John Hutton to take benefits away from "hardcore unemployed"

[nonamenopackdrill]

Quango city.

 

[TeeJay]

You mean California?

As a teacher you might be interested in California Proposition 74 (2005), one of Schwarzenegger's ideas that as defeated by a referendum.

wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_74_(2005)
text of ballot proposal: http://www.smartvoter.org/2005/11/08/ca/state/prop/74/

Actually seems to cut a lot of 'quangos' out of the loop, with a direct appeal to the voters via a ballot proposal, rather than having commissions of the great and the good, bodies stuffed full of professional busy-bodies and everything being decided behind closed doors.

 

[Azrael]

Why should anyone who pays taxes have to subsidise someone who refuses to work?

Absolutely.

If the original campaigners for a welfare state knew it would lead to people arguing that it existed to subsidise the work-shy they'd be appalled.

Unlike some conservatives I passionately support guaranteed welfare for the involuntarily unemployed. It's the mark of a civilised and compassionate society. But the suggestion that the hardworking should subsidise other people's indolence is the opposite. It's nothing but decadence and selfishness, and tarnishes the entire concept of benefits. The people who suffer will be the unemployed as the popular mood turns against welfare.

This is the problem when assistance becomes remote. All those who gleefully advocate the theft of other people's wages would have a harder time justifying their position to a local Friendly Society.

And as for the arguments about low-paying jobs leaving you below the poverty line, since that line is now relative and constantly shifting, it's a fairly meaningless one.

 

[zion]

voting on most thigns should be limtied tot hose who actually know fucka ll abotu the subejct

If we're going to limit the franchise, how about denying the vote to people who spell as badly as Garfield?

I've seen how the system of citizen initiatives works in California. It works well in the short term. In the long term, 25 years of annual initiatives that each set aside 4% of the state budget for crucial social goals inevitably leaves some crucial goals out - but is that really a worse outcome than what we have already?

The principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is deeply and fundamentally flawed. You can see this by a simple application of the idea.

Let's say you have a company where they change from the current system of compensation to a system following this rule. Overnight, it will become dumb to try and demonstrate your ability by doing a good job, because that just means that more will be expected from you. Instead, it will be rational to apply to the company's owners for an allowance based on your needs - or in short, to get in the begging line. The inevitable result will be that the company collapses under the weight of supporting people who have no incentive to do anything other than demonstrate how needy they are. The same goes for a society.

Even if we assume that "from each according to his ability" in fact means "according to his ability to pay", the same thing will happen, just more slowly. It will become clear that people who work hard and people who demonstrate need will get exactly the same compensation, whether financial or otherwise. Under those circumstances, only those most deeply imbued with a Puritan work ethic will continue to work, and they will shoulder the burden of supporting the greater mass of people who see no short-term point in working at all rather than demonstrating need. Again, the company will collapse, and the same goes for a society.

I can't speak to whether there are too many or too few people on welfare in the United Kingdom. But I would say that it's legitimate for governments to set up incentives in such a way as to promote work rather than to discourage it.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

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

Hmm, food for thought Gra.

Not sure what you mean by 'your mechanism' above?

I'm guessing maybe that stuff about funding unemployment out of profits rather than wages, but that was less of a serious suggestion and more of a thought experiment aimed at getting people to question just why they are so easily sucked into cheering when the government tries to make conditions worse for the unemployed.

 

[ViolentPanda]

If we're going to limit the franchise, how about denying the vote to people who spell as badly as Garfield?

Punishing people for dyslexia?

How very Galtonesque of you.

 

[treelover]

maybe so, but it makes people very anxious: I know a disabled woman who since one of those disgusting 'target benefit fraud' adverts appeared near her house, she now feels guilty about even getting disability benefits to which she is entitles. Then again, maybe this is one of the aims: to deter people even claiming, but also to create a new 'them and us.

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

 

[Jonti]

... the hardworking should (not) subsidise other people's indolence ...

So you'd support confiscatory taxation on the inheritance of capital, and of all unearned income (usurious income), then?

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

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.

Interesting figures, especially in light of other news that Central government spent around £1.8 billion on consultancy in 2005-06, according to new figures published by the National Audit Office, while total public sector spending on consultants is estimated at around £2.8 billion for 2005-06.

While there has been a reduction of spending in some departments (mainly the DWP, DTI and MoD), spending on consultants across the public sector has risen by 33% between 2003-04 and 2005-06, largely because of increased spending in the NHS.

Wonder when the government will get tough with the 'hardcore' departments who 'can pay will pay' £billions to unregulated business consultants then? Seeing as how it's their friends in business who benefit from this spend, I think we'll be holding our breath.

