A slippery slope to an ever more dystopian future?

These are three issues in the news over the last week that have caught my attention: England and Wales assisted dying bill formally launched in House of Commons - Harriet Sherwood | The Guardian | 16.10.24 and: Anger and confusion over Kendall’s comments on sending work coaches into mental health hospitals - John Pring | Disability News Service | 17.10.24 and lastly this: UK to study offering weight-loss drugs to get people off the dole - Mari Eccles | Politico | 15.10.24. On the surface they may seem to be unrelated. What I want to do is tease out out the links between them, in order to draw attention to the callous attitudes shown by the powers that be, state and corporate, towards anyone deemed to be 'non-productive'.

The discussion about assisted dying for the terminally ill is a complex and nuanced one, with no easy answers. I've had experience of end of life situations with both of my parents and also, my father and mother-in-law. These experiences, while different from each other, were still traumatic in their own way and I'd be lying if I said they hadn't left any permanent scars on me. One common factor linking them is is that it's abundantly clear that end of life care in the United Kingdom is severely lacking in terms of resources and also, can show an indifferent and sometimes callous attitude towards the elderly as they come towards the end of their lives. Which means the experience of dying for the elderly, and also for their family, can all too often be an upsetting and degrading experience. All too often, it's very public experience as quiet side rooms are at a premium, so watching a relative pass away amidst the clatter of a hospital ward is all too often the norm. Obviously for the other patients, someone dying in the next bed to you can be an upsetting and traumatic experience as well.

Given the above, I understand why relatives of those who are terminally ill and in great distress would want to consider the option of assisted dying. I also totally get why someone with a terminal illness who knows of the pain and anguish ahead, would want the option of ending their life on their terms rather than face an agonising and degrading death in a busy hospital ward. No one wants to watch their loved ones suffer needlessly as they die if there's a less painful, more humane way out on offer. While in principle, I oppose assisted dying where there are few safeguards and there's the potential for coercion to make people pick the option, I can also see why in the face of inadequate palliative and end of life care, people want to have the option of assisted dying so as to avoid unnecessary pain and trauma. There are no easy answers and I'm conflicted on this issue.

There are a number of factors that do sway me in the direction of opposing assisted dying. Namely that there's a slippery slope with expansion of the availability of assisted dying away from those with painful terminal illnesses, broadening it out to take in this suffering from mental illness. It's this slippery slope that has become all too obvious in Canada and is now the subject of some considerable debate: Assisted dying: Canada grapples with plans to extend euthanasia to people suffering solely from mental illness - The Conversation | 16.5.24 and: Should people suffering from mental illness be eligible for medically assisted death? Canada plans to legalize that in 2027 - a philosopher explains the core questions - The Conversation | 11.3.24. Just the suggestion that assisted dying be an option for someone suffering from mental illness should be raising alarm bells. Not just because it's questionable whether someone with mental illness has the capacity to make an informed choice about assisted dying, but also because it's indicative of some very worrying attitudes towards mental illness. We live in a dysfunctional society. It's not surprising that people become mentally ill. It's also not surprising that a viewpoint that sees people as units of production, deriding and demonising those who can't work, is going to make someone with mental illness feel a lot worse, quite possibly suicidal.

Which brings me on to the suggestion made by the United Kingdom government Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, one Liz Kendall, that Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) 'life coaches' be sent into mental health hospitals to try and coax people back into work. Mental health provision in the UK is abysmal. For those who have ended up in a mental health ward, it's safe to say that they'll be in a pretty bad way. The last thing they'll be wanting is some official from the DWP with little or no knowledge of mental health issues, telling them that they need to be working to gain any sense of self worth and improve their condition. If someone has experienced a serious mental health breakdown as a result of intense pressure at work, they absolutely do not need to be told that they have to get back to work. The toxic, dysfunctional and increasingly dystopian system we have to endure judges people by how much they'll be worth as production units to the bottom line of a faceless corporation. The leads to an attitude that sees anyone not working, for whatever reason, as a problem to be dealt with rather than a human being with needs to be met.

As a caveat, the vast majority of people want to work and contribute to the well being of society. What a growing number of them don't want to do is slog away their lives in meaningless jobs that only serve to boost the bottom line of the corporations. What they also don't want to do is slog away at two or more precarious, low paid jobs just in order to survive in a dog eat dog world.

