Young people should take responsibility for themselves, not the state?

[Chattybum]

Quote from Jeremy Corbyn - "Think of the young people who are given the subliminal message to look after your own education and look after your own health forget about council housing, make your own way in the world. It’s depressing, it’s unnecessary and it’s all part of the contraction of the public realm and the public state."

I'm not a fan of JC and this statement perfectly sums up why. AIBU to ask why people like this idea without this turning into a bun fight?

It would mostly just be middle class children who are subsidised then due to the effect poverty and all that comes with it has on the educational outcomes of young people

That’s a bit of a generalisation. There are more and more people from poorer backgrounds who are going to uni, and doing so because they are subsidised with higher loans that, unless they reach a higher salary, they will never pay back. They then become the next generation’s middle class. More needs to be done to raise attainment for poorer students, and that is happening. But there does need to be some more work done separating cause and correlation. Not everyone can reach the grades for university, no matter how much support they are given by the school because there is an element of genetics that dictates attainment.

The people who think you shouldn't get something for nothing always turn out to also be against inheritance tax (getting something for nothing)

Another wide, sweeping generalisation there.

The people I know who are for inheritance tax are the ones who will never benefit from an inheritance. Their views on “something for nothing” vary wildly.

I quite like the idea of everyone having as equal and fair opportunity as possible

Everyone should be entitled to a equal start. No one is entitled to equal results.

To Corbyn’s point, anyone who makes (or agrees with) policy which start with “the young should” is starting from a false premise. Usually with assumptions about the young which are not borne out by those of us who actually have experience of working or living with them.

Everybody should take responsibility for their own lives, but this doesn’t mean leaving them to deal with every aspect of it from organisation to bearing the costs. We can’t blame young people for being poorly educated when it was us who provided their education. We can’t blame them for being unhealthy when we raised them in a certain way. We talk about them not being fit enough, but we encouraged a culture of fast, processed food, and took away their playing fields.

We bought wholesale into a wasteful society, over using natural resources for our own convenience at low cost, now we are laughing at them when they try to do something about it, blaming them for living in that culture when they haven’t got the resources to do anything different. We berate them for cheap, throwaway fashion, but forget they have little choice, they can’t afford the ethical boutique brands. Thunberg was berated for eating a pre-packed salad on a train. What was she expected to do? That’s all our generation has offered these kids. It is the life we have given them. But now “the young” are expected to get off their arses and change it when they have little agency to do so?

Get off their backs, support them to do what they need to do, they will be paying for us for decades, give them some tools to do so.

I actually agree with this. I live in Germany where we have socialised private healthcare with private provision and it's a lot better than the UK

It is socialised healthcare and the real difference to the NHS is that you can choose which your provider is. Previously there was little choice then about 20 (maybe more) years ago the insurance companies that were available only to various trades (and therefore had expertise in, say, miners health) were opened to everyone. You can choose which you belong to, but there is a default of the AOK which is the biggest for people who aren't enrolled in one (people new to the country, unemployed, long term sick etc). Each of the other schemes, afaik, pays a small percentage to this one because it is the catch-all one.

If you earn above a certain amount you can go private which is pretty much the same as in the uk.

It would be REALLY bloody easy for the NHS to issue health insurance cards, as we have here in Germany, but that seems to be a step too far for the British.

a PP mentioned that everyone should be responsible for everythig, health, housing, education etc. Good luck getting anywhere on the roads that you have to build yourself, or if your house burns down or if someone runs you over.

Everyone who thinks that social housing is a Bad Thing, go back 100 years. Do you think you would be sitting comfortably in a house that you own (with a mortgage), with healthy, educated children? Or do you think you might be with the huge numbers of deprived people in private housing (rookeries)?

I don't see how 'ask not what your country can do for you' conflicts with a vote for Labour. I'm not pro the welfare state so I can get something for free, I'm pro the welfare state, the NHS, education because I believe our country should be about supporting each other. And I'm happy to pay tax or contribute in other ways to make that happen.

