	Workers Solidarity No. 42
	  Irish Anarchist Paper

              Net addition

                1994 Year of the family - 
          back to your place or "back to basics"?

             Parents, puritans and poverty

1994 HAS BEEN declared the UN Year of the Family. The 
Irish Committee for the International Year includes 
state bodies like the Combat Poverty Agency & the 
Council for the Status of Women and Catholic ones like 
the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Family Solidarity 
were also members but walked out in protest at token 
places being given to two groups working with single 
parents. This committee has received #400,000 from 
Leinster House.

The increased violence in society and fears of social 
decay have even liberal commentators calling for a to 
return to "family values". Yet what does this really 
mean? What are those values? In this article Aileen 
O'Carroll examines the role of the family and the 
reasoning behind the Back to Basics campaign. 

In the nineteenth century Napoleon III went to war to 
silence popular opposition against worsening conditions 
at home. In the US, Bush and now Clinton manufactured 
the 'war on drugs' in part to deflect attention from 
the US recession. They blamed Colombian cocaine dealers 
for job losses, pay cuts and factory closures rather 
than the policies of the Democratic and Republican 
parties. In Europe all the major parties are pinning 
unemployment rates on immigrant workers. 

EASY TARGETS
 
In the UK under the banner of 'Back to Basics', the 
Conservative Party embarked on a vigorous moral 
crusade. The first victims of their offensive were 
single mothers. Why single mothers? They are an easy 
target. Most are burdened down by poverty and isolated 
within the home (50% of single parents live on less 
than #100 a week, only 42% of them work outside the 
home). Though there are groups who seek to represent 
single parents, in general single mothers are 
unorganised. They do not have economic muscle with 
which to fight back. They are stigmatised and pushed to 
the margins of society and so it's more difficult for 
them to form a pressure block.

The government wants to cut down on the amount it 
spends on social welfare, making us pay for the 
recession. The changing age profile of western Europe 
means that as the proportion of old people in society 
is increasing, so also will the amount of money 
required by the government to pay out in old age 
pensions increase. The recovery that the government has 
been hyping almost since the recession began has yet to 
arrive, leaving the government with mounting welfare 
bills. 

Alongside the reduction in the amount spent on social 
welfare the government is attempting to reinforce the 
Victorian distinction between deserving poor and non-
deserving poor. The blame for the cutbacks is shifted 
onto the poor themselves rather than on the 
government's own social and economic policies. They're 
pitting single mother against old age pensioner in an 
attempt to divide, rule and deflect attention from the 
real causes of poverty in society. 
 
It has also been argued that Back to Basics is a bid to 
drive women into the workplace in an attempt to drive 
wages down. However the facts don't necessarily agree 
with this. Trends in western capitalism indicate a 
shift from full-time work to part-time and contract 
work. Women constitute the majority of the part-time 
workforce. Their wages are less than full-timers and in 
the case of contract workers they have fewer rights (to 
holiday pay, redundancy payment's etc). They can be 
hired when required and let go when the market slumps.

Union organisation has meant that employers haven't 
been able to drive wages down for existing workers. 
Instead a new level of lowly paid contract jobs (such 
as the 'yellow pack' jobs in Irish banks) have been 
introduced, which replace full-time work. In Britain 
the number of women employees will for the first time 
exceed the number of men with jobs. This trend is 
mainly attributable to rapid growth in part-time posts 
(often by splitting full-time jobs) which had gone 
overwhelmingly to women (Dept of Employment figures). 
However, such is the level of unemployment in Britain 
at the moment, the Tories don't have any problem 
getting people into low paid jobs as it is. The 
motivation behind Basic to Basics is to drive down the 
cost of the Welfare State.

