Monday, February 25, 2013

poverty

 There are the "deserving poor" such as orphans, accident victims and those with debilitating illness. for whom society happily provides charity. But then there are the "undeserving poor", those live in poverty because they are lazy, shiftless, alcoholic, drug addicted, or are sexually promiscuous and have too many kids. Providing assistance to the undeserving poor just enables them to carry on their lifestyle, allowing them to remain permanent social parasites feeding off the labour of "good, productive" citizens.

There are also "good" capitalists and "bad" capitalists and the more progressive liberals amongst them appear more understanding and sympathetically argue that the cause of long-term poverty is lack of opportunity, inadequate education or jobs discrimination because of race, gender, therefore the corresponding solution is to supply opportunity by ending discrimination, providing education, training, child care,investing public and private funds to create new jobs. They developed a strategy of trying to improve social conditions for the destitute, the sick, the handicapped, the unemployed and the old by means of social reform legislation. But when in power they found that they had to give priority instead to profits and profit-making. The welfare state is an inevitable part of capitalism of administering workers poverty.

The benefits system actually benefits employers who otherwise would face the costs and disruption of having to keep on people whose illness makes them turn up to work irregularly, who would lie in desperation to gets jobs about their illnesses, and push much of the cost currently borne generally through taxes directly onto capitalists who employ many workers.

Most people are probably only two pay cheques away from needing to call on welfare benefits, but rather than portray it as a system to help people and prevent catastrophe it is universally presented by politicians as a location of cheats, frauds and scroungers, riddled with layabouts and other undeserving poor types. Benefits and being on benefits is to be despised and feared. Despite this, though, people are compelled to claim them because because they are too ill to work or because work is not available.

Riches and poverty are two sides of the same relationship and can only be ended when that relationship is ended. Few in the Left have any vision of what a meaningful alternative to capitalism looks like. What is paraded as 'left wing' is usually little more than a different flavour of reformism from a different menu of palliatives.  They believe that the best way to 'solve' the crisis of capitalism is to construct a 'better' capitalism. Despite the crisis and the growing frustrations with capitalism around the globe the Left's only struggle is to offer anything of substance to replacing capitalism

The Socialist Party aim is the destruction of the capitalist system of society, and we are therefore hostile to all political parties which seek to gain control of parliament for any other purpose than the establishment of socialism. The socialists task is to reach out to people and show them a movement that is capable of playing a role in changing the world.

 Workers too often plead for more charity or welfare, instead of demanding and winning social and economic justice. The welfare state should not be seen as a stepping-stone on the way to socialism, but as an inevitable part of capitalism, of administering workers poverty.

"If living was a thing that money could buy
Then the rich would live and the poor would die"

All My Trials  (a Bahamian lullaby about a mother on her death bed comforting her children.) 

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