Neoliberal Robin Hood

How the spectre of a parasitic ‘middle-class’ is invoked to undermine collectivism, public services and universal provision

In his essay ‘Robin Hood in a Time of Austerity’ James Meek argues that conservatism has had a great deal of success adopting the Robin Hood myth. It has, he argues, borrowed the conceit — taking from the rich to give to the poor — and distorted it.

“ In this version of Robin Hood the traditional poor — the unemployed, the disabled, refugees — have been put into the conceptual box where the rich used to be. It is they, the social category previously labelled ‘poor’, who are accused of living in big houses, wallowing in luxury and not needing to work, while those previously considered rich are re-designated as the ones who work terribly hard for fair reward or less, forced to support this new category of poor-who-are-considered-rich. In this version the sheriff of Nottingham runs a ruthless realm of plunder and political correctness, ransacking the homesteads of honest peasants for money to finance the conceptual rich — that is, the unemployed, the disabled, refugees, working-class single mothers, dodgers, scroungers, chavs, chisellers and cheats.”

There is another version of the myth, propagated this time by the neoliberal.

Rather than demonising the poorest in order to justify welfare cuts, the neoliberal version feigns concern for their wellbeing in order to reject universalism. The sheriff now works for the middle class, taking from the poorest to fund the middle classes’ railcards, their tuition fees, their children’s school lunches, their hospital parking spaces, their winter fuel allowances. Here, ‘Robin Hood’ appears as means testing — taking from the middle class (who are ‘the rich’) to give to the poorest, and the poorest alone.

However, ‘the sheriff’ is also — and still — taxation and spending. All proposed policies of investment which would require increased spending are seen to be invalidated if, despite benefiting the poorest, they also benefit the middle class. This is unfair, the neoliberal argues, because the poorest are, indirectly, subsidising the rich, who could pay for themselves. In this rendering of the myth, though both the poor and the middle-class-conceptually-rich pay tax, all of the money should go to the poorest, as the middle class are privately, independently wealthy enough to pay for that which public services might provide.

But, of course, the neoliberal knows that the middle class are scarcely likely nor willing to pay into a system from which they would derive absolutely no advantage nor benefit. What’s really being argued here is that taxation itself is unjust; that neither the poor nor the rich should have to pay into a system which benefits anyone other than themselves.

The neoliberal will shoot down policy suggestions with mendacious concern, arguing that they believe that state spending ought to be better put to better use elsewhere, on services that don’t benefit the middle-class — surreptitiously peddling the idea that there are only a finite amount of policies that can ever be implemented at one time because the budget is fixed and further revenues cannot be raised.

Here, we are being asked to accept some erroneous notion that government revenues are dictated and constrained solely according to taxpayers’ contribution, and as such, that no policy requiring an increase in state spending can be implemented without increased tax contributions, but (and crucially, also) that any proposed increases in tax contributions which might achieve this aim would be unfair, because they might involve certain demographics ‘paying’ for other hypothetically wealthier ones. This simple, misleading presentation of economics — state spending as effectively analogous with a limited household budget — underpins so much of these political arguments.

Just as with Meek’s description of the conservative Robin Hood, the actual rich are conspicuously absent from the neoliberal’s version of the same myth. Or, not entirely. In Meek’s conservative Robin Hood, the rich secret themselves as ‘hardworking people’. Here, they are obscured among an amorphous ‘middle class’, who all apparently share indistinguishable levels of advantage and privilege.

In using and benefiting from public services, this ‘middle class’ is portrayed as helping itself to an unfair slice of the pie. In fact, the neoliberal argues they apparently shouldn’t help themselves to any slices at all.

There is expected to be no differentiation made between a ‘middle class’ student in higher education who can afford to attend university by burdening themselves with significant lifetime debt, and another ‘middle class’ student whose parents can afford to pay their fees and living expenses outright, without noticing a dent to their offshore account. As neither have had to ‘pay’ for the other, and both were able to attend, we are encouraged to see this as ‘fair’. Meanwhile, the poor student — whose maintenance grants are under constant threat of swingeing cuts — takes on untenable levels of debt to also attend, but is apparently contented by the knowledge that: at least they didn’t have to ‘pay’ for either of the better off ‘middle class’ pair.

A progressive rate of tax and genuine commitment to redistribution would invert this. If universal free higher education was achieved, then tiered contributions would mean that neither the poorest, nor those in the middle would ‘pay’ for the other in the manner which is implied.

I’ve chosen higher education as the example here, as there are arguments that other policies could better alleviate inequality. There are certainly many strong cases for that, but then why not pursue them all?

Because, the neoliberal argues, this would require more public spending, which would, in turn, require securing more revenues. And when the actually wealthiest in society are considered part of a false ‘poor vs middle class’ dichotomy — in which there are ostensibly only two types of taxpayer and beneficiary — they evade the necessary ‘more’ that could be their contribution.

