Bring back Workhouses!

[eldar]

Soovy said:

A great idea this.

Bandy legged trollops who get pregnant at 16 should be denied council houses and put in secure accomodation like this. They should be put to work for food, and their children educated and brought up properly.

State brothels?

[OnTheOverrun]

dilbert said:

OnTheOverrun said:

dilbert said:

OnTheOverrun said:

dilbert said:

OnTheOverrun said:

<snipped to kill the quote nest>

dilbert said:

My profile has never said any such thing.
And anyway, I thought that you weren't going to lower yourself to pathetic insults.

ETA;
Oh, I see, my apologies. You're right.

As it happens it's more or less sold. I'm selling it to pay for the Home information Pack. So I don't have a bad credit rating. I'll be sad, but it's got to go.

In the mean time you can push me into the workhouse, and on to the death camp.

Edited by dilbert on Monday 26th April 18:48

Well, there aren't any workhouses. It's a theoretical discussion of the pros and cons of such. Wouldn't you just be better off getting a job?

Back when I wrote that, I was more positive about the chances of finding work, and not losing my house. It's long gone now....

But hey, this thread isn't about me. At least not unless you want to kill me now, and prove my point.

Edited by dilbert on Monday 26th April 19:37

I can't remember ever expressing the wish you were dead, perhaps you would be kind enough to point out where I did?

Have you really been unemployed since 2007? I don't mean any offence in asking that, despite all the offence you have tried to give me, but that's a hell of a long time.

It is. It's st. And that's life under Labour.

You know. I'll be sad, because that car represents a time where I was actually useful in society. But like the workhouse, the state is driving people down. It's erasing their past, and forgetting the benefit they may have been to society.

So when you say, we should make it so that no-one in a the workhouse should ever be able to take a normal job, I recognise that your suggested direction is the same as the current one. Taking us all to oblivion.

If it wasn't so real for me, I'd probably not recognise it.

Edited by dilbert on Monday 26th April 19:53

Two things:

1) Yes, life under labour is st. I'm a life long Conservative and over the past six years my small business has struggled just to survive and on a couple of occassions so tight that I've gone without pay to ensure my employees didn't have to. I hope you get sorted soon.

2) You need to read things more carefully. I never said that people in the workhouse should never be able to take a normal job. I said people with normal jobs will be protected so that their position cannot be usurped by those doing temporary workhouse work. If you'd read my point more carefully this would've been a much shorter thread. . . . . . . .

I once lived in a shoe box. So what?
If you beg I might be lenient.

I reckon you're part of the Labour machine.

Just like after the war.

Edited by dilbert on Monday 26th April 20:06

I reckon I can see why you can't get a job, so we'll just leave it there I think.

[dilbert]

OnTheOverrun said:

dilbert said:

OnTheOverrun said:

dilbert said:

OnTheOverrun said:

dilbert said:

OnTheOverrun said:

<snipped to kill the quote nest>

dilbert said:

My profile has never said any such thing.
And anyway, I thought that you weren't going to lower yourself to pathetic insults.

ETA;
Oh, I see, my apologies. You're right.

As it happens it's more or less sold. I'm selling it to pay for the Home information Pack. So I don't have a bad credit rating. I'll be sad, but it's got to go.

In the mean time you can push me into the workhouse, and on to the death camp.

Edited by dilbert on Monday 26th April 18:48

Well, there aren't any workhouses. It's a theoretical discussion of the pros and cons of such. Wouldn't you just be better off getting a job?

Back when I wrote that, I was more positive about the chances of finding work, and not losing my house. It's long gone now....

But hey, this thread isn't about me. At least not unless you want to kill me now, and prove my point.

Edited by dilbert on Monday 26th April 19:37

I can't remember ever expressing the wish you were dead, perhaps you would be kind enough to point out where I did?

Have you really been unemployed since 2007? I don't mean any offence in asking that, despite all the offence you have tried to give me, but that's a hell of a long time.

It is. It's st. And that's life under Labour.

You know. I'll be sad, because that car represents a time where I was actually useful in society. But like the workhouse, the state is driving people down. It's erasing their past, and forgetting the benefit they may have been to society.

