In my previous post on right wing postmodernism, I referred to the work of American political theorist Sheldon S. Wolin. Wolin also has some relevant points to make about the “underclass” debate, which surfaced on Troppo in the wake of the Macquarie Fields riots.
Wolin traces the emergence of the moves for “welfare reform” and the language of dependency and an underclass, inaugurated by the American writer Charles Murray in his 1984 book Losing Ground, to shifts in political economy – the globalisation of production and the outsourcing of manufacturing work to the periphery and the replacement of unskilled white collar work by technology. In effect, Wolin argues, when many of our consumer goods are made in Indonesia or the Phillipines, and we no longer require armies of clerks and typists, we are left with a surplus population which is no longer producing an economic surplus but rather becomes perceived as a drain on taxpayers and a source of public disorder. Wolin also sees parallels between the decline of civic participation in politics and public life and the tendency to see the inside of the “National Security State” as “society’s ‘war’ against criminals, welfare cheats, pornographers, drug users, and terrorists, it also stands as a warning to those whose lives have been mangled by a changing economy and its technologies”. The obvious irony is that Marx also despised what he called the lumpen-proletariat, and in erecting a division between those of us who are productive and therefore entitled to regard ourselves as citizens and those we regard as objects of social control, we have also reinstated the Marxian centrality of “productive labour” as a key site of inclusion and exclusion, though with the postmodern caveat that symbols and services are the new production…
Wolin writes in Politics and Vision:
The Welfare State was importantly the political representation of social and political superflousness: the “new economy” needed only temporary workers and Superpower needed only occasional citizens.
The ideology of liberal capitalism could deal with what was plainly a useless population by treating them as objects of professional solicitude so long as the economy produced a surplus: but once large public spending was pronounced a danger to private investment, welfare too had to be downsized and its recipients stigmatised as an “underclass” that, unlike “the working poor”, was unable to internalise the values of individual autonomy and hard work (“welfare cheats”). The underclass, it was explained, had not been excluded from the economy; rather its members had opted not to enter. The illusion promoted by opponents of “welfare spending” was that the poor, sick and unemployed had made themselves dependent on “the government”, when, in fact, their dependency was created by economic globalisation and technological changes that reduced wages and the demand for unskilled workers. In part “welfare” was defined as a moral problem of shiftless inner-city black males and pregnant black teenagers rather than a civic crisis. Because these “elements” tended to be politically passive, they could be treated, not as members of a sovereign people, but as objects of “policy” – that is, of bureaucratic rationality.
But what does it all really mean. I’m afraid trying to make common-sense of CS’s post left me feeling as though I was mentally wading chest-deep through molasses. How about adopting a non-cerebral approach for the dumb-bunny readers.
Niall, the point is that when we’ve eliminated most unskilled blue and white colour jobs, and got rid of the wage regulation and job security that used to go with them, casualising work with abandon, then we have lots of poor people on our hands. so we regard them, not as a group of people who have been fucked over by the economy, but as individuals who are pathologically dependent. the “us” in “all of us” means respectable tax paying citizens and we’d rather treat people on welfare as “them” – as a crime or drug problem to be contained, or as lazy buggers who won’t work unless we constrain them into the low paid casual work force. it’s no longer a social or a political issue, but a moral issue. make sense?
What is the evidence that we have more poor people than before? The poverty line, as defined in the industry, tends to be upwardly mobile and most of the people who are officially in poverty today actually live well compared with the situation of poor people a generation or so ago.
Wolin needs to get up to date on the incredible rate of job creation in the US, side by side with job destruction, that is just the way things go unless you expect everyone to stick in the same job and the same village all their lives.
Rafe, first point – even the dole has gone backwards compared to the Henderson poverty line under Howard, while it’s very clear that there is a difference between the indexation of minimum wages in awards with some reference to CPI and the actual cost of essential goods (clothing, housing, food) which has been rising at a much higher rate than CPI.
