Poverty Porn: We Who Are About to be Sanctioned Salute You!

For some time now, we have been used to what were once reasonably decent public service broadcasters - the BBC and Channel 4 - churning out a diet of Government propaganda. Whether Peston on the Nine O'Clock News blabbing on in his staccato way about economic orthodoxy or Channel 4's appalling Benefits Street, which elevated a few show offs to avatars fulfilling the neoliberal wet dream that unemployed people are all fat-guzzling couch potatoes, the mass media has long surrendered itself, like the printed press, to ever more extreme forms of capitalist apologetics.

Yet somehow the latest project from the BBC sticks in the craw even more than previous sagas of distasteful voyeurism. For now we have Britain's Hardest Grafter. This piece of poverty pornography sets poor people (only people earning less than £15,500 p.a. can enter) competing against each other. In return for doing physically unpleasant tasks - who knows, cleaning out the directors' septic tank perhaps or peeling his grapes on bended knee? - they will have the chance, via elimination for not working hard enough, of winning the equivalent of one year's living wage (outside London). In a truly generous step, the producers have promised that contestants will be compensated "not less than the national minimum wage" for the time they spend taking part.

The programme is being made by Twenty Twenty TV , a London production company which has produced classics such as The Hoarder Next Door, How Not To Get Old and Bad Santas. I did in truth see an episode of  the last on that list, which showed unemployed men being trained to be Father Christmas, with varying outcomes and a lot of exploitative insights on the way. While it had its humorous moments, it remained a voyeuristic treatment of human difficulties with no apparent attempt to ask why those experiencing them found themselves in such a situation.

Ultimately, what is the purpose of these programmes but to take a tiny, tiny sample of people and try to project their progress or lack of it in totally artificial conditions onto everyone else in their situation? Britain's Hardest Grafter will not, it seems, do anything to challenge the appalling undervaluing of very difficult types of work: if anything, it will reinforce it with a prize that wouldn't pay for a single advert were it being shown on a commercial channel. And by pitching it at poor people, including unemployed, it thrives on their despair - ten people a week competing for an ultimate prize that wouldn't even meet the annual living wage level for our capital city.

It's not just poverty porn. It's torture porn - inflicting yet more humiliation and suffering on people already struggling, offering no analysis of why so many are now mired in poverty other than implying they should be able to "graft" their way out of it, and, above all, setting people against each other. Divide and conquer, and what better way to do so than as "entertainment" on the gogglebox?

This may be the BBC's pathetic attempt to placate the Tory ogres, gathering at their gates to plunder their revenue and privatise the pitiful remains of public broadcasting, but it will be a short feast. Every threshold of exploitation crossed, every indignity heaped to the loudest acclaim will simply lead to demands for more, for fresh blood. Some have called this the Hunger Games, as today's parody becomes tomorrow's norm. And so true. This is the sort of media that brings forth programmes like Embarrassing Bodies and The Child Who Is Older Than Her Grandmother . These are the modern equivalents of the 19th and early 20th century circus "freak shows" that condemned thousands of vulnerable people to repeated lifelong abasement for the entertainment of the public, jabbering and judging about things of which they knew little or nothing, but encouraging and validating a cultural hierarchy where if your place was not much well at least you weren't one of  them.

And as we move from documentary (who would broadcast Cathy Come Home now?) to mocumentary (Saints and Scroungers) to sticking desperate people in an ever more wretched competition, what next? Poverty we know is associated with poor health. So if we are going to make a real show of making the masses work hard against each other, why not go for Last One Standing? Or maybe I'm Having A Heart Attack, Get Me Out of Here? Or how about Celebrity Benefits Assessment - perhaps David Starkey could sniff out the deserving poor over a nice glass of red?

This schadenfreude fest will only get worse under a Government keen to find public buy-in to its destruction of the welfare system and its stigmatising of the poor, fully backed up by a media eager to do its bidding. It marks the end of public broadcasting in any meaningful sense, twistedly helping to pave the way for the abolition of the licence fee system and the fragmentation of the BBC.

