Are Food Banks Feeding The Problem?

First topic message reminder :

Whilst reading through the thread on how much trade unions are affecting Labour's chances of election, some posters mentioned food banks.

One of the easiest things for any society to do is blame the poor for their plight. It eases consciences and soothes any sight of the uncomfortable. In his “Theory of Moral Sentiments”, Adam Smith wrote “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature which interest him in the fortune of others. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion we feel for the misery of others when we see it.”

To avoid then, “deriving sorrow from the sorrow of others” with the consequent necessity to do something about it, we blame the sufferer. If only they worked harder, like ourselves, they wouldn’t be so impoverished.

There is, however, an equal temptation and that is to see the poor as inanimate objects, nothing more than flotsam and jetsam on the vast sea of economic forces. They are less than nothing. There has been plenty of this attitude in evidence in the way the increasing numbers of food banks in Britain have been reported in our press. A study by Oxfam and Church Poverty Action found that around 500’000 people now use them. In a country where it was recently announced that up to a third of the food produced is thrown away, for the sight of people queuing up for charity handouts to be called “Dickensian” and “Victorian” is something that we as a people should be deeply ashamed of.

The main villain of the piece, for most, is the reduction of state benefits that have left unemployed people, or those on the lowest wages, with insufficient money to buy food. What the recent explosion of food banks makes clear is that the cuts to our welfare state have, in effect, pauperised a considerable proportion of the population.

Our social policy has acted in favour of pauperisation by making the difference between low paid work and benefits for the unemployed almost non-existent. We have also failed to educate people in poor areas so that they are incapable of changing their lives for the better and this is highlighted by the uncomfortable truth that, in a time of high unemployment we still need to import foreign labour to do unskilled jobs. Part of the problem for that last reason is that foreigners are much more mobile whereas people living in Britain are often so poor that they cannot move to where the jobs are.

Above all, we have demoralised a significant proportion of the population to the point where people lose the sense that they are living off charity.... living at the expense of others.... which, if they were not so desensitised to this by resignation they would naturally feel unease at. And so they disguise or suppress their feelings for the sake of their own self esteem and what should be a short term stop-gap becomes the norm. The accepted state of things.

We have seen an increase in the number of people losing benefits for failing to keep appointments, for whatever reason, at Social Security offices. No matter what else government departments may do slowly or inefficiently, when there is an opportunity to stop somebody’s payments, they are right on the ball with lightning speed. By stopping payments and blaming it on fecklessness, ministers are able to portray social pathology as licence, improvidence and dishonesty. The government then blames the poor for their own plight and makes statements in Parliament, saying that everybody who is out of work is a shirker, lying in bed all day and sponging off the state. It makes it easier for them to justify more cuts and in this way, the wheel turns full circle.

The growth of food banks has produced some public unease in what President Eisenhower might have called “The Industrial-Charity Complex.” Whereas what we should be seeing as a temporary stop-gap is slowly but surely becoming for the poorest, a way of life with no prospect of improvement and this is something we should all find disturbing.

As well intentioned and, in some cases, as necessary as food banks are, we shouldn’t be letting our government abrogate its responsibilities to the people by just allowing things to roll along and letting the poorest become accustomed to accepting this as their lot forever at the cost of any hope or aspiration for the future.

Champagne_Socialist wrote:

TopHat24/7 wrote:Try again CS.......lol

Are you sure you are 29? I notice that you sometimes write comments not to add to the debate but so that you have the last word. Having the last word doesn't mean you have won the debate or anything in case you didn't know.

I also think comments such as the one I have quoted above highlights that you are not debating the issue, rather you are debating the poster which is rather sad.

Well done

Are you really that sensitive??

The 'try again' was a friendly jibe in relation to your continued failure to get the quote and bold buttons working. Maybe you missed that, or maybe you're embarrassingly sensitive to criticism, either way unbunch your panties treacle.