Mike Williams argues that social exclusion if it is anything, is something we do to ourselves

What is social exclusion?

Social exclusion is the buzzword baby. It's cool to be down and out right now. Fucked on, drugged up, uncared for and poor. Well perhaps not, but social exclusion is the term that political wannabes and intellectual journos are keen to elaborate on as much as possible right now in order to exhibit their incredible perceptualisations on society and it's discontents. Since Tony Blair scientificated being poor by labelling it as social exclusion, there's been a big buzz about how now we've labelled it we can go on to conquer it. Blair's even set up a Social Exclusion Unit to tackle the issue. Wowzers Batman.

But what is social exclusion and is it any different to being poor? Social exclusion is a modern phenomena whereby people who are poor in today's society stand more chance of being excluded from a number of different areas of life, as opposed to the old days when being poor meant that you couldn't afford custard. Something like that anyway. But is social exclusion really any different from being poor?

Perhaps. There is a sense in which social exclusion is distinct from poverty and that is in the sense that it is a phenomenon that has evolved as a direct result of the recent intensification of capitalism and consumerism into spheres of life such as sport, television, religion, youth culture etc. Consequentially, money and the ability to consume has become increasingly important in an increasing number of spheres of life. And as our ability to enter social settings and our identity, value and worth become more dependent on what we consume (rather than the beliefs we hold, the community we are bought up in etc) so the poor of each successive generation become more excluded from more spheres of life. If money increasingly becomes our only means of social inclusion, then the poor with no money increasingly become exposed to social exclusion. Simple innit?

And as the poor become increasingly excluded, so a culture of exclusion begins to develop. With the demise of benefits, free school education and health care, the only way people can get out of poverty is by consuming their way out, which means that it becomes even harder for people within generations of poverty to 'get out of the hood' because to do so they have to consume, and by their very nature the poor are unable to consume. And so social exclusion is all about how generations of poverty are perpetuated and subsequently become increasingly cut off from mainstream society. The crucial difference is that in the past, the poor held the same aspirations as the rich and often had half a chance to get halfway there. Now, the poor do not even consider the employment aspirations of the rich as no-one they know has ever been there and no-one they know expects them to get there. That the argument goes, is social exclusion. Wow.

The bigger picture

Globalisation. Sorry, but if you want to understand social exclusion you'll have to understand globalisation. In the past nation states were closed markets. That is the wealth of the nation depended on what the nation could produce and nothing else. Therefore, while in the past there was always the rich and always the poor their prospects were to a large extent related. The wealthy's wealth depended on investing and yielding the profits from the worker's work. Investment in the poor equalled better workers equalled better work equalled bigger profits equalled 'everyone's appy'.

Now. Things have changed. Thanks to the hegemony of the USA and the IMF (an American financial institution) the markets of the nation state have opened up to form one big market place. The wealth of Britian's wealthy is no longer invested in the people of the UK. Instead it is given to pension managers, who at the push of a computer button invest the money into a multiplicity of foreign investment projects most of which rely on some poor peasant in an autocratic country (like Burma) stitching up a multinational's footballs for a pittance. May not be too nice for the stitcher, but it makes a splendid profit for the investor who is legally obliged to look for such investment opportunities. The consequence is that the wealth of the rich and middle class no longer depends on the fabric of the success of national industry and so there is no longer a need to maintain the poorer elements of society because investing in peasant workers abroad yields more dividends. Therefore social exclusion as a process in which the poor get poorer can be seen as created, perpetuated and extenuated by globalisation.

Hard Cheese

And the fact is that despite Tony Blair's "one nation - people's propaganda", social exclusion is not going to go away. Tiny Tony's pitiful policies are unlikely to stop the one big juggernaut of a social process that is globalisation. Tony Blair has a dream: and that dream is to invest in education and technology so that the British populace gets the world's best technological jobs. Education Education Education he shouted. Lower Taxes Lower Taxes Lower Taxes came the reply, from the wealthy who have no interest in giving up their money to ensure social justice for the poorer people in their country, when there are peasants to be exploited abroad. Globalisation is driving the wealth of the world into fewer and fewer hands leaving everyone else to struggle from being dragged down to the lowest common denominator.

Keeping the Fucked Up Faith

Believing in God is easy. It's easy to put all your troubles in someone else's hands. Money is merely a piece of paper or a computer score or to get really technical about it, a particular alignment of magnetic patterning on some hard drive. I promise to pay the bearer something or other, but nowadays money has no basis in anything. Most currencies are tied to the dollar in some way or another which in turn is based on the value of gold. But if everyone claimed for his or her dollar bills in one go, America would no way have enough gold. Money is based on nothing apart from faith. We believe in it because it is a lot easier than trying to work out what the f**k this whole money thing is about in the first place.

