Benefits Street has inevitably touched a nerve. I saw a bit and found it compelling - not as an indictment of welfare or the people on the street but as an indictment of society as a whole.
Charlie Brooker's column sparked some interesting comments, like the one I've quoted in full below. We are in a conundrum. The problem thus far with attempts at replacing 'irrational' capitalism is that we have not found a way to overcome 'irrational' human urges by the powerful few to game every system designed to create more fairness and a better life for all. The media would have us believe the problem is Benefits Street - poor people 'gaming' welfare. But the rich are gaming the system to the tune of billions. So too are bankers, who charge us billions for the free creation of debt money, which we guarantee anyway.
The more we look at ourselves as a specie, the more we can see that as intelligent apes, we are not primarily 'rational' even though we have the capacity to be rational and, more importantly, selfless. The problem with appeals to rationalism is that they need not be ethical. Secular enlightenment produced imperialism, justified slavery and the right and left wing atheist dictatorships of the 20th century.
All human societies require rules - legal or religious - that bind human behaviour and prevent abuses. Totalitarian dictatorships allowed unlimited abuse by leaders who were, in the worst case scenario, acting out a kind of Walter White version of will to power. Breaking Bad's White claimed to be doing it for his family, Hitler did it for Germany, Mao and Stalin did it for the new socialist state they had built.
Sometimes I just yearn for the all powerful priest-king who can rule for the benefit of all, and punish the greedy wrongdoers, while ensuring everyone is part of the plan. Why? Because I actually think we are often happier knowing a father (or mother) figure is there to keep an eye on things, and to ensure justice prevails. Mythical rulers (even bad ones) give us a sense of belonging and meaning, being part of a community.
Our system of 21st century capitalism adheres to a form of competitive savagery, something that in the past was exercised through inter-tribal war. But such wars, although apparently common, were a million miles from the total war of modern times. Meanwhile our more gentle and communal nature was exercised within and amongst friendly communities where everyone was part of a kind of extended family (see David Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years.) More than 90 per cent of human history saw us live as primitive communists, sharing the little we had. War and debt (and the trading of slave captives) changed that, starting some 6000 years ago.
Capitalism and imperialism have spread an alternative idea of our 'true' natures, built on the self-justification of gentleman pirates and merchant adventurers. Darwinian science has been used to try to show that this is our true natural state.
Our rulers need to continually reinforce the idea that rather than being a community or a group of communities, as nations we are involved in a global competitive race in which success is measured in GDP growth and corporate profit. That is true, as far as it goes, but the measuring is now decoupled from human welfare.
How do we recreate human sympathy for our fellow man and woman, including those on Benefit Street? Can we afford to care for others in a planet of 7 billion, in a globalised economy? The newspapers and the Tories demonise migrants and welfare claimants - divide and rule - while imposing permanent austerity. Hate and fear must be stoked, in Britain as in North Korea.
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"The "hard truth" is that the state has effectively declared war on society for the benefit of the rich. While the rich are protected (given open, free and unlimited access to all the best that our civilization has to offer; free to exercise their money power without responsibility or restraint), the rest of us are lectured about the virtues of personal responsibility and austerity.
However, if we really want to understand what is happening, not only to UK but in the capitalist world in general, then we have to look beyond monied individuals (who should nevertheless be held to account) and look at the whole picture.
As a world economic system capitalism is inherently and increasingly crisis prone: that's its “natural” state. In fact, since the 1970s the rate of crises has speeded up with crises regularly occurring throughout every decade. So, what does that mean for contemporary capitalism and the future of the welfare state.?
According to David Harvey: A crisis is “(a)n irrational, rationalizer of an irrational system; the irrationality of the system right now being masses of capital and masses of labour side by side in the midst of a world that is full of social need.
How stupid is that?
The rationalization that capital is looking for is the re-establishment of the basis for the extraction of surpluses: to re-establish the profit rate. The irrationality in which they (capitalists) are going about this is to actually suppress these possibilities by suppressing labour and suppressing the circulation of capital.
As socialists there is another way of rationalizing; the big question is how to take all that equipment and all that labour and put it together so that it meets human need? That is the rationality that we should be looking for right now, at a moment of crisis, at a moment of opportunity to think about the transition to socialism”.
Make no mistake, austerity is a class project the aim of which is to roll back the advances made by working people for the further enrichment of the ruling class. Austerity isn't intended as a short/medium term measure, it is, as Cameron said, forever.
Surrounded by the opulence of the Guildhall’s grandest room, Cameron addressed 900 rich and well-pampered guests enjoying a sumptuous banquet, courtesy of the City of London Corporation. He used the annual speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet to declare that the devastating austerity being imposed by his government will be “permanent.”
Chancellor George Osborne’s Autumn Statement announced further billions in spending and welfare cuts. The “recovery” hailed by Osborne is actually the slowest in more than 100 years, with the economy more than 3 percent smaller than before the 2008 crash.
The UK economy has only been able to remain afloat through a guarantee of cheap money via the £375 billion of quantitative easing that been made available to the banks. This could rise to as much as £425 billion.
Through the progressive commodification of the means of social reproduction (education, health, welfare, etc.), the neoliberal state has engineered a social catastrophe. The goal is to finally destroy what remains of the Keynesian welfare state that emerged during the long post war boom, and replace it with a neoliberal "workfare" state.
Whereas the role of the state in the Keynesian model was to try to extend the social rights of its citizens, the "workfare" model is concerned to provide welfare services that benefit business, both national and international. The net result is that the needs of the individual/society will take second place to capital accumulation forever.
Permanent austerity is a class project under taken by states on behalf of the rich. It is class war pure and simple.
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