Meritocracy, austerity and ‘poverty

porn’#mac201

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Overview

Meritocracy and a critique

Austerity and poverty porn

The new common sense

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Meritocracy

Power should be vested in individuals according to merit

Intellect

Rewarded on the basis of effort, not association

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‘essentially a meritocracy for the middle classes, not yet a meritocracy

for all’ - YouGov June 2013

Critique

Meritocracy gives the impression that social mobility is

possible

Fosters a sense of entitlement within the educated elites

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Sutton Trust (2012)

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The type of school top people attended

Number %

Independent 3404 44

Grammar 2032 27

Secondary Modern 111 1

Comprehensive 746 10

Other State School 743 10

Direct Grant (pre-1976)

601 8

Total 7637 100

Sutton Trust (2012)

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Rank School No. of leading people

1 Eton College 330

2 Winchester College 92

3 Charterhouse School 74

4 Rugby School 71

5 Westminster School 69

6 Marlborough School 65

7 Dulwich College 58

8= Harrow School 57

8= St Paul’s Boys’ School 57

10 Wellington College 56

‘Truly shocking’

The “affluent middle class”

dominated “every single sphere of

British influence” and that “hard

graft” was not enough in today's

society for state school educated

pupils to reach the “upper echelons

of power

Sir John Major, The Independent, 2013

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Fetishisation of meritocratic belief

Equality of opportunity, when combined with gross

inequality of outcome, is the worst possible recipe for a

harmonious society. It engenders in the successful a

sense that they have earned what they get, which

transposes remorselessly into a desire to expand still

further their share of the national cake…

David Lipsey, 2014: 37

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Fetishisation of meritocratic belief

Meanwhile, the unsuccessful believe that it is their fault

that they are poor (as opposed to being the fault of ill

birth or bad luck) and so feel the weight of moral as well

as of material failure. Such a society will be prone to all

the diseases of human discontent: crime, jealousy,

fracture, civil discord and even civil strife. It is therefore

surprising that equality of opportunity is today the central

creed of all three of Britain’s main national political

parties

David Lipsey, 2014: 37

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Austerity

The Scheme (BBC 1, May 2010-11)

People Like Us (BBC 3, Feb 2013)

Skint (Channel 4, May 2013)

Nick and Margaret: We All Pay For Your Benefits (BBC 1, Jul 2013)

Benefits Britain 1949 (Channel 4, Aug 2013)

How To Get A Council House(Channel 4, Aug 2013)*

On Benefits and Proud (Channel 5, Oct 2013)

Britain on the Fiddle (BBC, Nov 2013)

Christmas on Benefits (BBC3, Dec 2013)

Benefits Street (Channel 4, Jan 2014)

The Big Benefits Row: Live (Channel 5, Feb 2014)

Panorama: Don't Cap My Benefits(BBC1, Apr 2014)

Gypsies on Benefits and Proud(Channel 5, Apr 2014)

Benefits Britain: Life on the Dole(Channel 5, Jun 2014

The Housing Enforcers (BBC 2, Sep 2014)

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‘Maternal TV’ (Tyler 2011)

Supernanny (Channel 4, 2004)

One Born Every Minute (Channel 4,2010)

Baby Borrowers (BBC 3, 2007)

Help! I’m a Teen Mum (ITV, 2007)

Kizzy:Mum at 14 (BBC 3, 2007),

The Trouble with Girls: Three Girls and Three Babies (BBC 3, 2009)

Teen High Mum (BBC 3, 2009)

Kimberley: Young Mum 10 Years On (Channel 4, 2009)

18 Pregnant Schoolgirls (BBC 3, 2009)

Pregnancy: My Big Decision (BBC 3, 2009)

Young Mum’s Mansion (BBC 3, 2009)

Pramface Babies (ITV, 2009)

Underage and Pregnant (BBC 3, 2010)

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Poverty porn

2013 was the year when public debate about the

welfare state apparently exploded - in the form of a new

genre of television which has been tagged 'poverty

porn'. In July, and as part of its The Cost of Living season,

the BBC broadcast We Pay Your Benefits (BBC 1, 2013), a

programme which invited four 'taxpayers' to analyse the

spending habits of four 'welfare claimants' in order to

assess whether the current rates of unemployment

support are too high.

