In this podcast Laurie Taylor, Renata Selacl and Rachel Bowlby discuss whether or not we have ‘Too much choice? (second half of the broadcast)
This is relevant to ‘criticisms of postmodern thought’
Having established that ‘choice’ is the dominant way in which we experience life today’ – pointing to the areas in which we have to make choices – what school to go to, whether to have a caesarian birth, what mortgage,holiday, care, what partner… and so on!!! – two points of particular interest are –
Having too much choice can lead to anxiety – we constanly worry about ‘having made the right choices’ – and having made a choice – we sometimes worry that we have made the wrong choice and might focus on all the possibilities that have closed off to us a result – either way the net result of having too mcuh choice is anxiety. This challenges the idea that ‘more coice’ is automatically a good thing.
Secondly, there is the suggesting that we spend so much time making choices over relatively mundane things – that we lose sight of the bigger questions such as what’s wrong with society, where society is heading and issues such as social inequalities – Laurie Taylor in fact talks of us being ‘burdened’ with choice’ and there is a suggestion that ‘having to choose’ makes us less free and more powerless. ‘
I think the issue they are getting at is that we have choice over certain things – but only as consumers – and no real power to influence politics at a deeper level -the conservatives and labour and lib dems are all right wing for example. In this sense one can see consumerism as part of neo-liberal ideoligical control.
NB – I’m moving most of the material on here to my new site – ReviseSociology.com – check it out for everything related to AS and A level Sociology
The £45.5 Billion Dollar Question: what would you invest in?
OK you won’t exactly be able to make it, but here’s a link to an interesting event to be hosted by the World Developmen Movement in Glasgow –
What would you do with £45.5 billion? It’s a lot of money – not far off the GDP of Iraq. £45.5 billion is the amount of taxpayers’ money that the UK Government has given to one single British bank to bail them out. That bank is RBS. And RBS is investing that money in projects that are wrecking the climate and abusing human rights. But imagine what else could be done with £45.5 billion. This interactive event will set you thinking about the power of money and how it can be used to make the world a better, or worse, place.
See http://www.wdm.org.uk/events/wdm-scotland-autumn-events
Marxist commentators would probably call these type of activities for being ‘Utopian’ personally I think think Utopian thought is a useful critical tool
It is not the underlying rate of crime or the seriousness of crime that explain cross national variations in imprisonment rates – It is how punitive the state is, which in turn is related to the degree of inequality in a soceity. This is just one of the claims of Richard Wilkson and Kate Pickett, authors of the spirit level. Lets look at the evidence –
In the USA and UK prison populations have been increasing –
USA 1978 – Prison population – 450 000
USA 2005- Prison population- 2 000 000 + (more than two million)
UK 1990 Prison population – 46 000
UK 2007 Prison population 80 000
UK 2009 Prison population 85 000 (note just two years + 5000 prisoners!)
This means that in the US the prison population quadrupled in 27 years and almost double in 20 years in the UK.
This contrasts remarkably with what has been going on in other countries – in Sweden the prison population was stable through the 1990s and rates have been falling in France and Germany.
Note however that critics point to the problems of making cross national comparisons where crime stats are concerned.
Wilkinson argues that the number of people locked up in prison is influence by three things –
The rate of crime
The length of sentence
The tendency to send convicted prisoners to jail which is in turn influenced by the likelihood of someone being caught and successfully prosecuted.
Criminologists Alfred Blumstein and Allen Beck examined the growth of the US prison populations between 1980 and 1996 and found that 88% of the increased imprisonment was due to tougher sentencing laws – namely the ‘three strikes law’ and the ‘truth in sentencing’ law which means less likelihood of getting out early. In California in 2004 there were 360 people serving life sentences for shoplifting – 0ut of a current population of 37 million, just over half the UK population!
Wilkinson also argues that tougher sentencing explains the increase in prison populations in the UK – Crime has been going down every year since 1995 according to the BCS.
So basically, claim 1 that Wilkinson makes is that it is not the underlying rate of crime or the seriousness of crime that explains imprisonment rates – its is how punitive the state is.
The second claim Wilkinson makes is that a high level of income inequality is correlated with a punitive state and a high prison population – click on the table below I couldn’t make it any larger!
The third point he makes is that those countries that are more equal are more likely to emphasise treatment and rehabilitation than punishment – with suspended rather than custodial sentencing more likely. This approach is found in the Netherlands and in Japan where some prisons have been called ‘islands of tranquillity. Guards are expected to be role models in the prisoners’ rehabilitation.
