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The Ethics of Welfare

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In Ethics and Vulnerability In Street Prostitution: An Argument In Favour of Managed Zones (2009), Anna Carline utilises and applies Judith Butler’s insights into ethics, specifically her conceptions of ‘liveable lives’ and ‘unliveable lives’, to sex work. Butler purports that we have certain assumptions about what constitutes a ‘liveable life’, that everyone is interrelated by varying degrees of vulnerability, and that this ethical interrelationship is key to making lives bearable i.e. ‘liveable’. However, the vulnerability of those who are seen as having ‘unliveable lives’ is ignored, consequently, so are ethical obligations. Carline applies this to the current situation of sex workers in most countries, whose vulnerability is often ignored, as they challenge ‘intelligible’ genders and so-called ‘morality’.

There is sufficient ground for Butler’s ethical conception to be applied to welfare, especially in light of the current situation; where the ConDem government are enacting £28bn welfare cuts – around a ¼ of the £81bn cuts that they claim are ‘fair’. Welfare is misrepresented in the media and political discourse, as they often cite atypical examples and attribute degrading language (such as ‘scroungers’) to those who aren’t in work. Furthermore, they often use inadequate statistics in order to misrepresent reality. Consider the widely cited ‘fact’ that benefit fraud costs £5.2bn, when the real figure is £1.5bn with the rest of the ‘fraud’ being due to the inadequacy of the bureaucratic structures.

Nick Clegg talks about the emergence of a ‘new progressive’ movement, which basically equates to an ignorance of the profound correlation that income distribution and wellbeing have (as documented by many good researchers and books – such as The Spirit Level). We also see the classic welfare stereotyping, along with the already mentioned atypical examples, from the likes of Lord Flight, a Conservative Peer, who recently drew on Social Darwinism to criticise the benefit system for helping the poor ‘breed’. Rather ironically, however, he seemed to provide justification for the benefit system in its ability to support the ‘better’ middle class to ‘breed’, instead of the poorest. Then there is the individualistic, offensive and damn right irresponsible discourse that the likes of David Cameron are employing re disability. For example, consider Cameron’s recent joke, where he likened John Bercow to a dwarf.

Related to this, it is important to consider some of the main changes to welfare in light of the Emergency Budget and the Comprehensive Spending Review, before moving on to a wider ethical discussion:

Returning to Judith Butler in light of these changes, it is clear that a ‘liveable life’ is constructed in relation to the ‘need’ to work (possibly, lurching into illegality); those who do not work are seen as having an ‘unliveable life’. This relates to our society’s deep fascination with endless production, connected to the neo-liberal capitalist ‘dream’ of constant growth. Murray Bookchin, an eco-anarchist, is invaluable here – his work considers the capitalist need to ensure there is an endless creation of senseless jobs so as to maintain capitalist production, which through its attempts to prevent the falling rate of profit and maintain capital accumulation, destroys the very resources and jobs it relies upon.

Instead, Bookchin considers alternative structures; his later work focusing more on the possibility of communalism – where communes form into confederations and challenge the prevalent State structure. Central to his work is a consideration of the possibility for creative experience and self-determination as well as the myth that work should be the central foci to our lives (constructing in Butler’s words, a ‘liveable live’.) Whilst not adopting a green technological utopian approach, he recognises the potential that technology has, if it was decentralised and used to produce renewable energy. We need to acknowledge that we will never have full employment under a capitalist system, as the system relies upon constant deskilling to ‘maintain’ profits – something that destroys the very resources and demand ‘power’ it needs to survive.

A structural approach, which also considers agency and self-determination, that questions and considers the possibility of improving people’s lives so they are ‘liveable’ and which respects the relative levels of vulnerability we all share, is central here. Bookchin’s decentralised communal approach (and his earlier work, which provides the influential writings on self-determination, especially) provides us with one possible solution to reconstructing ethics when we consider welfare. However, it must be stressed that Butler’s ethical conception is not meant as an ideological tool, it is more of a practical conception to help with the modification of society to make people’s lives ‘liveable’.

Butler’s acknowledgement of the interrelatedness and shared experience of vulnerability is important when analysing the welfare changes from a sociological critique. Everyone is vulnerable; it is an ethical obligation for us to acknowledge this. When this vulnerability is ignored, this is when ethics are discounted. The government’s welfare proposals are clearly ignoring the vulnerability that certain groups face, as they construct their lives as ‘unliveable’ mainly because they aren’t working.  When people rightfully protest against these ideological, shock-doctrine inspired cuts, people are protesting to be listened to and for this government to consider them ethically. Of course, people may not frame it like this – but utilising Butler’s arguments, you can see the clear link between ethics, respect and the right to self-determination and a life that isn’t destroyed by the ‘right’ of the State to dictate work as equating to ‘worth’.

This shows the power and relevance that Butler’s arguments have for considering the current political, social and environmental climate. It illustrates this government’s contempt to ignore those who are often deprived of a voice through mainstream channels, who are stigmatised by the ignorant and stereotypical views of our ‘leaders’. Butler is clever, as the argument that everyone is vulnerable is a powerful discourse to imply when considering the development and dynamics of the growing student inspired, but not confined, anti-government movement.


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