Impasse: A Possible Way Forward
By Bill Hall

This paper was prepared as a keynote statement for a conference that considered the lessons to be learned from the ‘Impasse’ initiative in the North East. It raises issues of fundamental importance in thinking about the nature of economic and social development. The paper was published in the Northern Economic Review (Autumn 1994 No 22) What progress have we made between 1994 when this paper was last reviewed and 2001?

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Introduction

The impetus for this conference comes from an initiative called ‘Impasse’. Its starting point in 1968 was a concern for those experiencing unemployment. Addressing those concerns led to a wider concern for purpose and meaning in life whether we have paid employment or not.

This paper attempts to follow the same track and on the way identify some of the areas we will be addressing from a multi-disciplinary perspective.

Poverty and Unemployment

Either personally or vicariously we all have experience of the destructive impact of unemployment. The sense of rejection which leads to the familiar pattern of bereavement — initial shock leading to anger, to grief, to distress — might be followed by hope, the hope of perhaps a new job in a new location. Or there might be quite simply the resignation to one’s lot with the other almost three million in the same boat and the common feeling of being a statistic: one of the 25 chasing after each job. And there is little comfort in predictions for the future: the European Union predicts a rise in unemployment to a record 11.25% in 1996 before an expected resumption in economic growth.

The effects of unemployment in the 1920s and ‘30s were well-documented, but fifty years later we had to learn it all again before there was much compassion for the group regarded as ‘the undeserving poor’. And poverty there certainly is! Last year some 1.5 million families were living on income support. That included almost three million children. The National Children’s Home commissioned a piece of research. It concluded that basic social security benefit is insufficient to pay for the diet prescribed for a child in a Victorian workhouse. The current allowances are £69 a week for a couple over 18 plus £9.65 family premium plus £15.05 for a child under eleven.

In a recent press report a spokeswoman for the DSS pointed out that the benefit is updated annually according to indices which reflect food and household expenses; that the money is given in a lump sum to claimants to spend as they like; and that, as there is today a far wider range of foodstuffs available than was the case in Victorian times, all income levels could buy the makings of nutritious meals.

In a recent lecture to Manchester Business School attention was drawn to the consequences of deep-seated economic changes which had transformed Britain into a poverty-stricken and more unequal society. During the 1980s the real income for the bottom tenth of the population fell by 14% while the real income of the top tenth rose by 62%. The lecturer was not from a human rights or poverty agency. He was the Director General of the CBI, Howard Davies.

A New Initiative

Poverty, as debilitating as it is, is not however the only deprivation facing an unemployed person. In the late 1960s, an initiative of the Arts and Recreation Chaplaincy brought together a group of unemployed people. With the stigma attaching to unemployment, especially in those days, this was no mean achievement. The group explored the question: ‘What is it about being unemployed that makes life hell?’ They identified needs which we all have and recognised how those needs are more easily met through paid employment.

The first need we identified came from the condition of being social animals. Paid work provides a major opportunity for creating friendships which spill over into the rest of our lives. Deprived of this opportunity through paid work, the unemployed person’s position is further exacerbated by the stigma attached to unemployment.

Secondly we need an identity. In our work based society this comes most readily from the job we do. It’s how we introduce each other.

Thirdly we need to feel we are making a contribution to society. A paid job can be the best opportunity for this. Rules governing Unemployment Benefit make it difficult for an unemployed person to make such a contribution even in a voluntary capacity — they must be ‘capable and available for work’ — though there are plans to change this in the immediate future.

The fourth need was for a rhythm of life. For the last 200 years or so the rhythm has been dictated by the machine. Even most leisure provision assumes that the vast majority of people are at work between 9 and 5. When the central core of time committed to paid employment is removed, our life structure collapses, day and night merge into one.

