Iain Duncan Smith is to take away the jobseeker’s allowance of 1.4 million people if they refuse to undertake periods of compulsory full-time work in the community
He claims it will be part of a new "contract" with the 1.4 million people on jobseekers' allowance, with the government's side of the contract being the promise of a new "universal credit", to replace all existing benefits, that will ensure it always pays to work rather than stay on welfare.
I am sickened by this approach. First, if there is a contract between people and state it is between all people and the state, not just those on benefits and the state.
Second, if that contract exists (and I think it does) then this is its basest form. The state here is offering a conditional offer of reduced benefits in the future as consideration for a current obligation to work without choice on projects that will be run by private contractors for profit with, no doubt the threefold aims of:
a) Undermining market rates of pay for similar work;
b) Providing profit opportunity for a few contractors at cost to most in society;
c) Supporting the notion that the provision of services in the community can be done at undervalue or no cost and without appropriate skills being needed — in the process deliberately seeking to undermine the notion of the welfare state.
As such, in this exchange the state is exploiting its position of power to exploit and is in the purpose seeking to favour a few whilst pursuing an ideological endeavour to reduce pay, undermine social services and provide an unpaid pool of labour for the so called ‘big society’.
This is fundamentally unethical. The contract between the state and all who live within it is one where the rights of each party have to be respected; where the state has no right to exploit its power; where the obligations must be mutual and reciprocal; where the outcomes are likely to be mutually beneficial and where the requirements are proactive.
None of these characteristics are present in the approach the ConDems are promoting. A fair contract between the state and the unemployed would feature these obligations on the state:
1) The obligation to create work: real work, paid work, with training and opportunities. The Condems are denying their responsibility for any of these things.
2) The state must pay benefits if it fails in this obligation to create work. But the benefits paid are not some sign of failure on the part of the recipient. They are a sign of failure on the part of the state. The ConDems don’t recognise this. They are transferring the guilt for their own failure to produce viable economic policies onto those who are the innocent victims of their incompetence.
3) The state has a duty to raise the necessary taxes to ensure that those who are out of work — and the vast majority are out of work through no fault of their own despite the claims to the contrary — are not penalised for being so. To seek to ensure they are penalised for being out of work — as the ConDems proposed — is to deliberately create injustice.
This is further indication that the ConDems have a clear goal — to undermine, divide and even destroyed society. Thatcher failed to destroy the society she claimed did not exist. But the ConDems aim to do it — not least by deliberately creating an underclass of people who will be required to undertake forced labour against their will to enhance the profit of an elite in society to further the social goals of a government who is very clearly seeking to push some elements of the population out of society for no fault of their own.
Does that sound familiar to anyone?
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Richard – I wanted to bring this blog to your attention. The plight of the long term sick and disabled with the CRS is just appalling.
http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.com/2010/11/take-time-to-listen-and-learn-douglas.html#comments
It seems to me that this policy will basically create a vast reserve army of unpaid (or nearly unpaid) forced labour. We really aren’t that far from treating unemployed people like slaves, herded into ghettoes by the reforms to the housing benefit system which will mean they will be unable to live in anything except the poorest areas.
Overall, this kind of welfare policy is only a couple of steps from concentration camps for long-term unemployed people. Extremely scary.
My grandfather found himself pointlessly moving gravel across a playground in the 1930’s – need I say more – the coalition really is intent on wiping out the post-WW2 welfare system.
“Forcing” people to do “voluntary” work is a contradiction in terms. Contradictio in terminis. We have a minimum wage in place. If someone is forced, they are entitled to be paid the minimum wage. If not, I’m sure this dictum could be challenged successfully in the courts.
It has been suggested today that much of this work will be for local authorities, who are paid just above the minimum wage. If councils are going to have to pay unemployed “volunteers” the minimum wage, then there isn’t much point in making people redundant in the first place. All that will happen is councils will incur the additional cost of redundancy payments, whilst not reducing their wages costs. They may even end up be re-employing the same people, which takes them into difficulties with Transfer of Understakings legislation (TUPE).
Looking at the proposal practically, how is it be determined whether someone is applying for jobs? Besides, people can easily print off ten CVs each week, send them out to the first ten jobs in the newspaper and demonstrably claim they are actively seeking work.
The government will run into difficulties if they try and push this through. IDS said today, “The message will go across; play ball or it’s going to be difficult.”
I suspect this a bit of bluff and a bit of PR, rather than a serious solution. It’s riddled with problems.
Do you seriously think this will ever be implemented?
There’s no doubt its a high profile bluff, mainly to distract people from the real business of carring for their own core community, the ones that stump 50k a year to the party.
The guardian’s slavering over this supposed ideological renaissance was unbelievable.
Importing a few cranks’ prejudices is not really the same thing as serious government, importing their failed methods is about as far as you can get from it.
However, it seems to be working, its all about the deficit and benefit scroungers these days.
But surely the work is not actually “unpaid” because they are, after all, getting regular money from the state in the form of benefits. The money these claimants will receive from their labour is levied from every working person in the country, thus it is us who are their employers and we are are paying them for their labour – essentially making them public sector workers rather than an “unpaid pool of workers”.
Disabled people aside – whom we should of course support as any civilized society does – there is no free money that just comes into existence of its own accord, it all has to be made somehow. This kind of approach – if you don’t find a job, then we will give you one should you wish to receive the hard earned money of others – rightly serves to remind people of that connection.
And just like it’s the state’s duty to create opportunities for individuals, it is the individual’s duty to contribute to society. That is a virtuous circle, one that engenders a dynamic society, creates opportunities and a shared enterprise, and thus benefits everyone in it.
