Shock and Awe Blues

Will Hutton has written an excellent article in today's Observer in response to the 'Wilkinson thesis', an analysis of shortfalls in the Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism and human development. I know, you might be thinking that is an exhausted area of academia, but it really has not been tackled thoroughly or boldly. For starters, I agree that economic inquality is at the heart of society's problems, specifically in the UK and USA. Secondly, the current government have not done near enough to tackle child poverty. We know no society is perfect and sociological explanations of atomisation of social bonds is more palatable than political gesturing, because political thinking is genuinely confusing at best and often does not provide remedies to basic human needs at worst. Hutton's use of the "Water babies" as a metaphor for this unfairness is palpable. One issue that does need addressing in addition to the argument regarding inequality is that the state is geared towards those who have researched their entitlements. A lot of families entitled to benefits such as tax credit are missing it and a lot of money really isn't going to people who desperately need it. There is one solution to this, and that is to force them to take the benefit by forcing them to have their income assessed by their local authority for the purpose of supplying supplementary benefits. If the state was less competitive in reinforcing these inequalities then we would not having the damaging barriers highlighted in the article in the Guardian last week. We are witnessing the complete overhaul of the banking industry and the state is genuinely taking a role in supporting rich bankers! The structure of postmodern capitalism has demanded this injustice take place whilst many of us are on the breadline, bringing to our full attention the shocking inequality of the neo-liberal era. I think that the solution to this simple, stop selling financial products to the poor that they don't need and let the state take over. Regulate the lending industry that keeps millions in debt poverty.