But this is all achingly demoralising - I can usually tap this blasted keyboard at a fair pace, stamping my seal of bollocks onto all things at a steady canter. Presently, however, each clack of brittle plastic is an internal triage, a torment of indecision.
What I can do, and I will have it known that I can do it quite well, is copy and paste something I have written before. I should explain what it is, and so I think I will explain what it is. It is an essay on poverty I wrote for the 'New Statesman and the Webb Memorial Trust Essay Competition'. It was shortlisted, bringing with it the prospect of a shiny reception in Parliament, with important people and important trousers. Trousers mere mortals' buttocks cannot hope to animate.
I immediately decided not to attend. I cannot stand celebratory events - there is something unremittingly bathetic about them, being wet farts in event form - but I will often attend. What is worse is the brand of artificial, meaningless event this invitation to Parliament was perpetuating.
Yet I still went! Reason cannibalised its fellow Instinct, and led me to a thoroughly unreasoned decision. It seemed that, if I won the £1000 prize, or even the £500 runner-up prize, the expense of a suit and travel to London would be more than amortised. What hubris! This is like justifying the consumption of a sandwich because one might become hungry in the near future.
The event, unsurprisingly, followed precisely the progression of all events in my life, and I imagine in world history, which preceded it. There was an initial pang of excitement, agitation, novelty as we rolled through security (barrels of gunpowder rudely seized from us) and into the bowels of this stone leviathan. There was a sense of power to be savoured as security people, on seeing our invitation, did not arrest us on the spot. The thought of a strip search could not be further from their minds (though this may be owing to my ridiculous state of dress).
Making awkward ingress into the venue of the event was just that - awkward. Strange people proffered glistering libations from great platters, and exquisite viands exploded from all directions, tending towards the digestive systems of those in attendance. Here I was, a youthful wight being inducted into some debauched, Hellenic symposium! Grapes falling into my mouth wherever I moved! Breastfed by the Virgin Mary herself!
A preponderance of important trousers was indeed found - but important jackets too! And shirts! I had never seen so much importance in all my life! There is a terrible hostility in the construct of the suit - it being almost an emulation of medieval armour, rendered in flimsy fabric for the purposes of minimal encumbrance. I imagine there is a feeling of security to be experienced when one dons a suit of armour - indeed, it would be odd if this were not the case - yet is this not what the suit hopes to achieve? Everyone must certainly, if only subconsciously, acknowledge the absolute nonsense of the entire pretense; the idea that some strips of cotton sanctify their host and his morality is of course ridiculous. And yet, all wear suits, contented that they are fitting in, fulfilling that hideous precept propounded by only the most insipid individuals. 'Just fit in and don't make a fuss', I am frequently told, more often than not by two despairing parents, but is this not a call for the renunciation of the human spirit? I am quite serious. Homogenisation is the most pernicious force in the universe. All who slip under its thrall perish immediately - their existences become supererogatory. I will have no such fate for myself. This grim world is bleak enough without the shred of beauty all have access to - the personality. Nothing fascinates me more than a unique individual, but nothing vacates my mind more than a dull character, a common spirit. I must state, I do not believe that this common dullness of character is due to the universal blandness of humanity, rather it is individuals who are either too timid to seize haecceity for themselves, or it is society which tears it from them, in an act of utter spite. The idea that man might be debarred from unleashing his true character is the force which necessitates liberty - today we talk of liberty as having the freedom to subsist, or to be a part of an inherently malignant society. Well, fuck that! Liberty is the personal autonomy requisite for the perfection of the human spirit!
What an odd tangent. The path of my narrative hit some sort of impasse, ricocheting wildly at an oblique angle. I believe I was expatiating on the profusion of digestive fodder at this place - so antithetical to my solitary bean burger! There is nothing wrong with an abundance of food and drink, indeed this seems preferable. What does seem to me to be quite incredible, however, is such plenitude and wealth at an event devoted to the discussion of the topic of poverty.
