THE PRINCIPLE OF LESS ELIGIBILITY

[Stanley]

THE PRINCIPLE OF LESS ELIGIBILITY

A naïve occasional paper for Dr Stephen Constantine.

I have no problem with eligibility itself, the principle is sound, it is obvious there must always be criteria once the decision has been made to assess a cohort to decide on what action to take. My problem is with the degree of eligibility implied by the word 'less' as this indicates that the cohort is being weeded out using supplementary criteria. In terms of benefits, it is perfectly reasonable to use income levels, health, employment status or any other quantifiable parameter. However, it is not unreasonable to suspect that forces other than simple indices are at work in deciding eligibility. This is where the concept of 'less worthy' comes in and as an historian I can't help getting echoes of the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor, a distinction made in one way or another in every formal attempt to administer state relief. I shall try to describe where I think this concept comes from.
What we are looking at here is a judgement of 'worth'. In other words, status in an hierarchy. As far as we can tell, this is as old as humanity itself, we can see it in the earliest tribal structures. In later years it was the foundation of feudalism, indeed it was quantified to the extent where lists could be generated giving the exact status or worth of everything under the sun, the medieval Chain of Being. In a largely agrarian economy this was a rigid code used by the Lords to decide precedence and though flaws appeared in the structure, particularly from the late 16th century onwards, the remnants of the concept are still deeply embedded in society. Consider the hymn 'All things bright and beautiful' written in 1848 by Cecil F Alexander which contains the lines 'the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, He made them high or lowly, and ordered their estate'. The Chain of Being may not have been in use but the principles were alive and well and applied by those who considered themselves 'high'. This is why the doctrine of non-conformity, in all its guises, was anathema to the ruling classes because it was a rebellion against the concept preached by the Established Church that social position was immutable and couldn't be changed by individual effort or worth. I suspect that this concept is still alive and well today. An individual's position in society is still assessed by considerations of worth.
Until the mid 16th century and the Dissolution of the Monasteries the main channels of charity were alms given by the monasteries, some limited resources available to the Vestry of a parish and self help within the community from family and neighbours. We have no direct evidence but I think it's reasonable to suppose that eligibility was a consideration. A destitute widow with young children would have more chance of the dole than a local ne'er-do-well who had fallen on hard times.
“The essence of feudal society was the bond of loyalty and dependence between Lord and Man”. (Christopher Hill) Changes in society during the 16th century such as enclosure of commons, the change in the economy towards sheep farming and the growth of towns resulted in growing numbers of 'masterless' men who had no lord or land, they were often described as 'sturdy rascals' or 'vagabonds' and were seen as a threat to the stability of the state. The New Poor Law of Elizabeth I was an attempt to curb this tendency and gain some measure of control as they were seen as potential subversives. Strict criteria were applied to relief and the concept of the worthy poor became important. One of the most important was the concept of vagrancy, detachment from the home village, the land and local relief. By leaving home the poor had voluntarily cut themselves off from the natural channels of relief and become a concern, if not a danger, for the state. This may well have been the case because in the clashes between the people and the crown which were the precursors of the Civil War a majority of the anti royalists are thought to have been masterless men and 'commoners', those who lived outside normal society on heaths and commons.
One other underlying concept which was not voiced but undoubtedly played a part in levels of relief provided by the state or wealthy individuals was that the poor were seen as a necessary pool of labour and as such had to be maintained in order for society to function. The great change in this was seen in the mid 14th century when the Black Death killed a minimum of a third of the workforce and resulted in the breakdown of the relationship of the lord and his workers. For the first time the workers realised they had the upper hand and could move in search of better living conditions and wage labour. The lords attempted to control this by statute but never regained control and had to make concessions.
It is from this time onwards that we begin to see the concept of labour as a qualification for relief. This was not confined to poor relief but was a thread running through society. Think of the treadmill, oakum picking and stone breaking in prison as part of the category of imprisonment with hard labour. 'The Devil finds work for idle hands' was a powerful concept and as late as the 19th century poor people on Outdoor Relief from Skipton workhouse were required to break stone for road-mending in Barnoldswick. The small yard on Manchester Road used for this is still known as 'Poor Bones' by the older inhabitants of the town. The poor were not allowed to get something for nothing, they had to work for their dole and in addition a new concept was introduced, that those in receipt of relief should not be in a better condition than the poorest worker.
So, what we have is a complicated structure of influences which have guided the capital holders and the state in their treatment of the poor. Time to apply this to the modern problem of gaining control of benefits in an economy crippled by successive government's mismanagement. It should be noted that as a precursor to introducing harsher criteria for relief each government blames their predecessors, it is not that simple. The prime example of the use of state funds to finance benefits in recent history was the Thatcher government's use of windfall North Sea oil revenues to finance the enlarged pool of unemployment caused by their attack on or neglect of manufacturing industry in their pursuit of the free market and increasing reliance on service industries. A side issue was the relentless pressure on the power of the unions. The benefit budget rocketed as did importation of manufactured goods. Credit was stimulated to the point where Gordon Brown under New Labour was talking about 'The New Economy', boom and bust was seen to be a thing of the past and the Lords of the Universe in the financial industry were given free reign to introduce new products which seemed to produce immense wealth out of thin air. This increased flow of money through the system increased the tax take and made it easier to govern. With hindsight we can see that it was all an illusion and the fat lady started to sing in 2007. The consequence is that we are now saddled with a mountain of debt, the market for unskilled labour has collapsed and the fall in the disposable incomes of the lower 85% of the population whose spending is the bedrock of the national economy has shrunk to the point where GDP is static, if not declining.
