5 Evils

The Beveridge Report of 1942 identified 'five giants' on the road to post-war reconstruction'.  These have been termed the 5 evils of society, they were:

Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.

To use 2022 terminology for these I would say they are:

1. Wealth inequality

2. Health service underfunding

3. Removal of free education for life and fee paying schools

4. Mental health, social services, local authority, social care under funding

5. Low quality, low pay and insecure employment, and viewing those on benefits as scroungers

The Beveridge Report and the foundation of a universal social security system in the UK was the first attempt at addressing these evils.

I believe that these remain valid in Britain in 2022. Given the population growth since, changes in technology and what we know now about the earths resources and climate, perhaps we should add:

6. Living beyond the means of the planet and outside of the circular economy.

7. Weaponised technology (NCB weapons, drones and AI based killing).

I have not added new technology generally as I do not see it as a threat, some people would argue that it would cause job losses, but we have that in the list already, see point 5, others would say that when technology becomes more inteliigent than humans (and we are already at the start of this point given that some software can always outplay humans at games, and AI can write essays better than humans) then eventually homosapiens will be deemed superfluous and in fact dangerous by the machines and therefore be wiped out. I can see why people would reach this conclusion, given that we're the role models, but I am still willing to be more optomistic about it, so I have left this off the list.

The original list continues to be the things that strip people of their dignity when they occur, and as such make the whole of society worse off as a result, and are therefore the things we all have a shared common interest in addressing. The new things are just things we have learnt about how we damage the planet, and also things we have invented since Beveridge.

In the 1940s a social welfare program was an attempt to address the 5 original evils. We've had that system in place for over 80 years now and what we have seen is that the super rich do not want to put into systems that help the many. They have spent the last 80 years making sure the system allows them to side step and opt out of paying for social welfare policies that help the many.

This is a systemic problem. This is the acid to the rock of any system that is trying to address the evils, and unless we also focus on the acid in the system, we will constantly be tinkering around the edges with any policy changes whilst the rock continues to be eroded.

What are the acidic systemic problems facing the UK today which need to be addressed. I say they are:

• The Media and Social Media.

• Addictions including drugs and gambling.

• Globalised monopolies.

• Lack of public ownership and accountability within companies.

• GDP and growth rather than circular economics.

• Essential infrastructure not owned by British people and run for profit to the detriment of other more important factors.

• The political system and political class, many things within here, the lack of trust from voters, the use of immigration by politicians, nepotism, lack of accountability, a weak public sector and civil service, fraud and corruption (think track and trace and PPE supplies).

• Education structure and funding.

• Farming and the food chain focused on industrialisation, agrichemicals, and profits, over health and food security, sugar, highly processsed cheap foods,,, palm oil, the list goes on.

• Land ownership and housing.

• Tax Avoidance and Tax Havens.

• Banks, Venture Capitalists like Goldman Sachs and others, Hedge Funds, Soverign Wealth Funds, the Corporation of London, and a financialised financial service industry and its advisors.

• Neoliberal Capitalism, profits over people, pursuit of profit over everything.

All of these things I am trying to address in the Utopia Manifesto. When all parts come together it will present a positive alternative to the current system, one where everyone at the bottom will be better off, the middle classes will be better off, and billionaires will still be ultra rich, just slightly less ultra rich, but still better off because the pitchforks will not be at the gates.