News and analysis

In the first part of this article on the poverty of life in Britain
we looked at the experience of working people in the workplace. In this
section our focus is on what is called the social wage. This is the
social provision of goods and services that working people cannot,
unlike the rich, provide for themselves individually. It includes such
things as health services, education, pensions, support if you become
unemployed, and local services such as swimming pools or meals on
wheels for the elderly.

The water companies were privatised by the Tories to harness
‘the dynamism of private enterprise’ to the water industry. Most people at the
time didn’t realise there was a problem with the water supply. They could turn
a tap on any time and water rates were low. There’s a problem now – the problem
is private ownership.

The wealth in the UK today is the product of the labour of
working people. The problem is that they do not control how that wealth is
distributed. The value that they have created over and above what they receive
in their pay packets is appropriated by the owners of industry who ensure,
through their State apparatus, that the lion’s share is creamed off to those
who already have more than enough for their needs. The present leaders of the Labour Party are tied hand
and foot to the interests of the rich, the capitalist class. A new leadership
of the Party is required that will harness social wealth to provide for all.

The Crewe by-election, with an 18% swing to the Tories,
confirms that they are on target for a landslide win in the next general
election. Railway workers and other working class people who have voted Labour
for generations have finally had enough. The betrayals and disappointments of
New Labour have caused these electors to break the habit of a lifetime. Make no
mistake about it. Mass working class abstentions have done for Brown and his
witless crew.

This is the first of two articles looking at the decline in the quality
of life for working people in Britain today. This first article focuses
on the workplace, where there has been relative decline in wages and
deterioration in the conditions of employment. The second part looks at
the attack on the ‘social wage’. This consists of the services and
facilities we access such as health care, education, public transport
and local services – all of which contribute towards the quality of
life for working people in modern society. They form the provision in
society of things working people, unlike the rich, could not afford to
buy individually but provided on behalf of people by the State.
Together the two elements – direct wages and the social wage – provide
our quality of life, but both are now under attack, creating an
impoverished life in Britain for working people.