poverty motivates

[pic-fotosearch.com]

Did you know that, back in the old days of the 19th century, people were quite fired up about stuff.
They were enthused by democracy, technology, war, sport (like bareknuckle boxing).

They didn't have all the social democratic benefits that we take for granted like free health care, universal education, pensions, voting etc.

But, they were sensitive people. When photography was invented, one of the first things that was captured for posterity was

POVERTY.

[pic- by Jacob Riis]
[pic-by Jacob Riis]
[pic- hiddenlives.org]

Rich and less-so alike were so disgusted by the wretchedness of the poverty they had seen for the first time, that they were moved to action.
Their previous ignorance of the problem was truly an excuse. (It isn't any more, though)

So, they used their basic education, and their desire for fairness and democracy and scared the livin' bejesus out of the rich gentry and industrialists.

It's odd, but, they were so nutso at certain times that they were clamouring for war. People were greatly moved by righteousness, sometimes wrongly (wrongteousness?), to demand that they themselves be sacrificed in warfare; to save the empire, even!
One example was the Boer War in 1901, all the way in Southern Africa.
David Lloyd George of the Liberal party, who was arguing against it, barely escaped a lynching in Birmingham's town hall. (and now they talk about gang violence)
[pic- Lloyd George. Britishempire.co.uk]

The people were restless, Marxism was a utopian idea on the rise. Anarchists were fomenting rebellion, particularly in East London. So, spying was rife, but that was not a solution.

The government had to give the people a greater voice in government. They also had to give them what they were looking for: social democracy. This sharing of the wealth was a brilliant idea.
By 1910,

Britain had started taxing the rich,
controlling the House of Lords,
and were soon to give women the vote.
But they were just inches ahead of the maddening crowd
of the great unwashed,
pushing for more freedoms and rights.

They all gave us the things we now take for granted. From then on, as long as capitalists (the Crash) and militarists (the Wars) were kept in check, we had ever-improving times. The (white-collar) middle class ballooned in size.

What's up with today's people? We've stopped fighting and stopped caring while our world is crashing down around our ears.
The net and tv constantly show us starving people at home and overseas; refugees risking their lives in dinghies trying to get to the West, because our capitalists have bankrupted their countries and they have nothing to eat. Asylum-seekers are leaving countries were our soldiers are wreaking genocidal havoc, like Afghanistan and Iraq. Still we are unmoved. We don't want to share our ill-gotten plenty.

What?
You want Youtube videos to remind you?
Asylum-seekers are treated like criminals. We bar entry. We send ships back.
We send officials to Africa to push the migrants further back toward their barren homes.
We waste more than enough food to feed them, even if they didn't work, though they do work... for us.

Today, governments are taking away our rights and
we're so afraid of the consequences that we say nothing.
Our ancestors truly suffered and fought, and yet we are
soft and weak, jaded
and yet trusting that all will be well.
I guess we will need abject poverty to once again push us
to demand stuff: the things we once had.

-Costick67 (8^P
checkout: The Making of Modern Britain on BBC2