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Medialens Media Alerts

Prioritising Profit - Poverty In A Land Of Plenty

 

MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media

 

 

April 28, 2004

 

MEDIA ALERT: PRIORITISING PROFIT - POVERTY IN A LAND OF PLENTY

 

“We are living in a dangerous world. Our state of civilisation is such that

mankind already is capable of becoming enormously wealthy but as a whole is

still poverty-ridden. Great wars have been suffered. Greater wars are imminent,

we are told. Do you not think that in such a predicament every new idea should

be examined carefully and freely?” (Bertolt Brecht, 1947)

 

 

Child Poverty? Who Cares!

 

According to government figures, a staggering 3.6 million children are living in

poverty in the UK. The official definition of ‘poverty’ applies to families

earning less than 60 per cent of average income. Between 1979 and 2003, the

proportion of poor children in the UK rose from 1 in 10, to almost 1 in 3 - a

genuine scandal that responsible journalists should raise every time a

government minister boasts of Britain's 'healthy economy'.

 

A recent report titled 'Poverty in a land of plenty', published by End Child

Poverty, a coalition of social justice groups, reveals the tragedy that: " A baby

born into poverty [in the UK] is more than twice as likely to die in the first

year as a child born to better-off parents and as many as 1,400 lives would be

saved if poverty were eradicated. " (www.ecpc.org.uk/publications.asp)

 

Earlier this month, the organisation Shelter launched the biggest campaign in

its history aimed at ending the devastating impact of the housing crisis on

British children (www.shelter.org.uk). The campaign was marked by the

publication of 'Toying with their future', a major exposé which reveals for the

first time that over a million children growing up in overcrowded, unfit or

emergency housing, suffer from serious health problems, poor education, and

blighted futures. The report points out that one in twelve children in Britain

are more likely to develop diseases such as bronchitis, tuberculosis or asthma

because of bad housing. Homeless children also lose out on a quarter of their

schooling.

 

The standard liberal media response to these horrors is to look the other way,

or to echo government propaganda that Labour is " tackling deprivation " and has

mounted a " concerted attack on child poverty " , as Charlotte Denny and Larry

Elliott write in The Guardian. ('The uphill struggle against child poverty.

Labour is tackling deprivation but inequality is rising', Charlotte Denny and

Larry Elliott, The Guardian, March 31, 2004)

 

In the same Guardian article, the reader is told that the government " has failed

to prevent the gap between rich and poor in Britain becoming even wider than it

was under the Conservatives " . The phrase " failed to prevent " is standard

rhetoric. The notion that government policies might have actually +contributed+

to rising inequality is left unexplored. The closest we get to this possibility

is the anodyne observation that " inequality was still higher in 2002 than when

Labour came to power even though it had fallen slightly from the record gap

reached in 2000. "

 

The figure of 3.6 million British children living in poverty represents a fall

of 200,000 on last year. Clearly this, in itself, is good news. As the Joseph

Rowntree Foundation points out, the government has introduced a number of

measures that have had beneficial impacts, including the national minimum wage;

working families tax credit and income support changes targeted on children

(replaced and enhanced by child tax credit and working tax credit); minimum

income guarantee for pensioners (replaced and enhanced by the pension credit);

and winter fuel payments.

(www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/043.asp)

 

The media have reported that many charities and campaigning organisations, and

poor families themselves, have applauded such initiatives. However, the

fundamental question of whether such a piecemeal approach of tax credits and

one-off payments is not, in fact, a 'sticky plaster' approach to deep-rooted

social, economic and political problems is left unasked. At best, government

policy is akin to giving a sick child an inhaler to help with her asthma, rather

than tackling the root causes of the illness. At worst, it perpetuates a

grievous and tragic system of social inequality. Meanwhile, mainstream media

remain uninterested in exploring alternative models for organising society in

ways that would not lead to endemic poverty, unlike corporate capitalism, a

point to which we return below.