For people to get something for nothing (to have a right of income without the duty to earn it) because they choose to stay home hinders this and distorts the dynamic because there will always be people who would rather the easy option of staying at home – something the current system allows for and therefore makes you and me pay for the idleness of others. Rights do not exist without duties.
[…] commented on the same proposals […]
@Markus
Then pay them for proper jobs
That’s the obligation of government
Then and only then can it says it expects people to take them
Of course a few people choose to stay at home. It’s a bloody annoying. But to destroy society on that pretext is a pretext and an excuse – because they are a tiny minority
Of 4 million unemployed 3.5 million will be involuntary – and will eb scapegoated none the less
[…] commented on the same proposals […]
Fair point about the proper salary, but, if it were a proper salary, would that not lessen the incentive for the unemployed to find “real” jobs? For the 500,000 lifestyle claimants, the scheme could incentivise them to a job that pays properly as they would most likely prefer more money for the same amount of work and therefore be more likely to actively search for it. It would basically give a nudge that incentivises movement in the right direction — as opposed to letting individuals and, sadly, families by extension, get used to money for nothing. For the 3.5million who would rather work, would it not at least give them some sense of routine and perhaps even purpose from being able to do something productive, to work, to contribute?
The fact that a person can not find work should not mean that everyone else must pay indefinitely for their upkeep without getting any kind of contribution in return. And, at the end of the day, if they cannot find work and do not want to do these so called unpaid jobs, but want to still be productive, then why not start their own business, whether that starts from baking cookies to sell to friends and family or teaming up and providing some service with other benefit claimants they might meet while doing this low paid work? Necessity can be the mother of all invention, but I very much doubt that being subsidized for doing nothing could transform into something useful…
Whether or not the individual wishes to spend their day watching day time TV, I would push people into doing something active and thus contributing to society even if their choice on the matter is restricted, rather than subsidize a life on the couch for the unemployed, thus making it more difficult with every day that passes for them to join the workforce. At the end of the day, people doing nothing seven days a week is of no use to society nor to the individual concerned.
Might I just add, though, that I have found your articles to be informed and very interesting and they continuously force me to rethink and re-evaluate my thoughts on matters such as these — for that I thank you sincerely and keep up the good work.
@Markus
you fundamentally missed the point in what I said here and throughout this blog
The point is that there is absolutely no reason why these people need be unemployed
if the government now put in place appropriate economic policies to stimulate the economy we would both great employment and at the same time generate the necessary revenues that the deficit was cleared. This is no coincidence, this would be the inevitable consequence of clearing unemployment that a stimulus for the economy would provide
in other words, your whole attitude endorses a situation where people are forced into unemployment, and the governments position is exactly the same.
But these people need not be unemployed and therefore the issue go away
You are therefore choosing to abuse these people in their position of deprivation from employment when you should instead be seeking to find constructive employment for them
The position is, consequently, without any moral authority and reveals the lack of compassion inherent in your position
I applaud your referring to ‘The Social Contract’ in it’s fullest meaning for it helps us to focus on exactly what is going on in our supposed democracy. The concept is that the people give up a state of anarchy (the state of nature) and their natural rights and contract to obey a government they nominate provided that government carries out the mandate the people give it. If the people break the contract then the state has the monopoly of the use force to enforce their laws and policies. If the state (governemnt) fails to fulfil the requireements of the people or abuses the power it has then the people have the right to replace it. As John Locke, the champion of much liberal thought, explained this could extend to rebellion and bloodshed.
The current government does not have anything like a mandate from the people for it’s blatant attempt to destroy the welfare state and society along with it. So much so that a Lockean solution may not be too far fetched.
@David Drinkwater
I sincerely hope it doesn’t come to that
But Labour must offer a real alternative to prevent frustration reaching that point
Will they?
I don’t know
Where in the Constitution (or in other constitutional doecuments of democratic states) does it say that the government is responsible for providing employment to its citizens?
@Million Dollar Babe
It isn’t
Every major state does it
It’s a condition for democracy
Now I know you and your type don’t like democracy, but those of us who believe in it think that full employment and democracy go hand-in-hand
you, on the other hand, would seek to destroy that system
@Richard Murphy
Not sure what type I should consider myself associated with. Certainly, I love freedom and democracy at least as much as anyone else, and have earlier in my life served to defend these values.
My point was simply that in the most essential contract between the state and its citizens, there is no mention of an obligation on the government to provide work.
That does not mean that we cannot all agree that full employment is highly desirable, there will always be a wide spread of views on how to achieve this. Many people will be of the opinion that there are many alternatives to government employments.
In many/(all ?) recent elections, voters have elected governments that believe that a reduction in the size of government is desirable to promote long-term prosperity. This is democracy at work. Surely it has to be respected.
@Million Dollar Babe
I can’t actually find anything that says the state will defend me either
and it isn’t written in the Constitution that it will educate my children because we don’t have a constitution
but the truth is, the state does defending, and the state does educate my children and what ever is officially said the Bank of England does set interest rates to seek to create dull employment, even if it fails
that is because at the end of the day all elections are about the economy, stupid
And if there are millions of unemployed people at the next election you can be sure that David Cameron will be out of office
and that is why he will address this issue because he is required to call an election – and if he does not create employment then he is toast
Toast is not in the constitution either but only nitpicking pedants have failed to notice the realpolitik of this
@Richard Murphy
Actually the very preamble of the Constitution reads:
Defence, justice and domestic tranquility (read law and order) figure prominently, not jobs.
I know we do not have a constitution, but if we had one, chances are it would not be very different.
@Million Dollar Babe
Yes, but this is not the US
And note the obligation to promote the general welfare
At least as clear an obligation to create universal employment as any commitment to defence I’d say