So when you say, we should make it so that no-one in a the workhouse should ever be able to take a normal job, I recognise that your suggested direction is the same as the current one. Taking us all to oblivion.

If it wasn't so real for me, I'd probably not recognise it.

Edited by dilbert on Monday 26th April 19:53

Two things:

1) Yes, life under labour is st. I'm a life long Conservative and over the past six years my small business has struggled just to survive and on a couple of occassions so tight that I've gone without pay to ensure my employees didn't have to. I hope you get sorted soon.

2) You need to read things more carefully. I never said that people in the workhouse should never be able to take a normal job. I said people with normal jobs will be protected so that their position cannot be usurped by those doing temporary workhouse work. If you'd read my point more carefully this would've been a much shorter thread. . . . . . . .

I once lived in a shoe box. So what?
If you beg I might be lenient.

I reckon you're part of the Labour machine.

Just like after the war.

Edited by dilbert on Monday 26th April 20:06

I reckon I can see why you can't get a job, so we'll just leave it there I think.

I'm sure you can, but like the people at the job centre who offer me analysis that is beyond their station, I just ignore it.

Leave it there then. It's fine by me.

[hidetheelephants]

Eric Mc said:

dvs_dave said:

Eric Mc said:

I don't think you can argue that a workhouse would be cheaper at all.

It would be extremely difficult to cost accurately the financial benefits or otherwise of implementing such a scheme.

The direct cost of running them might be cheaper than the current system, but the downstream costs of putting low paid people out of work or paying people to do work that might not be really needed or rectifying poor workmanship caried out by a non-motivated workforce could very easily outweigh the initial perceived cost savings.

Equally I don't think you could argue it's more expensive? There seems to be the assumption that all the folk in a workhouse would not be interested in getting out of there (for some this will be the case) so have no incentive to work their way out? That would be one of the schemes fundamental directives. Work equals a better life.

You then go on to say it would put existing low paid workers out of a job. Who do you think in this country does the majority of these so called low paid jobs? By and large it's immigrant workers as it's worth their while. If it's worth their while, then it's worth anybody's while if the alternative is a workhouse. At least then you'd get rid of the "foreigners taking our jobs" and the "immigration" hot potato that is always used as an excuse.

The crux of the problem is that the system too easily encourages claiming benefits rather than getting even a low paid job and giving something back to society.

With regards the Nazi Germany comments, I think you've gone off on an irrelevant and extreme tangent with that one.

There is no doubt that the Nazis were extreme - but they didn't start off like that. Any policy that stigmatises and corrals people who have not committed any crime is a policy that has potential for an ultimately extreme outcome.

So I belive a study of what happened in Germany between 1933 to 1945 is always relevant.

I'm still not seeing any parallels; I don't think anyone is proposing locking anyone up, rather an extension of the communal single mother/child housing schemes which already exist. There you get a roof over your head, sanitation and laundry, and in return they are expected to contribute to chores, childcare and attempt to find employment. No gates, no guardtowers or spotlights, although I believe there is a curfew of some description(these may be the aforementioned bandy legged 16yr old trollops, and nighttime shenanigans are what got them there in the first place).

I fail to see what is objectionable about housing the unemployed in an economical(perhaps even austere?) manner(I am imagining something like my old halls of residence; 8x12 room with a sink, and lavvys, showers, kitchens and laundry on a shared basis.) Planners would need to ensure such things don't end up built exclusively on cheap land or in 'Beirut'. This could easily result in the ghetto-type scenario you suggest, and should be avoided by building them as close to urban centres as possible, or at least adjacent public transport nodes. There inevitably will be those who will prefer to remain idle, but at least the cost will be lower.

Less seriously, putting the reluctant nonworkers on excersize bikes or giant hamster wheels and get them to generate green leccy; for every 36 kilojoules produced, they get 10 minutes of Jeremy Kyle.

[dilbert]

hidetheelephants said:

Eric Mc said:

dvs_dave said:

Eric Mc said:

I don't think you can argue that a workhouse would be cheaper at all.

It would be extremely difficult to cost accurately the financial benefits or otherwise of implementing such a scheme.

