Cost of things

Having more doesn't mean a better quality of life. There is more to buy. And more expensive things. When I went to school it was just me. Now kids have mobile phones, iPods, designer clothes. I remember the first time I saw a digital watch. Wow! That was amazing...

Digital watch! Digital watch! Luxury! When I were a lad we used to 'ave to tell the time by the sun.

"But I think 'poverty' today is more about social deprivation rather than lack of money. Kids have mobile phones, iPods and designer clothes but not having techno gadgets and having to wear Primark clothes is not really poverty." Well, relative poverty is a different thing to extreme poverty but that doesn't make it unimportant. I agree that access to i-pods is not a very good measure of poverty levels but even if a family can afford expensive presents as a one-off at Christmas, that doesn't mean they can afford adequate housing - which is much more relevant measure. Even if the people on £100 a week spent nothing at all on Christmas presents, that saving wouldn't bridge the gap between renting a two-bedroom flat and renting a four-bedroom house for a year (or, in fact, a month). But we do have extreme poverty, too.

No, it's not, because someone who's got the money wouldn't expect to have to do basic decorating themselves - and if they're not the landlord there's no reason why they should. And I don't think the fact that people have lived in cramped conditions in the past is argument in favour of it now. Bad housing is an example of fiscal poverty because it's a situation that you wouldn't choose if you had the money.

I think I can sniff the hoary old 'the middle class are the new underclass' trope here. Being cash flow poor doesn't necessarily mean that you are really poor. You may be paying a mortgage, paying insurance, putting cash into savings, pensions, paying school fees etc. This makes you secure in the medium to long term, but you and your children are in essence waiting for the short-term frugality to pay off. This does not make you poor, you are simply putting off material comforts for an investment in the future. People who really are poor don't really have enough money to invest in the future, hence the fact they spend more on Christmas. As David points out above, there's a big gap between being able to buy your kid an i-pod and being able to secure their future, or have an income that allows you to buy rather than rent. It's quite reasonable to try to have the best in the immediate term if you know that penny pinching will, in the long term, make no difference to your situation because you are not simply drawing from the reassurance of a future store of happiness. Cheers, Mark

as has already been said, being awash with consumer goods doesn't mean your life is any better/richer. Capitalism has this annoying trait of making things affordable even to those on the lower salary scales, and marketing does a great job of making us think we need these things. My god, the new iPhone advert "How did we survive without mobile internet?" Uhm.... It also allows people, and those horrible middle class sociologists, to point and say we're so much better off than we were in the past. Oh yeah...Wanna swap places Prof? I thought not. Playstation 3 for Christmas anyone? Bah.

Maybe I've had a skewed experience, but it's 'those horrible middle class sociologist' that are most likely to say that we should knock it over, burn it down and kick it 'til it breaks. Maybe I just knew the radical ones. Cheers, Mark

Jude, Your position expressed above is New Labour(as opposed to Old Labour)'s entire economic policy in a few sentences. I don't entirely disagree with the 'hand-up not a hand-out' position in principle. There's a few problems with it, though. One is that - in the case of people facing multiple difficulties - the 'hand-up' proposals such as those advocated by John Bird of TBI would actually cost a lot more in the short term than the current hand-out measures. Another problem is that some people - for various reasons - are never going to be economically successful and, in my view, should not be condemned to a crap life because of this. Finally, linked to that but more contentious, is that the economic is system is structured in such a way as to condemn a significant percentage of the population to relative poverty even if they're working hard in full time jobs.

"Finally, linked to that but more contentious, is that the economic is system is structured in such a way as to condemn a significant percentage of the population to relative poverty even if they're working hard in full time jobs." Socialist theory 101 Buk; shouldn't be contentious, it's bloody obvious.

I know. It's contentious in that Jude won't agree and she's more representative of mainstream opinion in the UK than me.

I don't really know what you mean by "mainstream opinion" Jude, perhaps the discourse of the powerful. I believe that equality of outcome barely even registers on the radar of public debate; when the idea is presented it is as a caricature, the sort of Cold War mythology we were exposed to as children, kind of "oh well if that's the kind of equality you're after you must be in favour of Soviet Communism and look how that ended up." In fact the ideals of the National Health Service and of universal benefits are both examples of a limited equality of outcomes. For me equality of opportunity is at best naive and flawed, at worst positively cynical, a convenient myth for the champions of profound inequality. Am I not my brother's keeper?

I wasn't exactly saying I think most people find equality of outcome objectionable. You get a lot of opinion polls saying stuff like this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,2170699,00.html But there's a difference between believing in a more equal sharing of the burden of maintaining the kind of economic system we have, and a believe that the fundamental aims of our current economic policies are wrong - and that greater equality of wealth and power is a good thing in itself.

"But I think we need better measures of what is really crap." This thread. :P Oh dear! I think I ruptured my pomposity.

