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I ‘…following Stuckler and Basu (2013)

T it is not economic downturns per se that

R matter but the austerity and

A “reform” that may follow: that “austerity Neoliberal austerity kills” and – as I argue here – that it particularly “kills” those in lower socio- economic positions.’ and The scale of contemporary unemployment consequent upon David Fryer and Rose Stambe examine critical psychological issues neoliberal austerity programmes is colossal. According to labour statistics released in June 2013 by the UK Neoliberal fiscal austerity I am really sorry to bother you again. Office for National Statistics, 2.51 million decrease public expenditure God. But I am bursting to tell you all people were unemployed in the UK through cuts to central and local the stuff that has been going on (tinyurl.com/neu9l47). This represents five budgets, welfare behind your back since I first wrote to unemployed people competing for every services and benefits and you back in 1988. Oh God do you still vacancy. privatisation of public resources remember? Remember me telling like these, which have resulting in losses. This article you of the war that was going on persisted now for years, do not, of course, interrogates the empirical, against the poor and unemployed in prevent the British Prime Minister – theoretical, methodological and our working class communities? Do evangelist of neoliberal government - ideological relationships between you remember me telling you, God, asking in a speech delivered in June 2012 , unemployment and how the people in my community ‘Why has it become acceptable for many the discipline of psychology, were being killed and terrorised but people to choose a life on benefits?’ arguing that neoliberalism that there were no soldiers to be Talking of what he termed ‘Working Age constitutes rather than causes seen, no tanks, no bombs being Welfare’, Mr Cameron opined: ‘we have unemployment. dropped? been encouraging working-age people to (‘The war against the poor in Britain’, have children and not ’.

Cathy McCormack’s Blogs to God, But the best laugh God, is our Prime

s If we reject the claims both that 7 May 2013: tinyurl.com/qbyl7dt)

n Minister, David Cameron whose o

i unemployment causes psychological

t government has launched a worse s

e outcomes and that psychological states ass unemployment is perhaps propaganda hate campaign against u

q cause unemployment, how else can we the most obvious and shocking the poor, unemployed and single make sense of the unemployed Mcontemporary manifestation of parents than Maggie Thatcher did. subjectivity and what are the wider the consequences of neoliberal austerity (‘The war against the poor in Britain’) implications for the discipline of programmes. Even advocates of austerity psychology? make no bones about this. For example, Unemployment is also high across Is it possible to engage with fiscal the Chief , with the austerity and its bedfellows – and Deputy Secretary- European Commission unemployment, , inequality General of the reporting unemployment and neoliberalism – as a psychologist Organization for “Want, disease, ignorance, rates of around 13 per without simultaneously engaging in Economic Cooperation squalor and idleness are cent in April 2013, up politics? and Development being generated by over 1.5 million in a year (OECD), Pier Carlo ‘austerity’ programmes” (tinyurl.com/2672ohz). Padoan, freely admitted

s McCormack, C. (2009). The wee yellow e in the OECD Yearbook tends to be even higher, close c

r butterfly . Glendaruel: Argyll 2013 that ‘[a]usterity programmes to to 25 per cent. In this figure was u

o Publishing.

s restore order to public finances can add to more than 60 per cent in February 2013,

e Biehl, J., Good, B.J. & Kleinman, A. (Eds.)

r the woes of already struggling , against an overall unemployment of (2007). Subjectivity: Ethnographic investigations. Berkeley, CA: University leading to more job losses and social 27 per cent. In May 2013 the of California Press. hardship’. Opponents of austerity (e.g. International Monetary Fund (IMF: see Bambra, 2013), put it more strongly: tinyurl.com/kcnxnku) admitted that the

s Bambra, C. (2013). All in it together? In C presented to duration on risk in the United Government Statistical . e

c Wood (Ed.) Health in austerity . Parliament by Command of His States. , 21 (3) , Eisenberg, P. & Lazarsfeld, P.F. (1938). n

e London: Demos. Available at Majesty. London: HMSO 338 –350. The psychological effects of r e

f tinyurl.com/kj4a8tu Brady, M. (2011). Researching Dean, M. (1995). Governing the unemployment. Psychological e