It occurred to me, before the day had even arrived, that this was all impossibly absurd. Were there to be cash prizes, and wine, and exquisite morsels dispensed as if with some sort of neurosis, when there are half a million people in this country using food banks? Would £1500 of cash prizes be best spent on some, and I hate to pass judgement here, middle class kids with attractive CVs? There seemed to be something so symptomatic of the entire system, so microcosmic, in this tiny event. There is a tendency today to pontificate endlessly on matters, when of course this does nothing for material circumstances. These ridiculous discussions on poverty and food banks somehow tend to the financial reward of journalists and politicians. Yet what is there to discuss? In a civilised society, there should be no need for food banks whatever. That this is a real problem causes me hideous agony. The agony of comfortability, perhaps! The agony of hypocrisy, the agony of the weak. I am oddly rather glad I did not win anything at this blasted event; I considered such a possibility before I attended. What would I do? I certainly couldn't keep the money. £1000 to write a few words on how this country allocates money so unfairly? I would be mad! In many ways I regret taking part at all, for it reveals at least the yearning for such a poisoned chalice to be bound to my conscience.
Money is nonsense, its discussion should be banned! If we allocated all wealth equally, and held solemn silence on the matter thence, this world would be a more beaming place. I feel as if my hand has been forced in a world in which such an outcome is undesirable for ruling elites - I spend my life talking of money, that we might no longer talk of money! And politics too - I have no interest in politics whatever, but I cannot retain silence in the face of rampant malice!
I feel a strange urge to scrub myself of attendance of this fucking event - but this is this problem! I criticise the whole phenomenon, and recognised its blight before the event took place, and yet I still attended! I talk of individualism, and I am as obedient as the others. What am I to do? This world is so strewn with antinomy and strife, I scarcely know what to believe or how to act! This world is a stage for great discord between ideas, held by men who cannot prove their verity. And what if one forges the perfect template for this world? It shall be ignored, and cannot be verified besides! Then take my essay - it's worthless!
*
The Webbs and William Beveridge believed that “full employment” was a prerequisite for removing poverty. Is this true today – and, if so, how would you achieve it?
There is perhaps no better time to talk about unemployment and poverty. These are two of the great elephants in the room, occasionally gestured towards but rarely apprehended with any true vigour. Before I do so myself, I must begin by stating that I think there is the kernel of something pernicious embedded in the question I am about to answer. Unemployment is, contrary to what unemployment figures would have one believe, not simply a number which needs to be reduced to nothing. 'Full employment' is a fairly abstract concept which really means very little in isolation. Very little, that is, unless the quality of work is also taken into account. The question posed seems to intimate that work's virtue lies in its toilsome nature, not in its ability to bring some prosperity to a worker's immediate circumstances. Full employment itself is not something to be pursued as an ultimate paragon of welfare; there is nothing virtuous in toil for toil's sake, indeed this seems to me to be a fairly sadistic notion.
For this very reason, the flat figure of the unemployment rate fails to sincerely indicate the scale of the unemployment problem we have. Many workers have had to receive pay cuts, all workers doubtless face a more mercenary and perfunctory interview process with the tide of spare labour threatening to drown them at all times, and a huge number of workers will have had to accept part-time positions instead of their previous full-time positions. None of this is so much as hinted at by the unemployment figure. There is something cold and sterile about this monolithic, solemn number which is supposed to tell us a great deal about the economy. The thing it sadly overlooks is the workers it ostensibly represents. I don't believe there is any sense in mindlessly striving for full employment if the employment itself exploits workers.
This said, I do believe the chief benefit of work should be explored here. Work provides a wage, the sum of which can be used to bolster one's material circumstances. I think this is quite unobjectionable. Does it therefore follow that we should work as much as possible, or that full employment is a prerequisite to the eradication of poverty? I don't think so.