And in the future? We never thought we'd get here. So how long before we see the return of Gladiators? And no, I don't mean the ones with the gym equipment and cheesy grins.

If you have been disturbed by the contents of any of these programmes, you can help by signing the petition started by Green Party activist Sahaya James demanding the BBC scrap this programme before it begins. Please sign HERE.

"Tolle divitem!" : why abolishing the rich would do us all a favour

"Mankind is divided into three classes - the rich, the poor, and those who have enough...Abolish the rich and you will have no more poor...for it is the few rich who are the cause of the many poor."

Radical words. An extract from Marx's "Das Kapital"? A trade union leader rallying their members against job losses? A motion passed by the last Green Party conference declaring its support for a maximum wage?

It could be any of the above, but in fact its none of them. The words were written by an author known as the "Sicilian Briton" in the first few years of the fifth century. As the Roman Empire was beset by barbarian invasions and usurper Emperors, the plebeian and slave classes began to agitate for a fairer share of the resources of the world's first superstate. While some openly rebelled and established their own states as the bacaudae, the western world's first social revolutionaries, others used parts of the newly established Christian church to demand change - the Sicilian Briton, a monk himself, was one of their spokespeople.

But what happened?

History tells us how the Roman State died, not with a bang but with a whimper - its once mighty body ebbing slowly over three generations or more before it simply faded from view and was lost to history. All through its long demise, its richest citizens clutched onto their possessions, hiding their wealth, claiming all manner of privileges (privi-legium: the law of the individual) to avoid paying taxes or contributing to the common cause. While demanding and receiving continued status as the Optimates, the "best citizens", they continuously connived to abrogate themselves of any obligation to serve their society. When Alaric the Goth stood with his army at the gates of Rome demanding gold to go away, the Senate refused him even although most of its members could have easily met the amount demanded from a modest portion of their own purse. While lamenting the darkness of their times, they willingly sacrificed their City to preserve their own wealth.

Yesterday Rome, tomorrow...?

I quote this passage from an obscure, 15 centuries old source for two reasons - one because of the old saying that if we do not learn from history we are bound to relive it; and second because the parallels between fifth century Rome and our modern world are so striking and relevant.

This week, in the UK, the Government is pledged to undertake massive spending cuts in public services. In spite of a few feints to fairness, the clear story is one of the unremitting gloom of an assault on education, welfare, transport and even aspects of the military. The reason is allegedly because of a national debt described by the Government as "record breaking" in peace time.

Except that this is far from true - indeed, it was higher than it is now every single year from 1916 until 1971. Its actual record high was in 1947, unsurprisingly just after the second world war, when it peaked at 238% of annual gross domestic product (GDP) - over four times its current level of 56%. However, that did not prevent the government in the following year launching the National Health Service. Nor did debt levels well in excess of 100% of GDP prevent the economic boom of the 1950s, with Tory Premier Macmillan boasting to a grateful electorate that "We've never had it so good!"

It was only with the Thatcherite revolution from 1979 onwards, with the Conservatives adopting the monetarist doctrine of American economist Milton Friedman (a doctrine taken up by Reagan's America as well) that it became the orthodoxy that low national debt was essential for prosperity, embraced even by pseudo-social democratic parties like New Labour and Clinton's Democrats. In Britain, public services were cut relentlessly and people thrown out of work until in 1991 national debt stood at just above 25% of GDP.

Parallel to this "tight money" policy, and the true reason for it then and now, Governments also reduced taxes for the better off, with more and more exemptions for the richest of all. Globally, off-shore tax havens have allowed an estimated $250,000,000,000 per annum of tax to be legally evaded by the very wealthiest. Britain is particularly culpable for this trend - 11 out of 40 havens identified by the OECD are British Overseas Territories; with the UK itself now an effective tax haven for "non-domestic" millionaires. Corporation tax is legally avoided by many large companies at a cost of nearly £7 billions per annum to the British Government - almost the same as the planned reduction in spending on social housing.