A further need is that of creativity — creativity in the broadest sense of that word. Every human being needs to be brought to a realisation of our inherent creative potential. Overwhelming experience has shown that everyone, given the right circumstances, can discover amazing unimagined skills. Paid employment can provide the environment in which this can happen.

The last, and by no means the least, of these needs is that vexed issue of money. In our complex and complicated society, money is essential for survival, safety and security. Paying unemployed people less than anyone else is part of a coercive system. Its intention is to encourage them to find paid employment. When there are jobs aplenty such a system can be justified. With high levels of unemployment such a practice is surely unacceptable in a humane society.

Having identified the needs, we developed a practical project that we called ‘Impasse’. Its title was a comment on society’s dilemma over the issue of unemployment. Its aim was ambitious. It was based on the conviction that there would not be paid employment for all, an unacceptable position in Job Creation times. The advance of the new technologies was the fundamental difference between the high unemployment of the 1960s and ‘70s and that of fifty years earlier. Now, given the political will, we can structure society to enable individuals and communities to realise their potential whether or not they have paid employment. As a start, in our local initiative, we would try to find a way through the impasse by removing some of the barriers preventing those six needs from being met. At one stage there were nine Impasse developments — a federation spreading throughout north east England and up into Scotland.

Impasse Middlesbrough, the first, developed into a very well-resourced facility as we responded to, and attempted to anticipate, needs and opportunities. In its main building were excellent facilities for interests such as woodwork; for audiovisual production; for the visual arts; for fashion and general needlecraft; for catering; for theatre productions, and so on. Whatever the interest, facilities were made available. A separate building housed a garage, equipped to commercial standards for engine and bodywork. Each department was headed by a professional member of staff with the whole operation greatly dependent on volunteer help.

The buildings, though, were not to be self-contained centres for the unemployed but bases providing and releasing resources for all disadvantaged people in their local community. With this in mind, Impasse pioneered a Tools Library providing a vast range of tools and equipment for some 5000 members to borrow for work at home.

Outreach work was a key element, with volunteers carrying out a wide range of work such as gardening and decorating for elderly and disabled people; in a specially adapted vehicle transporting those who were wheelchair-bound; taking into the community theatre productions of an amazingly high quality, and so on.

By the 1990s Impasse Middlesbrough was a small business with more than thirty staff and an annual budget of half a million pounds. It was regarded by many, including the local government chief officers with whom we worked closely, as a flagship and an extremely cost effective operation.

Without doubt Impasse Middlesbrough was a great success. But how far had we moved towards the realisation of that aim of a society in which individuals and communities could realise their potential whether or not they had paid employment?

Politicians were largely unmoved. For the most part they regarded Impasse as worthy but only a short term expedient until the return of full employment. Recent encouraging signs of falls in the unemployment figures and the creation of new jobs will no doubt confirm them in this view.

But then, do those figures provide the complete picture? There is evidence to suggest that many are merely giving up the search for work, becoming discouraged, reaching retirement age or managing to persuade their local benefit office that they should instead be receiving long-term sickness benefit. Figures alone can be misleading. After all, over the past fifteen years there have been thirty or so changes in definitions of unemployment that may have reduced the figure by a million. And what of the new jobs? In that same lecture in Manchester, Howard Davies pointed out that many of them are part-time. According to the latest Labour Force Survey, between summer and autumn last year part-time employment rose by 90,000. Further, according to the National Institute for Economic and Social Research most of the part-time jobs created over the past decade have been taken by women in households where there is already a wager-earner. The inflexible benefit system, remember, means that if the husband is unemployed the family will not benefit from a low-paid, part-time job. And so the gap widens between the work-rich and the work-poor.

The political aim of all parties is still full employment, matching the aspirations of other groups such as the Movement for Christian Democracy. In a recent statement they claim to have detailed plans for the restoration of full employment. Many of the policies suggested — they claim — ‘happen to be in accord with Christian values’.

With such consensus of opinion it might then appear to be foolish to be too confident in the belief that an alternative way must be found.