 

Even in conventional terms, government measures to ameliorate poverty may well

have run their course. As Jonathan Stearn, End Child Poverty (ECP) director,

points out: " The government has pledged to end child poverty by 2020 and these

latest figures show that it is making steady progress. But they also show the

magnitude of the task ahead. " (ECP press release, March 30, 2004,

www.ecpc.org.uk

 

Indeed, ECP cautions that: " We don't really see the Government as having a sense

that the task is going to get harder, and that is worrying. " The campaigning

group estimates that the Government needs to invest £6.8bn in services if it is

to close the income gap. " That is affordable, " said a spokeswoman. " It is just

one-tenth of the annual amount spent on the NHS and one sixth of that spent on

defence. " ('Living below the poverty line: 3.5m children', Maxine Frith, Social

Affairs Correspondent, The Independent, March 31, 2004)

 

 

The government's real, pro-corporate agenda

 

Hidden beneath standard media news coverage and analysis is an unpalatable

truth: with few exceptions, this government's reign has been marked by the

consistent promotion of corporate interests over human rights, social justice,

and environmental protection. Whether at home or abroad, government policies

systematically favour corporate power at public expense - literally.

 

George Monbiot's excellent book, Captive State (Macmillan, London, 2001),

details a host of examples of socialism for the rich, and capitalism for the

rest of us: town 'development' for the benefit of private business; the pushing

of GM technology in the face of massive public scepticism; supermarket

expansion; the Skye Road Bridge; promotion of 'free trade'; corporate

infiltration of the National Health Service and the country's science base.

 

And then there's the arms trade. In 2002, based on detailed work by the Oxford

Research Group and Saferworld, the Campaign Against the Arms Trade estimated

that the British taxpayer pays the 'defence' industry a net annual subsidy of

£763 million.

(http://www.caat.org.uk/information/publications/economics/subsidies-factsheet-0\

202.pdf)

 

The British citizen is not only funding the production of weapons that cause

terrible deaths, injuries and misery, but siphoning off treasury funds that

could be used to eradicate poverty at home.

 

Blair has consistently shown that he understands the 'need' to support Britain's

role as the world's second biggest exporter of arms. Human rights are fine when

it comes to grandiloquent speeches on 'spreading freedom' and conducting the

'war against terror', but human rights must not be allowed to interfere with

corporate profits in ‘the real world’. John Kampfner, the New Statesman’s

political editor, notes that when Blair was in opposition:

 

" His comments on arms sales and human rights did not extend beyond

generalities. " (Kampfner, 'Blair's Wars', The Free Press, 2003, p.7)

 

During his tenure as Prime Minister, Blair has ensured that the arms industry

has had ready access to the highest reaches of government and accompanying

subsidies from the public purse. Kampfner again:

 

" From his first day in office Blair was eager not to antagonise British arms

companies, and BAE Systems in particular, which developed extremely close

relationships with senior figures in Downing Street. Its Chairman, Dick Evans,

was one of a very small group of outsiders whose requests to see Blair were

always granted. " (Kampfner, ibid, p.15)

 

Last summer, with tension between India and Pakistan running dangerously high,

it was revealed that Blair and senior government ministers had been acting as

aggressive arms salesmen on behalf of British corporate interests:

 

" In what has become a rags to riches story for BAE's factory in Brough,

Humberside, this will be the second big order for Hawks after the UK Government

last week promised to spend £800m..... The deal comes after intense lobbying by

the British Government, with Prime Minister Tony Blair, Deputy Prime Minister

John Prescott, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw

taking it in turns to persuade the Indians to buy the jets. " ('BAE to enjoy

Indian summer with £1bn order for Hawk jets', Clayton Hirst, Independent on

Sunday, August 3, 2003)

 

Imagine that the mainstream media really were to perform their mythical public

duty as the 'fourth estate'. Imagine that editors and journalists did +not+ take

their cue for the 'news of the day' from the incessant flood of press releases

emanating from government departments, corporate press offices and PR agencies.

Imagine that newspapers and broadcasters actually dug beneath the veneer of

respectable government and 'wealth-generating' private enterprise, to reveal the

real costs - in environmental and human terms - of present policies. If such

reporting were done consistently, repeatedly and systematically, the public

would see through the myth that the government is committed to promoting human

rights and tackling poverty and inequality, whether at home and abroad.

 

As things stand, however, we are supposed to swallow the deception that our

benevolent leaders are standing astride the world stage, battling for a future

where everyone lives in a free, democratic society and where nobody goes hungry.