But I'll tell you. Our faith in money allows us to be controlled by those who control the money supply: namely those with all the money. Putting faith in money is to put our faith in those who have all the money, it is to allow them to order our lives (usually in such a way that ends up with them having more money than they started with - the profit motive). Where money is the currency of belief, those who have it are the Gods and those who live only to consume (and therefore earn money) are the slaves and followers. The money system is thus a way of organising relationships of power.

Yep, it's all about power (as if you didn't know). So if money equals power then it's no surprise that those with the money (and the power) are not just content with distributing it so that they end up with more, but that they see great gains in commodifying areas of life previously untouched by money. The more money controls different spheres of life, the more spheres of life become under the control of those with all the money. Quite simple really. For example, if Muhammed Al Fayed wants political power what better way to do it, than to make politics into a commodity and buy Prime Ministers Question time off a well known Tory politician. But it's not just politics that the Fayed phenomenon has been applied to. With the disintegration of community and local cultures: consumer culture has now dictated that we buy everything: culture, social networks, entertainment, Prime Minister's question time, identity, value and personal worth. As a result, poverty takes on a new meaning as areas of life which were previously untouched by money, now become organised by it. And so areas of life once participated in by poor people now exclude those poor people. So with money coming to increasingly dominate every area of our life, what hope is there if you've got none?

The answer: don't be part of a consumer society stupid!

The answer in principle is simple. The answer in practice is almost impossible for most suckers to put into action. Lets start with a simple notion. You can only feel excluded if you at first feel the need to belong. You cannot be excluded from something that you do not want to belong to. Stop consuming and wanting to consume and you'll stop yourself from being socially excluded. Search for ways of getting what you want that isn't via money and if that's not possible then change what you want so that what you want you don't have to buy. The more you remove yourself from consumer society, the less you value yourself by money, the less you are under the control of those who have all the money and the more control you have over your own life. Social exclusion is a mindstate more than anything else. It's the inevitable consequence of what happens when everyone wants to be rich, when everyone feels the need to consume to feel of any value to themselves.

But fuck me: cars, petrol, kids, food, houses, CDs, Oasis, beer, Becks, going out, getting videos, porno mags, beer, football matches, night-clubs, records, computer games, clothes, designer stuff, gigs, taxis, travelling, music, posters, everyday life, magazines, going out with my boyfriend, it all costs money doesn't it? Yes. But as long as you define your worth in terms of your bank balance, your ability to consume, your ability to feed your rapacious hunger for things, the more you lock yourself into the control of consumer society and the more likely you are to feel social exclusion.

Love, talking, walking, reading, playing games, art, theatre, discussion, community pooling of resources, all kinds of sport, writing, thinking, sex, wanking, buying three pints instead of ten, leaving the pizza and getting beans on toast when you get in, leaving the taxi and getting home on foot, leaving the records that you'll only listen to once, learning that not going out and getting ratted on a weekend does not necessarily mean having a shit time, enjoying your own company from time to time all means that you don't have to spend as much money. Now if you could define your life through these activities, if you could gain happiness through these mediums, then you become less and less socially excluded. If you work out a way to get happiness, a feeling of belonging, contentment, creativity out of activities that don't require a Visa card then you're no longer socially excluded. Poor maybe but not socially excluded.

Social exclusion is as much a matter of personal choice as what is enforced on you. To chose not to be socially excluded is to define your own values in life rather than have them defined by consumer society which tells you that you are only as good as the things you buy. The less you value yours existence in terms of your consumption of Cds, fags, beer, stereos, cars, computer games, drugs, records the less you become socially excluded and the freer you become.

Blair the Clown

Tony Blair has funded a commission to work out what social exclusion is all about and how it can be remedied. The answer is simple - because the whole system of money and consumerism thrives on power and domination, social exclusion is the inevitable consequence of what happens when everyone fights each other to get to the top of the consumerism pile: thousands of people get trampled underneath in their desire to get to the top. The trampled on are the socially excluded, and for as long as they want to get on the top of the consumer pile, their exclusion will continue to exist and with the monster of globalisation growing bigger day by day, it will only intensify. While dependence on benefits and lack of ability to get a job may define the socially excluded, it's the desire to want to consume that ultimately creates the socially excluded. If Tony Blair wants to get rid of social exclusion he'll have to start teaching people to value their lives in terms of non-consumer values. Money only sets the rules if we let it. We can set new rules, ones that are intrinsically defined and therefore intrinsically satisfying, not so dependent on a large wage packet coming in and not so dependent on loads of hours put in to a stultifyingly boring job that we kid ourselves we need as our souls cry out in pain imprisoned by the fear of not having enough money… Social exclusion is not a passive state of existence, it is something we do to ourselves, it happens when we want to belong to a group that wont have us. If we don't want to be socially excluded, we should reject consumerism, if we reject consumerism we need to have the inner strength and confidence to define the purpose of life for ourselves rather than let consumer society do it for us. Freedom baby. Chilly boy.