The Mirror newspaper published an article recently, and I wonder why, perhaps they thought it was "news". What the Mirror doesn't seem to realise is that every ordinary person in the UK knows that poverty has rise sharply. Every ordinary person in the UK knows that child poverty has rise sharply. Every ordinary person in the UK knows that pensioner poverty has rise sharply. Every ordinary person in the UK knows that people with disabilities are finding it harder to make ends meet. So where is the news? It would have been better had they pointed to the real causes and the only remedy, get rid of the economic system that creates these problems.
They take their facts from a recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation report. The report states that over the last 5 years poverty has increased for pensioners and children. It also states despite rising employment, in-work poverty has also risen, and it doesn't take an economic expert to see this is down to the fact that inadequate pay, hours and/or both these factors. It has now reached the point where more than 50% of the people living in poverty are in a working family, this is up from 39% 20 years ago, now there's capitalist progress for you.
Other interesting facts from the every day life of people in the UK, there are more than 4,500 people sleeping rough on the streets of England alone. 14 million people here in the UK are living in poverty, an increase of 400,000, over the last 5 years, there are 4 million children living in poverty, an increase of 300,000 over the same period. The report also states that people are more likely to be living in poverty if they are in a family where there is a disabled person or a carer.
Now try as you may to equate that with one of the richest countries in the world and a supposed highly developed and civilised country. We live in a society where deprivation and opulence live cheek-by-jowl and the capitalist system has proved over the centuries that it can't remedy this disparity. This inequality has increased and will continue to increase as long as we tolerate a economic system that has as its foundation the creating of wealth for the few at the expense of the many. the building bricks of capitalism is exploitation of the many by the few, and the above figures are not an unavoidable accident, they are an ideological choice, the inevitable consequences of such an economic system. How much longer will we accept the poverty of our friends and family, the stunting of the potential of our children and the abandonment of our elderly, while the perpetrators live a life of obscene opulence with private jets, luxury yachts and private estates. The remedy is in our own hands, don't expect the vultures to feed the lambs.
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk
Now try as you may to equate that with one of the richest countries in the world and a supposed highly developed and civilised country. We live in a society where deprivation and opulence live cheek-by-jowl and the capitalist system has proved over the centuries that it can't remedy this disparity. This inequality has increased and will continue to increase as long as we tolerate a economic system that has as its foundation the creating of wealth for the few at the expense of the many. the building bricks of capitalism is exploitation of the many by the few, and the above figures are not an unavoidable accident, they are an ideological choice, the inevitable consequences of such an economic system. How much longer will we accept the poverty of our friends and family, the stunting of the potential of our children and the abandonment of our elderly, while the perpetrators live a life of obscene opulence with private jets, luxury yachts and private estates. The remedy is in our own hands, don't expect the vultures to feed the lambs.