Even in the last recessionary year the wealth of the richest 100 people in the UK has risen by over 30% to over £355 billion. Internationally, as financial cuts bit hard across the planet, the Forbes Rich List found that 611 of the 1,011 billionaires on the Earth had increased their wealth - only 70 had seen an appreciable reduction. The richest man in the world - the ironically named Carlos Slim Herlu of Mexico weighed in with over £35.7 billion, his wealth greater than the annual GDP of over sixty nation states.

Of course, whichever country we live in, we are told we must indulge these people otherwise they might go somewhere else and we would lose their vital talents. Much better to waive their bill and hope they will stay, graciously permitting their wealth to trickle down to the rest of us in dibs and drabs. Meantime, the rest of us ingrates will need to accept increased taxes and massively reduced services to bailout these geniuses when their schemes collapse around them, as it is predicted will happen again with the British banks in 2011.

In spite of initiatives such as introducing national minimum wages these have not stopped the rise in inequality - one report found Britain to be the fourth most unequal society out of 25 affluent nations studied. Instead, in the absence of any cap on individual or corporate wealth, fantastic fortunes have been amassed by a tiny elite of super-rich people, whose lifestyles and power are ruining the lives of billions and relentlessly driving the planet to resource depletion and environmental disaster.

Professor Greg Philo of the Glasgow University Media Group has recently proposed a one-off tax on the richest 10% of Britons - taxing just 20% of their assets would raise over £800 billions. That would be enough to pay off the entire national debt and massively reduce the deficit. Unfair? Hardly, given that much of that wealth is unearned and in many cases will have been obtained by avoiding tax in the first place. Moreover, as the salaries (as well as the untaxed share options) of top executives have burgeoned to ridiculous levels in recent years, isn't it time to claw back some of that unfairly paid money?

In the years ahead, as our resources become scarcer and billions more mouths have to be fed, we need to share our wealth more equitably - between countries and within them as well. There is still enough to go round to feed and support people fairly and sustainably, but only if it is shared fairly. The capitalist system, with its focus on individuals seeking to maximise their material gain and a theoretical basis of limitless supply, is not fit for purpose for the challenges to come. Rather, left unchecked, it will simply hurry us over the precipice towards not only its own collapse, but of society and human civilisation itself. With a "perfect storm" of competing demands for food, water and fuel predicted to come as early as 2030, time is short.

We may be fifteen centuries late, but we are not too late. Not just yet. But we need a new, radical will and the sense to do us all a favour. Change the politics. As the Romans used to say: "Tolle divitem!" Abolish the rich!

Limits to Growth = Limits to Wealth

(Right -The Desert of Capitalism: on the left in this satellite picture is Haiti, whose Government has permitted full-scale exploitation of the forests by big business. On the right, the Government of the Dominican republic has poured public funds into Eco-tourism and conservation - the results are plain to see.)

The mainstream of politics often combines its reluctant nod to the need for environmental protection with a hasty assurance that capitalism can yet deliver "green growth". Like latter day alchemists, they claim a synthesis of the free market with modern technology, and a healthy dose of genetic engineering for good measure, will somehow deliver a nirvana of never-ending increases in production and consumption and, of course, profit in a sustainable way.

This, of course, is the underlying folly of capitalism - that limitless demand can somehow be met ultimately with limitless supply. In any other realm of human activity, under any other title, the concept would be laughed out as fantasy at best, dangerous delusions at worst. But for our planet, its species mired in an unchallenged liberal economy now for over twenty years, if not much longer, capitalism is as essential as the air we breathe (or even more essential, given the damage capitalism is permitted to inflict on our air). Since Fukyama declared the end of history with the fall of the Berlin Wall, we have been left with a received wisdom and socio-political consensus that there is only one way forward: free markets, deregulated as far as possible. And through the 1990s and the start of this decade, enough crumbs fell to enough people from the Masters' tables to maintain the illusion that somehow everyone would benefit. The suffering of hundreds of millions of the poorest in all societies, their poverty - both relative and absolute - was effectively shut out of the media as effectively as the thousands of "gated communities" that have sprung up throughout the western world have physically shut out the offending sight of poor from the eyes of the rich.