r Baxandall, P. (2002). Explaining governmentalities through unemployed self in an active society. Bulletin, 35 , 358 –390. differences in the political meaning ethnography: The case of Australian Economics and Society, 24 (4), Foucault, M. (2008). Lecture 14 Feb 1979. of unemployment across time and welfare reforms and programs for 559 –583. The birth of biopolitics: Lectures at the space. Journal of Socio-Economics, single parents. Critical Studies, Denman, J. & McDonald, P. (1996). Collège de 1978 – 1979. New 31 (5), 469 –502. 5(3), 265 –283. Unemployment statistics from 1881 York: Palgrave Macmillan. Beveridge Report (1942). Classen, T.J. & Dunn, R.A. (2012). The to the present day. Labour Market Fryer, D. (1985). The positive functions of and allied services . Report by Sir effect of job loss and unemployment Trends , January, 5 –18. The unemployment. Radical Community

244 vol 27 no 4 april 2014 austerity

to 202 million in you to lose your status as ‘unemployed’; 2013 and 205 million that is, to be disappeared from the in 2014. Moreover, ‘unemployment’ figures in countries such these shocking as the UK using the ILO operationalisation figures severely of ‘unemployment’ (Fryer, 2013). underestimate the number of unemployed people, The costs of unemployment considering as they The accumulating evidence about the do only people of an psychological costs of ‘unemployment’ is age to be employed, now vast. Maynard and Feldman (2011), without , for example, reported that their search of available for relevant databases (PsycINFO, SocIndex, employment, etc.) had revealed 31,839 peer-reviewed wanting employment works with ‘unemployment’ in the and having actively abstract published in the previous 50 sought employment years, and there was already a huge in the previous four literature by then (Eisenberg & weeks. Those who do Lazarsfeld, 1938; Österreichischen not engage in active Wirtschaftspsychologischen job search, the so- Forschungsstelle, 1933; Pilgrim Trust, called ‘discouraged’, 1938; Taylor, 1909). This large and do not count. This is diverse body of research has been an operationalisation conducted in a wide variety of that constructs a very geographical settings, across a range of particular way of historical periods, from diverse funding understanding bases and political assumptions, and at ‘unemployment’, as a number of ‘levels’ (individual a taken-for-granted unemployed people, unemployed category rather than families, cohorts of school-leavers, whole historically and redundant , populations of culturally contingent. states or whole countries, etc.); it has Others have explored been characterised by researchers’ use how the ‘problem of of varied methods and research designs Cathy McCormack, whose ‘Blogs to God’ give her views unemployment’ (psychiatric assessment, qualitative on ‘The war against the poor in Britain’: see influenced how interviewing, cross-sectional and tinyurl.com/qbyl7dt and quotes through this article unemployment was made longitudinal surveys using validated intelligible (Walters, 2000) reliable measures, epidemiology, action and politically volatile research) (Fryer, 1986a; but see Fryer, ‘notable failures’ of its insistence upon (Baxandall, 2002). 2013). Meta-reviews have pooled data ‘strong and sustained fiscal consolidation It is vital to reflect on the absence from a variety of studies (e.g. McKee- and deep structural reforms’ in Greece of the ‘discouraged’ in the ILO definition, Ryan et al., 2005; Paul & Moser, 2009). included ‘a much deeper than expected because decades of psychological research There has been, effectively, unanimity with exceptionally high have demonstrated beyond reasonable that ‘unemployment’ is not only associated unemployment’ (pp.1 –2). doubt that people who become with but causes individual misery and On a world scale the International ‘unemployed’ are disproportionately problems including anxiety, Labour Organization (ILO) calculated that likely to be positioned by researchers , negative self-esteem, global unemployment was 197 million in as depressed, anxious, demoralised, dissatisfaction with life, social dislocation, 2012, with a further 39 million people discouraged, low in self-esteem and community dysfunction and population having ‘dropped out of the labour market socially isolated (Fryer, 2012; Wanberg, morbidity (Classen & Dunn, 2012; as job prospects proved unattainable’ 2012). Becoming ‘unemployed’ can lead Jefferies et al., 2011; Kiely & Butterworth, (tinyurl.com/ozlnsl5, p.2). This increased to psychological reconstitution which leads 2013; Kim et al., 2012).