I support a young person who had a terrible upbringing, abusive on many levels, no family support, limited education because you don't do well at school when being abused at home, thrown out of family care placement at 18. They're trying so hard to turn their life round with so little access to support - the NHS won't fund a minor op to sort a problem that impacts her daily life, she's getting herself into scary debt because shes trying to educate herself but can't navigate the student loan system, she was housed at 18 at the top of a notorious tower block. She doesn't want to be reliant on anyone.

For the person who wants an NHS based on health not treatment, there is so much imagination and drive going into this. Really exciting stuff. Hampered by constant cost cutting and the drive to privatisation.

Everyone should be entitled to a equal start. No one is entitled to equal results.

Sure, but we need to remember this too. It isn’t only about where they start, but what stands in the way of finishing. I know my finish line has been harder to reach because of childcaring responsibilities, and that is true of most working women who haven’t had help outside their family.

@Packingsoapandwater, totally agree with your post.

I know my finish line has been harder to reach because of childcaring responsibilities, and that is true of most working women who haven’t had help outside their family
Harder than whom? Most working women I know who are doing well had no help from family. They just struggled financially until their kids, usually no more than 2, made it to secondary school. It's at that point that the benefits of having worked FT really pay off.

Once again, it's a choice no right or wrong but annoying when those who've opted for an easier life for many years then moan that it's not fair they don't get what those who opted to work ft being hardly better off finally find themselves in a much better position with more options.

There is no economic magic that makes housing substantially cheaper because it's owned by a political authority. There can't be, that's not how economics works. If it looks substantially cheaper, it just means you're not doing the accounting properly.

The over inflation of property prices caused by quantitative easing to make credit available to mortgage lenders in order to increase private ownership of homes is well known and documented in economics.
It’s not “magic”. It’s fact that when you make mortgages a commodity that is more easily available by quantitative easing (printing money digitally) that demand for the credit goes up because you have more buyers able to buy homes. The demand increase pushes up property prices which causes the hyper inflation of property values. Especially since the value of the credit offered- the actual mortgage loan- is not linked to the costs of building that property but to the market forces of supply and demand. Increased demand when you have a supply shortage (and the U.K. has a housing shortage that is at crisis levels), then pushes hyper inflation in prices.

I know my finish line has been harder to reach because of childcaring responsibilities, and that is true of most working women

Childcaring is a choice. Yes, society influences and pressures women to take the choice to be responsible for childcare, but ultimately it is a choice between you and the father whether together or separated exes.

ask not what your country can do for you was said by John F Kennedy in his inaugural speech and he was talking about this:

“Now the trumpet summons us againnot as a call to bear arms, though arms we neednot as a call to battle, though embattled we are but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation"a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.

Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibilityI welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve itand the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.“

So actually guaranteed education, health and housing based on need IS something all citizens can support for their country.

Childcaring is a choice. Yes, society influences and pressures women to take the choice to be responsible for childcare, but ultimately it is a choice between you and the father whether together or separated exes.

It is a choice which ultimate benefits society. It isn’t usually a real choice who the bulk of the care falls to. Women tend to earn less therefore it isn’t financially possible for men to stay at home, therefore their careers are stalled, therefore they earn less.

You appear to suggest if women want real equality, they have to choose not to have children. Where would that leave the world if we all chose that?

But that aside, there are barriers for people who are not white, who are disabled, who are from poorer backgrounds. That is not of their choice. Just as it wasn’t my choice to have a child with a disability. Because of that I need far more flexibility and that has impacted by future career prospects. Removing barriers along the way is the right thing to do, it’s not just about where they start.

ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country

So actually guaranteed education, health and housing based on need IS something all citizens can support for their country.

JFK had a great speech writer and was highly charismatic. That is why he is still quoted today. It is great sound bite from an era when they didn’t really exist and people actually listened to entire speeches.

But the difference between Corbyn and Kennedy is attitude.

The Democrats in the 60’s supported a limited federal welfare program and there was the expectation that if you could make your own way in the world, you did so. Corbyn, as stated, does not and he does not support private and public spheres working together as they did 1960’s US.