I just couldn’t resist this – the Dutch police clip from the Fast Show – I’m sure they’re not this relaxed…
Wilkinson contrasts this to the crowded conditions and violence of guards the ‘supermax’ prisons in the USA – which are prisons within prisons where prisoners are kept in extreme isolation for up to 23 hours a day – estimates say that up to 40 000 people have been kept in these conditions. Medical Anthropologist Lorna Rhodes describes prisoners’ lives here as characterised by lack of movement, stimulation and social contact.
Wilkinson says ‘Not only do the higher crime rates of imprisonment in more unequal societies seem to reflect more punitive sentencing rather than crime rates, but both the harshness of the prison system and use of capital punishment point in the same direction’
The fourth point Wilkinson makes is that prison doesn’t work – he reports reoffending rates in the US and UK at about 60 -65% and in Sweden and Japan at 35 and 40% – one thing worth thinking about is that the higher the rate of reoffending, the higher the prison population – as you are more likely to go to jail for a second than a first offence!
He also suggests that there is a concern that ASBOs actually increase crime.
Finally, and in an interesting conclusion to the chapter, Wilkinson suggests that in unequal socieites, where the differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’ are greater, the result is a greater sense of fragmentation, which in turn leads to mistrust of others and a heightened fear of crime – this then leads to a public demand for politicians to get tough on crime, which they do in order to gain popularity. All of this of course is exaggerated by the media!
He contrasts this to more equal societies which are more likely to have a CJS that works with professionals – criminologists, lawyers and prison psychiatrists to think about how to actually reduce crime and rehabilitate offenders.
On the ineffectiveness of harsh punishment I also found this quote which appears at the end of the first link (the BBC one) at the top of this item
Frances Crook, the director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said that having doubled since the mid-1990s, a new record had been reached with no end in sight to further record highs.
“This ceaseless growth in prison numbers is untenable and any new administration will have to bite the bullet and find a strategic way to reduce the prison population,” she said.
“Recent statistics show that 36.8% reoffended on community sentences in 2008, compared with more than 61% for those sentenced to a year or less in prison. Not only are community sentences more effective at reducing crime but they come at a fraction of the price, with a community order costing on average £2,000-£3,000 a year, compared with at least £41,000 a year to run a prison place.”
So – if you believe Wilkinson’s stats, and a whole load of other stats incidentally, inequality leads to fear which leads to a punitive CJS which leads to a higher prison population.
NB – We will discuss the obvious problems of data selection, objectivity and attributing causality at some point in class.
According to the latest survey research from uSwitch.com, a single person will spend £250 000 pounds more in their lifetime than if they were part of a couple.
“ While the average annual income today is £23,960, someone living alone will be spending £11,904 of this on housing costs, essential bills and food, whereas somebody living as part of a couple will only be spending £7,110 a year. This means that those running a household single-handedly are forking out £4,794 or 67 per cent more just on the essentials.”
The article claims that single people will find it increasingly difficult to maintain a decent standard living, and given that the number of single person households are expected to increase to roughly 9 million in ten years, this means a lower standard of lving overall in the future.
As always, you need to be critical of this research – As Stuart Adam, senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), says
“The quarter of a million figure depends first on whether you believe their £5,000 a year finding and I’d need quite a lot of convincing that they’d got their methodology right. Then to get from £5,000 a year to a quarter of a million over your lifetime they’ve based it on 53 years alone from 22 to 75. But nowadays people change their status all the time, going into couples and splitting up.”
In short, this means that this kind of comparison, which takes a hypothetical single person and a hypothetical couple and assumes that their status won’t change for the next half a decade is pretty worthless – as it simply does not reflect the life course of most people – according to this site – http://uclue.com/?xq=1533 – the median length of a marriage is less than 12 years – and given this roller coaster ride of the lifecourse, there are many factors that will affect one’s consumption habits
For a start it is quite likely that a couple in a long term relationship will have children, in which case the difference in living costs referred to above is nearly wiped out because the cost of having a child is £200 000 over the course of the child’s life – http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/feb/23/child-cost-inflation
Secondly, some people will end up living in single parent households, and are more likely to experience poverty than couples of any status or just plain single people.
Thirdly, and Interestingly, according to the BBC article mentioned above, single people are better off at the bottom of the income scale because benefits are set up to favour them rather than couples, however, this could change when the Tories change the benefits regime.
