John Bird’s talk online
September 24, 2008
“Fuck the poor” was one of the many explicit and provocative messages in John Bird’s talk to some 200 people at the second Cambridge Business Lecture on Friday September 12th.
Bird – the founder of the Big Issue – has no romantic misconceptions about the people he is helping. Those who interest Bird are not the protagonists of the fairy-tale success stories much loved by politicians. He does not care about the people who achieve despite the odds, but rather the people whom the system fails: the feckless, the crooks, the addicts and – to use Bird’s description – the scumbags.
Bird was born into this underclass, to an abusive father and sweet-natured but viciously racist mother. He was homeless by seven. By his early twenties he had served sentences for vandalism, arson and theft. The underclass in John Bird’s youth was small though – some two hundred thousand people, Bird reckons. He now puts the number much higher – at five million.
And what is responsible for this swelling? According to Bird, it’s the welfare state. The welfare state steals from the poor. It robs them of their initiative. By handing people money we destroy their sense of responsibility and snuff out any spark of entrepreneurism. We reduce them to the state of seven year olds, dependent on other people to survive.
Bird believes that people need opportunities not hand-outs. He uses The Big Issue as an example. The sellers buy the magazine for 70p and sell it on the streets for £1.50. This gives them something to do and creates a chance to earn money. Most importantly, it puts them back in control of their lives.
But Bird points out that opportunity is a double-edged sword. Some people will use the Big Issue to lever themselves out of poverty, but others will simply pour the profits down their throats or inject them into their veins.
If things are going to change, Bird believes more people must apply their entrepreneurial skills to cracking social problems. The politicians will do nothing. Indeed, they refuse to acknowledge the reality, claiming soothingly that everything is fine, not to worry and that all that needs to be done is being done. But nothing changes.
Bird told the largely middle-class audience that we are complicit in keeping the downtrodden in poverty. We need to stop our conscience-salving donations to Shelter and Crisis, and instead repossess democracy and make a difference.
Bird’s passionate speech went down well with the audience. Scott Devereux, of Red Gate Software, said “I was expecting a dry, academic history of The Big Issue, but John’s talk was incredibly engaging and almost profoundly enlightening”.
At the free bar after the event there was near unanimous conviction that Bird had succeeded in making people challenge their assumptions. Not everybody agreed with the substance of his talk though. Bill Parsons, of ARM, said “I disagree with most of what he said, but he really made me think. He was the Johnny Rotten of business speakers.”
This was a strong, second lecture in the Cambridge Business Lectures series. Future speakers include Arnoud De Meyer (Director of the Judge Business School) and Tim Campbell (the winner of the first UK series of The Apprentice).
September 25th, 2008 at 8:50 am
This John Bird lecture hit the nail on the head. It’s right that government departments at all levels think of the unemployed as rubbish and treat them as such. (There but for the grace of god) How many weeks (yes weeks) are they away from poverty if they too lost their jobs? Most people could go 5-10 weeks before the money runs out, bills can’t be paid, mortgage problems, bank loans, car hp, the list goes on. So stop looking down your nose at people and help to address the real problems in our society. Politicians who are two stages removed form the real world and are more interested in their careers than the people they are supposed to represent. (Don’t do as I do do as I say). The only way to ride ourselves of this type of government is to replace it with ordinary honest people who will not allow themselves to be hoodwinked by the ruling class into taking decisions that treat people as if they are not part of society. How many times have you heard that council workers are public servants? Yes that’s until you as an individual have a problem to be attended too, then you become one of the trouble makers. If you are not prepared to work in our best interest then your sacked!!!!!