 

[likesfish]

if there just keen on doinf this rather than change the law just get enough staff at the JSA to check the record of job seeking behaviour your suppoused to fill for your cash ?
those that can't or won't well the won't don't get any cash unless they do what the man says can't see there cause getting much support though
those that can't get some intensive support
job done no need for get tough macho bullshit.
but the above approach won't happen cause it would cost cash involve work and won't make headlines in the stun and the daily hate

 

[The Black Hand]

Symbolically Huttons anouncement is important, its announcing the end of welfare and the creation of the Market state officially. It's part and parcel of the slow and picemeal move away from the Kenynesian Welfare State towards the Market Warfare State. This makes attacks on the remaining collective welfare state institutions (eg. NHS) to come slightly easier (divide and rule).

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

I've been reading a few more bits and pieces on this yesterday and today, and given that this announcement was completely unexpected (especially when there is already a major programme of welfare reform underway and passing through Parliament), there is a widespread suspicion that this is an attempt by Blair and his crony Hutton to force a welfare policy agenda upon Brown in advance of his expected accession.

I certainly can't believe that there is the capacity within DWP, at a time of 5% annual administrative savings, for them to begin to introduce and roll-out the new Pathways to Work and Employment Support Allowance (which is in the Welfare Reform Bill already before Parliament), as well as then beginning a major 'crackdown' on JSA claimants. The resources involved would be too disparate (100,000 'hardcore' claimants spread all over the country), the effort & expense too great for the associated savings, that it doesn't make sense.

What was interesting about yesterday's speech was Hutton saying that he wanted to set the agenda for the next 10 years (even tho he's retiring at the next election) in terms of welfare provision. This means there is a need to review existing welfare provision and understand what the public wanted - yet, it is clear that, in his mind at least, the answers are already there i.e. 'crackdowns', 'hardcore claimants' 'can work, won't work' etc etc, the language of stigma and social conditioning.

And if the review doesn't follow though, that doesn't matter as they will (clearly) already have successfully planted a seed into the wider public conciousness that there are (a) hard working tax paying decent proper families & (2) feckless indolent benefit claiming scummy families. Making it much harder for Brown to justify bringing in any more redistributive income system, a la tax credits, for example.

 

[Megaton]

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.

You've just hit the nail well and truly on the head, squire.....

 

[treelover]

Polly in the Guardian is on about this today,. some very good points, particularly about the nature of many long term claimants and their situation.Though, she still has to big up the New Deal, etc.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1975101,00.html

 

[teqniq]

You've just hit the nail well and truly on the head, squire.....

I reckon so too.

 

[treelover]

to me this post on CIF from screaming lefty just about sums it all up, i wish i had the physical ability to write in this way



CameronFan
December 19, 2006 06:42 AM

"The solution- pay Jobseekers Allowance to the able bodied for a maximum of 6 months. Then- NOTHING. No Council Tax, no Housing Benefit, no Tax Credits, no Free School Meals.
What an incentive."

Mmmmm......yes, they do that here in Spain, (although it's a maximum of 2 years). That's why the streets of any big city or town are full of people on their knees holding out their hands with a cardboard placard around their neck asking for money. Most hang their heads as if too ashamed to look anyone in the face. It's pitiful, and disgusting that in our so-called civilised society we allow it to happen. I ask myself now that the temperature has dropped to 3 degrees where these people sleep.

I also ask myself who these people are who are filled with such righteous indignation, such spitting loathing and bile about the lowest rungs of our "society", these "scroungers" and "freeloaders". Undoubtedly there are a very few people who would prefer not to work and who cheat the state, but this is a blatant ploy by the government to divert our attention and to appear to be doing something about what is in reality a tiny problem, but one which wins lots of votes nonetheless.

Why does it win lots of votes? Because the Mail readers of this world like to clap themselves on the back about how hard they've worked to acheive what they have and rant about how some freeloaders are stealing their taxes. Yaaaawwwwn. The people who are stealing your taxes to the tune of billions of pounds my friends are those who choose to move their lolly to the Cayman islands or Bermuda for example. These are the real thieves we should be concerned about.

If you've ever tried to get JSA as I did just after uni. you'll know how fiendishly difficult it is and how many hoops you have to jump through. It's easier to get a job. So I really do doubt that this is such a big problem. But by god it's popular with the right-wing lower middle class isn't it?!!

 

[kyser_soze]

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.

