4min chapter

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The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1077

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

CHAPTER

Contrasting Lifestyles: Work and Welfare

This chapter analyzes the diverging lifestyles of full-time workers and those dependent on benefits, exploring themes of purpose and societal contribution. It critiques the systemic injustices within the labor and welfare systems while addressing the challenges faced by those unable to work and the implications of foreign labor on local job markets.

00:00
Speaker 2
That's not flattering. No. The thing is, I don't know, like where I live, not very far from where I live, you could walk through an estate and you've got people living next to each other. And some of those people are two people working in the household full time. And the other thing might be like either a single parent or a couple of people who don't really work, living in identical houses, living with identical cars, or maybe sometimes, you know and going on holiday and you're like something we have to make work pay i remember everyone taking the mickey out of that ian duncan smith when he was sort of upset about someone not working and and how terrible and i and i was on the left and i probably yeah i was terrible i
Speaker 1
remember this and i remember making a video in like 2014 against ian duncan smith yes and now that i'm 10 years older i'm like no he did have a point there
Speaker 2
yeah absolutely we we have to you you have to have purpose you just have to have a purpose you have to get up and do something for your day and feel like you you've achieved something which is the same as the kids in school right yeah you just need to you just need to have something about you that that makes you feel good about yourself i i maybe she doesn't anymore but also it doesn't there's
Speaker 1
there's i'm so tired of the obvious injustice of i get up i go to work and i see i mean not where i live but you know you know that there are people who are getting up and going to work and then watching like you know their neighbor who's been on benefits for 20 years just come and put the rubbish out or something in his pajamas then go back in and start cracking up a beer and watching daytime tv it's like that guy shouldn't have a house i'm sorry if you don't work you know i i hate to invoke the sort of lenin perspective but he who does not work should not eat it's like yeah, that's actually a kind of reasonable position, to be honest.
Speaker 2
I'd like to also, like, people that can't work. Sure. So people that can't work, I'd like them not to have such a terrible subsistence where they can't afford stuff. And I'm not saying that you kind of make people rich, but it's, you know, when you know that people are fighting for their cars and
Speaker 1
stuff. Make and you're not homeless. It's
Speaker 2
just... It's not that much. Yeah, it's all a little bit backwards in this country where you're sort of, the less you do, the more you're rewarded. Yes. And that can't be right. It can't be right. And I guess it's an extension of those working class girls and the working class boys we don't care about. The working class adults that do all the work that we clapped for we were so happy well
Speaker 1
but the
Speaker 2
people that we clapped for we now we we have utter disdain for really we don't want to pay them any better we kind of think it's bad if they you know if they if they earn anything and we want to make their lives difficult but then we also want to so we don't really want to speak to them we want to speak for them when they're useful uh but then the rest of the time we want to make everyone as poor as them you know it's very odd we've
Speaker 1
got i mean the the threshold for benefits is really high and it was actually the conservatives who capped um for example child benefits yes um 26 grand a year or something i mean it took me a lot you know i must have been in my late 20s before i was earning 26 grand you know i wasn't like a high earner when i was young and so it i there have been periods in my life where it just hasn't been worth getting a job because of the amount of benefits you could have got right and i was a man i was a single man it's not like i was getting loads of benefits i can't even imagine if i'd been a single mother with two kids or something then you're you're bringing in way more than you could personally ever actually earn on the job market yeah and then if you combine that with the fact that the labor and conservative parties have been so have been sabotaging the earning potential of british workers by bringing in millions of foreign workers to compete with them then the labour market becomes a buyer's market rather than a seller's market yeah
Speaker 2
it's
Speaker 1
like okay great but i'm the seller of labour you know i'm not yeah and you can't
Speaker 2
work

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