The Student Room Group

Rhetoric against the poorest and the class struggle.

(Note: I know I have used national min wage instead of London min wage. Its just that £6.50 is more easy to remember).

I feel that people are judging the poor as Labour enablers rather than realize the actual plight of the poor and all the details which go with their situation.

There is a strong view on TSR that poor people are the cause of their own demise.

1. Maybe they didn't do good in school.
2. Maybe they should stop having so many children.
3. Maybe they should make the right choices.

It is very easy for people who aren't in the demographic or the situation of the poor to claim the reasons which enable poverty but I want people to just imagine the following for 5 minutes .........

You live in London and you have nothing to your name. You live in a bedsit and you work for a agency cleaning hotel rooms. Your paid £6.50 min wage a hour but your hours aren't guaranteed because you are on a zero hour contract with the agency.

One week your hours are cut down to 16 hour a week. You become unable to claim tax credits. This means you are going to lose a huge proportion of your income.

You have to claim housing benefit and council tax benefits. This puts you in a double sword situation because if you earn more than £104 you have to pay every penny of it back to the Job Center.

The next month the agency decides to put your hours up to 50 and you have to pay back £221 to the Job Center. You feel like a fool. The system works against you.

The next month your hours go to 8 per week. You get income support of £20 to top you up to Job Seeker Allowance levels.

You feel like you are stuck in this poverty trap where the agency and job center are treating you as a slave because of the lack of your financial security.

You are the Precariat. A class lower than the unemployed welfare claimant

This is what thousands of people go though who are on zero hour contracts. They can choose to go without welfare and risk getting into debts and not having enough money for food & heating or they can take welfare and be put in a low income poverty trap.

Does the standard rhetoric against the poor count?
Or is it we who need to change our outlook?

(edited 9 years ago)
I've said a few times before that it's a form of victim blaming. All but a small minority of poor people are that way for reasons beyond their control, and actually want to find proper paid work.

But instead of blaming the people that caused the financial crisis in the first place and set all this off like the bankers and governments that deregulated the sector, some people like to pretend that poorer people are just lazy and deserve to be poor, and they just sit at home all day watching Jeremy Kyle or repeats of Top Gear. It's rage inducing propaganda.

It's interesting that most people who make these sort of arguments against the poor and the welfare system are the sort of people who have never been and will never be in that situation themselves.
Original post by RFowler
I've said a few times before that it's a form of victim blaming. All but a small minority of poor people are that way for reasons beyond their control, and actually want to find proper paid work.

But instead of blaming the people that caused the financial crisis in the first place and set all this off like the bankers and governments that deregulated the sector, some people like to pretend that poorer people are just lazy and deserve to be poor, and they just sit at home all day watching Jeremy Kyle or repeats of Top Gear. It's rage inducing propaganda.

It's interesting that most people who make these sort of arguments against the poor and the welfare system are the sort of people who have never been and will never be in that situation themselves.

It's largely due to the Daily Mail and the Sun spreading this propaganda.
As I said on an earlier thread, we have socialism for the wealthy who mess up and get bailed out, whilst we have capitalism for the poor, if they don't work unbelievably hard and get a few breaks along the way they are chewed up and spat out.

The right wing won't let you criticize any element of capitalism without calling you a hypocrite or claiming you must give up all your earthly possessions and live like a nun.
Any view which is vaguely left of centre or even centrist is shot down as 'commy, socialist , entitlement culture'.

You can believe in certain elements of capitalism, but be critical of others and want restrictions and regulations. You don't have to take it as a package deal.

There is so much victim blaming on here and frankly it's disgusting.
Original post by Bornblue
It's largely due to the Daily Mail and the Sun spreading this propaganda.
As I said on an earlier thread, we have socialism for the wealthy who mess up and get bailed out, whilst we have capitalism for the poor, if they don't work unbelievably hard and get a few breaks along the way they are chewed up and spat out.

The right wing won't let you criticize any element of capitalism without calling you a hypocrite or claiming you must give up all your earthly possessions and live like a nun.
Any view which is vaguely left of centre or even centrist is shot down as 'commy, socialist , entitlement culture'.

You can believe in certain elements of capitalism, but be critical of others and want restrictions and regulations. You don't have to take it as a package deal.

There is so much victim blaming on here and frankly it's disgusting.


Capitalism is great if you have access to the means of production but if you don't then your as good as dependent on the state.
Original post by illegaltobepoor
Capitalism is great if you have access to the means of production but if you don't then your as good as dependent on the state.


Capitalism certainly does have some good elements. The advancements in medicine and technology for example.
It does however also have huge drawbacks, it chews up and spits out victims and makes life incredibly difficult for the poor as everybody becomes obsessed with this 'American Dream' fallacy that anyone anywhere can succeed in anything, so we don't need to support the poorest. it's just not true.
Not to mention the worker exploitation, huge inequality and destroying the planet.

Capitalism works by creating an uber wealthy, luxurious top 1% and convincing the 99% that it's in their interests and they can reach the top 1%. Thus there should be no redistribution of wealth at all.

As I say though you can support some elements of capitalism as I do, without taking it as a package deal. You don't have to advocate scrapping the whole system in order to criticize it and want reform.

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