The direct cost of running them might be cheaper than the current system, but the downstream costs of putting low paid people out of work or paying people to do work that might not be really needed or rectifying poor workmanship caried out by a non-motivated workforce could very easily outweigh the initial perceived cost savings.

Equally I don't think you could argue it's more expensive? There seems to be the assumption that all the folk in a workhouse would not be interested in getting out of there (for some this will be the case) so have no incentive to work their way out? That would be one of the schemes fundamental directives. Work equals a better life.

You then go on to say it would put existing low paid workers out of a job. Who do you think in this country does the majority of these so called low paid jobs? By and large it's immigrant workers as it's worth their while. If it's worth their while, then it's worth anybody's while if the alternative is a workhouse. At least then you'd get rid of the "foreigners taking our jobs" and the "immigration" hot potato that is always used as an excuse.

The crux of the problem is that the system too easily encourages claiming benefits rather than getting even a low paid job and giving something back to society.

With regards the Nazi Germany comments, I think you've gone off on an irrelevant and extreme tangent with that one.

There is no doubt that the Nazis were extreme - but they didn't start off like that. Any policy that stigmatises and corrals people who have not committed any crime is a policy that has potential for an ultimately extreme outcome.

So I belive a study of what happened in Germany between 1933 to 1945 is always relevant.

I'm still not seeing any parallels; I don't think anyone is proposing locking anyone up, rather an extension of the communal single mother/child housing schemes which already exist. There you get a roof over your head, sanitation and laundry, and in return they are expected to contribute to chores, childcare and attempt to find employment. No gates, no guardtowers or spotlights, although I believe there is a curfew of some description(these may be the aforementioned bandy legged 16yr old trollops, and nighttime shenanigans are what got them there in the first place).

I fail to see what is objectionable about housing the unemployed in an economical(perhaps even austere?) manner(I am imagining something like my old halls of residence; 8x12 room with a sink, and lavvys, showers, kitchens and laundry on a shared basis.) Planners would need to ensure such things don't end up built exclusively on cheap land or in 'Beirut'. This could easily result in the ghetto-type scenario you suggest, and should be avoided by building them as close to urban centres as possible, or at least adjacent public transport nodes. There inevitably will be those who will prefer to remain idle, but at least the cost will be lower.

Less seriously, putting the reluctant nonworkers on excersize bikes or giant hamster wheels and get them to generate green leccy; for every 36 kilojoules produced, they get 10 minutes of Jeremy Kyle.

Are you seriously suggesting a policy of excising people from their homes, to be housed in some ghetto. Because that was Nazism.

If you wish you can take away their benefits. They can't pay their rent. So you can choose where to relocate them. There are no Storm-troopers, but it's the same thing.

Edited by dilbert on Monday 26th April 20:40

[Pothole]

dilbert said:

Pothole said:

Eric Mc said:

Pothole said:

not really the way it happened...death camps were always on the agenda

No they weren't.

The Nazis had all sorts of schemes for solving the "Jewish Question" (and getting rid of others those they considered to be social undesirables). Systematic extermination only really became an official policy after 1942.

Edited by Eric Mc on Monday 26th April 14:30

despite the 'official policy' I reckon Mr H had getting rid of the Jews on his agenda a lot earlier and it was not just a reaction to the work camps being too full which was my point.

I agree that it was on his mind earlier. Since way back when you were posting you were a proponent of the workhouse, isn't it an admission that it's on your mind (as a solution) too?

Edited by dilbert on Monday 26th April 19:03

You've lost me.

[Political Pain]

Regarding the original idea at the start of this thread, I think it would be totally wrong.

I want people to work, real work, you know... production.

I don't want jobs that are state jobs, real jobs that add to our economy, workhouses would kill that at birth, we already have an uphill task raising a generation that believes in real work, just look in office windows and you see puny, anaemic specimens of the male gender that in order to not suffer 'sedentary diseases' have to go to gyms or ride 'mountain bikes' at the weekend, leg pumping lycra fetishists to a man.

Plus, workhouses would [I think] make things even worse than they are now.

Bad as it is now, the terrifying fact is it could be worse, there might just be a politician with a similar idea as yours rattling around in the cabbage masquerading as his brain.

