How did the attempt to abolish poverty become a war against the poor?

Often associated with granting mining leases to rich people or giving them access, at less than replacement cost, to vast tracts of forest to wood chip is the necessity to criminalise environmentalists. This is just part of resource expansion which the State foists on the citizenry in the name of productivity and development. Little wonder ordinary people feel alienated from such acquisition of wealth by the few. The carbon price debate is just one small part played out in the multinational globalisation of resources. The climate change deniers are walking in the footsteps of Mussolini's Black Shirts.

Once the State can cut off a section of the working class or the unemployed from the main working class movement it can set out to expand its wedging and politics of envy. Howard started with the young unemployed but it wasn't long before all unemployed were metamorphosed into "dole bludgers" and "job snobs". Asylum seekers became grist to the mill. Then Disability Pensioners soon found out they were a bunch of "malingerers" whose numbers had to be cut by a third. Then came the turn of single parents and their children. Subsequent Labor governments have followed suit.

The last throw of the dice for the outgoing Howard Government was to impose the Intervention on 73 Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory ostensibly to safeguard Aboriginal children from sexual abuse or neglect and to protect women from being assaulted. The police and the army were sent into remote Aboriginal communities. The Government suspended the Racial Discrimination Act in order to quarantine half the social security payment made to Indigenous people. The amount quarantined was placed on a 'Basics' card that could only be used for approved purposes at certain stores and alcohol was banned from many communities.

Labor came to power in 2007 promising to continue the Intervention for a year before reviewing it. A committee was set up, headed by Aboriginal leader, Peter Yu, that recommended winding back most of the compulsory aspects of the Intervention except where it could be proven that Indigenous people were incapable of handling money. Labor ignored the report. It has moved towards providing incentives for the use of a Basics card whilst allowing people to "request" they not be required to have a Basics card. At the same time this government has expanded the areas of the Northern Territory and elsewhere in Australia where Aboriginal and other ethnic groups are cajoled into a paternalistic administration of their social security. It has reinstated the Racial Discrimination Act and so cannot specify any particular ethnic group that is forced to participate. What it does instead is select geographical areas where particular ethnic groups predominate and legislate to force all residents of those areas to participate in its paternalistic form of social security.

The process of marginalising various sections of society which can in turn be denigrated – the unemployed called dole bludgers, disability pensioners become malingerers, single parents become welfare mums who brought their problems on themselves, the original owners of this land are converted into drunks and paedophiles, asylum seekers are called illegals and queue jumpers - has now turned round to bite the very people who engaged in maligning the disadvantaged. Commentators around the country are calling on the government to end "middle class welfare". The values which neoliberal economics promote inspire envy and hatred of out-groups and undermine solidarity.

Monbiot points out "the recent jump in unemployment in most developed countries – worse than in any previous recession of the past three decades – was preceded by the lowest level of wages as a share of GDP since the second world war." The promise of neoliberal economics - that if governments would get out of the way and leave everything to the market then the rising tide would lift all boats and everyone would be better off - has failed to come true.

Following the second world war Britain moved away from a categorical means-tested benefit system by adding a social insurance system and later a tax credit system. The US largely maintained its welfare charity model to which were added private insurance and eventually a tax credit system. Australia introduced some universal payments such as child endowment but largely stuck to increasing the scope and generosity of its system of categorical benefits and pensions. In 1992 it introduced a privatised superannuation system.

Tax credits, social insurance and privatised superannuation are all tied to participation in the labour market or other financial contributions. They are of no help to people who cannot enter the labour market. When the values which emerged in the wake of the second world had inspired a desire to provide a liveable income for everyone were eroded by the corrosive values of neoliberal economics - solidarity evaporated and the poor were left to the ravages of the rich.

It is time to turn back, back from greed and downward envy, back from abusing asylum seekers, social security recipients and Indigenous people. We need to retreat from excessive inequality and turn our backs on indifference to the plight of others. It is time to note the social security advances in Brazil, Bolivia and Venezuela where they are moving to ensure all citizens have access to a livable income – the slogan that drives this campaign is "For all – the poor first". The reason for doing this is that more equal societies are happier, less fearful and healthier societies. Monbiot notes "The greater inequality becomes…the less stable the economy and the lower the rate of growth". This is a good economic reason for advancing equality as well as being the decent thing to do.

The best way of moving in the direction of a more egalitarian society is to discard the charity-style categorical means-tested welfare system and embrace a citizenship entitlement system for all permanent residents. Such a universal Basic Income would be paid to every individual permanent resident irrespective of their wealth, marital status or other social feature. To pay for such a scheme income tax would be paid on all other income the person earned or acquired from the first to last dollar gained. There would no longer be a political need to subsidise less productive industries, in order to keep people in work, thereby unleashing a huge creative and productive potential.