Medicine, 21 , 3 –10. discussion of Jahoda’s explanation of development of a community critical psychology: Springer Reference Fryer, D. (1986a). Being unemployed: A the psychological effects of psychological perspective on the (www.springerreference.com). review of the literature on the unemployment. Social Behaviour, 1 , psychological costs of doi:10.1007/SpringerReference_3049 psychological experience of 3–23. unemployment. In T. Kieselbach & S. 73 2013-01-26 18:30:43 UTC unemployment. In C.L. Cooper & I. Fryer, D. (1999). For better and for worse: Mannila (Eds.) Unemployment, Also to be published in a print Robertson (Eds.) International Review Interventions and mental health and health: Research version as: Fryer, D. (in press). of Industrial and Organisational consequences of unemployment. and policy issues (pp.473 –489). Unemployment. In T. Teo (Ed.) Psychology. Chichester: Wiley. International Archives of Occupational Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Encyclopedia of critical psychology . Fryer, D. (1986b). Employment and Environmental Health, 72 (Suppl.), Sozialwissenschaften. New York: Springer. deprivation and personal agency 34 –37. Fryer D. (2013). Unemployment. In T. Teo Fryer, D. & McCormack, C. (2012). The during unemployment: A critical Fryer, D. (2012). Critical differences: The (Ed.) Encyclopaedia of critical war without bullets: Socio-structural

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Researchers in the carried out many people is unemployment research in the context of psychologically and mass unemployment and hunger marches physically destructive, to determine whether mass unemployment so this cannot be the would lead to or apathy: the whole story. Indeed, answer given was the latter. Researchers we have long offered in the 1970s, 1980s and since have been a thorough critique of more concerned with the question of Jahoda’s account (see whether those with poorer mental health Fryer, 1986b). were more likely to become and remain We previously unemployed (individual drift), or whether offered an alternative healthy people who became unemployed meta-approach in terms became less mentally healthy (social of the restriction of causation). Epidemiological and cross- agency through sectional studies, whilst suggestive, were unemployment by deemed inconclusive. Meta-review studies poverty and and large-scale longitudinal studies using powerlessness, measures of accepted reliability and especially over the validity were taken to answer the question future (e.g. Fryer, in favour of social causation. 1986b). These days If the association between we are exploring the unemployment and poorer mental health ways people, when is well-established, this brings us to the unemployed, are question of why the lives of so many subjectively and unemployed people are plagued by misery, materially morbidity and, according to some research, (re)constituted so that mortality. The most influential such they come to embody – explanation is that of Marie Jahoda (1982), and perform themselves who argued that although the intended to reproduce – a socially function of employment was to earn a and historically living, employment also had unintended produced and functions (an imposed time structure, psychologically engagement in regular social contact, destructive, unemployed participation in a collective purpose, identity. Whilst some receipt of a social identity and required variation from person to regular activity) the deprivation of which person in the experience – by unemployment – was responsible of unemployment is The new Labour government in 1945 committed to social provision for the psychological consequences of reported – widely of income, , housing, employment and health care unemployment. explained by researchers What is psychologically bad about in terms of the moderation of the market, the degree of support for people, unemployment, according to this account, relationship between unemployment of , dominant social is that it constitutes a deprivation of and mental health by age, length of values, etc. from the 1930s to the 21st benevolent psychologically structuring unemployment, employment commitment, century and from country to country. We features of employment. However, many poverty, gender, etc. – strikingly, the broad regard the consistency of the results of privileged, secure, wealthy and privileged psychological impact of unemployment is subjectification of unemployed people as people in the hugely unequal societies of widely reported as not only saying more about the functions served by the OECD manage ‘psychologically’, psychologically destructive but also oddly unemployment for the neoliberal status relatively at least, very well indeed without consistent in the nature and detail of that quo than it does about replication of effects having the ‘psychological benefits’ of destruction across time, space and culture. of unemployment (Fryer, 2013; see also employment imposed upon them. Of This consistency is particularly notable McDonald & Marston, 2005; Schram, course there is also another literature when we consider the huge variation in 2000). documenting that the employment of the nature of employment, the labour As if the experience of unemployment