The problem, though, is wider than one of job creation with economic growth as the essential focus. It is to do with human growth. Our attempts to define who we are through purchases — growth through greed — has led to serious problems ecologically and socially. (The ecological issues will be picked up in another paper.) Among the disadvantaged can be numbered not only unemployed people but also over-employed people. There are, of course, those who must work long hours of overtime to ensure an adequate wage. The reference here is rather to those who have struck a Faustian bargain: all one’s waking hours in return for crazy figure salaries (as Charles Handy described them). This culture of busy-ness may be good for economic growth but it is costly in terms of personal growth — and not least in relation to family and friends. Life is pared down to its essentials; earning money, eating and sleeping. What price the six basic needs we identified?

By contrast, through Impasse, those needs were being met. Many stories can be told of lives changed simply by releasing resources, both human and material; by removing the barriers and releasing the creative human spirit. But two examples might illustrate this: one spectacular; one almost mundane — though, for the individual, equally spectacular.

At Impasse, two Middlesbrough brothers built a catamaran and, in a fascinating and frequently dangerous adventure sailed it from Teesmouth to the West Indies. The boat’s name made the point: The Spirit of Cleveland. They repeated the journey in a rigid-hull inflatable — just to prove that the first journey had not been a fluke. The explorer Ranulf Fiennes joined us for the celebration at their return. In discussion it was clear that were was no difference between the ways in which all three found finance for their projects. The only difference between them was one of status: he is a leading explorer, they unemployed — and perhaps further regarded as slightly foolhardy youngsters.

The second example is that of Kit. He was made redundant from the Steel Works. In his fifties, he saw no future for himself, went to bed and wanted to die. The doctor was called regularly and the domestic tension was destructive. He was regarded as lazy. He must snap out of it! Somehow — he knew not how! — he found himself in the woodwork shop at Impasse. Fascinated by the skills of a man making a Welsh dresser, he decided to try to make something and was amazed to discover skills he never imagined that he had. This was a common experience at Impasse. Kit used his skills to make furniture, not only for his own family but also other disadvantaged people. Constantly he was being asked for advice, not only by people in the woodwork shop but also in his own neighbourhood as word of his abilities got out. Nobody had ever explained to Kit the aims of Impasse, but in recalling his words it is interesting to bear in mind those six basic needs.

He admitted that he had more disposable income when he was employed, but also claimed to be much happier. ‘Frankly’ he said, ‘I am better dressed than ever because they are always buying me clothes to thank me.’

He had no desire to turn his skills into a business. Then, as now, there were financial incentives for those who wished to set up their own businesses, but then, as now, there was a limit to the demand and many businesses were going into receivership with large outstanding debts. He could do without the hassle. But his overriding consideration was that many of his ’customers’ would not be able to benefit from his newly discovered skills.

Kit was another explorer — he had made the discovery and had now become a witness to the reality that, even without paid employment, life can have individual (and corporate) purpose, direction and fulfilment.

Three years ago, at Christmastime, I visited him in hospital. He told me he had cancer, was expected to live for no more than six months and so was discharging himself because he had a lot of furniture to make. He was at work in the woodwork shop to within two days of his death. He claimed he had found life after redundancy.

The Skole Ethic

Redundancy had created for Kit what seemed to be a point of discontinuity in his life. He no doubt would have agreed with Samuel Beckett that he had been between ‘a death and a difficult birth’. That is also a description of contemporary society. We need an understanding midwife.

In a sense we have reached a point of discontinuity. We are the last of the Victorians. From Victorian culture we have inherited the concept of the centrality of work. The Victorians developed what was begun at the Reformation when there was a new emphasis on economic activity, on wealth creation in human activity. After the Reformation, labour is not merely an economic means but a spiritual end. ‘Laborare est orare’.