Jenner, 2014: 1

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Benefits Britain 1949

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On Benefits and Proud

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Gypsies on Benefits and Proud

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Britain on the Fiddle

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People Like Us

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Poverty porn

Disproportionate depiction of working class life

‘sink estates’

feckless

workshy

lazy

hand-outs

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Borrows from documentary…

the use of hand-held cameras

'fly-on the wall' camera angles

the employment of non-actors and,

an improvised, unscripted, low-budget

'authenticity’

Tyler, 2011

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'these kinds of reality TV programmes

have none of the aspirations of longer

standing socially critical and politicized

traditions of British documentary film and

television’

Tyler, 2013: 145

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‘an unfair depiction of what it is really like to grow up

poor in twenty first century Britain, with meritocratic ideas

providing an ideological smokescreen for the real

inequalities that characterise contemporary society’

McCarthy, 2014

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‘the very idea of meritocracy itself does embitter the

perception that people with higher natural ability are

worth more both financially and socially than those who

do not have the same talents’

McCarthy, 2014

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The new common sense

Pierre Bourdieu

‘doxa’

‘that which goes without saying

because it comes without saying’

(1972: 167)

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The new common sense

The role of ‘the mugger’ became

a racially coded figure: something

against which social anxieties

regarding youth, urban spaces and

social control could be projected

Hall et al, 1978

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The new common sense

Figures like 'the mugger' are essential at times of crisis,

when new formations of 'commonsense' are condensing.

The figure of the mugger and repetitions of mugger

discourse, across news media, courtrooms, public

commentary, everyday conversation, gossip and other

formal and official sites of disquiet, came to solidify a new

'commonsense' consensus around authoritative policing.

Jenner, 2014

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Emma Cooper, 2013

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Missing something?

Hearing the TV executives responsible for shows such as

Skint and Nick and Margaret: We all pay your benefits

discuss the people featured in their programmes only

served to reinforce how people in poverty are objectified

on TV for the gratification of others. The absence on the

panel (and in the audience) of any of the people they

were talking about was conspicuous

Abigail Scott Paul, 2014

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Skint

4 million viewers

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Summary

2 dominant discourses today: the UK as meritocracy and

the position of the benefits scrounger.

Both of these discourses are deeply flawed as they fail to

address widespread prejudices and systemic failings of

the neoliberal promises made by proponents of free

market capitalism.

Instead, in the pursuit of a soft target, we’re at risk of

creating a society in which victim-blaming is the norm.

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Sources

Kim Allen, Imogen Tyler and Sara De Benedictis (2014) 'Thinking with 'White Dee': The Gender Politics of "Austerity Porn"', Sociological Research Online, Vol 19 (3), 2, http://www.socresonline.org.uk/19/3/2.html

Bourdieu, Pierre(1972) Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hall, S, Critcher, C, Jefferson, T, Clarke, J And Roberts, B (1978) Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order, London: MacMillan.

Jensen, Tracey (2014) ‘Welfare Commonsense, Poverty Porn and Doxosophy’, Sociological Research Online, 19 (3), 3 http://www.socresonline.org.uk/19/3/3.html

Lipsy, David (2014) ‘The Meretriciousness of Meritocracy’, The Political Quarterly, Vol. 85, No. 1, January–March 2014

McCarthy, Charlotte (2014) ‘From ‘People Like Us’ to ‘Kids Like Me’: How does poverty porn affect working class youth?’, Social Action & Research Foundation, http://www.the-sarf.org.uk/from-people-like-us-to-kids-like-me-how-does-poverty-porn-affect-working-class-youth/

Tyler, Imogen (2011), 'Pramface girls: the class politics of 'maternal TV', in Helen Wood and Beverley Skeggs (eds.),

Reality Television and Class, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p.210-24. [draft version here .pdf]

Tyler, Imogen (2013), Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection & Resistance in Neoliberal Britain. London: Zed Books.

Bev Skeggs & Helen Wood (2012) Reacting to Reality Television, Oxon/New York: Routledge.

The Sutton Trust (2012) ‘The Educational Backgrounds of the Nation’s Leading People’, http://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/TOP-People-report-final.pdf

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