violence from a critical standpoint. of poverty. American Journal of Jefferies, B.J., Nazareth, I., Marston, L. Kiely, K.M. & Butterworth, P. (2013). Global Journal of Community Sociology, 78 (2), 275 –289. et al. (2011). Associations between Social disadvantage and individual Psychology Practice, 3 (1) . Available at Hunter, D.J. (2013). Safe in our hands? unemployment and major depressive vulnerability: A longitudinal tinyurl.com/nl3zftv Austerity and the health system. In C disorder: Evidence from an investigation of welfare receipt and Fryer, D. & McCormack, C. (Eds.). (2013). Wood (Ed.) Health in austerity. international, prospective study (the mental health in Australia. Australian Psychology and poverty reduction. London: Demos. Available at predict cohort). Social Science & & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry Australian Community Psychologist tinyurl.com/kj4a8tu Medicine, 73 (11), 1672 –1634. 47 (7), 654–666. Special Section, 25 (1). Available at Jahoda, M. (1982). Employment and Karren, R. & Sherman, K. (2012). Layoffs Kim, I.H., Muntaner, C., Vahid, S.F. et al. www.groups.psychology.org.au/ccom/ unemployment: A social-psychological and unemployment discrimination: A (2012). Welfare states, flexible publications/ analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge new stigma. Journal of Managerial employment and health: A critical Gans, H.J. (1972). The positive functions University Press. Psychology, 27 (8), 848 –863. review. Health Policy, 104 (2), 99 –127.

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were not bad enough, the OECD Chief disable collective resistance whilst I acts as an incomes policy ensuring Economist and Deputy Secretary-General increasing inequality, threatening mental lower , allowing bigger dividends suggests that the cure for the ills of and physical health, undermining and more ; austerity, is further austerity (OECD, 2013, education, extending poverty and I creates for middle-class para.10). widening and deepening unemployment. professionals, ‘worthy causes’ for In the UK the Coalition programme is middle-class philanthropists and more than an immediate response to rallying issues for political groups; Is unemployment inevitable? a large current account deficit. As noted I positions some people as deviants who It might be supposed that although by Taylor-Gooby and Stoker (2011, cited can be used to legitimate dominant unemployment has dreadful in Hunter, 2013, p.12), ‘it involves a norms of hard work. consequences for many people, restructuring of welfare benefits and public unemployment itself is inevitable. services that takes the country in a new In this way, unemployment functions as That is not the case, but since mass direction, rolling back the state to a level an instrument of personal, social, political unemployment is intentionally produced, of intervention below that in the United and economic control to the extent that it or at least maintained, by neoliberal States – something which is is widely understood that unemployment administrations, mass unemployment unprecedented… The policies include is psychologically destructive (Fryer & could be said to be an inevitable substantial privatisation and a shift of McCormack, 2012, 2013). Given that consequence of neoliberal economic responsibility from state to individual.’ psychological unemployment research is policies: there is a well-used acronym …at least under Thatcher we always a core way in which that understanding (NAIRU: Non Accelerating Rate had some kind of food on the table. is accomplished, we are led to the of Unemployment) which refers to the But God, my neighbour can only find conclusion that psychological level of unemployment (4-6 per cent) part-time work as a cleaner. It nearly unemployment research is central to the required to prevent inflation. When broke my heart when she chapped on dominance of neoliberalism in how we unemployment goes far below the NAIRU my door the other day and asked to can live our everyday (un)employed lives. or stays there for long, the stock exchange borrow 12p to make up the to tends to get the jitters. buy her son a pot noddle for his Does history suggest that mass supper! Psychology’s role in social unemployment in times of austerity is (‘The war against the poor in Britain’) violence inevitable? In the time of World War II, Rejecting the view that neoliberalism and for a good while afterwards, there was is laissez-faire in all respects, Foucault a grim belt-tightening for individuals. But Not negative for everyone (1979/2008, p.145) stated: ‘…neo liberal around that time there were also many Although unemployment is a bad thing governmental intervention is no less collective gains: the Beveridge Report for many working people, unemployment dense, frequent, active, and continuous (1942) recommended tackling the ‘five is – it turns out – a good thing for many than in any other system. But what is giants’: Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor other groups. Drawing inspiration important is to see what the point of and Idleness. The Labour Party won the from Gans’ (1972) classic The Positive application of these governmental 1945 election and committed to social Functions of Poverty , we have drawn interventions is now… Government must provision of income, education, housing, attention to ‘the positive functions of not intervene on effects of the market. employment and health care. The National unemployment’ for some interest groups Nor must neo-, or neo-liberal Health Service was founded in 1948 and (Fryer, 1985). Thus, unemployment: government, correct the destructive the rate of unemployment, which had I provides a pool of potential workers effects of the market on society… averaged 22.1 per cent in 1932, averaged unable to be unwilling to do the most Government must not form a 3.7 per cent in 1947 and was not to rise boring, dirty, dead end, menial, counterpoint or a screen, as it were, above that until 1971 (Denman & underpaid, temporary, insecure, between society and economic processes. McDonald, 1996). stressful jobs; It has to intervene on society as such, in In 2014 people are tightening I provides consumers of substandard its fabric and depth.’ their belts, but this time the wider products and services which would We interpret this intervention ‘on manifestations of austerity are very otherwise be ‘wasted’; society in its fabric and depth’ to include different. Want, disease, ignorance, I provides for jobs from the re-subjectification of the unemployed squalor and idleness are being generated desperate job seekers allowing subject as ‘unemployed’, a socially and by ‘austerity’ programmes that dismantle employers to drive down wages and historically produced identity. Our where they still exist and working conditions; contention is that a network of