Secondly, Wolin’s context is the US. Again, you could look at the distortion of the unemployment figures by incarceration and the defects in the methodology used, the relative purchasing power of the minimum wage, the fact that many immigrants work outside the formal economy, and if you’re not prepared to concede any of these points (since you prefer to proceed by assertion rather than evidence), then you can look at the decline in real wages in the American middle class over the last 30 years, or at the wages (sometimes as low as $1.25 an hour) paid to people in “welfare to work” programmes.
As you’d know, the Henderson poverty line is an Australian measure, and not necessarily applicable to the States, and as you’d also know, it’s easy enough to get sidetracked into endless debates about its adequacy.
Without conceding anything about absolute poverty, I’d also point out that relative deprivation is important – that may well be a factor in Macquarie Fields for instance (compared to the “aspirational” districts bordering it).
But I’ll leave you to do the research.
“job destruction, that is just the way things go unless you expect everyone to stick in the same job and the same village all their lives.”
Tell that to all the blokes with crook backs in their 50s who’ve been laid off from blue-collar jobs. The only time this cohort get any sympathy is when they’re loggers.
Tell that also to young educated people who might have to wait years before breaking into the full time job market.
Get real, Rafe!
Rafe’s right. Most Americans put out of a job get another one, and very few people stay in the same job forever. It’s been like this in the US for a while, and as an economy they’re doing OK.
Rafe’s point on poverty is also worth stressing: it is a relative concept, and thus the “poor” will always be with us because there will always be people at the bottom of the ladder. As a rule, however, it is very hard to starve to death in the US, unlike many countries where “poverty” really means something. There are teeming hordes ready to risk their lives to become “poor” in America.
Likewise, I don’t buy into the argument that the rioters in Macquarie Fields have any justification for their behaviour. There’s no “perception” that they are a source of public disorder – they ARE a public disorder.
That community has all sorts of socio-economic problems, but I’d attribute these more to government interference (i.e. welfare dependency) and bad planning (i.e. concentration of public housing) than inherent weaknesses in “liberal capitalism”.
Finally, I believe it’s highly doubtful that “young educated people” have to wait years before breaking into the full time job market. It depends on the skills you have and the jobs you’re willing to do. Unfortunately, a lot of youngsters have unrealistic opinions on both.
By relative deprivation I suppose you mean the politics of envy. I don’t have time to match your research in this area but you might like to comment on the figures reported by Mark Wooden in The Weekend Australian (Feb 19-20). He drew on a longitudinal study to suggest that the number of people below the poverty line fell between 2001 and 2003.
The study is the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, based at the Melbourne Institute. It appears that poverty declined from 13.6% of the population to 11.5% over the three-year period.
More important, for most people that was a transient situation, with only 3.8% of the population stuck below the line in all three years.
Of course we need to be concerned about any people who are in trouble, whatever way the statistics are trending, and bearing in mind that there are lies, damned lies and statistics.
We really need to take a stand on our common ground of concern for people in need and think laterally about solutions, beyond just demanding that more of other people’s money should be spent to help. As I have written elsewhere, personal help is required to tailor the assistance to whatever it is that the individuals and family groups most need for their longterm benefit.
on poverty in the US, this article from a libertarian point of view from a Senior Fellow in the Brookings Institute might be relevant – even though I disagree with its assumptions about causes, the author admits that poverty has not shifted since the 60s:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PovertyintheUnitedStates.html
here are some causal explanations drawing on US census bureau data:
http://www.plu.edu/~poverty/causes/home.html
and here’s a press release from the US census bureau showing poverty rose in 2003:
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/002484.html
it amazes me, Rafe, that you make the assertion that poverty is declining and that all is rosy in the US without even troubling to do the simplest research, (I did a google search on “United States” + poverty + increase), but maybe that’s because the facts belie yr assertions.
Fyodor, what would you define as “welfare dependency”?
as far as I can tell, no one’s been lauding the Kelly Gang etc. and everyone’s been condemning violence. where we differ is what causes it. to understand something is NOT to condone it.
you write:
“Likewise, I don’t buy into the argument that the rioters in Macquarie Fields have any justification for their behaviour. There’s no “perception” that they are a source of public disorder – they ARE a public disorder.
