Budget2012 and the Protestant Work Ethic

Every blogger knows that whilst a little bit of emotional involvement in a subject can help when writing, too much can cloud issues and cause logical arguments to tangle around each other. So this is one of the reasons I have held off commenting on the #budget2012 until now, specfically the so called #Grannytax [I am giving the twitter hashtags. There are lots of emotional and logical comments/arguments on there. Some of them mine!]

I have long thought - and said - that this government seems to be employing Weber's Protestant Work Ethic attitudes of 19thC Britain. In a nutshell the idea of the PWE is that as God rewards the morally just and good by ensuring that they have a 'comfortable life', it therefore follows that those who are suffering from poverty and, say, illness and other miseries, must therefore be morally bad and receiving their punishment. A creed well suited to capitalism and entrepeneurialism. And further more, as the rewards of the good life are shown in profits and more wealth, it is dependant on those so rewarded to invest this wealth back into their business affairs and if God is rewarding them further then greater profits will be made. Whoopy do doo for the rich and yah sucks boo to the poor.

So what have our wonderful coalition government done since gaining power [some say stealing power but that is an argument for another blog on constitutional reform] in 2010? Well it would seem like just in this budget the rich have been rewarded with a cut in the tax rate for the very rich of 5%. [Not of course that the very rich often pay as much tax as many of their PAYE lower income fellow citizens. In perfectly legal tax avoidance schems, expensively paid accountants can ensure that] And in this budget the poor in the form of pensioners are being punished #Grannytax furore is still building. I am listening to Ros Altmann on the radio as I type and she is livid!

But look also at the other acts of this government since 2010. NHS reform bill passed this week, NHS reforms obviously more of a worry to those in society who cannot afford to use private health care if their local NHS 'suppliers' are cut. Sue Marsh's heartbreaking blog too often tells us the hardships the cuts in the Disability Living Allowance and support services are causing. Over the past year or so many welfare services across the country have been cut: Sure start centres, childrens' centres, pensioners' luncheon clubs etc etc. Marches have been undertaken to save many libraries, petitions taken to save amongst others coastguard services - the sort of cuts that in the past would only have been envisaged in Sci Fi novels about some sort of totalitarian regime that storms into power and its citizens end up existing cold, starving and ill in caves....

No-one can deny that economically the country is not in a good state. But we can deny that it seems as if the poor and needy are getting hit disproportionally - are we being punished? Answers please.

Yes I am a pensioner - just! And like far too many was part of a company pension scheme which took my money for many years but now is not paying out what it should [although the company still makes a profit. But they must have been good whilst I was bad?] Many others paid into private pension schemes which have got into financial troubles and are not paying anything. We live in houses that are too large and costly to run but we cannot afford to sell because [a] they have lost too much in value and we cannot realise enough capital to make moving worthwhile [b] no-one wants to buy anyway! Heating bills have gone up [I did not want power supplies to be privatised but who listened to me?] Postal services are not what they used to be. Fuel prices are going up which affect the costs of services and food, and yet village shops are closing due to high costs like council tax etc so that we have to get to large out of town supermarkets somehow. I won't go on - its all been said so many times but are the coalition government listening OR do they care?

OK blown it now - over emotionally involved. But it had to be said.


Image of one edition of Weber's theory on sale at amazon.co.uk

Thank you, NHS and Welfare State

I haven't been around much lately, although my alter ego/twin sister Clarice did do 'a bit of blogging' in my stead.

Once more I have had reason to give very grateful thanks to the NHS for the great care it has given to one of my family - and this is the reason for my dilatoriness with regards to the world wide web in general and my blog in particular, just lately.

I have been one of the many campaigning to save the NHS from cuts and 're-organisations' from this dreadful coalition government. The NHS is not perfect - no large organisation can ever sit back and think it is - and the addition of lots of money would help it operate [yes pun alert!] and fulfil its duty to its 'clients' so much more - but do not let any of us think that this is the reason for the bills which the government is trying to force through Parliament at the moment.

Do you ever sit and play that game 'If I had been born 150 [or 100] years ago, I wouldn't still be alive because.....'? Some of us - and our mothers' - wouldn't have made it past the birthing bed. Looking at old census returns one often sees ancestors' reaching quite surprising old ages, but also realises how in the ten years between sucessive returns younger relatives too often inexplicably disappear. And if their death certificates are retrieved it is again too often shocking to read of the relatively minor illnessess from which these poor [usually in the financial sense] ancestors died: appendicitis, and of course psitis the 'proper word' for tuberculosis.

One heartbreaking death certificate shows how a six week old baby in 1845 died of 'marasmus'- which is really another name for malnourishment, probably since birth. Since two of his siblings survived and knowing the family medical history I have often wondered if he was a victim of either of the two relatively mild inherited conditions from which some of my own children and grandchildren have suffered and which were put right thanks to quick medical intervention.

The latest family medical problem concerns Eldest Son who contracted a viral illness which decided that instead of running its normal course it would take a different, rarer course and try to shut down some rather vital body functions. Cutting out all the 'the doctor said this, and the consultant said that' and the ride in the amubulance etc etc, it is suffice to say that the NHS pulled out all the stops. Whilst it will be a long time before he is back to normal mobility it is great to have him home and heartfelt thanks to the continuing support from the medical profession. Physiotherapists are home visiting and now it is down to time, medication and following the exercise routine. BTW the hospital stay also provided a great source of amusement to eldest Grandson [aged six] when he realised for what purpose the plastic bottle on the side was intended. It certainly enlivened 'newstime' at his school on the following Monday morning....

But again, what would have happened if Eldest Son had contracted this illness, say, seventy years ago? In our station in life it is doubtful if he could have paid for much more than a cursory medical appointment. Maybe if had held a comparable job his employers may have had a medical scheme - but then looking at our station in life would Eldest Son have had the University Education seventy years ago that would have enabled him to have had a comparable job? Certainly coming from our sort of class backgrounds, Other Half and I would not have had the University Educations which we have, which in turn would have meant that we would not have been able to help our children with their educational costs to gain their University Educations. And those costs were a lot, even before the current fees hike.

So if Eldest Son had survived the illness by good luck, rather than good medical care, there would not have been any money or time for physiotherapy. He will not be able to work for months yet. Using my example of seventy years ago, there would not have been an awful lot of state help then although if he had been in a union there might have been a little bit of help there. Mostly it would have been down to any family to help. His children might have had to go into orphanages/children's homes if he couldn't provide a financially proper family life. And if this had happened parents were generally speaking not allowed to visit their children as this was thought to be 'disruptive' to their care.

The parents, if their marriage survived, would be reduced to living in the cheapest accomodation they could find, if there were no relatives able to take them in. The prospects of anyone who had been really ill recovering full strength without money for nourishing food and warm, dry housing would not have been good. Social housing was mostly a dream and landlords guarded their profits rather than repair inadequate housing.

Look back at the lottery which was life before the NHS and the Welfare State. If you have any elderly relatives who can tell you about the times, ask them. Read a book about those times and the times leading to them:
Round About a Pound a Week by Maud Pember Reeves
Rothschild Buildings: Life in an East-End Tenement Block, 1887-1920 by Jerry White
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell

Read this blog which will show how the cuts so far are turning the current welfare system into one with too many inadequacies already - which must be reversed and not extended:
http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.com/2012/02/reality-of-disability-denial.html

And campaign against this awful government who are slowly turning away from all the good things that have been implemented in the past seventy years:
http://www.nhscampaign.org/current-issues-2/e-petition.html



The picture above says 'Thank You' in sign language [BSL]