The 50 Years Ago column from the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard
Now the Public Assistance Board have nothing to do with the class of people who dominate the Ascot parades. It is not they who are referred to as malingerers. Yet they are the people who "toil not. neither do they spin. " The wealth they enjoy is obtained from the blood and sweat of the working class. Among the men who are described by the Public Assistance Board as having been continuously unemployed for three years are those who have helped to make possible the wonderful clothes and ornamentation of these Ascot and other "society" gatherings. Malingering is a disease arising from the anarchy generated in human relationships through class exploitation. To live without working, to live above the standard of those who have to work, that is the hall-mark of "success" in capitalist society. Parasitism is an essential part of social life today, therefore, the fact that here and there a few who belong to the working class may sometimes attempt to "get by" without work is but mere child's-play when it is compared with the gigantic exploitation by ten per cent of the population of the other ninety per cent. Socialism will end social parasitism in every form.
[From an article in the Socialist Standard, July 1938.]
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