'Since 1970 levels of poverty and wealth in different areas of Britain have changed significantly, with the country now moving back towards levels of inequality last seen more than 40 years ago.
While the number of people who are living in extreme poverty has fallen, the number of people living below the poverty line has increased, with more than one in four households classed as being so-called breadline poor.
At the same time the number of asset wealthy households rose dramatically with more than a fifth of families now falling into this category.
But the proportion of average households fell from around two-thirds of families in 1980 to just over half.
There was evidence of increasing polarisation, with rich and poor now living further apart.'
These are the conclusions of recent research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
To many who are feeling the strain of living on the poverty line, this is not news, this is not a revelation. In regions where rents are high and wages low like for example in the South-West of England. Together with the credit crunch, the situation is becoming dire and the tax credit system is no longer much of a helping hand from the government as it seemed when it came into being and so far lifted at least 600 000 children and million pensioners and low income people out of poverty.
We are facing up to the fact that with looming recession this is going to only escalate and with these economic problems and falling social mobility, one of the consequences will be a rise in civil unrest.
Our concern is whether this unrest will be directed to cause a change of the status quo or just baseless violence. Both will result with the authorities and state calling on the might of the police to suppress it. With baseless violence, this will lead nowhere but a dead end and a PR machine presenting mob mentality. Of course even if this was a class action, it will be shown as such in media, however the truth would be there and more people would set thinking and eventually support change.
Although the welfare state may try to address this rising inequality, it will never change the law of capitalist accumulation that pities the working classes into the state of perpetual modern age slavery, misery and torment of the labour, which in its turn will result in brutalisation and moral degradation - such as we can already see with rising knife and other violent crimes of generation, which cannot find its identity, which cannot feel a sense of direction and realisation for their lives, a generation increasingly nihilistic - and deprived of any sense of social values.
In fact, in spite of the considerable differences, the welfare states, be it in their 'social-democratic', 'corporatist' or 'liberal' forms have been failing in the face of globalisation of capitalist markets and the transnational integration of markets of goods and services, and are coming to their end, whereas unfettered capitalism with its destructive tendencies is let free of its leash and the laws of the polarising nature of the system are accelerating faster and higher than anticipated.
The greater the social wealth and functioning capital and the extent of growth, the greater is also the productivity of labour and the greater is the industrial inactive part of labour (the unemployed, the casual labour, the homeless etc). The same causes that develop capital, develop the labour at its disposal. The greater the proportion of the inactive to the active part of labour, the more misery and the more painstaking for this class occurs. The official poverty will rise. It is the absolute nature - that can only be modified, but not cancelled out - it means that the more capitalism experiences expansion, it will not erase poverty, but increase it in proportion of its growth.
Although the government has invested £20 billion into regeneration of cities, towns and neighbourhoods with a view that it will help previously excluded areas to bridge the gap between themselves and the affluent, this is just the modification, and not a solution of the problem that arises from the social shortcomings of the system that is chiefly concerned with creating profits for its guardian upper classes, it is not one based on social values. If we want to see a society that is truly set to destroy inequality, then we must look beyond capitalism, which will never serve such a purpose. For the foreseeable future one must seek and demand that the system has to concentrate on bridging the difference and helping the poor.
Which brings up to the topic of child poverty that is another pressing issue in the widening gap between the rich and poor.
There are approximately 3.5 million children living in poverty in Britain today. That's more than a quarter of the total child population. From Europe, UK and Italy are the two countries at the top with highest numbers of children living in such condition.
The social studies are producing alarming findings - today's poor teenagers are four times as likely to remain poor during their lifetime than poor teenagers of the '70s - although the Thatcher years have a lot to answer for the increasing poverty of the later generations too as the 1980s teenagers first employment opportunities were blighted by unemployment which was at its highest since WWII, peaking in 1984 to more than 3 million. During this decade the richest 10% of the population more than doubled their disposable income, whilst the poorest saw little or no increase in theirs. And today the link of childhood poverty to adult poverty is becoming even stronger.
Not only poverty represents its typical deprivations, there are all the indications that this poverty will persist throughout their lives, and later on even affecting their children. Their poverty affects future generations as well as their own - this fact should serve as a wake up call for us to realise that if we do not do anything, problems of our time will affect those who come after us - is this the legacy we want to leave behind?
Income poverty is the condition of not having enough income to meet basic needs for shelter, clothing, and food. Because children are dependent on others, they enter or avoid poverty by virtue of their family's economic circumstances.
Although the tax credit system has alleviated these conditions for 600 000 children, the present situation points that this achievement will be lost. With the rising costs of living, these benefits and the low income of their parents are again short to cover these basic needs and many of these children will experience deprivation again. Unless the government boosts the scheme at least by 3bn a year, they will not reach their targets of lessening child poverty and will be failing 500 000 children that the goals of the scheme aimed to help. It is going to be absolute necessity or they will have to face up to failure to deliver on their promises. Not only the children already helped will face poverty again, those who weren't helped, will see the possibility of this help completely inaccessible - their future will look like a door closed and sealed.
The findings of European commission are already concluding that regardless of more attention to policies and some progress being made, it is still not enough to eliminate child poverty and the report urges that preventing poverty and social exclusion of children should be made a priority. It offers that giving priority to ‘work-first’ policies and reducing unemployment and inactivity are not enough unless they are accompanied by measures to reduce poverty in working families and by effective redistribution to those out of work.
Again, what the official places are suggesting are modifications of the problem of child poverty - not its solution. As always it's only looking for measures, which are short term and they are not treating the root cause. It is like putting a duck tape on leaking pipe instead of replacing the pipe.
One of the major problems is caused by lack of awareness. Media and henceforth most people in Britain - simply don't acknowledge child poverty, basically believing that poor children exist only in Africa. Given the facts, they are stunned and on a point of denial. Child poverty in the UK is very real problem, completely demoralising, increasingly difficult to escape from and, for the fourth- or fifth-richest country in the world - it is shameful. Too shameful to face up to.
Yet, how is change to take place if the population is so segregated as to be ignorant of conditions of the other part? What they see from the media are the gangs of lawless and orderless children ruling the streets with weapons. They only see crime, but seldom stop to think about the underlying reasons. Poverty, lack of proper education and motivation. If society will not tackle child poverty, it will definitely be so to its own detriment.
The welfare of animals had seen more direct action than the welfare of children, and animal welfare charities have more charity shops than the children charities in many streets of the UK. If there's been protests against animal testing, why aren't there protest to declare our disgust over the millions of British children experiencing deprivations of poverty? Why aren't we pressing for the change so these children can have a future?
Each system of organisation comes in several stages of development, with two most pronounced - the progressive stage and its stage of decline. If we will want to hold on to capitalist mode, to class society and its conflicts, deprivations for the classes the upper ones oppress, we will increasingly experience the negatives of whatever capitalism accomplished as compared to conditions of feudalism. But how long can we go on for? This stage will only increase in its severity.
Since economic development is the driving force of human development, the re-arrangement of economy into one based on social values rather than the one we currently have and which is based on appropriation of wealth from one portion of population for benefits and luxury of another portion, is at the root of these increasing problems of our times.
We cannot just treat the symptoms, we must address the underlying problem - the inequalities of capitalism and the fact that is its very nature and to change it, one must change the system as a whole and that each step to push for the transformation counts and we cannot remain inactive and say nothing, do nothing.
Petra Whiteley
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