The objective of this series is to try to explain seemingly complex socio-economic theories and concepts in everyday language and show how these ideas are being misused, abused and ignored by governments and powerful international organisations.
Number 11: What is..... a scrounger narrative?
Anyone that hasn't noticed the propaganda war being waged against the unemployed by the government and the right-wing press you must have been living in a vacuum. To anyone with the slightest clue about what mass unemployment is, the sight of government ministers and the baying right-wing press deriding the unemployed as "idle", "lazy", "skivers", "dossers" and "scroungers" is revolting. For the vast majority of people suffering worklessness, unemployment is not a "lifestyle choice" as the right-wing crowd would have us believe, it is the result of failed (or even deliberate) macroeconomic policy.
Firstly I'll give a quick explanation of what I mean by the term "justification narrative". Put simply a justification narrative is a simplistic propaganda story aimed at the creation of political memes; little "soundbytes" of propaganda that allow the reactionary, cognitively illiterate individual to believe that they have an expert understanding of complex political and economic issues because they have a collection of simplistic narratives and idioms to explain away political and economic phenomena. (I've written an article defining justification narratives in greater detail which can be found here).
The Tories love to create the justification narrative that the unemployed are largely idle and feckless layabouts sponging off the hard working people of the UK. It helps them to divide society by stoking resentment amongst working people, that those without work are living "a life of luxury" on benefits. It is a classic example of a political distraction technique. Those responsible for the economic crisis and the ongoing unemployment crisis are the corrupt self-serving politicians, the reckless bankers, the something-for-nothing property speculators and the corporate fatcats, yet the Tories and the right wing press would have us believe that the crisis was caused by the poorest people in society. They are directing us to blame the victims of the crisis rather than the perpetrators. They are directing us to blame the symptoms rather than the disease.
Neoliberal financial sector deregulations and reckless financial sector activity caused the economic crisis, but the Tories and the right-wing press believe that the public really are gullible enough to blame the poorest people in society, many of whom have lost everything they valued (their job, their income, their home, their self-esteem, their family) and are now surviving on subsistence welfare payments. They really believe that they can con us into blaming the victims, rather than blaming those that made themselves fat with their reckless property speculation, dodgy expenses claims, corporate kickbacks, brazen profiteering, corruption, derivatives gambling, insider trading, tax-dodging, money laundering, Libor rigging. The corporations and millionaires that created the crisis are getting huge tax cuts, whilst the poor get abused as feckless scroungers.
Firstly I'll give a quick explanation of what I mean by the term "justification narrative". Put simply a justification narrative is a simplistic propaganda story aimed at the creation of political memes; little "soundbytes" of propaganda that allow the reactionary, cognitively illiterate individual to believe that they have an expert understanding of complex political and economic issues because they have a collection of simplistic narratives and idioms to explain away political and economic phenomena. (I've written an article defining justification narratives in greater detail which can be found here).
The Tories love to create the justification narrative that the unemployed are largely idle and feckless layabouts sponging off the hard working people of the UK. It helps them to divide society by stoking resentment amongst working people, that those without work are living "a life of luxury" on benefits. It is a classic example of a political distraction technique. Those responsible for the economic crisis and the ongoing unemployment crisis are the corrupt self-serving politicians, the reckless bankers, the something-for-nothing property speculators and the corporate fatcats, yet the Tories and the right wing press would have us believe that the crisis was caused by the poorest people in society. They are directing us to blame the victims of the crisis rather than the perpetrators. They are directing us to blame the symptoms rather than the disease.
Neoliberal financial sector deregulations and reckless financial sector activity caused the economic crisis, but the Tories and the right-wing press believe that the public really are gullible enough to blame the poorest people in society, many of whom have lost everything they valued (their job, their income, their home, their self-esteem, their family) and are now surviving on subsistence welfare payments. They really believe that they can con us into blaming the victims, rather than blaming those that made themselves fat with their reckless property speculation, dodgy expenses claims, corporate kickbacks, brazen profiteering, corruption, derivatives gambling, insider trading, tax-dodging, money laundering, Libor rigging. The corporations and millionaires that created the crisis are getting huge tax cuts, whilst the poor get abused as feckless scroungers.
The idea of the "scrounger narrative" is to create a simplistic justification narrative that the unemployed are scroungers, in order to justify ideological attacks on the welfare state. The most effective justification narratives rely on stoking emotional responses, and one of the most powerful is the sense of injustice. The emotional response is important because people tend to allow their anger to override their critical faculties when they are confronted with a perceived injustice.