[alfabadass]

dvs_dave said:

After visiting the National Trust Workhouse in Southwell the other day and learning about the "poor law" and workhouse system, it struck me what a bloody good idea it is. I believe that a modern version should be brought back in to combat the career benefits underclass that has taken a hold of this country.

It would surely cost less overall than paying all these feckless and idle wasters benefits to do nothing whilst sat in a free house, their numerous offsping committing petty crimes and costing the NHS a fortune through their lifestyle induced ill health. I'm not saying all benefits people should go into a workhouse, but certainly those who show no inclination to better themselves, of which there seems to be a rapidly increasing number. It would certainly give them an incentive to get off their arses and contribute something back to society.

Can anyone think of a reason why a modernised version would not be good for the country, both economically and socially?

Edited by dvs_dave on Monday 26th April 10:21

Would you like to end up in a workhouse? Or your kids you or they suddenly have some bad luck?

[hidetheelephants]

dilbert said:

{Snip for spacesaving}

Are you seriously suggesting a policy of excising people from their homes, to be housed in some ghetto. Because that was Nazism.

If you wish you can take away their benefits. They can't pay their rent. So you can choose where to relocate them. There are no Storm-troopers, but it's the same thing.

Edited by dilbert on Monday 26th April 20:40

Certainly not; the point of the original post was that the taxpayer is being unreasonably burdened by the current housing policy. What more economical options are there? Dormitories, somewhat similar to student halls; students get 'ghettoised', it doesn't seem to do them any harm. How is this any different or more reprehensible than housing people in council housing; a lot of which certainly could be described as being in ghettoes(and a lot of it is in terrible condition and is causing chronic illness in the occupants, but that's another can of worms)?

Council housing departments already choose where people get sent, are they nazis? Folk get their benefits stopped all the time, because of fecklessness, clerical error, and fraud; is this the Reich in making? As I pointed out before there are already communal housing schemes for young single mothers, are jackboots secretly being polished ready for the great day?

And please don't think I'm some kind of unthinking rightwing loon; I have been longterm unemployed in the past, and I know exactly how soul destroying it is, and how rubbish the jobcentre is if you have anything more than A-levels on your CV.

[dvs_dave]

alfabadass said:

Would you like to end up in a workhouse? Or your kids you or they suddenly have some bad luck?

I'm not feckless, idle or unwilling to work so therefore I wouldn't end up in one. Bad luck doesn't come into it.

A workhouse is not a prison, just a way of making idleness a much less appealing and easy prospect for those who've made a career of it.

[alfabadass]

If you think that then you are a fool.

[dilbert]

hidetheelephants said:

dilbert said:

{Snip for spacesaving}

Are you seriously suggesting a policy of excising people from their homes, to be housed in some ghetto. Because that was Nazism.

If you wish you can take away their benefits. They can't pay their rent. So you can choose where to relocate them. There are no Storm-troopers, but it's the same thing.

Edited by dilbert on Monday 26th April 20:40

Certainly not; the point of the original post was that the taxpayer is being unreasonably burdened by the current housing policy. What more economical options are there? Dormitories, somewhat similar to student halls; students get 'ghettoised', it doesn't seem to do them any harm. How is this any different or more reprehensible than housing people in council housing; a lot of which certainly could be described as being in ghettoes(and a lot of it is in terrible condition and is causing chronic illness in the occupants, but that's another can of worms)?

Council housing departments already choose where people get sent, are they nazis? Folk get their benefits stopped all the time, because of fecklessness, clerical error, and fraud; is this the Reich in making? As I pointed out before there are already communal housing schemes for young single mothers, are jackboots secretly being polished ready for the great day?

And please don't think I'm some kind of unthinking rightwing loon; I have been longterm unemployed in the past, and I know exactly how soul destroying it is, and how rubbish the jobcentre is if you have anything more than A-levels on your CV.

It all seems reasonable. But who exactly are you targeting?
I appreciate that you're saying these people have to be moved, but are you saying they're living in heaven? I envisage that most of them are already living in ghettos nee drug infested highrise estates.
How does building a nicer ghetto, actually work out cheaper?