What we were discovering through ‘Impasse’ has echoes in Josef Pieper’s book, Leisure the Basis of Culture - a book which advocated ‘back to basics’. The basics he returns to were rooted in Greek civilisation of about 800 — 300 BD. He promotes a convincing argument that we have lost an important strand in our development. By no means was that Greek society utopian for everyone but were was — in theory at least — an important emphasis on a wholistic approach to human growth. To Aristotle our attempted distinction between work and leisure would have been anathema. The Greek word for leisure (skole), from which we derive our word for school indicates the close relationship in Greek thinking between schooling, education and leisure. For Aristotle the supreme end in life was eudaimonia, happiness, and with it implicitly were the idea of success and fulfilment. It was a happiness, though, which came from within.

St. Thomas Aquinas drew on this philosophy. He defined society as a mutual exchange of services for the sake of the good life — with contemplation as the highest goal. (A comment worthy of note by the over-employed!)

In this, as in other Christian writings, there was a unity of purpose aimed at meeting those needs that we had identified from the experiences of unemployed people. Incidentally, in a Times article on Impasse, a parallel was drawn between Impasse and its six basic needs and the Rule of St. Benedict!

This aim has been lost, not only by society at large, but also by the church as part of that society. The market and money economy has made all the difference. Then, there was little point in working hard or more productively. Now, work offers the promise, if not of eudaimonia, of happiness and satisfaction through improved material well-being. Now the emphasis has moved from contemplating the world to transforming it. That same economic growth, regarded as essential, frequently conflicts with the interests of the environment because ‘all too often little effort is made to see how the environment might be integrated into capital investments and other decisions at the outset’. We have become masterly at what American economist Kenneth Boulding described as ‘suboptimisation’, discovering how best to do what we should not be doing in the first place. And it has not provided eudaimonia. It has not made us happy and satisfied.

Given the political will, we can now meet the material needs of the whole world. In a few years time we will need no more than 10% of the workforce to meet all of our material needs. Given our new technologies, can we succeed where the Greeks failed? Can we create a society in which fulfilment can be realised with or without paid employment?

To this end, can the experience of Impasse be translated into macro policies? Some alternative way forward is essential if for no other reason than to bring to an end the unacceptable level of suffering which the present structure demands. More positively, we know that, given the opportunity, the creative spirit soars to great heights.

The Challenge to the Economist

Our main barrier on the way is economics. But then economists themselves appear to be increasingly discontented with economics. ‘They are embarrassed by its forecasting failures. They are uncomfortable that its theories seem less and less able to describe the real world’ (Will Hutton: Guardian 21.3.94). The mathematician Professor Paul Ormerod in his recent book, The Death of Economics, claims that the core axioms of ‘economics’ do not and cannot correspond to any known reality. Economists know this but nonetheless close their eyes because of the intellectual elegance of the theories if they did work. That is a sobering thought as we contemplate the scale of suffering as a consequence of economic theories!

There are, of course, economists in accord with Professor Ormerod returning to the roots of economics — political economy; recognising that there are many possible outcomes to market behaviour, depending on culture, the shape of institutions and history. There are economists in accord with Charles Handy as he makes a plea for a form or capitalism in which manufacturing and commercial companies are more obviously in the service of society.

Professor J.K. Galbraith may be dismissed by some as a spent force but he has consistently expressed a concern for economics as a social tool for the good society. In a lecture earlier this year in Cardiff he expressed his concern that steps must be taken to establish the good society. Similarly, Franz Gorz is an economist who has worked consistently in this field for many years. (A separate paper will address these aspects of economics.)

In that lecture in Cardiff Galbraith asserted the need for everyone to have a basic source of income. Where and when there is no opportunity for useful employment, an alternative form of income — public support — is an absolute essential.