Faced with this situation the present government has decided that the benefit budget has to be reduced and in the process the concept of 'less eligibility' has reared its head with a vengeance. Some very nasty language has emerged, 'work-shy', 'benefit dependence' and reference to fraud are just a few of the reasons brought forward by the mainly right-wing advocates of cutting benefits. There is little doubt that there is a grain of truth in these accusations, no system or society is perfect but to characterize large swathes of the poor as 'scroungers' is both unfair and dishonest. The advocates of reducing benefits by making judgements on who is 'less eligible' make perfect sense to many and unfortunately they hold the reins of power at the moment. As they quite rightly say, what is the alternative? We can't afford this scale of public assistance without damaging the ability of the state to function. The alternative is to follow the example of some Mediterranean economies and become the poor men of Europe. My belief is that the roots of the concept which allows our leaders to advocate cruel and draconian strategies that hit the poor directly lie to a large extent in the concepts of society I have laid out above. Essentially, if an underclass isn't useful for providing cheap labour it is expendable. Perhaps Malthus was right and the only solution is to allow the underclass to die back to a supportable level.
In truth, there is no easy answer to the problem. For generations, political philosophers like Karl Marx have been ignored. In Das Kapital (1867) he proposed that that the motivating force of capitalism is in the exploitation of labour whose work is the ultimate source of profit and surplus value. He forecast the de-skilling of labour by repetitive work in mass production, the decline of craft skills as cheap manufactured goods replaced bespoke items and the creation of 'phantom money' that had no hard assets to back it. I can remember when I was a lad there was much discussion of the effects of 'automation', the experts told us that it would all be fine, there would be less overtime working and more leisure. Add to automation the effects of computerisation, robotics and the migration of manufacturing to countries where there is the lowest cost base and we have a situation where a whole class of decent hard-working people have all the leisure, they call it unemployment. We either abandon these families to their fate or we take a very hard look at the way we run society and start to do something about it. The one certainty is that there is no easy fix, no short term solution. The ultimate answer depends on nothing less than altering the whole basis of society.
The brief I was given was to examine the principle of 'less eligibility' and by implication, give some opinion about it. Ideally there should be no such judgement, people are either eligible for support or they are not but in an economy where all the money has been thrown into the black hole we call the banking system, where the ability to consume is the new measure of worth, where no effort has been made to address the obvious problem of unskilled labour for generations and when the political leaders have no discernible social principle I can see no answer. The only way to tailor the demands of the benefit system to the funds at present available is to cut the number of people eligible for benefit. In other words, make some less eligible than others.
However.... It's important for our masters to realise that this is a policy of despair and will ultimately lead to the downfall of our present system. By refusing to examine the roots of the problem but simply taking the obvious short-term solution of cutting the welfare bill they ensure the break up of society and with it the foundations of their own position. Deprive an underclass of income, opportunity and support and the result will be growing civil unrest. There are plenty of examples of this happening, sociologists have long understood the syndrome of 'Thatcher's Children', the generations reared in families with no work. The mining villages where the closure of the local pit has resulted in spiralling domestic violence, crime, drunkenness and even heroin use. (It's cheaper to get high on heroin than alcohol and the fastest way out of Salford is four pints of beer.) I'm sure you can think of other examples. We hear politicians trying to convince us that 'We are all in this together' while sales of luxury homes and goods like Rolls Royce cars and yachts boom and they are quite rightly ridiculed. The irony is that they never said a truer word but haven't really thought it through. They are in as much trouble as the rest of us.
Have I got an answer? Yes, but it is fundamental and long term. I remember being asked at the end of a course dealing with the inter-war years whether I could boil the whole body of work down into one sentence and I said “Distribution of Income”. This is the ultimate key which can unlock a solution. There is nothing wrong with the concept of either capitalism or a meritocracy so long as everyone is given the opportunity to get the rewards of whatever they invest into the system. The first key is education, we have to get away from the concept that the vast majority of schools are there to produce factory fodder. Young minds should be invested in starting at primary school. How far an individual gets in the system should not depend on how wealthy their parents are but on merit. We should look again at the need for a nuclear deterrent which can never be used but is maintained solely to 'keep our place at the top table', in other words, stop living in the past and recognise our true place in the world as a small but prosperous island off the coast of Europe. Political power and control of funding should be devolved from the Westminster Bubble to the regions and local authorities. We should look again at the way we have allowed 'the commanding heights of the economy' out of our control to the extent where most of the profits are exported abroad. This latter is always seen as a plea for nationalisation and that is a dirty word but it is no more than that high Tory Harold Macmillan recommended in his book 'The Middle Way'. Once again, I am sure you can think of your own examples, the bottom line is that we are in fact a wealthy country and there is plenty of money in the system to finance real changes in society, the problem is that it is being spent as though we are still a 19th century laissez faire economy with the advantages of a large empire.
One last improvement, can we please take steps to curb the power of the large financial institutions. We need to have an efficient banking system, insurance funds and capital investors but should we allow them to run government policy by the lobby and the small army of 'advisers' to politicians? There is something seriously wrong in an industry which rewards the failed director with a £5 million pension pot and has to bailed out at a cost of £20 billion.
Bob Bliss used to say I never actually came to a conclusion. Perhaps I have improved with age. Much as I regret it I can see no alternative in the short term to the application of the concept of less eligibility. In the long term, we must improve the distribution of wealth and opportunity and motivate the under classes to aspire to something better. Effort and commitment must be rewarded by giving sufficient means to people to have a good quality of life. Even under an enlightened system such as this there will be those who remain the 'undeserving poor' and some way must be found to make sure that any sanctions imposed on them by judging them less eligible do not impinge on the children. Bernard Shaw once made a speech to the Fabians in which he said he hated the poor and wanted to abolish them. We know what he meant but unfortunately I am realistic enough to admit that there will always be those who cannot or will not take advantage of all the opportunities they are offered. Looked at from this perspective less eligibility is an unavoidable evil but should not be used as an easy fix for a desperate situation.