I don’t think anyone on this thread has said ‘let’s go back to Dickensian times, it was better then’. But what the hell is wrong with both encouraging and allowing people to be self supporting whilst maintaining a safety net for those that can’t?

But the question isn't 'do you think Jeremy Corbyn is right on everything' it's 'if the likely choice is hard right Conservative government or hard left Labour, which will you go for'. I think a lot of the Labour Party plan is unrealistic or would have unintended consequences. I might prefer a more centrist government. But I'd rather more people were supported than really need it than have people dying of starvation while appealing their disability benefits.

@MintyMabel
I agree removing barriers and having greater support is the right thing to do. I do not agree that these need to be reserved for only women or even spoken of in terms of “women need” or “women are disadvantaged by...”
The support should be for all parents, mothers and fathers, because taking the bulk of child rearing is a choice and so it is not impacting 100% women and 0% men. There are stay at home fathers even though they are a minority and they experience all the same penalties to earnings and careers that stay at home mothers do. The same with working parents, if the father is the one doing flexible work to take children to school or pick them up, take time off for sickness, ask to work from home if a disabled child, etc.
To only offer the support to women will just reinforce the society expectation that child rearing is women’s work, not parents work. It pushes women back, not forward.

@IWantADifferentName
How are people “not allowed to be self supporting” in a Corbyn/Labour Party future? The U.K. has had Labour run governments before in its history and people were still allowed to be self supporting. In fact, the only time the U.K. had no national debt was during a Labour Government. The philosophy is if you take care of peoples basic needs, then the people are better able to work and contribute resulting in greater prosperity for the country as a whole.
I agree Corbyn himself is out too far on the left, but that is why Parliament exists to check any power he would have as PM and to prevent a Venezuela 2.0 from occurring.
But Labour as a party may not be as bad as Conservatives with their UN warnings of violating the human rights of U.K. disabled people driving a peak in suicide and death by neglect.

I agree removing barriers and having greater support is the right thing to do. I do not agree that these need to be reserved for only women or even spoken of in terms of “women need” or “women are disadvantaged by...”

@PlanDeRaccordement I already said there are barriers for many different groups.

It is ridiculous to say we shouldn't identify what the actually barriers are and which group they largely affect. If women generally are impacted by a particular policy or barrier, we absolutely should highlight that.

And please stop with the "choice" bullshit.

It is rarely an actual choice.

n fact, the only time the U.K. had no national debt was during a Labour Government
This is quite a native view. The economy is not dependent on the government. When the UK was doing well, so were most countries, regardless of which party governed it. Same the other way around.

@MintyMabel ok so maybe it's not for you, it's not necessarily for me either but what gives us the right to take choice from others away because it doesn't apply to us? Such a hateful and jealous perspective.

It's not a choice for me to do the bulk of childcare. My ex travels a lot with work. He simply isn't around to do it. And there is no way I can make him.
And no, when the children were concieved he didn't do this. This is something he started after they were born 🙄.

Free housing? A nation trembles. Lets keep it restricted to those who currently receive it. Royal family and satellites. Hurrah! BoZo - 2 for Bozza - and other very important people in government who are, obviously, far better people all round than anyone unfortunate enough to be living in a shop doorway at the moment. Hurrah for the entitled freeloaders. May they have what they deserve. Eventually.

@longwayoff it's not free though is it

Well, no, chattybum, they are living off the taxpayers, thanks for mentioning it. Entitled, sponging, freeloaders then.

PlanDeRaccordement - from the OP’s post:

Quote from Jeremy Corbyn - "Think of the young people who are given the subliminal message to look after your own education and look after your own health forget about council housing, make your own way in the world. It’s depressing, it’s unnecessary and it’s all part of the contraction of the public realm and the public state."

He thinks it is depressing an unnecessary to ‘make your own way in the world’; ‘look after your own education’; and ‘look after your own health’.

That is not ‘ encouraging and allowing people to be self supporting whilst maintaining a safety net for those that can’t’.