Are politicians ready to get to grips with the social problems at the heart of last week’s riots? Greg Campbell fears they are not
Joined up society
Despite all the political rhetoric, I fear that the principal result of the riots is likely to be a bonanza for the private security industry, rather than a serious attempt to understand the problem.
Most immediately, there should be no question about whether a robust response is needed to the criminal behaviour. Personally I am relaxed, for instance, about social housing tenants convicted of serious rioting and looting being evicted: we do after all evict people found to have committed anti-social behaviour or drug dealing. The demand for convicted rioters to lose benefit entitlement is facile, though: unless there are jobs that those concerned can be forced into, where will those affected find the money to live? Answer - more crime.
The real issue is wider, however. We have an underclass in Britain, a lumpenproletariat that does not recognise or engage with the rest of society. It is no use ‘community leaders’ sounding off about the rioters damaging their communities. The people concerned plainly have no interest in and do not recognise these communities, much less feel a part of them.
Alongside this is the values that seem to prevail for many. Labour leader Ed Miliband is not wrong when he talks of a ‘me first’ culture. Who are those most often portrayed in the British media as ‘successful’? Footballers, supermodels, X Factor contestants. Huge sums of money lavished on them for what is all too often not much effort. And if one has no other role models available for many people, it is unsurprising that this get-rich-quick mentality has taken a hold.
I recall too clearly a phone-in radio show a couple of years ago, when a 16 year old boy came on, to be asked what he wanted to do when he grew up. ‘I want to be rich’ was his response and the sum total of his contribution. No idea of how to achieve it, no sense that he might have to work for it, to earn it. I am afraid he was typical of many.
These, for me, are some of the questions we need to identify and address. Fundamentally it is about the disconnect in society: how has it arisen, and how can it be tackled? How do we bring people back into the fold, how do we make them feel they have a stake in society, how do we make them give a damn? It is not as simple as saying it’s all down to government cuts - not that these have helped - the problems are far longer and deeper than that. If we leave these questions in the ‘too difficult’ box, I fear these will not be the last riots we experience.
Greg Campbell is a director at Campbell Tickell
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Readers' comments (1)
Jono | 16/08/2011 6:54 pm
Greg - thanks for a thought provoking article!
The lumpenproletariat - a phrase I had forgotten since my university days - but nicely chosen:
"The term was originally coined by Marx to describe that layer of the working class, unlikely to ever achieve class consciousness, lost to socially useful production, and therefore of no use in revolutionary struggle or an actual impediment to the realization of a classless society"
"According to Marx, the lumpenproletariat had no special motive for participating in revolution, and might in fact have an interest in preserving the current class structure, because the members of the lumpenproletariat usually depend on the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy for their day-to-day existence"
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpenproletariat)
Objectivists following Ayn Rand would says that the man without a purpose is the most depraved (morally bad or debased, corrupt, perverted) kind of human being.
The lumpenproletariat need a purpose - but we cannot give them this - it could not be given to them in Marx's time when welfare was a fraction of what it is now, and despite the billions spent now it cannot be given by us.
The question changes to: what will individuals do to protect themselves from the lumpenproletariat? Some answer this by offering some kind of appeasement - free access to housing, free access to healthcare, the costs of living, child support and a host of other things. Be nice to them, so the rest of us wont get hurt. Unfortunately, all this help and support costs a fortune. And it doesn't stop us from being victims of crime.
Some answer this by equipping the justice system to protect themselves from crime. Keep them detained or restricted in some way, and whilst they are, the rest of us wont get hurt. Unfortunately, all of this justice costs a fortune. And it does not give those who would become useful and productive people an ability to, when they are so detained or restricted.
The answer lies in the children of the lumpenproletariat. They are directly in the firing line of the damage done by this underclass. If they grow up, their life chances are likely to have been severely impeded through poor parenting. What can we do to protect these children from ending up like their parents? Tackling this problem could make the above choices redundant. In the long term, the costs saved could be a fortune. But this is the difficult question - what kind of intervention to protect these children is just?
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