The Corpse of Neoliberalism Remains Unburied

In a bleak new sign of the growing economic crisis, hard-up families are having to wait more than two months before receiving Government money for funerals. Organisations representing undertakers accused the Government of putting them in an ‘impossible’ position by dragging their feet over burial costs for poor families. Previously, undertakers would pay for the cost of funerals and wait to be reimbursed by the State, but the lack of credit in the banking system means many firms can no longer afford to do so.

The current problems stem from delays to payouts from the Department for Work and Pensions’ Social Fund, which helps needy families with burial costs. They qualify if they can prove they are receiving benefits, were closely related to the deceased and do not have sufficient savings to meet the funeral costs. (ht2 Chicken Yoghurt)

The mistake here is to take the partisan bait, (The Mail’s- Blame Labour!) the dead went unburied because workers were forced to fight their worsening pay and conditions as the Labour government allowed the financial markets to destroy the UK’s industrial base with asset stripping and wealth concentration disguised as growth, nevermind the toll on the thousands of people who lost their jobs. Sound familiar? Not whole-sale neoliberalism for the time but nevertheless economic policies very similar in a global context pregnant with precursor’s for what Reagan & Thatcher were to bring. Fast forward to now and bodies lay unburied because the welfare state is starved of funds and is used as an instrument to attack the poor under full scale neoliberal policies this time under New Labour. So at root the cause is identical economic policies that benefit few and penalise those on the lowest income, to get misdirected by which party is doing it (although let’s pause to fully comprehend the failure of NL) is to gossip at the wonders and failures of the Wizard (therefore inevitably leading to thoughts of hmm maybe the Tory Wizard will solve things) and not see behind the curtain at what is pulling the levers, the financial markets, the ruling class and their weapon of choice- neoliberalism. If this crisis does not cause people to have such perspicacity then we can be assured of many more ‘crises’ to come as we get poorer and the elite becomes (more of) an unaccountable, brutal global aristocracy that will prey on us at will.