Power

So we can see just how power works, and it is never a good thing.

A "hand up" not a "hand out"; in other words we can pay to print a CV or the cost of a stamp, but to feed yourself? Have a life? Enjoy a few nice things? No chance. Who gets to decide for me what I can or can't have? It seems the inheritors of wealth who through privilege get to make policy, enforced through monopolised violence, for the rest of us.

This model seems to be exactly how social enterprises work; the charities and agencies that profess to help the poor, the unemployed, and the sick. This includes schemes dreamt up by the government, or any wannabe philanthropist who claims to have a conscience. The Work Programme is no different.

Ultimately they all end up the same. Sooner or later you reach the limit of what they have to offer. It isn't very difficult, but the result is never positive. It is always an exercise in victim blaming. We can't help you - even though in many cases they have barely tried.

The most insidious aspect of this is the power dynamic. That's what it always comes down to, and this is why I'm an anarchist (at least in principle). Power. Those that have it can do what they like, and those that don't get to suffer or struggle. My adviser can tell me that "I'm struggling to know how we can help you" and I can point out all the reasons that's bullshit. I could point out, for example, that I have said a number of things that I'm interested in that she hasn't once looked into. It won't make any difference because, no matter how correct my observations might be, she has the power. She can just shrug her shoulders - even agree - and walk away with the power. In other words I'm the one that loses out. I'm the one that gets discarded by an agency that, happily, sets itself up as being a positive force in the community, happily takes funding streams from whomever, but doesn't seem to use them to do anything above refunding the odd bus journey. They have the power, but they do not have the responsibility.

Power does not equal nor compel responsibility, it's us that has to force that accountability. It is never conceded. Why would it be? I believe that we should be compelling a lot more. We need to take that power for ourselves. Why should people have to rely on these hapless agencies who seem to have nothing to offer. They have zero influence over the systems that put people into the sorts of circumstances that lead them to become service users in the first place. It's just a comfortable position.

So I'm looking at another rejection from another so-called social enterprise. I don't know for certain what will happen as they have failed to respond in over a week. I find that ridiculous. How does this help build people's confidence? All the excuses in the world do not change the reality: they hold the power, they shape the outcome - they accept no responsibility. If you're receiving all this funding, to run a social enterprise, then the least you can do is provide a service.

And if the best you have to offer is pop psychology over tea and biscuits, offered to people with complex and long standing mental health difficulties, I would argue you are not just irresponsible you are downright dangerous. These issues are not fixed with a simple "pull your socks up lad" or a "smile and the world smiles with you", and especially not "the colour purple means you are creative!". This sort of world view is utter ignorance, it isn't even fair to call it mental health, it's just spurious American Self Help Guru bollocks of the worst kind. It is self aggrandising and at best a huge waste of money.

But no matter whether I have the right of it or not, they have the power. They can just say "we can't help you then" and I'm the one left out in the cold with nowhere else to turn. This doesn't exactly help build self confidence.