SWIMMING AGAINST THE TIDE
EPISODE 2 – Resource inequality
Put simply resource inequality describes the way that resources are not shared equally. Some people have more and some have less . Again in simple terms resources are the things that are used by people , which they either need to survive or to maintain a comfortable life.
Traditionally governments focus on food, water and energy as the key resources. However, I will contend that this is a far too narrow and unhelpful definition. There are further key resource pillars which then subtend a range of dependent facilities. For the purposes of this discussion supply is seen as the production of resources and consumption as the use of these resources.
Food is a key resource for survival – both in terms of calorific content and purity. It is well known in co-operative circles that the purity of food was a key determinant for the our co-op pioneers. In contemporary UK society it is a matter of concern that many of our communities are characterised by food insecurity for significant numbers of our people. Such limited access to nutritious and affordable food is resulting in poor health, obesity, impaired learning, undernourishment and in a number of cases effective famine, despite the proliferation of food banks.
The privatisation of water supply companies in the UK has been little short of a national scandal with underinvestment leading to polluted rivers, water courses and in some cases water supplies. Yet the charges for our water continues to rise to unaffordable levels. Water in the UK has two key functions – survival and recreation. The poor are often unable to afford the fees for swimming baths so are forced to use local polluted rivers where they run the risk of being exposed to a range of infectious diseases.
The privatisation of our energy providers has led to many communities experiencing energy insecurity where individuals do not have access to affordable energy which conforms with the low carbon standards.
It is my contention that we live in a UK society where there is an unacceptable and unequal distribution of resources arising from three key drivers:
Ø Availability, access and amount
Ø Wealth , privilege and influence
Ø Infrastructure.
Social inequality occurs when resources within a society are distributed unevenly all too often as a result of an inequitable allocation culture. There are a range of employment related policies which can help to address this including:
a) Strengthening collective-bargaining rights with effective trade Union consultation
b) Full-employment schemes
c) Living wage policies
d) Stronger minimum wage laws
e) Wage subsidies .
We can begin to address this by making sure all our communities have universal access to basic services. In tandem we can promote economic development with greater equality . Finally we can promote research and analysis on inequalities whist taking cognisance of existing research and experience .
My long hold view is that public education has a key role to play in this. At present our education system is letting down far too many of our young people though significant education differentials – community by community. This was well understood by Robert Owen. As we are alerted in Wilkinson and Pickett’s excellent book – The Spirit Level :
“It is a remarkable paradox that, at the pinnacle of human material and technical achievement, we find ourselves anxiety-ridden , prone to depression , worried about how others see us, unsure of our friendships, driven to consume and with little or no community life. Lacking the relaxed social contact and emotional satisfaction that we all need, we seek comfort in over eating, obsessive shopping and spending , or becoming prey to excessive alcohol, psychoactive medicines and illegal drugs.”
In bringing this discussion to a conclusion it is necessary to reflect how we as cooperators can influence events to help build a more inclusive future. My own experience shows that a better future will not happen automatically , whether we work for it collectively or not. We have been stuck since 1945 with a sense that there is no alternative to the social and environmental failures of our society. In the Robert Owen Society in our thirty three year existence we have run a significant number of ground breaking cooperative projects. All based on local cooperative and democratic delivery and all founded in greater equality which we believe encouraged our people to rein in consumerism and think creatively to deliver further projects. In all cases we ran into conservatism at both local and national levels. We failed to embed the message that it falls to our generation to make one of the biggest transformations in human history. We tried to show that our community organisations had to become creative, adaptable, inventive, well informed, flexible and cooperative. We have taken the view that we are trying to grow the new communities within the old and that our values and principles and the way we work must be the thrust of how we bring about change.
It is part of the Robert Owen Society’s mission to promote education and training as the vanguard for the push towards our new more equal world. We have, however, always been mindful of Sir Keith Joseph’s ‘cycle of deprivation’. In short inequality is the outcome at local level of a group of forces which all inter relate and all help to reinforce local deprivation and inequality. If we wish to change and improve communities we need to go in on a broad front of provision. My own reflection to date is that in our public services we all too often have the wrong managers in place . We have managers committed to the status quo and are not change agents. Our experience with two key projects – post graduate school centred initial teacher training and our Robert Owen Academy. Both highly radical and each with an initial backing from Department civil servants but in the end they were both defeated over time by the innate conservatism of our school, college and local authority leaders . These leaders were wrapped in their own self interest losing sight of the long term needs of our children and young people in a rapidly changing and globalising world. For those who seek further information read the story of our Robert Owen Academy which is on our website.
So I leave you with the thought – local democratically run co-operatives can address inequality, promote democracy and encourage a new consumerism.
Chris Morgan - Secretary the Robert Owen Society.
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