As you appreciate the hopelessness of long term dole, you'll also be aware that geography has a lot to do with things. So you build the highrise, or whatever, and it's miles from any work (where it's cheap). Then you move your specially chosen group of benefits claimants from their existing highrise into a new one. The new one is higher density, so you can magnify hurt and pain. Rather than getting the existing benefits claimants into jobs, you've moved them away from the work. More people are in this hell, and the situation is less hopeful.

So now you build the workhouse next door. They all have somewhere to work.

What the hell are you going to get them to do?

What the heck is it that this 1-4 million people are actually going to do?

This then is the core of the problem. There are more people than jobs.

It's that simple. It's why the workhouse leads to the death camp. It makes the assumption that the workhouse is the solution, and it's not.

More private sector jobs is the solution. In practical terms they can't all be in the same place. Since unemployment is pretty well spread about, why bother moving people. Just create jobs where-ever the people are.

But to be sure, don't create public sector jobs. Because they're not going to make any money on foreign markets.

Really, the way to do it is with engineering, and sales. You basically create a new, high value product that no-one else has. You invest in it like mad. You sell it hard. It brings in the gold bars and everyone is happy.

I'm unemployed. I'm an engineer. You want to move me into some ghetto where I'm miles from the work. You'll probably have me doing something menial. I don't mind, but you can't afford to waste me.

And anyway, it's not about me. It's about all the others. Because they all have some kind of valuable talent too. In a workhouse you simply cannot exploit it. If you give me a plan explaining how you're going to get the best out of more than 25% of them, I'll join the queue to go.

It's a low grade solution, for a high grade problem.

Let people be. End the social engineering. Cut the red tape. It will fix it's self.

Edited by dilbert on Tuesday 27th April 01:34

[cymtriks]

Why not a half way solution?

You can live where you want but to claim benefits you must report to a state work centre 9-00 to 5-00.

There will be a job club, a crech (kids won't get you out of this), an army recruiting sargent, buses taking people to work projects such as clearing out flood defence ditches or clearing footpaths.

You get paid a flat benefit for being there. Do nothing while you are there and this is halved.



This is what the rest of us have to do after all...

[zcacogp]

This thread is getting very complex, with numerous sub-discussions taking place in it. But some interesting points are raised, and worth talking about. Excellebnt post from Sway BTW, although I'd be interested how he has ended up worse off by having a job and a house.

Eric Mc said:

There is no doubt that the Nazis were extreme - but they didn't start off like that. Any policy that stigmatises and corrals people who have not committed any crime is a policy that has potential for an ultimately extreme outcome.

Actually Eric, I think you are wrong there. One of the (many) things that I think we have lost in society is the concept of shame. Certain types of behaviour are not criminal but are not desirable. If society points their collective fingers at people who behave in such a manner and marks them out as 'shameful', then I think that society would be MUCH stronger for it.

Having children out of wedlock (there's an old-fashioned phrase) used to be a very shameful thing. Now, single-parent families are a very real everyday reality, and kids raised in such an environment do less well on almost every socio-economic scale. If we bought back the concept of social shame for young women who have kids outside of marriage then less will do so - simple as that! (This is being argued from a simply economic and social viewpoint, not a religious one - which I suspect we share BTW.)

Same goes for claiming benefits. My father claimed unemployment benefit for two months when he was in this 20's. And he remembers the shame he felt about that, and the social stigma that came with 'signing on'. Now, people openly say "I'm off to the dole office to get my 'pay'." This can't encourage anyone to seek work (either the person in question or anyone watching them, or the kids of the person signing on either), and is therefore a bad thing.

If workhouses were to be re-introduced (and I'm genuinely interested in your arguments against them) then I would hope that they bring a strong sense of stigma for those who go into them. A stigma which they wear socially, and which causes them to strive to better their lot through work, and to teach their kids that life without work is a bad thing.


Oli.

[dvs_dave]

+1

It seems that people are getting carried away by the concept of a workhouse and claiming it will end up as a nazi death camp which is simply absurd.

Now dibert, you say you've been out of work since 2007 which is a very long time. As a skilled worker who certainly in the past has not had a problem working for a living, what has prevented you from getting a job for so long, assuming you're able bodied and healthy?