The injustice that they are presented with in this case is : "Why should you have to work hard for what you've got, whist those on benefits don't?". The "scrounger narrative" is often backed up with extreme individual cases, cherry-picked statistics or outright lies.
Once the reactionary thinker has had their head filled with "scrounger narratives" they then go around spreading "scrounger narratives" of their own, combining the misleading and inaccurate bile that they've read in the right wing press or heard from a Tory spokesperson, with their own anecdotal evidence. People don't seem to realise that by spreading these anti-unemployed "scrounger narratives" they are actively fighting the Tory party propaganda war them.
Perhaps the most notable thing about this right-wing anti-unemployed rhetoric is the fact that it so transparently inaccurate. Looking to the brazenly manipulated headline unemployment statistics for answers is notoriously naive, given that over the course of decades successive governments have found countless new ways to rig the headline unemployment figures downwards. However clear indicators can be found that the UK is undergoing a mass unemployment crisis in the long-term and youth unemployment statistics. Since the Tory led coalition came to power in 2010 long -term unemployment has risen by 115,000 for those out of work for longer than one year and by 167,000 (+58.8%) for those out of work for longer than two years. The general level of youth unemployment has risen by 87,000. The long-term youth unemployment figures are even worse. 18-24 year olds out of work for longer than a year has risen by 102,000 to 257,000 (+65.8%) and those out of work for two years or more has risen from 67,000 to 107,000 (+59.7%). (figures calculated from the June 2010 & March 2013 ONS Labour Market Statistics).
When we consider these statistics it is important to remember that the tens of thousands of people that are coerced onto Iain Duncan Smith'sunlawful Labour party approved
Workfare schemes are misleadingly excluded from the calculations and DWP management have been setting secretive targets to strip people of their benefits (the league tables of these benefits sanctions are here). It would be shocking enough that long-term unemployment and long-term youth unemployment have skyrocketed by 60% in three years even if the Tory government and DWP were not also engaged in such transparent efforts to manipulate the figures downwards.
The fact that long-term and youth unemployment have skyrocketed under the Tory led coalition, despite their best efforts to "juke the stats" should be evidence that neither their economic policies, nor their welfare reform policies are working. They keep up the rhetoric of "ending benefits dependency", "making it pay to work", "strivers and skivers", but the fact is, that the macroeconomic policies they are imposing on the nation are making the unemployment situation worse. If they define the long-term unemployed as "feckless scroungers" the number of "feckless scroungers" has risen by 60% since the Tories came to power!
The idea that such huge increases in long-term unemployment are due to hundreds of thousands of people suddenly deciding to put their feet up and claim benefits because they can't be arsed to work, and doing so during the most prolonged financial crisis in living memory is lamentable gibberish. But yet, that's what the Tories would have you believe; that mass unemployment is caused by a contagion of laziness, rather than by financial crises. They want you to believe the outright lie that there are plenty of jobs out there, but that the unemployed are just too lazy to do them.
Perhaps the most brazen aspect to the Tory "scrounger narratives" is that they use them in conjunction with the "we must cut benefits to make work pay" narrative. Firstly, it must be pointed out that the most obvious way to make work pay, is to increase the National Minimum Wage to make it a living wage, not to slash subsistence benefits. However the most shocking aspect is the fact that the caricature of the feckless scrounger is being used to justify benefits cuts that actually have more impact upon the working poor. The benefits that are to be cut in real terms by this government include Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, Housing Benefit, Child Benefit, Council Tax Benefit, Maternity Pay, Paternity Pay and Statutory Sick Pay. The real terms reductions in payments to ordinary working families massively outweigh the reductions in payments to the unemployed. By using "scrounger narratives" and empty rhetoric to justify these attacks on the working poor, the Tories have demonstrated that their claims that they are trying to "make work pay" are lies, just so much empty rhetoric that is directly contradicted by what they are actually doing. You don't make work pay" by inflicting real terms cuts on the incomes of working people!
The Tories and the right-wing press really believe that the British public are so gullible that they can be tricked into supporting attacks on the working poor through the invocation of "scrounger narratives" and other pathetic propaganda techniques. Judging by the sheer number of people that turn up on my Another Angry Voice facebook page to spew angry "scrounger narratives" of their own, perhaps the Tories and the right-wing press are right about the ease with which they can hoodwink the public? Perhaps the working people of this country really are so gullible that they can be tricked, by the invocation of a few simplistic scrounger narratives, into actually fighting the Tory propaganda war against their own labour rights, welfare entitlement and financial interests?
