The Riots: A Mob Made By The Welfare State? | Brendan O'Neill

The Riots: A Mob Made By The Welfare State? Delivered on Tuesday 7th September 2011 at St Stephen's Club, Westminster.


Brendan O'Neill is editor of Spiked, the "sassy, irreverent UK-based online magazine of news and opinion", in the words of the San Francisco Chronicle, which is "provocatively libertarian", in the words of Jonathon Porritt's Forum for the Future.

O'Neill writes widely for publications on both sides of the Atlantic. His journalism has been published in the New Statesman, the Spectator, the Guardian, The Sunday Times, the British Journalism Review, the Press Gazette, Abortion Review and the Catholic Herald in Britain, and in Salon, Slate, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Christian Science Monitor, American Prospect, the American Conservative and Reason magazine in the United States. He is also a feature-writer for the BBC in Britain.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• riots
• police
• britain
• welfare
• state
• libertarianism
• marxism
• society

[anyfekinnamewilldo]

@MySpiritWarrior U can't seriously be blaming machines for unemployment. By that logic we'd be better off doing away with lawn mowers and getting all of the unemployed people to use scissors to cut grass thereby achieving full employment. If anything Labour is more mobile now than it was in the pre-industrial age and creating an underclass dependent on state handouts is about the worst thing you can do to an economy.

Fair point about attack the monetary system though.

[Invesigator]

The riots were caused because Britain is NOT a welfare state attempting to bridge the gap between rich and poor.

[rapl1046]

A view that must be considered. Marx today would have said that the Welfare state was an 'opiate for the people' it maintains contentment in the under-priviledged while the educated and priviledged can get on with their lives - outsourced security without involvement or commitment to the 'others' in society. - rapl1046

[MySpiritWarrior]

witty but that is all, what the hell is he insinuating? to make the poor poorer so that will give them a sense of community? then compare today's job market to the old days where humans where not yet replaced by machines and could always find a job if they up and leave somewhere else? why not attack our present monetary system ?

[mrpetermjohnston]

what an agreeable marxist!



[ampersandtay]

Good speech, well argued, and the conclusions are interesting.

[johnc6754]

this dude doesnt seem to argue very coherently - more just stating his conclusions. i guess it was a short speech but even so - caricature of your opponents arguments is never very convincing.