I have just started reading a book about status anxiety by Alain de Botton, it begins with a very persuasive argument about the nature of poverty. I recommend it to everyone interested in the experience and reality of deprivation.

It is a deprivation and a poverty for people to feel they cannot do anything for themselves or think or create for themselves.That everything has to be given to them.It is like children who are "bored".The best thing to say is "great"now you have a chance to work out a solution.There is grumbling ,there is whining , but eventually something comes up.My daughter recently made a very fine dragon out of a satsuma peel.nest, fire breath and all.Imagination and self reliance and vision can be taught and valued.Socialism doesn't seem to do this at all.Being happy involves far more than just the latest gadget.

When you say with all confidence that "socialism" does or does not do this or that Camilla I wonder which "socialism" you are talking about. To be honest you make yourself sound like the opinion writers in the Daily Express, as if you accept the idea that what happened in the Soviet Union was socialism. I need to remind you of two things: for many millions of people now and in the past capitalism has entirely failed to deliver the opportunity to do any more than fight for every mouthful of food and for the crudest of shelters - it is hard to fulfill one's human potential when one's stomach is empty; secondly very many socialists have been very much concerned with self-reliance and freeing the human imagination. You may well not know that many socialists and trade unionists were opposed to the introduction of national insurance because of the detrimental effects it might have on working class organisation and self-reliance. I consider myself a kind of socialist and I consider state welfare to be a blight on people's lives, a poor substitute for freedom and equality.

I don't agree that state welfare is a blight on people's lives. I think broadly social democratic systems have proved to be the least worst option out the various approaches than have been tried over the last 100 year or so. I do agree, though, that safety net benefits along the lines of the current UK system are nothing to do with socialism. They're there to make capitalism more efficient by making it more bearable for those who don't do very well out of it. "secondly very many socialists have been very much concerned with self-reliance and freeing the human imagination." I also agree with this. English socialism in particular has a strong libertarian anti-government history going back hundreds of years. I'd also argue that you generally needed plenty of "imagination and self-reliance" to stick life in the Soviet Union.

"I'd also argue that you generally needed plenty of "imagination and self-reliance" to stick life in the Soviet Union." LOL! Absolutely Buk.

I agree that the UK system is humane on the whole.But I worked for a lot of years with people whose only creativity was around how to screw more out of the system. Or if not the system they would go "shopping"(shoplifting) to fund a drug habit.There was no room in it all somehow for them imagine how to really change their lives or make them better in small ways. They spent a fortune on vastly expensive clothes and toys for the kids.Everything was materialistic yet unsatisfying. I'm sure there are plenty of people who can address ways of helping people out of the poverty trap better than I can.I still think that we can encourage everyone to value imagination, problem solving ,and creativity more than we do.At one point I taught nurses on a cardiac course.They were all Sisters (and me early 20s)and fairly tough cookies "Oh we know all about child development."So I posed the question"You are specialing a child in an isolation cubicle for 8 hours and have only what is in the room. List what you would do to entertain the child between obs" They looked thoughtful actually newpaper paper chains made with a jolly parent and a bit of glitter is probably a lot nicer than heres an ipod now go away from a grim one.I look forward to "Ballet Shoes" on Boxing Day.It is full of generosity and all round niceness.

Yes Camilla, a great present won't make up for a crap parent, but you seem to be infering the more expensive the present, the worse the parent. Can you spot the flaw? Not everyone that wants to give their kids material comforts at Christmas is a complete turd. I agree that the glossy pleasures of consumption probably can't repair a deeper malaise, but you're making the classic mistake of attacking the people, not the situation. People who have problems tend not to be saint-like in their ability to transcend the world around them and rise, angelic, into a universe of pure love and spiritual satisfaction. That's why they have problems. When presented with an overwhelming sea of images of material, romantic, family satisfcation which appears to be achievable by handing over the cash, most of us are seduced. If you say that you aren't; that you aren't ever even slightly convince by an advert or slightly interested in the contents of another person's house, wardrobe or garage, I'll say that you lie to make a point. Some of our greatest minds are involved in the process of selling us things. Even the most staunch elective non-consumer amongst us sometimes thinks 'I bet my legs would look good in those trousers' or 'Are those crow's feet?' or 'I wish my computer was faster'. People who aren't generally having a good time of things are even more susceptible to this romance; uniquely placed to hear the siren call more loudly than others. If you have less of a chance to be happy all logic in late capitalism dictates that you should buy happy, because you as a consumer get what you pay for. Cheers, Mark

I think it is possible not to be entirely sucked in by "buying happiness" and to encourage such capacity in ones children.There are always going to be people who are prettier,richer,smarter,and faster than oneself and to allow unchecked envy is a a hiding to misery.One lives then in the world endlessly dissatisfied. Things themselves expensive or not are less important than the relationships one has or the richness of ones internal world.