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Workers Solidarity No. 42
Irish Anarchist Paper
Net addition
1994 Year of the family -
back to your place or "back to basics"?
Parents, puritans and poverty
1994 HAS BEEN declared the UN Year of the Family. The
Irish Committee for the International Year includes
state bodies like the Combat Poverty Agency & the
Council for the Status of Women and Catholic ones like
the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Family Solidarity
were also members but walked out in protest at token
places being given to two groups working with single
parents. This committee has received #400,000 from
Leinster House.
The increased violence in society and fears of social
decay have even liberal commentators calling for a to
return to "family values". Yet what does this really
mean? What are those values? In this article Aileen
O'Carroll examines the role of the family and the
reasoning behind the Back to Basics campaign.
In the nineteenth century Napoleon III went to war to
silence popular opposition against worsening conditions
at home. In the US, Bush and now Clinton manufactured
the 'war on drugs' in part to deflect attention from
the US recession. They blamed Colombian cocaine dealers
for job losses, pay cuts and factory closures rather
than the policies of the Democratic and Republican
parties. In Europe all the major parties are pinning
unemployment rates on immigrant workers.
EASY TARGETS
In the UK under the banner of 'Back to Basics', the
Conservative Party embarked on a vigorous moral
crusade. The first victims of their offensive were
single mothers. Why single mothers? They are an easy
target. Most are burdened down by poverty and isolated
within the home (50% of single parents live on less
than #100 a week, only 42% of them work outside the
home). Though there are groups who seek to represent
single parents, in general single mothers are
unorganised. They do not have economic muscle with
which to fight back. They are stigmatised and pushed to
the margins of society and so it's more difficult for
them to form a pressure block.
The government wants to cut down on the amount it
spends on social welfare, making us pay for the
recession. The changing age profile of western Europe
means that as the proportion of old people in society
is increasing, so also will the amount of money
required by the government to pay out in old age
pensions increase. The recovery that the government has
been hyping almost since the recession began has yet to
arrive, leaving the government with mounting welfare
bills.
Alongside the reduction in the amount spent on social
welfare the government is attempting to reinforce the
Victorian distinction between deserving poor and non-
deserving poor. The blame for the cutbacks is shifted
onto the poor themselves rather than on the
government's own social and economic policies. They're
pitting single mother against old age pensioner in an
attempt to divide, rule and deflect attention from the
real causes of poverty in society.
It has also been argued that Back to Basics is a bid to
drive women into the workplace in an attempt to drive
wages down. However the facts don't necessarily agree
with this. Trends in western capitalism indicate a
shift from full-time work to part-time and contract
work. Women constitute the majority of the part-time
workforce. Their wages are less than full-timers and in
the case of contract workers they have fewer rights (to
holiday pay, redundancy payment's etc). They can be
hired when required and let go when the market slumps.
Union organisation has meant that employers haven't
been able to drive wages down for existing workers.
Instead a new level of lowly paid contract jobs (such
as the 'yellow pack' jobs in Irish banks) have been
introduced, which replace full-time work. In Britain
the number of women employees will for the first time
exceed the number of men with jobs. This trend is
mainly attributable to rapid growth in part-time posts
(often by splitting full-time jobs) which had gone
overwhelmingly to women (Dept of Employment figures).
However, such is the level of unemployment in Britain
at the moment, the Tories don't have any problem
getting people into low paid jobs as it is. The
motivation behind Basic to Basics is to drive down the
cost of the Welfare State.
Concerns about Britain's ability to continue bearing
the cost of the welfare state due to the rising costs
of old age pensions have been "greatly exaggerated"
according to a study published by the London School of
Economics1. The scare is used to justify government cut
backs. The Irish government also is a skilled master at
this line of argument; playing primary schools against
third level colleges, the unemployed against the PAYE
sector, with not a mention of the money owned in taxes
by business (like the #12 million owed by Xtravision)
The Back to Basics drive arises not out of pure
economic need alone. The Tory party is deeply divided
internally over Europe and is presiding over the worst
recession since the 1930's. Back to Basics is an
ideology that unifies the Eurosceptic and the
Euroliberal. It's a strong united front that turns
newspaper headlines away from the recession, away from
the crumbling welfare state and the divisions within
the party.
Initially single mothers were targeted, now sex manuals
are banned, sex educationalists are cautioned and
"political correctness" is attacked. Following a series
of sex scandals, the Tories are trying to turn the
tables around. The state funded Health Education
Authority originally commissioned the sex manual 'Your
Pocket Guide to Sex'. As soon as it came off presses
the Health Minister banned it, describing it as
"smutty". The Secretary of State for Education publicly
criticised a nurse in a Leeds school for answering
children's questions on 'blow jobs' saying he was
"incensed" when he heard how she was conducting her
classes.