There is, at present, a rather large stigma attached to the prospect of unemployment. We all remember how, as the recession reared its ugly head half a decade ago, there was, quite rightly, universal obloquy waiting for the extravagant bankers who had successfully uprooted the world economy. What I find quite incredible, however, is how this condemnation has been transferred, by the power of a scaremongering press and a wicked sect of politicians looking for scapegoats, to the unemployed – the very people lost in the fallout of all this mess. It is they who are destroying the economy; it is they who are living the good life. I think we have been drip-fed this quixotic imagery of the life of the unemployed to such an extent that is has formed into one colossal, delusory edifice in the public mind, some sort of black stalagmite in the common consciousness, a giant receipt spike onto which all resentment can be hurled in a time of frustration.
In the public mind, the unemployed wake in the morning, ring for room service, then after a full cranial massage languidly jab a red button, following which they are lowered, in a Wallace and Gromit fashion, into the breakfast chamber beneath. William Morris wallpaper clings to every wall, notes scribbled on it from periods of acute paper shortage. A winsome eunuch polishes hunting rifles in a corner, preparing them for a day of action. Japanned furniture is littered grandly round the room with a perfect diffusion, and the stench of expensive oak bores its way to the entrant's brain.
Outside, the clack of gardeners' shears floats lazily across from the Elizabethan knot garden. A gilded palanquin has been laboriously transported from the servants' quarters and is waiting for its eximious charge. A fittingly gilded bottom is winched into place by scrabbling personnel, and all prepare for a jolly good day of shooting.
Firstly, the problem here is that the victims of these shameless and, worse still, boring attacks lack any real voice. They necessarily lack positions in the media, they necessarily lack a workers' union. I have always believed that scurrilous attacks on another's virtue are perfectly fine when the victim is rich and powerful, and indeed they are necessary when this is the case. The reproach shackled to the banking 'community' (admittedly an odd term to ascribe to such savagery) was necessary for political and moral reasons. What I cannot countenance, and what makes me heave with despair, is the execration lashed against the poor. It seems to me to be an obvious code of conduct in politics, and indeed in general, that one should never assail those whose power and wealth pales in comparison to one's own. It is therefore indicative of the brutal desperation of economic crises that not just the few, but the majority, should stoop to such depths. The worm of asperity, aided by a truculent press, begins to burrow into the everyday person, warping a desire for betterment into a need to find a repository for blame, and a repository which cannot object, at that. I think people have tired of attacking politicians and bankers; there is respectively an evasiveness and an indifference which mars the whole endeavour. What is far more suggestive of progress is to agree – falsely – that the unemployed are wicked. They live for nothing but to see the economy collapse. They refrain from work for their snooty aloofness and unwillingness to enter into society.
Then we may continue with this idiotic witch hunt, turning to our fellow disenfranchised and railing against their blight, or we may shear the manacles of grim condemnation and attack the underlying problems instead. Are people unemployed because they enjoy living in hunger, coldness and inactivity? This is the first question any reasoning individual must ask. Or – and this is a wild concept – is it because we are still in the gelid clasps of what is the most enduring recession of recent history? It is because the government, morally immune under the jovial flag of austerity, decided to ridicule the unemployed, rather than create any jobs for them.
Then we must break the immense stigma attached to unemployment. Stigma may encourage people to find jobs, though I doubt even this, but what it certainly does is divert responsibility from politicians and bankers. These are the people who should feel the weight of public frustration, not the powerless unemployed. To attack the weak is a shameful offense, and it does nothing practical either. Perhaps the unemployment bashers, so ready to broach their barbed tongues, could agree to devote more of their income to taxes, which can be used for improving the quality and quantity of jobs. Instead we have a situation where those who earn in excess of £150,000 per year are receiving tax cuts – a harrowing reality. This is typical of the government's approach to this recession – let the rich get richer and let the poor stay unemployed. Whether it be through an undersold Royal Mail, undersold banks, coercing the unemployed to work for free, the conspicuity with which this is all done makes it almost beyond the reach of satire. Injustice is meted out with such ferocity today that the onlooker doubts his vision, or doubts his instinctive views on what is right and what is wrong. To break the stigma against the unemployed is important in reducing poverty because to blame the poor is the abnegation of responsibility for all else; poverty can never be deracinated when its victims are seen as complicit in their plight.
