If You're Poor, Just Work Harder!

Let's start at the beginning. 

Last week on a podcast, Love Island alum, and current influencer, Molly-Mae Hague made a boo-boo. The 22-year-old influencer said: "You're given one life and it's down to you what you do with it. When I've spoken about that in the past, I have been slammed a little bit, with people saying, 'It's easy for you to say that, you've not grown up in poverty, you've not grown up with major money struggles, so for you to sit there and say that we all have the same 24 hours in a day, it's not correct.' And I'm like, but technically what I'm saying is correct. We do - so I understand that we all have different backgrounds and we're all raised in different ways and we do have different financial situations, but I do think if you want something enough, you can achieve it." 

And the internet blew up. 

This statement is damning. Not only does it reveal her privilege, but it also revealed her ignorance. For while, yes, we are responsible for the decisions we make in our lives, not all of us have the capacity to make choices that benefit our life long-term. And not all of us have a multitude of options. And while yes, we all have the same 24 hours a day, not all of us have assistants, chefs and additional support to free us from the necessary things we need to do with those hours (i.e. cooking, cleaning, shopping etc).  Equally, though determination and drive are determinants of success, wanting something "bad enough" isn't enough to achieve it. For example, one could want to swim across an ocean "badly enough," but they must also contend with the tide, the current and the waves. In essence, they have to deal with things beyond their control.

I think Eggsy, from Kingsman, said it best: "[people like you] judging people like me from your ivory towers with no thought about why we do what we do. We ain't got much choice, you get me? And if we was born with the same silver spoon up our arses, we'd do just as well as you, if not better." Molly Mae danced around this point; acknowledging it, before quickly dismissing it in favour of the neoliberal myth of personal responsibility, and the power of individual action. 

The truth is that, systemic, or structural, discrimination against the poor, people of colour, the LGBTQIA+ community, immigrants etc prevents people from doing what they want in life. In essence, it limits their choices and denies them the opportunity for social mobility. The statistics bear this out.  

In the UK today, the data tells us that your social background still impacts your opportunities in life. According to Deloitte: "by the age of three, poorer children are estimated to be, on average, nine months behind children from more wealthy backgrounds [and] by 16, children receiving free school meals achieve 1.7 grades lower at GCSE." In light of these statistics, is it any wonder that in July 2021, the Social Mobility Commission warned that social mobility in the UK was "already stagnant" and could move backwards, as a result of the pandemic. Is it surprising that, according to Deloitte, "the UK has one of the poorest rates of social mobility in the developed world?" Or that, in 2021, nearly three-quarters (74%) of people think there are large differences in opportunities across Britain (Gov.Uk, 2021).  These facts demonstrate a truth that Molly-Mae is, either, ignorant or dismissive of; that while we are all given one life, it may not be down to us what to decide what to do with it. We do not have the same choices and options. While Molly-Mae has the world on a platter, the rest of us have her scraps. To say that we are both getting a full meal or to suggest that both meals are equal in quality and quantity is ludicrous. 

Yet, there is a truth, that I am reluctant to admit, in Molly-Mae's words; life is or can be, what you make of it. To a certain extent, life is determined by the 'liver.' We ought to be responsible for, and accountable to, our personal choices. Even if the options on the table are limited by external factors. Thus, Molly-Mae's words, and our reaction to them, are representative of an ongoing conversation: how can we balance individual responsibility and accountability with the adverse effects of structural discrimination. For, in recent years, I have noticed a troubling trend; the use of structural discrimination as a scapegoat for personal failings. 

Now before you close that tab, hear me out. I am not about to descend into a right-wing diatribe on how the marginalised chose to be marginalised. Not at all. To point out that, sometimes, systemic discrimination is used as a scapegoat is not the same as denying the discrimination itself. Instead, it ought to be a critique in the manner in which the truth of structural discrimination has become, after decades of repetition and performative action, just another narrative; just another story to soothe one to sleep. It ought to be a recognition that efforts to "fight the power" have been subsumed, and co-opted, into the very power structures we wish to abolish.  And, it ought to be an acknowledgement of the threat of a ready, and nebulous, a scapegoat that breeds a new class of status; victimization as a social currency. "[The marginalized] are, within this hierarchy, persecuted prophets, ever attesting to the harm that [systemic discrimination] does to [them] and pointing to a future context in which [their] persecutors will be redeemed of the sin of having levelled that harm upon [them]. [The marginalized] are noble in [their] suffering." (The Atlantic, 2019).

Understand that I write this with great difficulty; for I know where this train of thought can lead; to the dismissal, and delegitimization, of the struggle and structural inequity. But I would not be doing my job as a commentator if I did not consider Molly-Mae's opinion seriously. Because there are millions of people who think that just like her. Millions of people who believe that "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" is possible when, both literally and figurately, it is not.  Millions of people who use the narrative of individual responsibility to ignore and dismiss the structural inequities that bar such responsibility from the realms of reality; at least for the marginalised. It allows the structures that benefit people like Molly-Mae, to continue existing. 

The truth is that structural inequity is in-built into every society, as a necessary precursor to capitalism. For if you have a capital-holding holding class that benefits from the labour of others and only thrives when the cost of such labour is minimised; you will have a labouring underclass who are paid the least, to produce the most. Thus structural inequity is "located in the structure of everyday worlds" (Salter, Adams, Perez, 2017). It "constitutes modern society" (Salter et. al, 2017). "The [structural inequities] of modern society [are] not only a function of [their] distant origins but also refers to manifestations embedded in practices, artefacts, discourse, and institutional realities (e.g., legal, educational, and economic systems). Rather than something extraordinary or rare, [structural inequity] is akin to the water in which fish swim" (Salter et. al, 2017). The reason why Molly-Mae didn't notice it, is because she has been travelling across the water in a boat; while the rest of us have to swim.

Thus, we must ask a question; what kind of responsibility does structural inequity breed? How are we to be held responsible for the choices we make in a system that, effectively, limits the options for the majority? It is political, moral, both or neither? First, I reject the idea that such responsibility can be understood as an acceptance of complicity, or willing participation by the marginalized, in this structural inequity. Those trapped within this substructure of society are neither complicit nor willing participants. 

Unfortunately, I do not have a singular vision of responsibility for the marginalised to propose. However, those with privilege are responsible; not as accessories to the injustice of reinforced inequity, but as people with the power to do something about it. "They are [I am] morally and politically responsible for creating or entrenching social conditions that may make some category of persons more vulnerable to suffering interactional wrongs or objectionable harms" (Lu, 2018). 

Remember, with great power and privilege, comes great responsibility.