The injustice that they are presented with in this case is : "Why should you have to work hard for what you've got, whist those on benefits don't?". The "scrounger narrative" is often backed up with extreme individual cases, cherry-picked statistics or outright lies.
Once the reactionary thinker has had their head filled with "scrounger narratives" they then go around spreading "scrounger narratives" of their own, combining the misleading and inaccurate bile that they've read in the right wing press or heard from a Tory spokesperson, with their own anecdotal evidence. People don't seem to realise that by spreading these anti-unemployed "scrounger narratives" they are actively fighting the Tory party propaganda war them.
Perhaps the most notable thing about this right-wing anti-unemployed rhetoric is the fact that it so transparently inaccurate. Looking to the brazenly manipulated headline unemployment statistics for answers is notoriously naive, given that over the course of decades successive governments have found countless new ways to rig the headline unemployment figures downwards. However clear indicators can be found that the UK is undergoing a mass unemployment crisis in the long-term and youth unemployment statistics. Since the Tory led coalition came to power in 2010 long -term unemployment has risen by 115,000 for those out of work for longer than one year and by 167,000 (+58.8%) for those out of work for longer than two years. The general level of youth unemployment has risen by 87,000. The long-term youth unemployment figures are even worse. 18-24 year olds out of work for longer than a year has risen by 102,000 to 257,000 (+65.8%) and those out of work for two years or more has risen from 67,000 to 107,000 (+59.7%). (figures calculated from the June 2010 & March 2013 ONS Labour Market Statistics).
When we consider these statistics it is important to remember that the tens of thousands of people that are coerced onto Iain Duncan Smith's
Workfare schemes are misleadingly excluded from the calculations and DWP management have been setting secretive targets to strip people of their benefits (the league tables of these benefits sanctions are here). It would be shocking enough that long-term unemployment and long-term youth unemployment have skyrocketed by 60% in three years even if the Tory government and DWP were not also engaged in such transparent efforts to manipulate the figures downwards.
The fact that long-term and youth unemployment have skyrocketed under the Tory led coalition, despite their best efforts to "juke the stats" should be evidence that neither their economic policies, nor their welfare reform policies are working. They keep up the rhetoric of "ending benefits dependency", "making it pay to work", "strivers and skivers", but the fact is, that the macroeconomic policies they are imposing on the nation are making the unemployment situation worse. If they define the long-term unemployed as "feckless scroungers" the number of "feckless scroungers" has risen by 60% since the Tories came to power!
The idea that such huge increases in long-term unemployment are due to hundreds of thousands of people suddenly deciding to put their feet up and claim benefits because they can't be arsed to work, and doing so during the most prolonged financial crisis in living memory is lamentable gibberish. But yet, that's what the Tories would have you believe; that mass unemployment is caused by a contagion of laziness, rather than by financial crises. They want you to believe the outright lie that there are plenty of jobs out there, but that the unemployed are just too lazy to do them.
Perhaps the most brazen aspect to the Tory "scrounger narratives" is that they use them in conjunction with the "we must cut benefits to make work pay" narrative. Firstly, it must be pointed out that the most obvious way to make work pay, is to increase the National Minimum Wage to make it a living wage, not to slash subsistence benefits. However the most shocking aspect is the fact that the caricature of the feckless scrounger is being used to justify benefits cuts that actually have more impact upon the working poor. The benefits that are to be cut in real terms by this government include Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, Housing Benefit, Child Benefit, Council Tax Benefit, Maternity Pay, Paternity Pay and Statutory Sick Pay. The real terms reductions in payments to ordinary working families massively outweigh the reductions in payments to the unemployed. By using "scrounger narratives" and empty rhetoric to justify these attacks on the working poor, the Tories have demonstrated that their claims that they are trying to "make work pay" are lies, just so much empty rhetoric that is directly contradicted by what they are actually doing. You don't make work pay" by inflicting real terms cuts on the incomes of working people!
The Tories and the right-wing press really believe that the British public are so gullible that they can be tricked into supporting attacks on the working poor through the invocation of "scrounger narratives" and other pathetic propaganda techniques. Judging by the sheer number of people that turn up on my Another Angry Voice facebook page to spew angry "scrounger narratives" of their own, perhaps the Tories and the right-wing press are right about the ease with which they can hoodwink the public? Perhaps the working people of this country really are so gullible that they can be tricked, by the invocation of a few simplistic scrounger narratives, into actually fighting the Tory propaganda war against their own labour rights, welfare entitlement and financial interests?
Another Angry Voice