There are several ways in which this can be pursued. At Impasse, for example, we promoted the concept of a social wage, separate from a paid job, received in return for some socially useful work or in pursuit of further education. It would be a sum greater than benefit but less than a salary. It would not be a form of enforced workfare because the individual would choose what they wished to do among the many jobs needing to be done; and benefit, albeit at a lower level, would still be available for those who did not wish to participate in such a scheme. Further suggestions are for a negative income tax to help the low paid. Or to merge the tax and benefits system to boost the incomes of the 50% of households eligible for family credit who do not claim it, and to remove a disincentive to work for those caught in the poverty trap.

Some years ago in Middlesbrough we tried to introduce a scheme for a local economy. Concentrated initially in one small area, it was based loosely on barter, mainly of services. It was unsuccessful for reasons not especially relevant to this paper. From an initiative in Quebec there is now developing in this country LETS, that is Local Exchange Trading Systems, with their own currency linked to services and local goods.

Whatever alternatives there are, Galbraith points out, ‘there will always be those who choose to live in idleness on the safety net … people are not perfect. A preference for leisure is not unknown to the rich’. The Impasse experience, though, would lead us to believe that for many the choice would not be idleness. How many idle people are there, for example, among those who have taken early retirement? The main difference is financial; hence the need for a social wage.

The Challenge for Education

To return to Pieper: education is an essential for the good of society. Implicit in Impasse’s aims is support for the concept of community education, both as a sound educational philosophy emphasising eudaimonia and as a sensible use of resources. To schools can be added social amenity areas and other recreational facilities, the building opened all day, every day and each community then has an essential resource for its development. There is experience and success in community education, but little support.

Training is rather different: there is great financial support for some training. From Impasse’s experience of working with training agencies training often appears to be based on guesswork of what skills might be needed; or the blind faith that if a skilled workforce is created then the jobs in those skills will appear; or support for training in very narrow specific skills. The Impasse contract with Employment Training, for example, was not renewed because Impasse’s aim was to promote skills which were of value whether or not the individual found paid employment in that skill area. For example, through Impasse’s resources, clothes were made. The TEC only wanted trained machinists. At Impasse we knew that those making the clothes could do machining but not necessarily vice versa … and certainly greater satisfaction was gained from making the clothes. And, in any case, there were not vacancies for all who would qualify as machinists!

Similarly it should not be beyond our collective wit to use more fully the skills and interests of the old and retired and to produce more exciting resources and opportunities to challenge our youngsters, youngsters who have been told that qualifications are all important for their future working life, only then to be told that there is no job for them. More understanding, not less, is necessary. More imagination is necessary. We must be concerned at the links between young unemployed males and crime, especially domestic burglaries.

At a ‘Teenagers at Risk’ conference in London in March, Joe Whitty, retiring head of Feltham young offenders institution in south-west London, described youths in the criminal justice system as ‘poor, disadvantaged and socially and educationally inept’. He asked for the causes of crime to be tackled. This would be ‘much easier, cheaper and more effective than finding a cure’ but this required a political decision about the use of resources. ‘Most of the young people in Feltham are nice kids’, he said. They respond to praise, they respond to success, they want to prove their manhood’. In a different age and culture they might well be the young braves discovering their strengths and asserting themselves in their society. Can we respond to the potential they offer and the challenge posed by their presence? At the same conference the Duke of Edinburgh asked that they should be offered good leadership, adventurous and exciting experiences, and encouraged to help people less fortunate than themselves.

For this group and for every other age group there is a wealth of ability available, talent waiting to be released. Community education is one possible trigger. There are many others. What we need is a vision of what we can become individually and communally.

Of course, immediately we are aware of major budgetary issues for governments: but then, as Joe Whitty pointed out, cost benefit analyses can be revealing as we compare preventative expenditure with present social costs. But the resources can be provided if the vision can be one to which we can all subscribe.

Conclusion

The vision is important if we are to come through the crisis, or — in Samuel Beckett’s analogy — come through the death and the difficult birth. The challenge for us is to seek and explore a common vision from an inter-disciplinary perspective.

For further information contact Bill Hall