It's no joke (1993)

From the July 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Browsing through the local library recently—us “dole scroungers" really know how to live it up—I came across a coffee-table-sized book titled A History of Class. I offered up a silent thank you to whoever had had the foresight to order and stock a book which might allow the casual browser to discover something about the continuing class struggle both now and through the ages.

When I was much younger and had fallen off my bike for the umpteenth time and went into the house blarting my eyes out. my dad used to say to me. “you’ll have much worse than that before you’re finished". Admittedly, I don’t think he had in mind discovering that I had misread the title of a library book, A History of Class was. in fact, A History of Glass!

Peter Ashby, principal consultant for the research company, Full Employment UK, aired his version of making the jobless earn their dole in the Daily Telegraph of 21 January. There is no doubting which side of the class divide Mr Ashby belongs to. He said:

  We need to move away from the old Beveridge notion that you have an income-based safety net for the unemployed. Instead we need to create a work-based safety net. Society would say after this period of unemployment. it's no longer acceptable to us for people to be outside the process of work.

His company had, he said, done research which found that:

  Once people had been out of work for a year, quite a rapid process of psychological decline sets in. People’s self esteem begins to plummet and they talk themselves out of the ability to get back into employment. Then if they get an interview they will under-perform to such a degree that they are unlikely to get the job. Others burrow into the hidden economy accepting the risk that that entails.

As my dad used to say, “if you’ve made a mistake, be big enough to admit it". After all these years of despising the British ruling class—that’s the two percent of the population who own or control the factories, the transport industry, the construction industry, the food industry, the banks, the service industries and the farming industry—I now realize that most members of that class deserve sympathy for their low self-esteem and the psychological damage suffered by them for never having worked. The rest of us, the working class, should be grateful that we have no choice but to sell our labour power—our physical and mental skills—because, obviously, being economically exploited by a minority class is what keeps us sane in an insane world. Unless, of course, capitalism is going through one of its periodic crises of overproduction better known as a slump. The psychological, emotional and economic consequences of suddenly becoming an unpaid wage-slave as opposed to a paid one are well documented.

Many years ago when I was at school, April the First was always a day to be approached with caution. Although the sensitivity of an adolescent was likely to be wounded at times, on that day it was even more galling to fall foul of an April Fool’s trick. As I recall, the deadline for catching out the unsuspecting was midday.

Earlier this year, my local paper reported that Lady Cobham, wife of the local, titled. squire, had been appointed to the board of the London Docklands Development Corporation and to the board of British Waterways. She was given these jobs by Michael Howard, Secretary of State for the Environment. Her ladyship is also president of the Heart of England Tourist Board. A spokesperson said Lady Cobham was delighted with the appointments but did not wish to comment further. The reason for the reticence? The one "job" pays £6,140 a year for half-a-day’s “work" a week. The other “job” pays £8.000 a year for a day’s “work” a week. As my dad used to say, “Them as have got, will get”.

Are you filled with moral outrage? Does it seem grossly unjust to you that someone should receive that amount of money for doing so little when millions are on the dole and across the country workers are agreeing to pay cuts simply to keep their jobs? Or are you envious that opportunities to make such easy money don’t fall into your lap? Or are you simply indifferent because that’s the way thing are and they'll never change? The story was carried in February, not on April First, but the joke continues to be on the working class.

Fitted carpets

Worcester Park is a well-heeled Surrey suburb where John Major lived until he was twelve. Not much likelihood of “dole scroungers” inhabiting that part of the world surely? But in a capitalist world no-one is immune from the effects of market forces. The Telegraph Magazine carried a report on 7 November on the devastating effect of the recession there:

  Lady Olga Maitland, newly elected MP for Sutton and Cheam which includes most of Worcester Park, described her constituency as "a third world, neither town nor country, inhabited by secure, safe, clean, decent, honest people. Salaries range from £14,000 to £30,000. This is absolutely middle England. in income, lifestyle and ambitions, people are uncomplaining. They take pride in stability. They are house proud, with nice kitchens, fitted carpets, central heating, and go to a lot of trouble to make sure the curtains tone".

It is easy to sneer at such "middle-class” aspirations but there are, no doubt, thousands of fellow wage-slaves who would like nothing better than to exchange their poverty-stricken lifestyles for nice

kitchens. fitted carpets and central heating.They would be eager, given the opportunity, to sell their labour power for two hundred and fifty quid a week, let alone for one-and- a-half days. What’s wrong with wanting decent housing, decent education, decent health care and a crime-free society? Who could argue with that? Are the inhabitants of Worcester Park and elsewhere in this island asking yet whether a society based on the economic exploitation of the majority by a minority, a society based upon production for profit not need, a society subject to the demands and whims of market forces, can ever provide the not unreasonable needs of individuals and society as a whole? The joke has gone on long enough and if we don't utilize the power which we possess as a class we might all die crying.

Think of the number of fans at a Saturday Premier League football match. If they were all committed to the introduction of a society based upon free access could they be ignored? Think of the number of workers on the dole. If they understood the reasons why capitalism has to go, to be replaced by a society which no longer screws people in every aspect of their lives, could they be ignored? Strength lies not only in numbers but in an understanding and an overwhelming desire to exercise the political power which the working class possesses. The means to abolish for ever the psychological traumas which living in a capitalist society induces. The inequality, the unfairness, the pressure of the state to conform, and the economic exploitation of the majority by the minority, are waiting for the working-class majority to say, the unfunny joke is over—let’s create a world with real laughter in it.

Dave Coggan