Today,more than 600,000 people are confronting a devastating reality: the current Labour government is going to drive through swingeing cuts to their lifeline benefits. These cuts represent more than mere budget-balancing; they embody a deliberate attempt to reinforce a moral hierarchy whereby human worth is measured by participation in paid employment — a dangerous proposition in an era of profound economic inequality, and one with a long and inglorious history.
From the draconian Poor Laws of the nineteenth century to today’s workfare conditions, governments have consistently used benefits as a tool to discipline those deemed to be ‘idle’. Rather than prioritising genuine support, welfare systems have been geared toward punishing non-participation, often compelling vulnerable people to conform to narrow labour market expectations, regardless of their personal circumstances.
This punitive approach ignores the fact that those who struggle with conventional employment often do so in the face of structural barriers rather than individual character flaws. Disabled people confrontworkplace environments ill-suited to their needs; parents (especially single parents) struggle to patchwork together paying jobs with unwaged care; and the long-term unemployed reckon with a lack of secure, suitable,well-paying jobs in the areas where they actually live.
As we argue in our book Post-Work, the ideological foundation for these welfare cuts is laid by a neoliberal, up-by-your-boot-straps narrative that equates self-reliance with moral worth. If welfare breeds dependency and suppresses industriousness, as this framework suggests, then miserly, putative benefits policies — so the logic goes — are doing people a favour. In this model, instead of addressing the lack of accessible jobs, adequate childcare, or robust public services, governments are weaponising welfare policy to enforce the work ethic and establish an arbitrary standard of ‘deservingness’.
A benefit system that penalises non-employment is both unjust and counterproductive. By punishing those who cannot participate in traditional wage labour, governments deepen economic inequality, reinforce social division, and perpetuate the myth of just deserts.The data speaks for itself: countries with more punitive welfare systems show higher rates of poverty, inequality, and social distress.
A truly progressive alternative would not restrict eligibility, make assessment processes more time consuming, or wave around loose accusations ofover-diagnosis. Rather, it would recognise the diverse ways in which people contribute to society beyond paid employment. Unpaid care work, community organising, creative pursuits, and personal development are essential to our collective well-being, yet remain all but invisible under our current system.
Decoupling state support from strict employment criteria through a wider range of unconditional benefits, free and plentiful public services, or a universal basic income could provide greater security without imposing moral judgments. Such approaches acknowledge our interdependence and affirm that living with dignity should never be made dependent on fitting a narrow socioeconomic ideal.
Critics will argue that to increase benefits is to put the needs of shirkers over those of strivers, but evidence from UBI experiments worldwide should make usthink again. In trials, recipients of an unconditional income have used funds to support education, expand their families, deliver care to relatives, or launchsmall businesses. It is not the case that people generally don’t want to engage with the world or contribute to societies, then; rather, our current system is failing to recognise or enable diverse forms of contribution.
As we face this critical moment, we must ask: what kind of society do we want to live in? One that punishes vulnerability and difference, or one that embraces the full spectrum of participation and human potential? Labour’s proposed benefit cuts represent not merely an economic adjustment but a form of moral value judgement — one we must unite to oppose. After all, a society that values people only for their economic output is not merely unjust; it is impoverished in all the ways that truly matter.