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

Well apols for that (and you're right I don't keep myself up to date with everything in P&P)...so, what you're basically saying is that this huddled underclass is too scared or too conservative to do anything? TBH if that's the case then I feel sorry for you for the effort you've put in which has obviously met with little enthusiasm, but what more can you do? If you can't persuade someone to act when their welfare is threatened then what can you do?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

<snip> But by god it's popular with the right-wing lower middle class isn't it?!!

So it would appear. Divide and rule indeed.

 

[treelover]

Some more from CIF, sorry its not my own work

Some of the comments here are beyond belief in terms of their nasty ignorance - funny that that this "scum underclass of duckers and divers" increased by leaps and bounds from the early eighties onwards. As Polly Toynbee herself has pointed out

"Tony Travers of the LSE, in a speech this week, talked of how badly everyone underestimated the social catastrophe of 1980s deindustrialisation, made worse under Thatcherite policy. Those whose livelihoods were devastated were given no time to adapt, leaving well-paid working-class men with no jobs or chances for their children or for their communities to adapt gradually to new skills"

http://society.guardian.co.uk/comment/column/0,,1927236,00.html

 

[exosculate]

I think this will lead to an increase in street homelessness.

It fits the pattern though.......

Along with the attacks already on disability benefits
The collapse of NHS dentistry
PFI rampant in the NHS, schools and elsewhere
The total inadequacy of affordable housing provision

etc etc etc

It is very sad, getting worse, and prospects for improvement look bleak.

In my view there are not loads of people claiming JSA who don't want to work (there are a minority). Many find it very difficult to find work, many have underlying problems but have either not been placed on Incapacity Benefit at all or been forced off of it.

When you attack a minority, you actually attack everyone in the group. Systems that can be abused will be abused, it happens in taxation etc etc.

A civilised society takes a civilised view of these things.

As Treelover says - what next the work house.

 

[treelover]

I think time limited benefits will next, then the workhouse...

 

[tbaldwin]

Well, as VP pointed out if it's a snide directed at me it's out of time, but when you look at it from the perspective of the social value of work - which is what you're implying - then the majority of jobs currently available are socially irrelevant. For example - a car plant worker is actually employed in an industry that helps destroy the environment, is a rapacious consumer of raw materials, to produce a product that were it socially controlled and allocated would probably require an industry about 1/10 of it's current productive capacity.

I also suspect that you are criticising advertising from the 'middle man' perspective, and it's role in 'brainwashing' consumers into buying stuff...well the only reason ad agencies exist is because it's cheaper (altho efficiency arguments) for clients than having a permanent member or team of staff who won't be used for about 2/3 of the year. Altho obviously if you hold that advertising in and of itself is immoral, well...

I wasnt particularly going for the bitchy post but i do think its worth looking at moral judgements about why people should work....I am all for people contributing something but obviously some contributions are more open to question than others...

 

[Bernie Gunther]

. . . 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

I've been thinking some more about this. The first question this makes me want to ask is, what the purpose of such 'campaigns' might be when they make no real difference to the economy, at least directly?

Some possibilities that occur to me are:

Weaken the 'ratchet' effect that you mention above. That is to say, try to somehow re-introduce the 'reserve army' effect. Given what Hutton was saying in the linked article, you might easily think this was the purpose.

Another possibility mentioned above, which seems at least somewhat plausible is the 'divide and conquer' approach. To make people in work see those who refuse work as their economic enemies, despite the apparently miniscule significance of their real-world impact on worker's tax burdens.

It also seems that such propaganda campaigns have what you might call a moral dimension. The associated rhetoric is just full of what I'd want to call Thatcherite moral judgements about the worthlessness of 'scroungers' and so on. A moral rhetoric that's predominated in the mass media discourse about this kind of stuff for several decades now, almost the point where other interpretations seem to be met with incomprehension.

I wonder is there a correlation with age here? I remember a time when that Thatcherite rhetoric was being introduced and when other interpretations, like the old-fashioned marxist one I was using a bit earlier say, would have seemed far less bizarre than it apparently does to most people these days.

So it might be that the continual replaying of these propaganda campaigns serves to influence the public discourse in a favourable direction for neo-liberal capitalism, by encouraging the greater mass of people to frame their discussion of these matters in terms advantageous to neo-liberal ideology.

 

[exosculate]

I think time limited benefits will next, then the workhouse...

Yep the American model. What a beautiful model to follow.

 

[exosculate]

So it might be that the continual replaying of these propaganda campaigns serves to influence the public discourse in a favourable direction for neo-liberal capitalism, by encouraging the greater mass of people to frame their discussion of these matters in terms advantageous to neo-liberal ideology.