SCG/10/04/13
2750 words

[Nolic]

A bit heavy for 7.00 am but an interesting read. What is the purpose of the paper Comrade? Nolic

[Stanley]

Comrade, as you'll note from this week's BET article they have cut it back to the point where I find it difficult to address more weighty matters. As you know, I like writing and expressing a view whether it's about history or current events, so I decided to write some additional articles for Stanley's View and mentioned it to my old mentor Steve Constantine at Lancaster. He asked me to write a paper on Less Eligibility so here it is. No doubt he'll give me some more titles and I shall certainly be writing others as they come to mind. In case you were wondering, Steve says that he liked the piece and that I still had the touch1 (Whatever that means)
So, occasionally, as the mood takes me, there will be a Naive Occasional Paper.

[Nolic]

Keep em coming. I learn so much from you.

I saw MR on Tuesday and he's got promotion already .......he was wasted at the other place. Lets hope he can get the job permanently... I know the manager has a very high regard for him. Nolic

[Stanley]

Yes, Susan told me as much. Looks as though he has found the right job. Thanks for the feedback Comrade, reassuring.

[Stanley]

Bumped... and perhaps even more pertinent now than eight years ago!

[Stanley]

Bumped again. I know it's a heavy read but have a crack at it. There ia some truth buried in there....
"However.... It's important for our masters to realise that this is a policy of despair and will ultimately lead to the downfall of our present system. By refusing to examine the roots of the problem but simply taking the obvious short-term solution of cutting the welfare bill they ensure the break up of society and with it the foundations of their own position. Deprive an underclass of income, opportunity and support and the result will be growing civil unrest. "
That's one random quote and I find that when I wrote it I was describing the situation we have today.

[Gloria]

Oh I like your random quote Stanley.

[Stanley]

Thanks Gloria. I was struck by how apposite the whole piece is to our present situation. Some things don't change....

[Gloria]