Maynard, D.C. & Feldman, D.C. (Eds.) and physical well-being during un- Leipzig: Verlag von S. Hirzel. Cambridge: Cambridge University (2011). : employment: A meta-analytic study. Organisation for Economic Cooperation Press. Psychological, economic, and social Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, and Development (2013). OECD Year Proudfoot, J., Guest, D., Carson, J. et al. challenges . New York: Springer. 53 –70. Book 2013: Better policies for better (1997). Effect of cognitive-behavioural McDonald, C. & Marston, G. (2005). Österreichischen Wirtschaftspsycho- lives . OECD Publishing. Available at on job-finding among long- Workfare as welfare: Governing logischen Forschungsstelle (1933). tinyurl.com/oxby67r term unemployed people. Lancet, unemployment in the advanced Die Arbeitslosen von Marienthal. Ein Paul, K.I. & Moser, K. (2009). 350 (9071), 96 –100. liberal state. Critical Social Policy, 25 , soziographischer Versuch über die Unemployment impairs mental Rose, N. (1999). Powers of freedom: 374 –401. Wirkungen langdauernder health: Meta-analysis. Journal of Reframing political thought. McKee-Ryan, F., Song, Z., Wanberg, C.R. Arbeitslosigkeit. Mit einem Anhang: Vocational Behaviour, 74 , 264 –282. Cambridge: Cambridge University & Kinicki, A.J. (2005). Psychological Zur Geschichte der Soziographie. . Pilgrim Trust (1938). Men without work . Press.

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interconnected socially H I L I constituted social elements – P W

including discourses of O L M U

unemployment and mental T H / health, whose primary function R E P O

is to control inflation, reduce R T D I

costs, discipline those in G I T A

work, etc. – also simultaneously L . C O .

