Labour's strategy for tackling poverty has reached the end of the road and Britain risks a return to Victorian levels of inequality, according to a major two-year study seen by The Independent.
20 per cent of the population still stuck in poverty.
Mr Horton, the Fabian Society's research director, told The Independent: "We could be at a tipping point that sends Britain back towards Victorian levels of inequality and social segregation, and makes the solidarity which could challenge that social segregation ever more difficult to recover." He added: "Inequality in Britain today, on some measures, is at its highest since the early 1960s..."
The value of unemployment benefit has been falling relative to average earnings.
Needless to say the report recommends reforms and palliatives to redress the situation . The report says the original goals of Sir William Beveridge, architect of the welfare state, must be rediscovered.
There never was a golden age of the welfare state. The history of income maintenance in Britain has been the history of coercion, discipline and surveillance.Now new layers of social control has been added.The 'welfare state' is in difficulty across the industrialised world. Despite this, welfare systems will not be dismantled completely — their main aim, after all, is to provide some support for workers who are ill or unemployed so that they might return to the labour market at a later date. They also help mitigate against social unrest.
SOYMB recommends the re-reading of our 1943 pamphlet Beveridge Re-Organises Poverty
2 comments:
The welfare system is a saftey net not only for those recieving assistance from the state, the unemployed sick and infirm and supernuitants but also for the social fabric of the state,for without it there would be social unrest.
Since its inception there have been many reforms or restructuring by governments with one and only one goal, to cut back on entitlements and social assistance to those who have legitamatly paid their taxes, and they in most being the wage slave.For it is the taxes of the wage slave that keep the capitalsit structure afloat as they are taxed at point of earning without the oppertunity at hand that their employer has, state corporate tax structures that are favourable for the purpose of evasion.Oops shouldint say that not a nice corporate word, it should be avoidance.
Restructuring of the welfare state will always be on top of the agenda in any capitalsit state and as stated not for the betterment of the benefactors.As in your post you in Britain are talking about restructuring the welfare state, were i am N.Z.it is on the government agenda and as i am writing this there is a meeting not to far away about this issue under the guise of tax reform,with the usual suspects the economists bankers and the like.So far one theory has come to light and has been getting much air play on the radio and t.v.and it goes like this.
Every adult should be given 10thousand dollars, there are 3 million adults in n.z.so that equates to 30 billion dollars.
Every dollar earned after 40 thousand will be taxed at 25%.the theory is that the 10 thousand being the equivalent of the single persons benefit would see the scraping of the welfare system and savings made through monies spent on the structure of that system.
To increase government revenue it is also proposed that a capital gains tax be introduced on land building plant equipment and such at 1.25% although this theory is getting plenty of air time it is only a theory but it has to be understood that n.z. has been the vangaurd for free market reform for over the past ten years.
In another committee one concerning n.z. pay parity with our nearest neibour Australia.N.Z. has fallen way behind in pay and working conditions due to the free market philosiphy of corperate capitalsim.Their suggestions are that we should (sell state owned enterprises.Allow strip mining for the gold that we have in our state protected bush areas.Stream line labour laws.All subsidised medical care doctor and hospital medication to be means tested.All student free loans be abolished.Reduce the minimum wage to 10dollars from 12.50.Introduce a flat tax rate of 20%.
This extreem right wing drivel has cost the tax payer half a million bucks.The government stated today that it was far to out there for them to implemnet although it was a government appointed committee.
I has to be understood that prior to the last election a year ago this government was caught with its pants down by the leaking of a conversation by one of its extreem right wing free market exponents telling a gathering that it would be beneficial in their first term of office to get the confidence of the people and on gaining a second term they could carry out their true intent.
Sorry seemed to get of track there but still.Untill socialsim is a achievable goal, as we are all aware, there are going to be winers and losesrs and unfortuantly in a welfare capitalist state it will be the welfare beneficiaries,who are afforded the derogatory insult of being dole bludgers.
Levels of poverty, unemployment and repossessions have all been on the rise since 2004
An audit carried out by social research charity, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, says the country needs to recover from "deep-seated" problems which were emerging before the economic downturn.
The foundation's data analysis found that 2004-05 marked a "key turning point", with poverty, unemployment and repossessions on the increase.
Poverty is at the same level as it was in 2000, with two million children in low-income households, unemployment at a 12-year high and repossessions at six times the level of 2004
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/poverty-increased-before-the-recession-says-study-1833143.html
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