Concerns about Britain's ability to continue bearing 
the cost of the welfare state due to the rising costs 
of old age pensions have been "greatly exaggerated" 
according to a study published by the London School of 
Economics1. The scare is used to justify government cut 
backs. The Irish government also is a skilled master at 
this line of argument; playing primary schools against 
third level colleges, the unemployed against the PAYE 
sector, with not a mention of the money owned in taxes 
by business (like the #12 million owed by Xtravision) 

The Back to Basics drive arises not out of pure 
economic need alone. The Tory party is deeply divided 
internally over Europe and is presiding over the worst 
recession since the 1930's. Back to Basics is an 
ideology that unifies the Eurosceptic and the 
Euroliberal. It's a strong united front that turns 
newspaper headlines away from the recession, away from 
the crumbling welfare state and the divisions within 
the party. 

Initially single mothers were targeted, now sex manuals 
are banned, sex educationalists are cautioned and 
"political correctness" is attacked. Following a series 
of sex scandals, the Tories are trying to turn the 
tables around. The state funded Health Education 
Authority originally commissioned the sex manual 'Your 
Pocket Guide to Sex'. As soon as it came off presses 
the Health Minister banned it, describing it as 
"smutty". The Secretary of State for Education publicly 
criticised a nurse in a Leeds school for answering 
children's questions on 'blow jobs' saying he was 
"incensed" when he heard how she was conducting her 
classes. 

While there are no direct and obvious economic gains in 
these moves, in the long term forcing people into 
reliance on the family reduces the cost to the state of 
social welfare. As Dr John Harris argued in The Family2 
"the constant theme of social policy has been the need 
to ensure stability in family life and whenever social 
or political elites have felt at all threatened a part 
of their response has been to argue for a revival of 
'stable ' family values."

Back to Basics isn't unique to Britain and the Tory 
party. The 'moral majority' of Regan and Bush in the US 
has been replaced by Clintons attacks on 'welfare 
mothers'.

They aim to create a situation where it is socially 
unacceptable to rely on social welfare for support. 
Hence they argue it is 'irresponsible' to have children 
on low incomes. Instead of debate being centred round 
the state's responsibility to provide for its citizens, 
it is centred on the individual's requirement to be 
self- catering.

The agenda being set, is that the problem facing 
society is the poor themselves rather than the reasons 
why they are poor. The question being asked is how to 
contain the burden the poor cause rather than how to 
eliminate poverty.

The state can reduce the cost of maintaining the social 
welfare by directly cutting the amount of money it 
allocates. However, many governments are either in too 
weak a position to do this, or have already cut as much 
as they can. By reducing the amount of people actually 
claiming, spending can be reduced indirectly. The 
ground is also being prepared for future cuts.

The purpose of this ideological battle is to drive 
people away from the concept of the welfare state and 
towards notions of individual responsibility. The 
family rather than the state will bear the costs of 
child care as well as support for the old, ill and 
impoverished in society. A vast unpaid workforce is 
created by pushing women back into the home.

A single mother claiming benefit will now be forced to 
name the father of her children. In many cases, rather 
than be forced into contact with violent ex- partners, 
women will simply not claim. Instead they'll be forced 
to rely on their own families for financial support or 
indeed for child care if they intend to work. 

THE FAMILY

So, as well as imposing cuts, the Conservative party is 
waging an ideological war against single mothers and in 
favour of the family. In this respect capitalism has 
changed little since its birth. The industrial 
revolution saw the expounding of the nuclear family as 
the only acceptable model in society. Responsibilities 
for child care, housing, health and care of the elderly 
no longer lay with the community or with the lord of 
the manor. Instead it was expected that the smaller 
unit of the nuclear family would undertake all care for 
the workforce. 

Economic circumstance forced women to act as nurses, 
childminders, cooks and cleaners. Similarly, men were 
forced to sell their labour power to provide food and 
accommodation. The state reaped the rewards of a self-
catering, cheaply maintained workforce without having 
any role in the upkeep of that workforce. Single 
mothers have been singled out for attack because they 
do rely on the state for help. Indeed many 
Conservatives have been quite explicit in saying this. 
Peter Lilley, the Social Security Secretary, complained 
that these women were 'marrying the state'; that is 
depending on the State for financial assistance, rather 
than depending on a husband. 