That community has all sorts of socio-economic problems, but I’d attribute these more to government interference (i.e. welfare dependency) and bad planning (i.e. concentration of public housing) than inherent weaknesses in “liberal capitalism”.”
well, how would we support low-income people without welfare? given that probably most people in public housing have low skill levels and low employability, how are free markets going to get them jobs?
and isn’t the fact that the sorts of unskilled jobs that existed in the past have disappeared a factor of structural tendencies in liberal capitalism?
you guys are blinded by ideology! I thought Rafe was an empiricist!
what on earth is the politics of envy? if we’re all constantly bombarded with tv shows showing us how wonderful home renovations are, and advertising for fabbo plasma tvs and “aspirational” lifestyles, how are the people trying to get by on $440 a fortnight (the adult dole) supposed to feel?
come on boys!
and, Fyodor, what do you see as the causes of “welfare dependency”? is it an individual moral failing?
if so, are the people on the North Shore where unemployment is less than 2% magically more moral than those in Macquarie Fields? wouldn’t have anything to do with life chances being influenced by who one’s parents are and what sort of home climate and educational experience they can afford for you, would it? naah, it’s just yr superior moral fibre and personal work ethic I guess.
since the justification for private schooling is always that parents want to give their kids a good start, you’d assume even the right wingers accept this sort of basic sociological correlation, yeah?
on educated young people and full time work, talk to people who’ve done teaching degrees (who often face years of casual work), people who do creative stuff like visual arts, people who’ve done journalism courses, even people in IT who are often contractors for years. I suppose that they have chosen professions where the supply of graduates exceeds the demand for full time employees, but still… same diff for people who’ve been sucked in by university marketing all the same…
I’m starting to feel like Rafe now :)
and isn’t it a structural weakness in liberal capitalism that full employment rarely occurs unless wages at the bottom end are lowered and that there’s so much disparity in bargaining power between employers and (individual) employees? or that there’s panic at the slightest sign that returns to labour might tip up compared to returns to capital? hello? hello?
and that firms are reluctant to invest in training because of free rider effects so that we end up with skill shortages – so suddenly this becomes the fault of government? all this after we overhauled VET to make it more responsive to industry and to make qualifications less portable (that’s really going to give us a free labour market – employers only talk that talk when it suits them)
ok, back off to earn some dollars now, which I can do because my skills are partly the result of the wealth and class of my parents…
What yellowvinyl said (though more civilly and less polemically…)
“Finally, I believe it’s highly doubtful that “young educated people” have to wait years before breaking into the full time job market. It depends on the skills you have and the jobs you’re willing to do. Unfortunately, a lot of youngsters have unrealistic opinions on both.”
Have a look at the stats on employment outcomes for university graduates, and the longitudinal data, Fyodor, and you’ll find that I’m right. Yes, maybe people have made choices about professions where supply of employees outstrips demand, but there’s such a thing as sunk costs. And exerientially, everyone’s always advised to take casual or temporary or contract work in the field they want to work in as a step towards full time work. And there’s the problem of over-qualification if you’re someone with a postgrad degree looking for a routine white collar job – I was told in an interview once “I don’t think you’ll stick this out – you’ll want to work where you are qualified when you can”, which was true. I’m downloading the longitudinal data on non-standard employment by age now, and will comment on it when it’s duly unzipped…
yellowvinyl,
Sorry for the delay in responding: every time I previewed my text you added another post for me to reply.
The first source you cited, used the official measure of poverty, which is a relative statistic, not an absolute measure of poverty. Likewise, the increase in “poverty” you cited was at least partially due to CPI-indexing: if your income stays stable and prices rise, you could suddenly find yourself “poor”. More likely the primary driver of the increase was the job losses in 2002, which should hopefully be temporary.
If you really want to track absolute poverty, actual income and its purchasing power are more important, and by this standard many of America’s poor are certainly not comfortable, but they’re definitely less poor than the downtrodden masses of other countries.
‘Fyodor, what would you define as “welfare dependency”?’
Simply, relying on the government to provide your income via welfare payments etc. What would you call it?
“…to understand something is NOT to condone it.”
I did not argue otherwise.
“well, how would we support low-income people without welfare? given that probably most people in public housing have low skill levels and low employability, how are free markets going to get them jobs?”