Where I can see support for the ‘pity the poor singles’ tone of the article is when it comes to those people not on benefits but in the fourth quartile of income earners – I would imagine that being a minimum wage income earner and being single is pretty grim – and here I can see how being in a couple would be an economic advantage –
(A quick aside – fear poverty is one of reasons why victims of domestic violence do not leave their partners – interesting research idea – are affluent victims of DV more likely to leave their abusers than poorer victims? There must be something out there on this!)
Finally, whether or not a single person or a couple will spend more also depends on what type of person, or what type of couple they are – it depends on their values and their lifestyle. A materialistic couple may well spend more than a non-materialist single person –the naked guy – http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2007/oct/12/don-schrader-reveals-inner-layers-his-life/ certainly bucks the expenditure trend mentioned above.
Something else worth noting is that it is mainly housing costs which make the difference, which are so expensive because of our desire to own our own homes which means we spend a lot of our adult life in debt – which means we end up paying a lot of money in interest – I have a fairly good mortgage deal and will be paying back about £170 for every £100 borrowed from my bank! So whether in a couple or single – the bank’s a winner –
My mortgage will last for fifteen years – longer than the averge marriage – and so doing a ‘static comparison’ on this is much more valid than is the case with the uSwitch research – lets keep the maths simple – on a £200 000 house (although you wouldn’t get a house for that where I live!) I will end up paying the bank and additional £140 000 in interest – so I say stuff these silly comparison sites – lets socialise lending for housing – this makes a huge different to our life quality too.
Having pointed out that the survey was probably done in order to generate publicity for the uSwitch website, she reminds us that the equation – relationship – cheaper – happier – is a pretty mercenary view to have of relationships!
A couple of quotes from another excellent article by George Monbiot reminding us of the persistence of class inequality in the education system in Modern Britain –
‘A new report by the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) shows that intelligent children from the 20% of richest homes in England are seven times more likely to attend a high-ranking university than intelligent children from the poorest 40%’
‘People from upper middle class, public school backgrounds dominate every economic sector except those – such as sport and hard science – in which only raw ability counts. Through networking, confidence, unpaid internships, most importantly through our attendance at the top universities, we run the media, politics, the civil service, the arts, the City, law, medicine, big business, the armed forces, even, in many cases, the protest movements challenging these powers. The Milburn report, published last year, shows that 45% of top civil servants, 53% of top journalists, 32% of MPs, 70% of finance directors and 75% of judges come from the 7% of the population who went to private schools(6). Even the beneficiaries should be able to see that this system is grotesque, invidious and socially destructive.’
KT’s comment –
One of the most important lessons a Sociology student can learn about Modern Britain is that the wealthier someone’s parents are, the more opportunity they have to get a decent education and succeed in life.
As Monbiot reminds us, this is simply the statistical truth and it distresses me when students deny the truth and come back at me with pitiful examples of people who have come from a poor background and succeeded (Alan Sugar is an often cited example) or, worse, just straight forwardly deny that the inequality of opportunity has any kind of bearing on their own lives.
Let me make this very clear – if you are from a poor background you have less chance of getting decent grades, going to university and getting a decent job than someone from a richer background, even if you are as intelligent as that richer child. If you are 16/17 then they have already benefitted from thousands of pounds, maybe tens of thousands of pounds of extra investment because of their wealth.
If you are from a poor background and do manage to get into one of the better universities, you are a statistical anomaly and should be congratulated – but you should still feel aggrieved, even if you do succeed, because you have had an uphill struggle compared to those from wealthier backgrounds who you have been competing against – even once you are in university the wealthy are less likely to need to get a part time job, and more likely to have their parents paying at least part of their fees.
If are one of the poor losers in our education system – remember this – you do not owe the successful anything – their success is at least as much to do with money and luck as it is with their ability.
Incidentally, now the Tories are in power, and we have a millionaire prime minister, deputy prime-minister and chancellor, this inequality is set to get worse.
Where to go next
Please read this! This is an interesting blog post from a Sociology teacher who works in an American community college. This is a review a book about the ‘myth of meritocracy’ followed by som interesting comments on how her students find it difficult to accept the fact that we do not live in a fair society.
Also look out for my future blog on the Conservative policy of ‘free schools’
An interesting question for you to think about is this – why is it so hard for us to accept that social class background has a profound impact on life chances?
A hyperreflexive blog focussing on critical sociology, infographics, Buddhism and extreme early retirement