I also chose higher education as it is a policy of universalism which existed in the UK, in our very recent history, that is now construed as not just unfeasible, but unattainable. The money isn’t and will never be there to make such a policy viable, we are consistently told. Until it magically appears, of course, whenever it’s politically expedient.

Later in his essay, Meeks references Thomas Piketty’s dire predictions of the consequences of global inequality continuing unchecked:

“‘Individualism and selfishness would flourish,’ [Piketty] writes. ‘Since the system as a whole would be unjust, why continue to pay for others?’ In describing an oligarchic global future, Piketty seems to describe Britain and other Anglophone countries today. Could this be the reason so many Britons appear prepared to accept the upside-down notion that the poor are in some way the idle rich — not because they are callous, but because the actual rich are so powerful and untouchable that they no longer seem to belong to the same world as the rest of us?”

This seems true, inasmuch as suggestions of a more progressive rate of tax in order to afford policies of universalism is regularly painted as left-wing fantasy. We are encouraged to believe it would be impossible to bring power and wealth to account, for they exist above and operate in flagrant disrespect of our taxation laws, so why even attempt to? Sure, making massive multi-nationals pay their tax would raise exponentially more than swingeing cuts to disability provision, but what can the government do?

But perhaps it’s also true that the actual rich have become so enshrouded within the ‘middle class’ that accepted wisdom now dictates that it’s unjust for the poorest to contribute to a system of universalism which would benefit a homogeneous ‘middle class’ in any way — a middle class characterised almost entirely by the richest and their ability to already afford all that public services provide.

Every January 2nd, when rail fare increases again, we are told we shouldn’t subsidise our rapidly rising rail fare, because it is predominantly used by those highest earners who can afford exorbitant ticket prices regardless. This is pure sophistry. It is plainly obvious that when a service becomes more prohibitively expensive, its user demographic more exclusively derives from the wealthiest, and that the poorest don’t pathologically abstain from catching trains out of principle. Even if you accept this non-logic, that the poorest are more innately predisposed to catching the bus, unfortunately as it turns out, you’re wrong again — bus pass schemes are ‘subsidies to the middle class’, too.

It’s not just public transport that is being construed as a frivolous luxury of the undeserving middle class who should pay for it themselves, every public service can be framed as regressive in this way when exposed to market forces. For instance: why are your taxes being wasted on surgery for those middle class patients who could afford to go private, when we could means test the NHS and make sure only the most deserving were operated on? (Indeed, this is exactly how the logic of the opposition to universal healthcare in the United States operates.)

This is how the discussion around means testing is framed. All services become non-essential, because if you can theoretically afford to access one privately, you don’t deserve to have the burden of paying for it relieved by the state in any way.

But what metrics determine who can and cannot afford services? If we take free school meals as an example, in 2016, the household income entitlement threshold was set at £16,190. In 2017, the UK Living Wage was £16,477, which means if you earned the minimum estimated amount to live, your children were not deemed ‘deserving’ of free school meals.

Here, the two Robin Hood myths — conservative and neoliberal — intersect. The conservative version has it that the ‘conceptually rich’ poor have their children’s meals paid for precisely because they refuse to work, and that those above the threshold, who ‘pay’ for those meals, ought to feel that unfair. The neoliberal states this is fair, because those on the breadline just above the threshold are the ‘middle class’ who can afford to pay for their kids themselves. Of course, some poorer earners might benefit if the threshold was eliminated and it became a universal provision, but, the neoliberal asks, do you really want all those rich middle-class kids getting free shepherd’s pie? Abating children’s hunger is a non-essential luxury, shouldn’t we be spending our limited revenues better elsewhere? The state is never supposed to radically transform a society, only prop up those it fails most.

In the conservative myth, taxes are stolen when received as state provision by the poorest, and in the neoliberal, when they are received by anyone else but the poorest. The two versions are both highly prevalent among Britain’s commentariat, cynically deployed as rote angles for every news story, working in tandem to create resentment towards taxation and public services. They endeavour to make even small concessions towards universalism impossible by decreasing solidarity across the entire spectrum of society.

If you can convince the poorest in society that universalism means their taxes are going to a conceptually universally rich middle-class, if those on middle-incomes can be convinced that any benefit they might derive from universalism would require diverting their taxes away from alleviating the struggles of the poor, and if the richest can be convinced that they are middle-class and shouldn’t have to ‘pay’ for the rest, then you can achieve a consensus against the idea.

Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor. The politically repurposed Robin Hood myths propose that we are all stealing from each other, and that we should stop giving to anyone except the most correctly poor (who are also conceptually rich) and only for their most acceptably essential needs.