm not getting up early for £X per week where X is the difference between the JSA or whatever and the take home pay of the job on offer.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

They are low but it's amazing how many get to accept that level and when offered a job say I'm not getting up early for £X per week where X is the difference between the JSA or whatever and the take home pay of the job on offer.

this is of course a monumentally moronic statement with no gorunding in reality....



name 20 who have ever said this... can you...

many may have in more explicit terms said if they job pays x amount and my bills and rent and food and taxt come to y then i cannot afford to take that job as it will result in me not being able to live...

if you are going to use archici stero types do at least understnad the POV they are comign from and the reasons they are so...

 

[treelover]

Fuck off KS, you have touched a very bad nerve: you and a couple of others have made the point I should 'put my money where my mouth is' Well i have literally! and it has been demoralising: The Welfare Reform Bill protests, setting up independent disabled led campaign groups, the constant lobbying, writing to M.P's the media, etc, website developments and more is one of diminishing returns. Disabled people are either too scared, too ill or too too conservative to get involved, the churches too obsessed with asylum speakers, and the left in its broadest sense (who I consider you do need to build a successful campaign) are just not interested, indeed the TUC seem to support and cheer on welfare reform. I don't think you have been following P/P regularly KS and i really do think you owe me an apology.

Well maybe you should stop complaining about what is happening and start organising all these people who won't work because they can't on a local, regional and maybe national scale and start protesting, group support etc.

You've been on this tip for a while now, and while I agree with what you say about the mainstream left which seems completely lost in other issues at the moment, why don't you DO something about it - same goes for anyone else who thinks the same; there's much talk on this site about self-organisation and other stuff but rarely is there any action.

Give the unemployed/underemployed a realistic voice to represent their interests instead of some liberal/lefty m/c uni person - themselves.

www.swansheffield.org.uk

http://www.welfare-reform.org.uk/

http://www.mind.org.uk/News+policy+and+campaigns/Campaigns/Welfare+Reform+Bill.htm

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/manchester/2006/10/352351.html

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/images/2006/10/352364.jpg

 

[Cobbles]

I have a job, I just hate it is all. I've had quite a few, in fact, all more or less equally arse. Capitalism alienates me from my labour - that's its essential function in fact.

So would you object to being a state employed lavatory cleaner in Cuba, then?

Surely your alienation flows from the crapness of the job, rather than the nature of the employer?

 

[Fruitloop]

I dunno, presumably the dunnies in Cuba get dirty at the same rate as here. Why would I need to go to Cuba? Perhaps you would prefer it if they were cleaned by some illegal for less than the minimum wage so that we can stick them back on the banana boat if they get ill?

Actually the nature of the work itself is not so bad, it's the alienation that's a bit, well, alienating.

 

[dash]

Isn't that because you would see cleaning bogs as low-status work, just as most jobs that involve coming into contact with dirt usually are?

I would sooner clean bogs or sweep the pavements than sign on for months or years at a time. Those are useful jobs, better to be useful than useless.

 

[Fruitloop]

How do standards of living compare between Cuban bog-cleaners and Haitian ones, for example? Given the choice I reckon I'd go for the former's lifestyle and forsake the glorious advantages of freemarket capitalism.

 

[bigbry]

this is of course a monumentally moronic statement with no gorunding in reality....



name 20 who have ever said this... can you...

Actually I can't name 20 - but I can name about 10 including one of my own sons who I must confess has actually (reluctantly) got a job in the last few months - but only 'cos his brother finally got fed up of supporting him in his 'idleness' and did what I told him to do ages ago - chuck him out and make him join the real world.

During my 40+ years as what some on here call a wage slave I've been grateful that there was a welfare state as a 'safety net', I've been truly jammy and never had to use it but like insurance it was there if I ever needed it - the trouble is a minority consider the safety net is actually a hammock to doss around all day, or allow them to do 'some sort of community based activity' - that's the sort of thing that the employed call 'a hobby' (and I do believe it is a minority that doss but why should I pay my taxes for someones idleness)

I've always held the view that if you're unfortunate to be unemployed and genuinely want a job the payments are inadequate - If you 'can't be arsed to work' then the payments are too much. How you would run an equitable system like that takes a better brain than mine, unfortunately.

Waits for a flaming.

 

[Jonti]

... if you don't want to work then support yourself, the rest of us shouldn't have to.

Is it OK to do that by filling in forms?

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

Actually the nature of the work itself is not so bad, it's the alienation that's a bit, well, alienating.

I tend to see that as a systemic failure.

Here's a bit of old Fritz describing a part of it:

There is universal agreement that a fundamental source of wealth is human labour. Now, the modern economist has been brought up to consider "labour" or work as little more than a necessary evil. From the point of view of the employer, it is in any case simply an item of cost, to be reduced to a minimum if it can not be eliminated altogether, say, by automation. From the point of view of the workman, it is a "disutility"; to work is to make a sacrifice of one’s leisure and comfort, and wages are a kind of compensation for the sacrifice. Hence the ideal from the point of view of the employer is to have output without employees, and the ideal from the point of view of the employee is to have income without employment.

..a fundamental source of conflict.

What's the alternative?

The author promotes:

[An alternative] point of view [which] takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. Again, the consequences that flow from this view are endless. To organise work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive side of this worldly existence. Equally, to strive for leisure as an alternative to work would be considered a complete misunderstanding of one of the basic truths of human existence, namely that work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure.

http://www.schumachersociety.org/buddhist_economics/english.html

Before we declare it open season on hippies, we should try to remember that they were, after all, actually right.

