Capitalist philosophy contends that individuals must fend for
themselves. If the individual "fails" miserably at doing so, then
their families should look after them, and if they have no family
or the family is in dire straits as well, then the local community
and charities should do something. The capitalist society should
not be involved at all. Government can intervene in the economic
affairs but must do so only minimally, that is, when it concerns
helping the capitalists themselves. The introduction of social
welfare was merely to help a section of the capitalists who could
sell their goods and services to the most impoverished at the
fastest speed at a cost to the taxpayers themselves.
The notion pushed under capitalism is that everyone has an
equal opportunity to succeed if only they have the energy and
initiative to do so. The reality that poverty and unemployment have
always existed under capitalism is ascribed to individual human
failure, not to any basic contradiction within the capitalist
system itself. According to the apologists of capitalism, if only
people would get off their butts, work hard and behave themselves
there would be no unemployment or poverty.
This was the argument in the 1830s in England to discontinue
the "poor relief" that had been constantly growing from the start
of the industrial revolution - to "end welfare as they knew it."
The urban centers of Britain and France were teeming with
"vagabonds" and "rogues" who had been recently forced from the
countryside. The economists of the time, such as Reverend Malthus,
argued that to give them poor relief destroyed their incentive and
demoralized those who were working. Malthus and others believed
that capitalism would eventually find work for all if there was no
"safety net" to allow people to avoid working.
One hundred and sixty years later, permanent unemployment is
even worse and the absolute numbers of poor are growing. Either
people refuse to change their ways, "enjoy being poor and indolent"
or there is something inherently wrong with capitalism. The Poor
Laws of the 1830s which attacked welfare became all the rage
throughout Europe provoked a revolutionary upsurge of the working
class in 1848 that toppled almost every government. But, in spite
of all the positive experience of socialism (especially during the
Great Depression when the Soviet Union experienced unprecedented
growth) that proves that socialist society can overcome all these
ills, the capitalists continue to carry the self-serving propaganda
that the "poor" have to rid their condition of poverty themselves
or else! The social welfare fund which was used to finance the slum
landlord and the local retail capitalist is now needed somewhere
else. It is being directed elsewhere while the propaganda guns
carry on shooting at their target, the poor. Nonetheless, as long
as there is capitalism there will be poor. The working class has no
choice but to reckon with this fact right now.
Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
