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If this is Communism, where do I sign?
I've been debating over on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
raggedhalo's journal (again) about politics and economic theory. No surprises there; when one of the basic contentions being made is that the public sector is wildly corrupt and inefficient but it is better to raise taxes to cover the ensuing shortfall than to deal with the corruption and inefficiency you can expect my blood pressure to go up dramatically.
During the course of the debating, the old Communist Manifesto line about "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" was trotted out as 'basic social contract'. On the face of it, the statement seems quite unexceptionable - but when you try and pin it down, it becomes quite a slippy concept indeed. You see the question I ask is: whose definition of the word 'need' are we going to accept? Certainly nobody I asked in the debate who supported the idea that we have a moral requirement to support the needs of others was prepared to define 'need' in absolute terms, instead prevaricating furiously whenever I really asked the question.
So I set out to look elsewhere for definitions of human needs. What are human needs, and who defines them?
The United Nations defines poverty thus: They state that any person lacking any two of the following list is, according to the UN, living in poverty: Access to adequate food, access to potable water, access to shelter, access to healthcare and access to education. I think there's a basic definition of 'need' there which we can all get behind, although a definition of what level of education (am I in poverty if I can't get to postgraduate education?) counts is still needed.
Looking closer to home, I checked out Oxfam and the Government's Social Exclusion unit.
Oxfam make a big deal about how 1 person in 4 in the UK lives in Poverty. This is a staggering number - more than 15 million people. The front page of their website makes quite a to-do about eradicating poverty. But what is "poverty" in those terms? Digging through their website, we find that Oxfam defines poverty as: "Poverty is measured here as below 60 per cent of contemporary median net disposable income in 2000/01."
Go back and read that again, and think about what it means.
It means that, according to Oxfam, who are leading a poverty eradication campaign, poverty itself can never be eradicated. Simple maths tells us that a proportion of the population will always live under a set point of the median income, because that's what the median means. In other words, if you're working for Oxfam in poverty reduction, then you've got a job for life. I'm sure it's only the cynic in me that suggests this thought might have crossed the mind of whoever set this somewhat arbitary standard of 'poverty'.
But what of the Social Exclusion unit? They too are trying to end poverty - but finding how they define 'poverty' is bloody hard. Anyone would think they didn't want you to know. Eventually, I tracked down some studies (carried out by the Joseph Rowntree foundation) they were basing their statistics of poverty on, and found some of their definitions. They, like the UN, set a list of criteria of what poverty 'is'. However, their criteria differ quite markedly from the UN; their list includes things like 'Not owning or having access to a car' and 'not owning your own home'.
What is most striking about both the Oxfam and SEU definitions of poverty (and thus 'need') is that I, personally, meet their criteria for poverty. When Oxfam or government statistics are trotted out to tell you how many people live in poverty in this country, their criteria are so broad that they catch me in there.
So, the next time an Oxfam worker collars you in the street and demands you set up a standing order to help them eradicate poverty in the UK because (adopts meaningful and portentious tone of voice) "One person in four lives in poverty", just remember what the true face of poverty in the UK looks like. It looks like mine, and I'm stuffing a jammy Wagon Wheel into it whilst I'm typing this.
As I'm in poverty, can I have a handout now, please?
These catch-all, broad definitions of 'need' and 'poverty' only serve to undermine the genuine problems of a very small proportion of the population and instead all they tell me is that when people say 'from each according to his needs', those 'needs' are a very moveable concept indeed, and the definitions given seem more designed to keep the people doing the defining in comfy jobs than to actually solve any genuine problems.
What strikes me even more is that the definitions are being defined completely arbitarily; I can make up any definition to 'need' and 'poverty' and then tell you that I want to do something about them - and most people, because they never consider the assumtions being made and the definitions being used, will go along quite happily, unaware that they're being bilked.
So; if socialists can make up their own definitions of 'need', then two can play at that game:
it strikes me that what most people need is a firm kick up the arse and, thanks to my kickboxing, I have the ability to give it to them. From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs indeed.
So if you'd all line up and bend over, I've got some percussive rectal encouragement to get on with.