The entire propaganda of the Conservatives has been 
consistently aimed at re-enforcing the family as the 
fundamental unit of society. John Redwood, the Welsh 
Secretary said " the natural state should be the two-
adult family". Virginia Bottomley hypes us up with 
"without [families], individuals are like a frantic 
whirl of atoms, attached to no one, responsible to 
nothing, creating a vaporous society not a solid one". 
Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, said "we must 
emphasise our belief that the traditional two parent 
family is best, best for parents, best for society and 
above all best for the child". To be more honest he 
might have added best for capitalism. 

However, instead of honesty, the Conservatives have 
justified their crusade by making up facts and lying 
about academic research. The Guardian (9/11/93) 
reported on a paper commissioned by the British cabinet 
and prepared by senior civil servants. It dismissed 
three of the key arguments used by the Conservative 
politicians to support their attack on single parents; 
that benefit rates encouraged women to have children on 
their own, that there was a link between crime rates 
and criminality among children of single mothers, and 
that there was evidence that women became pregnant to 
get council housing. Yet speeches at the Tory party 
conference, two weeks after they had seen the paper, 
showed when the truth is not useful it's just ignored. 
Blatantly lying, Peter Lilley said "I've got a little 
list...[of] young ladies who get pregnant just to jump 
the housing list" 

VICTORIAN VALUES

This isn't the first time the Conservatives have 
manipulated and lied about academic work to justifying 
implementing it's political agenda. Indeed though the 
Tory party are on a moral crusade to bring back 
Victorian values, they are particular as to which 
values they wish to keep, a point which was well made 
by Gwendolene Stuart3 in a pamphlet on Thatcher "[they 
have] picked from that period selectively the 
sentiments and values of the most oppressive 
class...deriding the real values of that period, the 
values of ordinary men and women who struggled to work 
collectively together to advance their quality of 
life." 

There is nothing new or original about the present 
campaign. As Dr. John Harris comments "At the beginning 
of the 20th century there was already a firmly 
established belief that the family was in decline and 
decay as a result of the growth of industrial society". 
The introduction of women into the workforce, the 
growth of unions and organisations representing youth 
removed them from the family environment, giving them 
greater independence.

The move to the cities brought with it poverty, 
overcrowding and crime. The changing structure of the 
family was blamed for this rather than the effects of 
industrialisation. The response of social planners was 
to re-define women's roles within society. Arguments 
about women being naturally suited to domesticity and 
about their need for protection in a morally corrupt 
world were introduced. Concern over declining birth-
rate raised "motherhood" to a new level in social 
recognition. The first Mothers Day was celebrated in 
1907 with this in mind. The so called sexual liberation 
that followed World War I was followed by a moral 
backlash.

On one hand legislation was introduced which removed 
many restrictions on women working, on the other 
ideology was created to prevent women from taking full 
advantage of the new opportunities available to them. 
Again and again the family values have been used by 
capitalism as a bulwark against progression and to 
deflect from the misery caused by it. 

NAME THE REAL ENEMY

It's true that the scandals have undermined much of the 
Back to Basics propaganda program, however this doesn't 
mean the Tories have failed. The Child Protection 
Agency, despite negative publicity, is still in place. 
The Agency targets men who are already paying 
maintenance rather than track down those who pay 
nothing because this way it is easier to reach target 
figures. The force of the moral crusade may have 
collapsed but the policies behind it are still being 
implemented. More importantly a consensus is being 
created that the cost of the welfare state is no longer 
justifiable.

Capitalism is a cruel and unjust system. It has caused 
people to live in poverty for over 200 years. It 
couldn't survive without a strong ideology justifying 
its actions. In England at the moment we can see the 
repackaging of such an ideology. It is up to us to name 
the real enemy, not the poor, the weak or dispossessed 
in society, but rather capitalism.