Lastly, there's the suggestion that overweight people on state benefits be given the weight loss drug, Ozempic, in a bid to make them ready and fit for work. Before I go any further, it needs to be born in mind is that all too often, these so called 'wonder drugs' turn out to be anything but, as a slew of toxic and sometimes fatal side effects manifest themselves. This push to get obese people on benefits to take Ozempic ignores the fact that if you're poor, the local farm shop selling organic vegetables and the like is going to be way out of your reach, with the only readily available and affordable food being over-processed crap. Poor people eat badly not because it's a lifestyle choice but because the food production system in the UK is dysfunctional and not fit for purpose, meaning they cannot afford to eat decent food. A weight loss drug is not going to cure that. People taking control of how their food is produced and distributed would be a start in achieving a healthier food system but, that requires a massive push towards de-centralisation and localisation. That is something the powers that be will not contemplate for one minute because de-centralising and localising food production means surrendering their power and control over us. Instead, they'd rather blame people with little control over their lives for the problem of obesity rather than address a crap food production and distribution system that serves the corporations. As an aside, one of the things we're trying to do with our sister blog At the Grassroots and through the practical work we do with our local community vegetable and fruit plot is address how we produce and distribute our food in a de-centralised, localised way.

It's time to draw these strands together. What is the link between assisted dying, sending work coaches into mental health wards and 'persuading' obese people on benefits to take weight loss drugs in a bid to get them back into the workplace? The link in all three cases is how the powers that be regard us plebs as little more than production units whose aim in life is to add to the bottom line of the corporations. The government, whose purpose is to serve the interests of the corporations and the bankers, take a very calculating, instrumentalist view of the populace. Namely that if they're not contributing to the bottom line through working, they are to be regarded as a problem. One that needs 'solving' by any means they can get away with.

Yes, this does apply to assisted dying. As outlined earlier, there are legitimate reasons to discuss it as an option for people dying from a terminal illness and who are suffering considerable distress and pain. However, as already mentioned and as can be seen in Canada and a number of other nations, the criteria for assisted dying starts to expand to the point where it's seriously being considered as an option for people with long term mental illness. Now, taking a look at Starmer's government and the instrumentalist way they divide the population into the productive and non-productive, demonising and hassling the latter, can you seriously trust this lot with having any role to play in implementing assisted dying? This is a government obsessed with boosting productivity, getting as many people as possible to be efficient, unquestioning production units and, last but by no means least, balancing the books. One way of balancing the books is to keep the number of non-productive people down to the minimum number possible.

Okay, the government and their corporate and banking backers have yet to take the 'by any means necessary' approach to reducing the proportion of non-productive people in the population. To get to the stage where they can start to think about 'by any means necessary', they need to demonise and degrade those who are non-productive and deemed to be a burden on society. For those on benefits, as is already clearly evident, they've been an easy target for demonisation for some decades now. For those with a debilitating mental illness, there's a creeping emergence of the attitude that they're the ones at fault and they're the ones who have to 'pull themselves together'. Any suggestion that their mental illness comes at least in part from living in a toxic society is derided and dismissed.

Then there are those of us who are getting on in years. I'll be 69 years old come 8 January, 2025. I'm really starting to notice ageism and attempts to stir up inter-generational conflict. Being told that even when those of us who are getting on a bit but are still in relatively good health that we're 'useless eaters', 'selfish boomers' and the like is starting to get more than a bit wearing. For those elderly people whose health is not good and who need a lot of help and care, the inference is that they're a 'burden', not just on their families, but also on the public purse. You can see where these attitudes and a government with a callous, instrumentalist attitude towards the 'non-productive' can lead to, can't you? Namely towards increasing pressures that once we reach a certain age and become infirm, we should at least consider 'voluntarily' shuffling ourselves off this mortal coil.

You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to realise that these three strands do link together and point the way to a very worrying, dystopian future. A future that as I get on in years, is starting to terrify me. Simply because those of us who are non-productive are increasingly seen as a drag, a burden upon the productive, and ultimately, a problem that is going to have to be dealt with. As already mentioned, there's still a bit of a way to go before we reach the 'by any means necessary' stage of them dealing with us. However, all the indications are that this is the direction we're heading in. So, it's time to challenge the rhetoric, particularly that aimed at stoking up a toxic inter-generational conflict. To any Millennials and Gen Zers who may by some fluke be reading this, and who may have been sucked into fuelling the inter-generational conflict, please remember that if you're lucky, one day you'll be old like us. When you reach that point, do you really want to be demonised and told you're a burden on society? I'm pretty sure you don't. So please, don't fall for the divide and rule pitting generations against each other. Instead let's unite to get rid of this toxic system, once and for all...