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Create modern-day workhouses

Margaret Thatcher

Ignore the negative connotations that relates to Victorian workhouses, here are my proposals for a modern-day workhouse:

- For families and individuals who are unable to sustain themselves in society - either through long-term unemployment, bankruptcy, etc. This would be instead of throwing taxpayers' money at them every week and housing them in council houses.

- Would be in the form of small communities, in university hall-like residences. There would be flats with rooms that include en-suites, communal areas and cafeterias. Families could choose to live in a flat, or individuals would be placed with other individuals in a flat.

- Rent, water, electricity, internet, catered food (and so on) would all be free, on the condition that residents work in on-site facilities (such as factories).

- Residents would also receive an allowance for leisure, clothes, and so on.

This would aim to be a temporary measure, and residents would use this as a means to get back on their feet and gain valuable work experience. The workhouse would eventually help them to gain a long-term job, housing, etc.

Thoughts?

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1

Duncan Idaho

do one you nazi loving scumbag

Reply 2

Martyn*

Bread, cheese, suet and potatoes! Yipee!!!!1111!!!!1

Reply 3

Margaret Thatcher

Original post by Duncan Idaho

do one you nazi loving scumbag

How constructive.

Good idea

Is it not a worrying step to be effectively taking people's liberty away from them simply because of their financial circumstances?

Reply 6

BlueJoker

The funding will come from where? Even if you have production in factories (using slave labour, nice... you'll get high quality products from that) there's still the start up cost. And would kids have to work? Because they can cost just as much as adults, especially the fatties.

Reply 7

Maker

Won't work for economic reasons. Cost a lot to set up and run. People will just stay there for years because they get institutionalised and can't live outside and loose the will to find jobs.

Stuff they make would be seen as undesireable due to their negative association and shunned and have to be sold at below cost. Commercial companies will complain about unfair competition because workhouse labour is cheaper than commercial labour and a lot of countries including the UK don't allow goods to be imported that are made in prisons and by extension, workhouses.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 8

booksnob

It would be a godsend for economy but ethically I'm completely against it. Wait a minute while I set up my soapbox. It seems to me just one step away from imprisonment - certainly it's institutionalisation. I don't think poverty can be brushed under the carpet, or more accurately, shut away. It has to be tackled head on. Also I really can't say anybody, apart from the homeless maybe, wanting to go into a workhouse, so you would have to use force and that is something I thought we'd moved away from. Punishing people for being poor - for being born into poverty?

Reply 9

Duncan Idaho

Original post by booksnob

already happens on a huge scale in this economy

Reply 10

booksnob

Original post by Duncan Idaho

already happens on a huge scale in this economy

I agree with you (supposing you mean taxes). Although my sympathies lie a lot more with the middle-classes these days.

Reply 11

Rob da Mop

Original post by sandys1000

Is it not a worrying step to be effectively taking people's liberty away from them simply because of their financial circumstances?

They're free to choose whether to beg on the street or go to the workhouse...

I'm not a huge fan of the idea, but it does seem to answer some problems.

Reply 12

Margaret Thatcher

Original post by Rob da Mop

They're free to choose whether to beg on the street or go to the workhouse...

This.

It would not be compulsory, but they wouldn't have many other options.

Reply 13

ch0llima

Original post by Rob da Mop

They're free to choose whether to beg on the street or go to the workhouse...

<Daily Mail>Or become dole bludgers and live rent free in a £300k house</Daily Mail>

I'm in favour of the idea in principle, but not forcing people into thinking it's their only option because they're poor.

Reply 14

Oswy

Original post by Margaret Thatcher

Thoughts?

If I thought these workhouses would become centres that radicalised the poor into revolt, ideally well-organised revolt, then it might just be worth considering. Cuurently the poor, unemployed and working-class more generally are socially and politically fragmented. Any system which helps bring them together where they can clearly recognise and plan against their common enemy has potential merit.

I propose that such workhouses support the UK's fine armaments industry and the inmates be required to manufacture things like machine guns and hand-grenades.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 15

milkytea

It's an interesting idea, but it comes with some major problems. Firstly you'd need a lot of policing in these places to prevent crime and disorder, increasing the cost to the taxpayer. Then you begin to risk turning them into prison-like places. As with benefits, the people using them may get stuck in the lifestyle they offer and become unable or unwilling to leave, hence restricting their liberty. It seems like a slippery slope, morally.

I personally would advocate the reduction of (some) benefits but making up for it with greater spending in education and other public services. But the way the poor are treated at the moment is not effective enough, imho.

Reply 16

lawology

Original post by sandys1000

Is it not a worrying step to be effectively taking people's liberty away from them simply because of their financial circumstances?

even the victorian workhouses didn't take peoples liberty away really, it was a voluntary program - people could leave when they wanted to.

i'm not sure where i stand on this though...it's an interesting concept but the reality would probably be pretty grim.

Reply 17

sandys1000

Original post by Rob da Mop

They're free to choose whether to beg on the street or go to the workhouse...

I'm not a huge fan of the idea, but it does seem to answer some problems.

In reality there would be no choice. Without benefits it would be between starving and going into the workhouse.

Reply 18

adam_zed

Original post by Margaret Thatcher

Just like your other idea, this one fails to acknowledge the cost of such a plan. Who ends up paying for all this? And what makes you think that this system would push people to go an sustain themselves when they have a job, accommodation etc given to them? You also seem to think that there are an abundance of factory jobs available?

Above many things, your first sentence sucks. The workhouses didnt get a negative spin on them, they were often hard to maintain, backfired in that they ended up housing the very people the Poor Laws were meant to protect from such a deterrence and I am sure many of the conditions, not least segregation would draw widespread condemnation as an abuse of basic human rights.

Reply 19

adam_zed

Original post by lawology

well out of circumstance it did. People were made to work the whole time and had no time to look for alternative employment. If they left, they would have had to endure starvation until they were able to find suitable employment.