Most incapacity-benefit claimants are casualties of deindustrialization, not malingerers

Evidence

It is telling, in this context of rising rates of mental illness, that New Labour committed itself, early in its third term in government, to removing people from Incapacity Benefit, implying that many, if not most, claimants are malingerers. In contrast with this assumption, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to infer that most of the people claiming Incapacity Benefit – and there are well in excess of two million of them – are casualties of Capital. A significant proportion of claimants, for instance, are people psychologically damaged as a consequence of the capitalist realist insistence that industries such as mining are no longer economically viable. (Even considered in brute economic terms, though, the arguments about ‘viability’ seem rather less than convincing, especially once you factor in the cost to taxpayers of incapacity and other benefits.) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 81

Categorization

• QUESTION: The claim that viability arguments fail once benefit costs are factored in deserves follow-up on whether the numbers bear it out.
• XREF: connects to: The 1979 Federal Reserve rate hike launched post-Fordist flexible capitalism — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 71; Most incapacity benefit claimants are casualties of capitalist restructuring — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1407; Policies framing benefit claimants as malingerers conceal that most are casualties of deindustrialization — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 81 (+2 more)

Related

• Most British Incapacity Benefit claimants are casualties of deindustrialization, not malingerers (similarity 0.95)
• Most of over two million incapacity-benefit claimants are casualties of post-Fordist capitalism (similarity 0.95)
• Policies framing benefit claimants as malingerers conceal that most are casualties of deindustrialization (similarity 0.94)
• Most incapacity benefit claimants are casualties of capitalist restructuring (similarity 0.92)

Broader Connections

• Most incapacity benefit claimants are casualties of capitalist restructuring #expands (0.85) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1407