Of course, we now see this Neverland unravelling before our eyes with the banking crisis and the recession. But how has it been dealt with? After all the wringing of hands, the denunciation of "greedy" bankers (as if somehow there were some who were not) and the declaration that such things could never be allowed to happen again, what do we find? A handful of bankers have departed their well-paid jobs, in nearly all cases with handsome pay offs and swollen pension pots. Even Fred Goodwin, who captained the Royal Bank to ruin, continues to pick up a pension of £342,500 plus pa, along with a seven figure lump sum, while 9,000 of his former employees have lost their jobs. At least he will be able to get the scratches on his car fixed. His worst penalty? "Blackballed" allegedly by the membership committee of Saint Andrews Golf Club - now that's capital regulating itself!

Now this past week, we are told the bankers are now returning to their old habits. Kept afloat with the hard earned money of taxpayers, after spending years themselves doing their utmost to avoid paying their personal income tax and their organisations' corporate taxes, they now feel ready to carry on as normal.

No surprise. The capitalist system has an inherent driver - it is to maximise your return for the minimum investment of effort: You want something I have. My intention becomes to find what is the absolute greatest level of value that you will surrender to me for it. There are no ethical considerations. No long term planning. No morality other than how do I extract the most wealth from you, for me. Now.

So it is little wonder that, with some signs the current downturn has flattened out, that capitalists seek to assert their normal behaviours. They have always done so in the past - why would they not now? It is, we are told, the "natural" way of doing things, so why would their nature suddenly change?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/banks-are-forgetting-lessons-of-crisis-already-warns-turner-1716001.html

The corollary of all this though is that the concept of a "return to normal" IS unrealistic - the imbalance in wealth, globally and in the UK, is at a historic high. The gap between rich and poor has never been wider. Tiny numbers of people hold vast quantities of wealth while resources grow tight and environmental degradation impoverishes hundreds of millions - both developments driven by the voracious need of capitalism to feed the pockets of shareholders rather than the bellies of hungry children.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/aug/04/workandcareers.executivesalaries

It is not sustainable, which is why a return to normal ways can only be a temporary phenomenon. Capitalism is driving the planet and our species to the edge. Any recovery may last a while - a year, two years, a decade even, but soon enough, the impact of passing not just peak oil but peak carbon fuel production will kick in with a thump that will bring whole economies crashing down, banks and governments with them, and social unrest, disorder, violence and war may well be the most obvious result.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/08/kingsnorthclimatecamp.climatechange
There is another future: a Green one, offering redistribution of wealth, fairer societies, banks and enterprises focussed on mutual protection and community need rather than shareholder dividends and private profit. A sustainable future that has plans for the next 50 and 100 years, not the next 3 to 5 years which fit the common corporate business plans of most capitalist companies. This way recognises that there are limits to growth, there is only so much that can be extracted without needing to replenish. And this in turn leads to the point that if there are limits to growth, there need also to be limits to wealth: that a sustainable society seeking the common good has, by virtue our human condition and our planet's limits, to set a maximum level of wealth that an individual can hold, in income and in wealth. Any other way can only lead to the chaos and collapse of the capitalist scenario.

We face a choice: green and growth cannot be intertwined indefinitely; we need to learn that there are limits - to what we can have, to what we can take. Instead, we have to find how we can do more with what we have - and all the evidence points to those people who already do so have happier and healthier lives than those who are tied in, emotionally, psychologically, financial and physically, to the capitalist treadmill. If this can be translated to the whole community, if it can become the zeitgeist, the underpinning ethic of society, a transformation can begin - but it will involve hard choices and political action.

It won't be an easy option or a soft choice: I am not arguing for a touchy-feely hippy revolution.

But I AM arguing for a revolution.