constructs a category of ‘the U unemployed’ necessary to make K the neoliberal labour market work in the of employers and shareholders. This network also visits diverse forms of social violence upon and into the members of that category and (re)constitutes the subjectivity of ‘the unemployed’ in such ways as to (re)produce the compliant human means of production required by the employers, shareholders and government within the contemporary version of the neoliberal labour market. We can see this very clearly A Jobseekers Allowance claimant on a compulsory four-week unpaid work placement in a in the logic of ‘workfare’, which private care home in Rochdale, part of a Mandatory Work Activity welfare-to-work programme (but demands that an unemployed see tinyurl.com/n8hxwrp regarding the lawfulness of such programmes) person not only proves they are actively seeking work but are also actively vacancies, they of course do nothing more necessary, structures. Nor is it to do with working on themselves through ‘self- than reorder the queue of unemployed the frustration of the agentic potential of examination, counselling, self-help people looking for employment. They are the individual unemployed person. groups… improve one’s job readiness, self- also individualistic and victim blaming Instead, it is a set of connected esteem, motivational levels’ (Dean, 1995, and deflect attention from the neoliberal manifestations of material, social and p.575). Psychologically oriented economic and policy constitution of subjective violence necessary to make the interventions to promote an active labour unemployment (Fryer, 1999). neoliberal labour market work in the market have included recommendations Psychology, in providing the psy- interests of employers and shareholders. that unemployed people receive cognitive complex resources for such So God, you better start to get a grip behaviour therapy (Karren & Sherman, (re)subjectification (Rose, 1999), because the war against the poor has 2012; Proudfoot et al., 1997; Wanberg et contributes to the normalisation of this intensified under my new Coalition al., 2011). The JOBS Project shift of responsibility onto the individual, Government who now regard the sick, (tinyurl.com/qj8qbzx) ‘involves the which then prohibits or limits possible disabled and even the terminally ill as design and of a preventive self-intelligibilities; ones which may lie easy targets. Aye God, Maggie’s wains intervention aimed at providing job- outside a neoliberal subjectivity (Brady, have all grown up. They are the ones seeking skills to promote reemployment 2011), including potentialities for in Government now, so no surprise and to combat feelings of anxiety, resistance. The apparent relationship there God, that they are determined helplessness, and depression among the between ‘unemployment’ and ‘mental to finish off what their hero started. unemployed’. Whilst such projects reduce health’ is, from our critical standpoint, (‘The war against the poor in Britain’) unemployment in the target intervention revealed as not to do with ‘natural’ and groups, in a situation where the number inevitable psychobiological consequences of unemployed people is vastly greater of depriving an unemployed person of than the number of employment employment-related, psychologically I David Fryer is Professor Extraordinarius at the University of South Africa, Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Stirling, Senior Research Fellow at the Schram, S. F. (2000). In the clinic: The Cambridge: Cambridge University Queensland University of medicalization of welfare. Social Text, Press. 18 (1), 81 –107. Wanberg, C.R. (2012). The individual and Honorary Associate Professor at Stuckler, D. & Basu, S. (2013). The body experience of unemployment. Annual the University of Queensland economic: Why austerity kills. London: Review of Psychology, 63 (1) , 369 –396. [email protected] Allen Lane. Wanberg, C.R., Zhu, J., Kanfer, R. & Taylor, F.I. (1909). A bibliography of Zhang, Z. (2011). After the pink slip: I Rose Stambe unemployment and the unemployed. Applying dynamic motivation is a Research Higher Degree candidate London: P.S. King and Son. frameworks to the job search at the University of Queensland Walters, W. (2000). Unemployment and experience. Academy of Management [email protected] government: Genealogies of the social. Journal, 55 (2), 261 –284.

248 vol 27 no 4 april 2014 Division of Forensic Psychology 23rd Annual Conference Glasgow Caledonian University 25–27 June 2014 REGISTRATION NOW OPEN Early bird rates available until 8 May 2014. All rates will increase by £15 after this date.

PROGRAMME – The draft programme is now available to view online (www.bps.org.uk/dfp2014). Keynote Speakers: G Dr Jo Clarke, University of York G Dr Lawrence Jones, Rampton Hospital & Nottingham University G Professor Alison Liebling, Cambridge University G Dr John Livesley, University of British Columbia, Invited Symposiums from: G Dr Nikki Graham-Kevan, University of Central Lancashire G Dr Catherine Hamilton-Giachritsis, University of Birmingham Crime Writers: G Denise Mina G Chris Brookmyre

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