[dvs_dave]

alfabadass said:

If you think that then you are a fool.

You're a fool for not thinking that. Does that make us even?

[V8mate]

dvs_dave said:

Now dilbert, ... what has prevented you from getting a job for so long, assuming you're able bodied and healthy?

I bet it's those bloody Nazis!

[RV8]

A family member of mine has moved yet another reprobate into their house, who, like previous partners seemingly refuses to work and is quite happy to sit around in free accommodation and getting fed for free. I should probably explain that this family member of mine has not worked in nearly a decade and isn't pressing them to find work. On top of their benefits my parents have been suckered into paying for 90% of their outgoings, including mortgage, bills, occasional food shopping and (understandably) stuff for the kids. Their benefit money seems to get spent on new equipment, dvd's etc going out and takeaways. Better yet, until fairly recently a fair proportion used to get spent on drugs.. and yes they both have children with different people - a fine model of responsibility to give your children get to your late twenties and still live off your parents.... or someone elses.
The person that has moved in with my family member has no reason not to find work and help contribute, I've pressed them about it and I've heard mumbled excuses for why they cant find work. When they discuss what they are entitled to from the benefit system they begrudgingly mention what other people who are also on benefits are getting, it is as if they are competing with people who are also on the same career path as them, namely the benefit system. There is little mention of furthering themselves with a career in a work environment, this it seems would be too difficult or is always brushed off as "yes, one day I'll have to work".

It should be known that not everyone who is living off the benefit system is a drain on the nation - there are probably hundreds of thousands who are ALSO a drain on either their family or someone else's, if and when people retire and have no money to support their sponging children the benefit system will get hit for the deficit. Mark my words this is a big problem.
There are some people who are work-shy, rude, scruffy, aggressive or violent, paranoid, claustrophobic, agoraphobic or have a number of these problems which makes them unsuitable to work, temporarily. The government should be paying them or supporting them for a limited period to get to well enough to work they should not be paying them to fabricate a problem they don't have to avoid working which in all honesty seems to be the case.

Edited by RV8 on Tuesday 27th April 12:10

[dilbert]

RV8 said:

A family member of mine has moved yet another reprobate into their house, who, like previous partners seemingly refuses to work and is quite happy to sit around in free accommodation and getting fed for free. I should probably explain that this family member of mine has not worked in nearly a decade and isn't pressing them to find work. On top of their benefits my parents have been suckered into paying for 90% of their outgoings, including mortgage, bills, occasional food shopping and (understandably) stuff for the kids. Their benefit money seems to get spent on new equipment, dvd's etc going out and takeaways. Better yet, until fairly recently a fair proportion used to get spent on drugs.. and yes they both have children with different people - a fine model of responsibility to give your children get to your late twenties and still live off your parents.... or someone elses.
The person that has moved in with my family member has no reason not to find work and help contribute, I've pressed them about it and I've heard mumbled excuses for why they cant find work. When they discuss what they are entitled to from the benefit system they begrudgingly mention what other people who are also on benefits are getting, it is as if they are competing with people who are also on the same career path as them, namely the benefit system. There is little mention of furthering themselves with a career in a work environment, this it seems would be too difficult or is always brushed off as "yes, one day I'll have to work".

It should be known that not everyone who is living off the benefit system is a drain on the nation - there are probably hundreds of thousands who are ALSO a drain on either their family or someone else's, if and when people retire and have no money to support their sponging children the benefit system will get hit for the deficit. Mark my words this is a big problem.
There are some people who are work-shy, rude, scruffy, aggressive or violent, paranoid, claustrophobic, agoraphobic or have a number of these problems which makes them unsuitable to work, temporarily. The government should be paying them or supporting them for a limited period to get to well enough to work they should not be paying them to fabricate a problem they don't have to avoid working which in all honesty seems to be the case.

Edited by RV8 on Tuesday 27th April 12:10

I wonder how many people think they are contributing, go to work, and don't actually do anything.

[dvs_dave]

dilbert said:

I wonder how many people think they are contributing, go to work, and don't actually do anything.

A large proportion of the public sector but there's another thread running about that. If you work for a profitable private organisation then by definition you're contributing to the economy.