I’m not suggesting the abolition of welfare payments, but you seem to be suggesting that welfare is the only way to support these people, as you’ve assumed they’re unemployable.
More important than the extension of welfare support in this case is its administration: the concentration of public housing has created a ghetto, with all the nasty sociological consequences that we have seen elsewhere. If we’re going to have welfare, let’s be smart about it, and not concentrate potential misfits in one location.
“and isn’t the fact that the sorts of unskilled jobs that existed in the past have disappeared a factor of structural tendencies in liberal capitalism?”
Yes and no. Jobs grow and disappear with changes in the demand for labour, both in the aggregate and for specific skills. There’s no evidence either way on whether the inhabitants of Mac Fields were thrown on the labour scrapheap because of market forces.
More importantly, there are plenty of unskilled jobs around, and in our ecnonomy there’s a severe shortage of many skilled and semi-skilled workers. The unemployment rate in Australia is at a generational low – there are jobs out there.
“what on earth is the politics of envy? if we’re all constantly bombarded with tv shows showing us how wonderful home renovations are, and advertising for fabbo plasma tvs and “aspirational” lifestyles, how are the people trying to get by on $440 a fortnight (the adult dole) supposed to feel?”
Hopefully that they should get a job and save their pennies. What would you do, assault police officers?
“what do you see as the causes of ‘welfare dependency’? is it an individual moral failing?”
Can be. The link you cited had the usual ones: lack of education, family breakup, unemployment, drug-abuse etc. What do you think are the causes of welfare dependency? Insufficient welfare?
“naah, it’s just yr superior moral fibre and personal work ethic I guess.”
Uncharacteristically low blow, yellow. Some people might be offended by being associated with the North Shore. You connected poverty and morality, not I.
“I suppose that they have chosen professions where the supply of graduates exceeds the demand for full time employees…”
That’s a big part of their problem. Nobody guaranteed them a job in their chosen field, and nobody’s stopping them from changing career.
“I’m starting to feel like Rafe now :)”
You’ll know it’s kicked in when you can’t post without mentioning the ‘P’ word. ;-)
“isn’t it a structural weakness in liberal capitalism that full employment rarely occurs unless wages at the bottom end are lowered and that there’s so much disparity in bargaining power between employers and (individual) employees? or that there’s panic at the slightest sign that returns to labour might tip up compared to returns to capital? hello? hello?”
Hi, I’m still here. Full employment is a theoretical concept because no economy ever reaches true equilibrium – there is always some degree of frictional unemployment, even in an ideal world (which obviously doesn’t exist). While the price of labour would decline when supply exceeds demand, the converse also applies. There has never been ANY economic system that has matched, let alone surpassed, capitalism in improving the lot of ordinary workers.
“and that firms are reluctant to invest in training because of free rider effects so that we end up with skill shortages…”
The skills shortages are largely the result of strong economic growth – also the product of the capitalist system – and are leading to wage increases for the lucky workers.
Mark,
“Have a look at the stats on employment outcomes for university graduates, and the longitudinal data, Fyodor, and you’ll find that I’m right.”
Could you provide a link to the data, and can you demonstrate that the unemployed graduates cannot find work of any kind, excepting our favourite German example?
“Yes, maybe people have made choices about professions where supply of employees outstrips demand, but there’s such a thing as sunk costs.”
You misunderstand the meaning of “sunk costs”. By definition, sunk costs cannot be recovered, and so should not be part of a decision about the future. I know plenty of people who have completed an Arts degree only to discover, to their astonished horror, that art history is not a field in high demand. Guess what? They got new skills and a different career.
“And exerientially, everyone’s always advised to take casual or temporary or contract work in the field they want to work in as a step towards full time work.”
Why is this a problem?
“And there’s the problem of over-qualification if you’re someone with a postgrad degree looking for a routine white collar job – I was told in an interview once “I don’t think you’ll stick this out – you’ll want to work where you are qualified when you can”, which was true.”
I thought this topic might be close to home, but you’re really talking about career advice here. My earlier point about realistic assessments and choices still applies. It’s tough not to get the job you want, but life doesn’t always pan out the way you want it to. Whose fault is it – the taxpayers’?