 

[Jonti]

Isn't that because you would see cleaning bogs as low-status work, just as most jobs that involve coming into contact with dirt usually are?

I would sooner clean bogs or sweep the pavements than sign on for months or years at a time. Those are useful jobs, better to be useful than useless.

Granted, but even us undeserving poor desire to be useful.

 

[davgraham]

Just a few days ago, the Serious Fraud Office was told to shut up and stop investigating the millions of pounds of taxpayers' money that allegedly vanished into the pockets of shady arms dealer middlemen.

And now here we are, debating about really small time fiddling fraud instead.

I'm suggesting that this is what the government was hoping for when it launched this campaign.

. . . actually this 'campaign' is relaunched on a regular basis - and has very little or no effect on employment /unemployment statistics . . .

and while it's great to see the old Man quoted [Sam Kerr translation as well!] the Reserve Army of Labour ceased to function in the way described by the 1920s - something Keynes noted when he talked of the 'ratchet effect' on wages ie that they no longer adjusted downwards with the trade cycle.

Wages rates are now at a state enforced, guaranteed minimum level in this country - and it will take a lot more immigration to have any effect on them. Hutton is just window dressing for short term political effect, his estimate of 100 000 geographically spread over the UK will have no effect, it doesn't even amount to a fraction of the 'frictional unemployment' in the modern economy.

Gra

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I take your point Gra, but a) are we absolutely sure that we aren't in the middle of a transition out of that Keynsian 'period', b) isn't something of an analogous effect happening wherever entire industries are exported overseas?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Oh yes, and c) while the basic level of wages might be guaranteed by the state doesn't that leave room for several other approaches? Most notably increasing hours year on year, which seems to be happening in many 'white collar' jobs these days.

 

[davgraham]

I take your point Gra, but a) are we absolutely sure that we aren't in the middle of a transition out of that Keynsian 'period', b) isn't something of an analogous effect happening wherever entire industries are exported overseas?

Hi Bernie

a] no I'm not sure we are not in a transition that it is I entirely accept that it is a possibility

and

b] yes that is what is happening but it would need to have a far greater scale for the reserve army effect to begin to work

so I guess that makes the future 'not so bright' - at the moment the state keeps consumption up by maintaining a minimum wage. Hutton is proposing very marginal changes, which somebody else suggested were actually unnecessary since the DWP has the legal powers already to force claimants into a job.

The reallty which must be explained in the fact that in the UK currently we now have the biggest proportion of 'economically active' since records were kept, that is more people in employment of whatever sort than ever before. Without massive immigration this would have led to wages explosion just like in the 70s. 100 000 'hard core' unemployable is a small price to pay for this especialy when it is funded almost directly by those in work via taxation ie their consumption fund, rather than by profits.

Your mechanism is for the 'long run' which, as Keynes noted is when 'we are all dead'. To change current policies would need a massive shift in policy and bureaucracy - seismic almost, tho' I'm not saying it couldn't happen and in a fairly short time scale - probably by some extra-parliamentary movement tho'.

gra

 

[shagnasty]

it seems that nothing was said about this in the coming green paper.i suggest it is another of those headline grabbing statement to apease the daily mail and more a sign of blair desperate attempt at a legacy .the good thing is that it as provoked discussion

 

[TeeJay]

...the welfare bill in the UK is far, far higher than the financial cost of Iraq or Trident...

Less than one million people getting JSA at £45 per week? By my rough and ready calculations that is about £2.3 billion per year.

Iraq has cost about £5 billion since 2003 (therefore approx. £1.7 bn p.a.).
Trident costs about £200 million per year (including initial costs) over 30 years.

Together this equals £1.9 billion (with an extra £25 - 30 billion on other military spending), which is roughly similar to the amount of JSA paid out.

For "bang per buck" the spending on JSA probably keeps each resident in UK towns and cities as safe as the military spending does and it is doubtful that ceasing either one would be a good idea, however much you like or dislike either 'illegal wars' or 'blaggers' (terminology may vary). I'd bet that the social havok caused by a large number of utterly penniless people roaming the streets hungry and pissed-off would far exceed £45 per week, and unless you could handle seeing people starve you would end up feeding them in any case (or private individuals would do so even if the rest of society didn't, so someone would end up 'paying' out of their earnings).

 

[audiotech]

Brand them with WSC (Work shy cunts) across the forehead and send 'em all to forced labour camps is what I say!

Apart from the branding across the forehead like, workcamps did actually exist - circa late 70's. Someone I knew was sent to one after a period on the dole - at a time of mass layoffs and redundancies. He escaped.

 

[TeeJay]

Not necessarily.

Let's say you had a multiple choice selection:
1) Social benefits (welfare, housing, education, health)
2) Transport
3) Security
etc
And that you could chose which percentage of your taxes went to which service... Surely an improvement and quite empowering too. Also an indirect way of voting, giving everywhere control where it really matters, distribution of wealth.

In reality it would probably fail, but if I'm going to dream I might as well dream big

They have a similar system in California where ceratin taxes are hypothecated towards specific areas of spending and where there qre standing rules about how much of the budget should be spent on certain things.

On the one hand these kind of laws are an expression in some senses of popular democracy - either through direct referenda or passed by the state legislature, but on the other hand they end up tying the hands of the elected executive which makes it harder for the governor (and the legislative) to adapt the budget form year to year, set the right level of taxes and assign the available revenue where they are really needed as the situation changes.

Personally I favour having a system where the budget is proposed by the executive (eg finance minister) as a unified package, but with some level of oversight and approval by a legislative and/or specialised cross-party committees.