While there are no direct and obvious economic gains in
these moves, in the long term forcing people into
reliance on the family reduces the cost to the state of
social welfare. As Dr John Harris argued in The Family2
"the constant theme of social policy has been the need
to ensure stability in family life and whenever social
or political elites have felt at all threatened a part
of their response has been to argue for a revival of
'stable ' family values."
Back to Basics isn't unique to Britain and the Tory
party. The 'moral majority' of Regan and Bush in the US
has been replaced by Clintons attacks on 'welfare
mothers'.
They aim to create a situation where it is socially
unacceptable to rely on social welfare for support.
Hence they argue it is 'irresponsible' to have children
on low incomes. Instead of debate being centred round
the state's responsibility to provide for its citizens,
it is centred on the individual's requirement to be
self- catering.
The agenda being set, is that the problem facing
society is the poor themselves rather than the reasons
why they are poor. The question being asked is how to
contain the burden the poor cause rather than how to
eliminate poverty.
The state can reduce the cost of maintaining the social
welfare by directly cutting the amount of money it
allocates. However, many governments are either in too
weak a position to do this, or have already cut as much
as they can. By reducing the amount of people actually
claiming, spending can be reduced indirectly. The
ground is also being prepared for future cuts.
The purpose of this ideological battle is to drive
people away from the concept of the welfare state and
towards notions of individual responsibility. The
family rather than the state will bear the costs of
child care as well as support for the old, ill and
impoverished in society. A vast unpaid workforce is
created by pushing women back into the home.
A single mother claiming benefit will now be forced to
name the father of her children. In many cases, rather
than be forced into contact with violent ex- partners,
women will simply not claim. Instead they'll be forced
to rely on their own families for financial support or
indeed for child care if they intend to work.
THE FAMILY
So, as well as imposing cuts, the Conservative party is
waging an ideological war against single mothers and in
favour of the family. In this respect capitalism has
changed little since its birth. The industrial
revolution saw the expounding of the nuclear family as
the only acceptable model in society. Responsibilities
for child care, housing, health and care of the elderly
no longer lay with the community or with the lord of
the manor. Instead it was expected that the smaller
unit of the nuclear family would undertake all care for
the workforce.
Economic circumstance forced women to act as nurses,
childminders, cooks and cleaners. Similarly, men were
forced to sell their labour power to provide food and
accommodation. The state reaped the rewards of a self-
catering, cheaply maintained workforce without having
any role in the upkeep of that workforce. Single
mothers have been singled out for attack because they
do rely on the state for help. Indeed many
Conservatives have been quite explicit in saying this.
Peter Lilley, the Social Security Secretary, complained
that these women were 'marrying the state'; that is
depending on the State for financial assistance, rather
than depending on a husband.
The entire propaganda of the Conservatives has been
consistently aimed at re-enforcing the family as the
fundamental unit of society. John Redwood, the Welsh
Secretary said " the natural state should be the two-
adult family". Virginia Bottomley hypes us up with
"without [families], individuals are like a frantic
whirl of atoms, attached to no one, responsible to
nothing, creating a vaporous society not a solid one".
Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, said "we must
emphasise our belief that the traditional two parent
family is best, best for parents, best for society and
above all best for the child". To be more honest he
might have added best for capitalism.
However, instead of honesty, the Conservatives have
justified their crusade by making up facts and lying
about academic research. The Guardian (9/11/93)
reported on a paper commissioned by the British cabinet
and prepared by senior civil servants. It dismissed
three of the key arguments used by the Conservative
politicians to support their attack on single parents;
that benefit rates encouraged women to have children on
their own, that there was a link between crime rates
and criminality among children of single mothers, and
that there was evidence that women became pregnant to
get council housing. Yet speeches at the Tory party
conference, two weeks after they had seen the paper,
showed when the truth is not useful it's just ignored.
Blatantly lying, Peter Lilley said "I've got a little
list...[of] young ladies who get pregnant just to jump
the housing list"
VICTORIAN VALUES
This isn't the first time the Conservatives have
manipulated and lied about academic work to justifying
implementing it's political agenda. Indeed though the
Tory party are on a moral crusade to bring back
Victorian values, they are particular as to which
values they wish to keep, a point which was well made
by Gwendolene Stuart3 in a pamphlet on Thatcher "[they
have] picked from that period selectively the
sentiments and values of the most oppressive
class...deriding the real values of that period, the
values of ordinary men and women who struggled to work
collectively together to advance their quality of
life."
There is nothing new or original about the present
campaign. As Dr. John Harris comments "At the beginning
of the 20th century there was already a firmly
established belief that the family was in decline and
decay as a result of the growth of industrial society".
The introduction of women into the workforce, the
growth of unions and organisations representing youth
removed them from the family environment, giving them
greater independence.
The move to the cities brought with it poverty,
overcrowding and crime. The changing structure of the
family was blamed for this rather than the effects of
industrialisation. The response of social planners was
to re-define women's roles within society. Arguments
about women being naturally suited to domesticity and
about their need for protection in a morally corrupt
world were introduced. Concern over declining birth-
rate raised "motherhood" to a new level in social
recognition. The first Mothers Day was celebrated in
1907 with this in mind. The so called sexual liberation
that followed World War I was followed by a moral
backlash.