Yet equality is what will eradicate poverty. To gaze on the privations of one's coevals with utter disgust should be a natural rather than a minority response. An implacable agony at the immiseration of others would be enough to end hunger overnight. Simply, we do not need a greater work ethic, or more working hours – we need compassion. There is enough pie for all to be weeping blueberry juice, but at present the average person is cheated of his 'fair share', to quote the government. A fair share for the majority today is to work for little – or no – pay, whilst financial vultures tear public holdings asunder – Royal Mail, NHS contracts, banks, all racked like Prometheus on the altar of the stock exchange. A fair share today is to work for little return because toil itself is somehow virtuous. Today people are so inebriated by this solemn word – 'austerity', bellowed like thunder across a desert valley – that they look on their chains and somehow think them fair. Poverty is not engendered by laziness, much though the government loves to brandish such platitudes, but by a deeply warped perception of fairness which has been forced down the public gullet like some oozing bolus.
Inequality must be extinguished like the virus it is. 60% of wealth in this country is owned by 20% of people (inequalitybriefing.org). I scarcely need to support this fact with an argument – it is almost too abhorrent for words to cling to. This of course means that 80% of people own 40% of wealth – the subject of poverty is almost ludicrous to discuss before this gross injustice has been tempered. How might we look on a system which allocates the majority of wealth to a minority, and then look with dull censure when people cannot afford to eat? What is to be expected? The system is in dire need of change. The system is not idiosyncratic – it is sociopathic. It rewards the few for the toil of the many. This is the worst kind of barbarism a civilised society subjects itself to, and to support it either indicates ignorance or untrammelled malevolence.
But there is another potential solution, as proposed by Richard Buckminster Fuller, although it too is founded in the banishment of inequality. The quote is quite brilliant and so I must give it in full: 'We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.'
On first reading this, you may have thought, 'What tosh!' but why? We are so constrained by this inexorable capitalist system that the mere thought of dissent is deemed immediately nonsensical. Machinery is growing in its capabilities at a tremendous rate – why not publicly own all machinery, produce things for everyone, do as Buckminster Fuller suggests and let real people work fewer hours? I do not know if work will ever be eliminated, but it can be reduced, and must be if mankind is to gain even an approximation of freedom. I concede, work in the short-term confers on its bearer the freedom to survive. Yet this is the problem! We live on a quotidian basis, snatching income from day to day, and we do not see the long-term shackles. It is only when we are free enough to work fewer hours that poverty can be interred.
Then what do we say to our children? 'Spend your life in the workplace, my child, this is the path to freedom'? Such a sentiment invokes the casuistry I discussed earlier. There is the hint that work is always good, regardless of its conditions. To me, work and freedom are diametric opposites on an abstract level. I am reminded of George Bush's reply to a divorced mother of three: 'You work three jobs? Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that.' Yes – in the short-term a huge amount of work can allay the ills of poverty, but it is incumbent on a humane society to redesign the system, that this needn't ever happen. That somebody works three jobs to survive is nothing to celebrate – it is cause for insufferable anguish. I say again, an individual who looks on such a system without utter contempt is either ignorant or maleficent. At present, poverty is a function of the system, not a terrible aberration in its progression. In the long-term, the destruction of poverty will only occur through a great lurch in the direction of our economic system. It has often been said that charity conceals and perpetuates underlying injustices, and I think the same is true of work. Full employment may be necessary to eradicate poverty in the short-term, but in the long-term this can only bring servility and mere subsistence.
Then the fact that work has burrowed into our conception of freedom is an abject tragedy. We have trudged far enough with this millstone round our necks. We have been shown a world in which, like Sisyphus, we heave a colossal weight with our every move, with no progress derived therefrom. The rich, by some obscure divine right sublimated in the concept of money, look on at the mute proletariat with incredulity, as the latter moves the former's load without protestation. This inequality inevitably leads to poverty. Yet there is a whole tract of stones out there, and a legion of indifferent machines willing to move them. It is never too late to break the chain!
