Unhappy New Year

Dyer Witheford writes about the organic nature of capitalism; how it is capable of self-regulation and perpetual shape changing; always looking for different markets and new opportunities for commoditisation; objects or people, it doesn’t care. Capacity for resistance is limited. Progress may look promising but rarely lasts. To exist outside capitalism’s access criteria is to be marginalised and disempowered.  The current attack on systems of welfare, in particular the Disabled Living Allowance, is one such example. There are glimmers of hope Disability benefit cuts ‘could breach law’   but they do little to disguise the reality where the hard fought, hard won, gains of the disability movement are being dismantled. It’s a ‘one step forward three steps’ back scenario and wrong on so many levels, not least where medical science continues to value quantitative life over qualitative, but social welfare fails to keep up. In the 1980s recognition that society disables, through failure to recognise and cater for the diversity of human existence, did so much to challenge old medical models of deficiency. Shifting the emphasis from the individual to social structures was a beginning but never enough; there is still more to do in terms of achieving equity of access to opportunities for participation. Thirty years on, that which was given is now at risk of being taken away or provided in a format that is no longer realistic. The focus on work as the best form of welfare ignores the failure of the workplace to cater for diversity and obscures deeper aversive reactions to human diversity and difference.

The government’s public consultation on Disability Living Allowance reform ends on 14 February. The public consultation page is here https://interactive.dwp.gov.uk/disability-living-allowance-reform-public-consultation

Unfortunately it doesn’t follow the ‘write-to-reply’ style public consultation whereby comments are publically available – another backwards step in the creation of the Big Society excuse for dismantling essential provision of welfare services.

what goes around comes around

What goes around comes around and here we are, 100 years on from the report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law (1910) looking once again at welfare reform. The rhetoric of benefit dependency, or benefit scrounging depending on your philosophy,  informs current government policy aimed at getting the nation back to work. Being employed is going to be made the most attractive option.

Do some simple deconstruction and look at the background, lifestyle and income of those making these statements. Then put them into white wellies and leave them in a wet fish factory or get them into the industry of the 21st century – a call centre – either cold calling where your wage depends on meeting your targets or customer services where the ‘care’ ethos has gone to extremes – give Iain Duncan Smith the experience of verbal abuse on a shift rota that includes bank holidays and weekends. Will he still see work as the ‘more attractive option’?

Its all about getting people back into work and nothing about support for those who have always been in work, who spend their lives doing the low paid routine jobs that the government is trying to make more attractive than benefits. Ensure those citizens have contracts that protect them, not cut their wages if they’re genuinely ill, and most of all create affordable education opportunities so work chances can be improved. The cost of part time education is exorbitant and contributes to the trapping of young single people into dead end jobs where opportunities are locked down and there are too few rewards for taking the ‘more attractive’ option.  

Then there is the issue of incapacity benefit – and ensuring protection for those genuinely excluded from social, economic and cultural participation. Not because they are unable to take part – but because society is not designed for them to be able to. A separate blog post I think. If you have any concerns about these issues then watch this space…