Social care 2019: misery, poverty, anarchy
- Details
- Created: Friday, 19 April 2019 10:11
- Written by James Pike
Following a 13-month inquiry, in January Human Rights Watch (HRW) concluded that older people are at risk of having their human rights violated by the way the UK government funds and organises social care. HRW accused the government of a ‘lack of oversight’, leading to millions having their needs improperly assessed and social care services denied. This was the first time that HRW has looked at the UK welfare system, and follows last year’s report by UN Special Rapporteur on Poverty, Philip Alston, who found that the UK government is in a ‘state of denial’ about the misery it is inflicting with its ‘punitive, mean-spirited, and callous’ austerity program. HRW’s assessment is timid: millions are already having their basic human rights violated, losing their dignity, health and lives, in a social care system groaning under savage cuts and the anarchy which has occurred since it was opened up to private capital in the 1990s. This anarchy is a clear indicator that capitalism is incapable of providing decent social care for the working class, and particularly for the elderly who are no longer of interest to capitalism as they cannot be subject to exploitation. Only a socialist system, a proper welfare state, can.