Fyodor, in respect of yellowvinyl’s point (since she’s off earning money so that the gov’t can redistribute part of it through welfare), it may not be that the people in Macquarie Fields were personally displaced from unskilled jobs, but there are certainly fewer *secure and full time* unskilled jobs than there were up to the mid 80s. Indeed, in manufacturing, many jobs which disappeared in the early 90s recession never came back, and tarriff cuts have added to the restructuring of the labour market (let’s leave aside free trade for the moment – there’s always the effective demand argument – part of the problem with the economy being at the moment that demand is excessive, being funded by credit, and sucking in imports that we often can’t substitute). There’s a lot of evidence that people from such backgrounds only have occasional contact with the labour market – ie a casual job here and there, or a seasonal job. They also often lose them (as the argument over unfair dismissal suggests they might) because they are not particularly socialised into regular work. The difference then is that there are far fewer opportunities for such people to gain a permanent foothold in the labour market, with the consequent behavioural effects on work ethic, responsibility etc. Howard Government “reforms” have exacerbated this, with the job network churning long term unemployed people into short term work, with the result that they are no longer defined as long term unemployed and lose eligibility for intensive assistance. As I argued earlier, and as Ken said on another thread, we have disinvested massively in skills training, labour market programmes and education generally and those least advantaged are paying the price, but we all will sooner or later. Part of the price is in actual social disorder.
The structural impediments to work in the tax/welfare intersection are also a huge problem, as is the lesser level of student support than the dole. There are few incentives for people who are long term unemployed to do more than a few hours a week of casual work.
I don’t believe there is any evidence that reducing or removing welfare will lead to job creation but rather to a lowering of wages at the bottom end of the labour market.
There simply was no “welfare dependency” in Australia prior to the 1970s when long term unemployment became entrenched. In a sense it’s therefore down to government policy, but certainly not to individual choices. The poorer you are the fewer of those you have.
Unfortunately, the programme I need to open the labour market data I wanted is lacking on the computer at the internet cafe from which I’m typing so all I can urge you to do is go to Ausstats (if you’ve got free access – otherwise it’ll cost 50 bucks) and have a look at the data on non-standard employment and the desire to work longer hours disaggregated by age and sex – the data is longitudinal from 1978 to 2001 and so should allow a comparison between the time when full time employment (at least for men) was prevalent, and when 30%+ of jobs are casual. From my memory of reading articles on this, there’s a much greater proportion of people working in non-standard employment in the 25-34 age bracket than in 35-44. If we assume that school leavers (allowing for a possible gap year, varying length of degree courses etc) have largely finished their undergrad degrees by age 23-24, then this cohort should be the test case of whether people are waiting a long time to break into full time work.
I also agree with yellowvinyl’s implicit assertion that it’s irresponsible of universities to lure people (who often have little capacity to judge) into degrees which are purported to be vocational when the opportunities are not there. When I used to teach HRM, almost all students wanted to work as consultants or in “strategic HRM” and I told them that they were doing the wrong major and arguably degree for the first objective, and that business usually wants people with operational experience to add business value to HRM rather than HRM specialists, and that much routine HRM had been outsourced. The figures on courses such as yellowvinyl quoted in “creative industries” and journalism are scandalous if the outcome is regarded as being measurable by graduates employed in the field. People are much better off doing a BA or a BSc.
Our posts crossed, Fyodor. I’m using “sunk costs” metaphorically. It is reasonable subjectively for people to think that they might get a job in an area that they’ve taken years to study. And I guess they actually have to pay costs in HECS.
At my age, I’m quite aware that life doesn’t always pan out the way you’d like and I’m quite comfortable with my skill levels and employability – and I don’t necessarily expect to get work in academia.
Anyway, I think the data on graduate outcomes is internal AVCC data (I might be wrong – but don’t have time to look – it might also be ACER data collected for DEST – I’ve seen it but I can’t remember) and the ABS data should be a good proxy. But I have to get back, as interesting as today’s Troppo debates have been, to overqualifying myself further :)
I don’t blame the poor for being welfare dependent. but I hope, Mark, that you are not seriously suggesting that jobs be preserved when the need for them has vanished just for the sake of social stability. Does this include whale hunters for whale oil lighting? Black smiths for horse drawn carriages? Better 10% welfare dependency than impediments to Schumpeterian creative destruction
“..not seriously suggesting that jobs be preserved when the need for them has vanished just for the sake of social stability.”