Thus we have " millennium goals " , such as the target to reduce global child

poverty by half by 2020. Gordon Brown recently warned, with due media

deferential attention:

 

" If we let things slip, the millennium goals will become just another dream we

once had, and we will indeed be sitting back on our sofas and switching on our

TVs and, I am afraid, watching people die on our screens for the rest of our

lives. We will be the generation that betrayed its own heart. " ('Brown: We are

150 years off our targets in tackling world poverty', Ben Russell and Philip

Thornton, The Independent, February 17, 2004)

 

As ever, we have to go to a non-governmental organisation to get a more accurate

picture of the reality that underlies such pious government rhetoric. The World

Development Movement points out that just ten out of 42 eligible poor countries

have had significant debt stock cancelled (rather than just " pledged " ),

amounting to $26 billion out of a total debt burden of $260bn. Most of these ten

have been left with unsustainable and rising burdens, because even at completion

point, the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) does not cancel

enough of their debt. Research shows that if the UN Millennium Development Goals

are to be achieved, 100 per cent debt relief to all low income countries will be

required.

 

WDM warns that: " Equally important is ensuring that any reduction in the chains

of debt is not accompanied by the imposition of even heavier chains in terms of

economic conditions... However, currently the threat of withholding debt relief

is being used by the IMF and World Bank to force poor countries to adopt the

same discredited policies that harmed the poor in the past through Structural

Adjustment Programmes. "

 

WDM continues: " It is now well-documented, including by the IMF and World Bank

themselves, that the introduction of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs)

has not changed the types of macroeconomic policies being imposed, which is why

they have been described as 'old wine in new bottles'. " (www.wdm.org.uk)

 

Brown may well speak with impressive passion on the plight of the poor. However,

the policies that he – and, more generally, the Blair government - is pursuing

amount to no more than the old wine of neo-colonialism and corporate profit

being poured into bright new bottles of 'debt cancellation', 'transparency' and

'democratic governance'.

 

 

A world of alternatives

 

Margaret Thatcher once infamously proclaimed: " There is no alternative " . The

World Social Forum, the annual gathering of the global justice movement,

retorted, " Another world is possible. " Consumers of mainstream media would

hardly be aware of it, but worlds other than the present system of global

capitalism are indeed possible; not only possible, in fact, but necessary. As

Martin Luther King once noted: " True compassion is more than flinging a coin at

a beggar; it comes to see an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring. "

(Michael Albert, 'Parecon: Life After Capitalism', Verso, London, 2003)

 

Michael Albert, webmaster of the indispensable Znet site at www.zmag.org, sets

out one radical but pragmatic detailed system called participatory economics, or

“parecon” for short. Parecon honours the essential principles of equity,

solidarity, diversity, self-management and ecological balance - and all set out

in practical terms.

 

How might it work in practice? There is limited space here to explain (go to

www.parecon.org for more), but essentially parecon would be built upon

democratic councils at various levels in society, including small work teams,

and whole industries. There would also be groupings of consumers,

neighbourhoods, counties and even between countries.

 

A central concept is that of " balanced job complexes " : sharing out the pleasant

and less pleasant aspects of running an economy. Each worker would have an

equitable and stimulating share of tasks and responsibilities. In short,

everyone would have a similar combination of empowerment and quality of life

benefits.

 

Albert devotes a lengthy section in his book to describing in some detail how

daily life might actually look in a participatory economy. He follows this up by

raising, then systematically demolishing, a whole range of possible objections

to parecon: how efficient would it be? Wouldn't it stifle creativity and

quality? Wouldn't it infringe on privacy? Wouldn't it be too bureaucratic or

unwieldy? Even jaundiced views of human nature about the alleged " incapacity of

the masses " are exposed for what they are: an excuse to " ignore widespread

injustice because to do otherwise would be uncomfortable, costly, and even

risky. "

 

As US sociologist C. Wright Mills once observed: " Freedom is not merely the

opportunity to do as one pleases; neither is it merely the opportunity to choose

between set alternatives. Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the

available choices, to argue over them - and then, the opportunity to choose. "

(Albert, ibid, p.219)

 

On that basis, parecon is a pragmatic and visionary programme that boosts human

freedom.

 

As Noam Chomsky notes on the book's jacket: " [parecon] merits close attention,

debate, and action. " However, it has been almost totally ignored by mainstream

media in the UK, mentioned only in the low-circulation Times Higher Education

Supplement, which included a dismissive book review by economist Paul Ormerod.

Such virtual silence, or the occasional sneer, is standard. But then, as an

integral component of corporate capitalism, the British media remain resolutely

committed to the Thatcher view that “there is no alternative”.