I think you headed the nail there.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Wait til you hear this now! DWP have press released details of the review. Helping the esteemed Mr Hutton in his welfare review will be one David Freud, who apparently:

"has had a distinguished career as a journalist for the Financial Times and as an investment banker at Warburg (now UBS). He has previously worked with Government on a number of issues, including the Channel Tunnel rail link, the national air traffic control system, and the Royal Mail. David is currently chief executive of the Portland Trust which works for stability in the Middle East through economic means." - now one must assume that he has been bought in from his Portland Trust expertise (?) - "The Portland Trust is a private British foundation committed to encouraging peace and stability between Palestinians and Israelis through economic development. It promotes initiatives which are designed to improve the working of the private sector, particularly in the Palestinian territories."

A quick google on this guy comes up with this pearl:

"We were predicting that on Eurostar there would be 21 million passengers (annually)," admits David Freud of Warburg, the investment house which sold Eurotunnel shares to the public. The actual figure was less than a third of that. "So the traffic forecasts were not just out by a little bit. They were completely potty; they were nowhere."

The DWP are now going to pay this fucker as a consultant to look at 'How we can tackle the “can work, won’t work culture” – and help those who caught in a cycle of benefit dependency' - its outrageous and ludicrous in equal proportions, imo.

 

[poster342002]

It also seems that such propaganda campaigns have what you might call a moral dimension. The associated rhetoric is just full of what I'd want to call Thatcherite moral judgements about the worthlessness of 'scroungers' and so on. A moral rhetoric that's predominated in the mass media discourse about this kind of stuff for several decades now, almost the point where other interpretations seem to be met with incomprehension.

I wonder is there a correlation with age here? I remember a time when that Thatcherite rhetoric was being introduced and when other interpretations, like the old-fashioned marxist one I was using a bit earlier say, would have seemed far less bizarre than it apparently does to most people these days.

So it might be that the continual replaying of these propaganda campaigns serves to influence the public discourse in a favourable direction for neo-liberal capitalism, by encouraging the greater mass of people to frame their discussion of these matters in terms advantageous to neo-liberal ideology.

To put this another way "If a lie is told often enough and loudly enough, it becomes (perceived as) the truth". That may not be the exact quote, but it was taken from some Nazi at the nuremburg trials, as an anwer as to how the Nazis were able to get away with demonising whole sections of society.

The whole political discussion in Britain is geared towards establishing "official truths" and consensuses. Just look at how the paramenters of a public debate on this or that subject is limited by the use of phrases and prefixes such as "everyone agrees the need for..." (Do they?), "nobody would reject this proposal in it's entirety" (wouldn't we?), "nobody in their right mind opposes this, in principle" (just try me). Where a policy is criticised, it is on the basis of being "unworkable" as opposed to plain "wrong", "vicious" and "uncivilised". A "workable" vicious policy is then duly produced and everyone shuts up.

 

[brasicritique]

Treelover 10 kyzser 0

No suprise there. No suprise that he could not even say sorry without trying to make a chep point. After all Kyzser just hates his own background and past so much that he would rather spew his venow at those who are trying to make a real difference, he has a lot of personal issues. But being xmas we should forgive the bitter old panto queen


100,000 Hardcore i would like to know where that came from.The figure is a joke.

+

600,000 current job vacancies

+

out of interest does this include escorts required? Are we going to go down the german root of sending women for jobs in brothels? I find it interesting that not many feamle urbanites seem to be bothered about this post when it is people of their gender who will suffer most.Still maybe it simply reveals their socio-economic status.


5million economically inactive people

+

Romanians and Bulgarians and other eastern europeans on their way

+


massive housing shortage

+

Left wing in love with international issues and basically saying to under/workingclass you smell go away.

+

all this at at time when we have never had it better

=

Far right laughing all the way to the ballot box

FFS you people on the left people wake up start listening and put aside your ego and the dogma that is marx before its too late. ( Obvious exceptions aside ie Treelover Bertie )

 

[kyser_soze]

No suprise there. No suprise that he could not even say sorry without trying to make a chep point. After all Kyzser just hates his own background and past so much that he would rather spew his venow at those who are trying to make a real difference, he has a lot of personal issues. But being xmas we should forgive the bitter old panto queen

Ahh, free psycho-analysis from brasicattack, the world's bitterest man. And I apologised as soon as I saw TLs reply and don't know what the 'cheap point' in my apology was - clearly your paranoia about everything is getting to you.

 

[likesfish]

spent a lot of time on the dole now working partime and looking after the kids as well BECAUSE I HAVE THE OPTION CAUSE I'M IN SOCIAL HOUSING.
without that could'nt afford to work last place ex council house rented out £675
anyone whose on the dole for more than a year is going to need some serious help to get back into the game threating them isn't really going to achieve anything