I thought that’s what governement subsidies of business were all about? eg the Mitsubishi plant in SA.
Jason, no. I was arguing historically about the origins of so-called welfare dependency. But I do support (some) reregulation of the labour market – primarily to address imbalances in bargaining power and extend employee rights currently lacking in the Federal system, as well ensuring that “flexibility” isn’t just a synonym for reducing labour costs.
The other observation I want to make is that I object to the term “dependency”. It suggests by analogy that welfare is a drug. What’s wrong with “income support”? Regardless of our views on welfare policy, we need to lose the pathologisation of individuals on welfare that’s been created and reinforced by this sort of language. Personally, I’d prefer – with Roosevelt, Marshall and Beveridge – to see income support as a basic right of citizens. The problems that exist are certainly not all of the making of people on income support, as I’ve been trying to argue, and all of us have an obligation to address the issue, as Rafe recognised.
ps – Fyodor, yes there is a personal element in all this – I made the decision last year that I wouldn’t do casual lecturing any more (or short term contracts) because the workload and insecurity are draining beyond belief. The average age at which people become full time academics now is 38. That’s why I was careful to adduce statistical evidence for my claims, but anecdotally, most of the people in their late 20s and early 30s have had similar experiences. And a lot are retraining themselves (hence the very large market for postgrad coursework programmes) – not just people with generalist degrees – a lot of business degrees need further specialisation at postgrad level. And of course you can do postgrad work and find that there’s no demand because of a fast altering external environment – I did a postgrad diploma in IR and then decided with the election of the Howard government that as a career, IR probably had a limited future. Hence I did honours in politics and IR, then a PhD in sociology. There are a lot of people out there who find that an undergrad degree isn’t enough, and who also find down the track that you really have to pick a changing market to do the right postgrad course. I’m also speaking from my experience in teaching and coordinating postgrad coursework subjects and degrees. Anyway, I’m realistic to think that the first full time job I get (which is my post-PhD goal) may not be the one I want.
I would not consider income support as a basic right but I would certainly support it as a desirable policy; most of us do. Welfare can be a drug and a community concerned for the long term contentment of all its members will make whatever adjustments are necessary to ensure those on welfare get off it as soon as possible. Those adjestments might take the form of IR reform but not be limited to this.
I’m happy for my taxes to go to those who need them but I’m fucked if I’m interested in their complaints about the kind of language I use when describing welfare. Though the whole thing is a red-herring. Protesting about being stigmatised is a middle class luxury and I have not heard anyone on welfare complain about the pathologisation (Mark are you sure that’s a real word?) who hadn’t been verballed by a social worker.
As an aside, we have had a big debate here in Australia about the negative impacts of apparently misguided social policies relating to indigneous Australians – ie the stolen generations. Anyone want to let me know whose idea it was to create these suburbs of state housing? Which theorist or school of thought. We seem to enjoy a witch hunt in this country with our piercing hindsight. Why have we been so quiet about this failed social experiment?
James, it was common practice in most Western countries in the immediate post war period. The idea was that “garden suburbs” in outer-suburban areas would provide a better environment than inner-city “slums”. Consistent with the general drift away from urban living to suburban. If you go back and look at books like Lewis Mumford’s “The City in History” you’ll get some idea of the theory behind it. It was congruent (to use today’s word) with the Beveridge Welfare State, but had its origins in Nineteenth Century proto-sociology such as the parliamentary Blue Books and the philanthropic investigations into the conditions of the poor in cities. The idea was supported across the Western world by governments of all political persuasions.
How about some discussion of some possible long term solutions that may or may not work ,in regard solving the problems of long term poverty…
All the solutions so far in use seem to allow people to be more comfortable in their poverty and tend to trap recipients in poverty ,rather than provide them with opportunities to lift themselves onto the ladder of success…
frederickadelaide@hotmail.com