On one hand legislation was introduced which removed
many restrictions on women working, on the other
ideology was created to prevent women from taking full
advantage of the new opportunities available to them.
Again and again the family values have been used by
capitalism as a bulwark against progression and to
deflect from the misery caused by it.
NAME THE REAL ENEMY
It's true that the scandals have undermined much of the
Back to Basics propaganda program, however this doesn't
mean the Tories have failed. The Child Protection
Agency, despite negative publicity, is still in place.
The Agency targets men who are already paying
maintenance rather than track down those who pay
nothing because this way it is easier to reach target
figures. The force of the moral crusade may have
collapsed but the policies behind it are still being
implemented. More importantly a consensus is being
created that the cost of the welfare state is no longer
justifiable.
Capitalism is a cruel and unjust system. It has caused
people to live in poverty for over 200 years. It
couldn't survive without a strong ideology justifying
its actions. In England at the moment we can see the
repackaging of such an ideology. It is up to us to name
the real enemy, not the poor, the weak or dispossessed
in society, but rather capitalism.
1 published by the Joesph Rowntree Foundation. Report
in The Guardian, November 9th 1993
2 The Familly, a Social History of the 20th Century,
edited by Dr. John Harriss (Harraps,1992)
3 The Other Side of the Coin; Margaret Thatcher, from a
working women's point of view. (Gwedolen Stuart, 1987).
Gas Masks and Pantyhose
The Back to Basics propaganda campaign has been
undermined because the Tories failed to meet their own
moral standards. In condemning the Tory party we must
be careful not to take on their morality. There's
nothing wrong with shagging. No one should expect human
sexual behaviour to be expressed in only one way. It's
strange that while we accept diversity in tastes in
food, music, book, films when it comes to sex we talk
of rights, wrongs and norms.
Heterosexual penetrative sex in the missionary position
is assumed to be the norm. Yet, who would ever assume
that most normal people eat meat and two veg every day
of their lives? Who would think it was peculiar to
consume and enjoy curry or chilli or potato soup. While
variety is accepted and unquestioned in every other one
of our senses, our sexual behaviour is regulated by
culturally (and sometimes legally) enforced rules.
Rules so deeply embedded in society we often aren't
even aware of their existence.
The problem with the Tory party is not that they have
extra marital affairs or that some of them enjoy cross
dressing. Sure they are guilty of hypocrisy and often
of lying to their friends and family. However the
trouble with criticising these things, is that given
that their morality is the dominant one in society it
can look as we support their basic viewpoint. It can
seem that we would accept the Tories if only they'd be
more honest in bed.
Capitalism attempts to limit our sexuality in order to
keep us in line. Most obviously they've targeted gays
and women. If only for our only personal well being, we
should be aware of how these factors operate upon us
and how they curb the range of experiences available to
us. However a far greater crime of the Tory party in
Britain and of the ruling class world wide is the way
it keeps us the working class in either poverty or wage
slavery. Once their economic system tumbles down, their
rotten and weirdly restrictive morality will crumble
with it. And then we will really start to have fun.
This is the fifth part of the latest issue of Workers Solidarity,
produced by the Irish anarchist group, the Workers Solidarity
Movement. We are changing the format for this posting to
two parts consisting of short articles and then posting longer
related articles separately. They should arrive on this
list/newsgroup over the next few days. Some lists/
newsgroups will only get postings relevant to them. To
get other parts reply to this address with a request or
watch out for them on alt.society.anarchy between the
13th and 24th of June.
The parts and their contents are.
Workers Solidarity 42 (Editorial and shorts) 1/6
For starters
That's Capitalism
Stake your claim to cash
PLC students demand grants
Telethon - A hypocritical sham
If the cops don't like you
French show how to fight... and win!
Bosnia, Rwanda and UN intervention.
Workers Solidarity 42 (More shorts) 2/6
Significant minority say NO to union leaders
Don't vote...it only encourages them
Letter
Prepare to Sink the service charges
Find Out More
WS 42 Gay Pride 3/6
Loud and Proud
The reasons Emmet Stagg should resign
WS 42 Ireland, Sinn Fein and the peace talks. 4/6
Yes to peace
WS 42 Year of the Family 5/6
Parents, puritans and poverty
Gas masks and pantyhose
WS 42 Evolution and revolution 6/6
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Workers Solidarity Movement can be contacted at
PO Box 1528, Dublin 8, Ireland
or by anonymous e-mail to an64739@anon.penet.fi
Some of our material is available via the Spunk press electronic archive
by FTP to etext.archive.umich.edu or 141.211.164.18
or by gopher ("gopher etext.archive.umich.edu")
in the directory /pub/Politics/Spunk/texts/groups/WSM