Why did nobody ever tell me before that Communism could be this much fun?
raggedhalo's journal (again) about politics and economic theory. No surprises there; when one of the basic contentions being made is that the public sector is wildly corrupt and inefficient but it is better to raise taxes to cover the ensuing shortfall than to deal with the corruption and inefficiency you can expect my blood pressure to go up dramatically.During the course of the debating, the old Communist Manifesto line about "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" was trotted out as 'basic social contract'. On the face of it, the statement seems quite unexceptionable - but when you try and pin it down, it becomes quite a slippy concept indeed. You see the question I ask is: whose definition of the word 'need' are we going to accept? Certainly nobody I asked in the debate who supported the idea that we have a moral requirement to support the needs of others was prepared to define 'need' in absolute terms, instead prevaricating furiously whenever I really asked the question.
So I set out to look elsewhere for definitions of human needs. What are human needs, and who defines them?
The United Nations defines poverty thus: They state that any person lacking any two of the following list is, according to the UN, living in poverty: Access to adequate food, access to potable water, access to shelter, access to healthcare and access to education. I think there's a basic definition of 'need' there which we can all get behind, although a definition of what level of education (am I in poverty if I can't get to postgraduate education?) counts is still needed.
Looking closer to home, I checked out Oxfam and the Government's Social Exclusion unit.
Oxfam make a big deal about how 1 person in 4 in the UK lives in Poverty. This is a staggering number - more than 15 million people. The front page of their website makes quite a to-do about eradicating poverty. But what is "poverty" in those terms? Digging through their website, we find that Oxfam defines poverty as: "Poverty is measured here as below 60 per cent of contemporary median net disposable income in 2000/01."
Go back and read that again, and think about what it means.
It means that, according to Oxfam, who are leading a poverty eradication campaign, poverty itself can never be eradicated. Simple maths tells us that a proportion of the population will always live under a set point of the median income, because that's what the median means. In other words, if you're working for Oxfam in poverty reduction, then you've got a job for life. I'm sure it's only the cynic in me that suggests this thought might have crossed the mind of whoever set this somewhat arbitary standard of 'poverty'.
But what of the Social Exclusion unit? They too are trying to end poverty - but finding how they define 'poverty' is bloody hard. Anyone would think they didn't want you to know. Eventually, I tracked down some studies (carried out by the Joseph Rowntree foundation) they were basing their statistics of poverty on, and found some of their definitions. They, like the UN, set a list of criteria of what poverty 'is'. However, their criteria differ quite markedly from the UN; their list includes things like 'Not owning or having access to a car' and 'not owning your own home'.
What is most striking about both the Oxfam and SEU definitions of poverty (and thus 'need') is that I, personally, meet their criteria for poverty. When Oxfam or government statistics are trotted out to tell you how many people live in poverty in this country, their criteria are so broad that they catch me in there.
So, the next time an Oxfam worker collars you in the street and demands you set up a standing order to help them eradicate poverty in the UK because (adopts meaningful and portentious tone of voice) "One person in four lives in poverty", just remember what the true face of poverty in the UK looks like. It looks like mine, and I'm stuffing a jammy Wagon Wheel into it whilst I'm typing this.
As I'm in poverty, can I have a handout now, please?
These catch-all, broad definitions of 'need' and 'poverty' only serve to undermine the genuine problems of a very small proportion of the population and instead all they tell me is that when people say 'from each according to his needs', those 'needs' are a very moveable concept indeed, and the definitions given seem more designed to keep the people doing the defining in comfy jobs than to actually solve any genuine problems.
What strikes me even more is that the definitions are being defined completely arbitarily; I can make up any definition to 'need' and 'poverty' and then tell you that I want to do something about them - and most people, because they never consider the assumtions being made and the definitions being used, will go along quite happily, unaware that they're being bilked.
So; if socialists can make up their own definitions of 'need', then two can play at that game:
it strikes me that what most people need is a firm kick up the arse and, thanks to my kickboxing, I have the ability to give it to them. From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs indeed.
So if you'd all line up and bend over, I've got some percussive rectal encouragement to get on with.
Why did nobody ever tell me before that Communism could be this much fun?
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