 

 

The myth of the 'centre-left' government

 

In summary, then, we have a government that systematically promotes corporate

and elite interests over those of the public and the global environment. And

yet, some commentators would have us believe that the Labour government, and

Blair himself, is somehow magically untainted by dogmatic ideology. Thus,

according to Sunder Katwala, the general secretary of the Fabian Society:

 

" Labour's pragmatic, ideology-lite approach has been a successful political

strategy in winning and regaining office... The New Labour plan was always to

start cautiously, gain trust and credibility and become more radical in office. "

('The road to a third term starts here. Tony Blair must reject calls for

consolidation and prove that this government has not run out of steam', Sunder

Katwala, The Guardian, September 29, 2003)

 

Some media commentators are fond of pointing out that not only is Tony Blair a

" centre-left politician " but he is a Christian democrat in action. (Roger Boyes,

'Putting Christian back in democracy', The Times, July 22, 2002)

 

Last July, the Guardian gave editorial space to the Prime Minister to champion

himself as a leader of " centre-left politicians and policy-makers " ahead of a

" progressive governance conference " . Blair was on an evangelical mission to

explain how " the policy we have pursued over Iraq fits squarely with our vision

of progressive politics " . (Tony Blair, 'The left should not weep if Saddam is

toppled: We have to redefine centre-left politics to cope with a more insecure

world', The Guardian, February 10, 2003)

 

On exceptional occasions, however, the truth cannot escape journalistic

attention, and we might well marvel at the honesty displayed:

 

" It used to be unusual for Labour politicians to venture into the City of London

and talk to an audience of bankers, but on Monday, Mr Blair delivered a speech

to executives of the City bank, Goldman Sachs, which was so imbued with free

market philosophy that none of the main organisations that speak for big

business, such as the CBI or the Institute of Directors, thought it necessary to

take issue with a single point the Prime Minister made. " (‘Smiles, speeches and

handshakes (no kisses): the verdict on the PM's world comeback tour’, Andy

McSmith and Ben Russell, The Independent on Sunday, March 28, 2004)

 

These are excellent points by Andy McSmith and Ben Russell. And yet, later in

the same article, the reporters describe Blair as a " left of centre politician " .

Media Lens wrote to both McSmith and Russell to ask why, in light of their own

comments above, they did not describe Blair as a " centre " , or " centre-right " ,

politician? We received this response from Andy McSmith:

 

”22 April, 2004

 

Dear David Cromwell,

Apologies for not replying to your e mail three weeks ago. I was abroad for

Easter and did not see it until I got back.

 

I was following a well established convention by describing Blair as 'left of

centre' but it is a good question as to why we use this description. I suppose

the answer is that he is Leader of a left of centre party. Now that you have

prompted the thought, I think I'll avoid the term in future.

Andy McSmith”

 

We are grateful for Andy McSmith's response and pleased to see that he has been

prepared to re-evaluate his definition of the Prime Minister's position in the

political spectrum, although we would still be interested to hear his

justification for describing New Labour as a " left of centre party " .

 

In reality, few mainstream journalists are prepared to expose Blair, his

government and New Labour, as systematic promoters of corporate over public

welfare. But then following “well established”, but absurd, conventions is what

the mainstream media is all about.

 

As media analyst Lance Bennett pointed out:

 

" The media have helped create a political world that is, culturally speaking,

upside-down. It is a world in which governments are able to define their own

publics and where 'democracy' becomes whatever the government ends up doing. "

(Quoted, Eric Herring and Piers Robinson, Review of International Studies,

Volume 29, page 557, 2003)

 

 

SUGGESTED ACTION

 

The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for

others. In writing letters to journalists, we strongly urge readers to maintain

a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.

 

Please write to the following editors and journalists. Ask them to challenge

government ministers more persistently on poverty, citing the concerns of End

Child Poverty and others. Ask them to systematically expose state support for

corporate activities at the expense of the public and environmental good. Ask

them to expose the myth that the UK has a 'centre-left' or even 'centre'

government. Ask them to explore 'alternative' policies and systems for

eradicating poverty and delivering justice, equity and sustainability, such as

participatory economics.

 

Andy McSmith, political editor of The Independent on Sunday:

Email: a.mcsmith

 

Tristan Davies, editor of The Independent on Sunday:

Email: t.davies

 

Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian:

Email: alan.rusbridger

 

Ian Mayes, the Guardian readers' editor:

Email: ian.mayes

 

Please also send all emails to us at Media Lens:

Email: editor

 

Visit the Media Lens website: http://www.medialens.org

 

Please consider donating to Media Lens: http://www.medialens.org/donate.html

 

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