1 published by the Joesph Rowntree Foundation. Report 
in The Guardian, November 9th 1993
2 The Familly, a Social History of the 20th Century, 
edited by Dr. John Harriss (Harraps,1992)
3 The Other Side of the Coin; Margaret Thatcher, from a 
working women's point of view. (Gwedolen Stuart, 1987).

                    Gas Masks and Pantyhose

The Back to Basics propaganda campaign has been 
undermined because the Tories failed to meet their own 
moral standards. In condemning the Tory party we must 
be careful not to take on their morality. There's 
nothing wrong with shagging. No one should expect human 
sexual behaviour to be expressed in only one way. It's 
strange that while we accept diversity in tastes in 
food, music, book, films when it comes to sex we talk 
of rights, wrongs and norms. 

Heterosexual penetrative sex in the missionary position 
is assumed to be the norm. Yet, who would ever assume 
that most normal people eat meat and two veg every day 
of their lives? Who would think it was peculiar to 
consume and enjoy curry or chilli or potato soup. While 
variety is accepted and unquestioned in every other one 
of our senses, our sexual behaviour is regulated by 
culturally (and sometimes legally) enforced rules. 
Rules so deeply embedded in society we often aren't 
even aware of their existence.

The problem with the Tory party is not that they have 
extra marital affairs or that some of them enjoy cross 
dressing. Sure they are guilty of hypocrisy and often 
of lying to their friends and family. However the 
trouble with criticising these things, is that given 
that their morality is the dominant one in society it 
can look as we support their basic viewpoint. It can 
seem that we would accept the Tories if only they'd be 
more honest in bed. 

Capitalism attempts to limit our sexuality in order to 
keep us in line. Most obviously they've targeted gays 
and women. If only for our only personal well being, we 
should be aware of how these factors operate upon us 
and how they curb the range of experiences available to 
us. However a far greater crime of the Tory party in 
Britain and of the ruling class world wide is the way 
it keeps us the working class in either poverty or wage 
slavery. Once their economic system tumbles down, their 
rotten and weirdly restrictive morality will crumble 
with it. And then we will really start to have fun.

This is the fifth part of the latest issue of Workers Solidarity, 
produced by the Irish anarchist group, the Workers Solidarity 
Movement.  We are changing the format for this posting to 
two parts consisting of short articles and then posting longer
 related articles separately.  They should arrive on this 
list/newsgroup over the next few days.  Some lists/
newsgroups will only get postings relevant to them.  To
get other parts reply to this address with a request or
watch out for them on alt.society.anarchy between the
13th and 24th of June.


The parts and their contents are.

Workers Solidarity 42 (Editorial and shorts) 1/6    
   For starters
   That's Capitalism
   Stake your claim to cash
   PLC students demand grants
   Telethon - A hypocritical sham
   If the cops don't like you
   French show how to fight... and win!
   Bosnia, Rwanda and UN intervention.

Workers Solidarity 42 (More shorts) 2/6

   Significant minority say NO to union leaders
   Don't vote...it only encourages them
   Letter
   Prepare to Sink the service charges
   Find Out More

WS 42 Gay Pride 3/6         

   Loud and Proud
   The reasons Emmet Stagg should resign

WS 42  Ireland, Sinn Fein and the peace talks. 4/6

   Yes to peace

WS 42 Year of the Family 5/6

   Parents, puritans and poverty
   Gas masks and pantyhose

WS 42 Evolution and revolution 6/6

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Workers Solidarity Movement can be contacted at 
     PO Box 1528, Dublin 8, Ireland

or by anonymous e-mail to an64739@anon.penet.fi

Some of our material is available via the Spunk press electronic archive

             by FTP to etext.archive.umich.edu or 141.211.164.18
              or by gopher ("gopher etext.archive.umich.edu")

in the directory /pub/Politics/Spunk/texts/groups/WSM
