I know all work and no play makes Jeff a dull boy but this past week has blurred some of the boundaries between the two. Whatever I’m watching, or reading, seeing on socials, or talking to friends about, all seems to lead back to the same thing. And I can’t tell if I should be depressed or motivated to do more of what I’m doing.

THE FILM

I watched the latest Ken Loach film, The Old Oak, the other day. It was characteristically gritty, with the cast drawn from local communities in and around Durham, including a number of Syrian refugees. The film depicts the social tensions arising from the arrival of displaced families in a neighbourhood already struggling with abject hardship and the long shadow of the closure of the mining industry.

We see the reaction of British people to the deliveries of food aid, furniture and bikes for the refugees’ kids. Locals at the pub, The Old Oak, complain about how houses left empty for years are being sold off to investment companies for eight grand each. Then one scene shows a young refugee woman helping a girl home, after she passes out at school having barely eaten all day. She is shocked to find the girl’s family has no food in their fridge.

It’s not an easy watch, but it makes real the sources of mistrust and its malign influence on people. Lies and misinformation circulate. White British families in hardship, too proud to ask for help, and unable to feed their children, see hand-outs to refugees as an affront to them. As donations pour in, including from local trade unions, they feel invisible. Whether verbalised this way or not, it’s a story that will be familiar to thousands of support workers across the country.

Hardship does not just empty fridges. It shapes mistrust, resentment and, eventually, politics. 

The film also explores opportunities for hope, however. The new (Syrian) and old (mining) communities have more in common than they might have imagined. Communities shattered, and lives lost, whether through war or unwanted and violently imposed social change. A kind of bewilderment at life in a new world. And hardship. What if they joined forces and marched under the same banner? After all, solidarity was a driving principle that held miners’ communities together for years.

THE SOCIALS

This quote appeared in my social feed last week, attributed to Lyndon B Johnson back in the sixties: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pockets. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

It would be bleak and depressing to suggest this is an apt, (if offensively phrased), reflection of the world around us today.  The old dividing lines have shifted, but the trick still works. People under pressure are encouraged to look down, or sideways, rather than up. And none of us are immune to that. 

Is it really as simple as re-opening shared spaces where people can rub shoulders and support can reach everyone who needs it? Dignity doesn’t lie in hand-outs but it’s a start. Need is the greatest leveller, perhaps. But welfare is not a long-term solution. And solidarity has to mean more than helping each other cope.  As the cost of living continues to soar, and wages struggle to keep up, so employers lay people off while also charging more… it’s difficult to see any light at the end of the tunnel.

THE BOOK

In any case, it’s time too for another conversation about the cost of living. I’m reading a book that offers a new lens through which to see the world around us, and the price tags on it. ‘Ensh*ttifcation: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About it’, by Cory Doctorow, presents how global apps are driving costs through the roof. 

Starting with Amazon’s marketplace, traders are forced to accept massive fees and commissions that means retailers have no choice but to put up prices in order to make a profit. What’s more, Amazon reportedly bans sellers from undercutting them with prices elsewhere, so the whole marketplace is inflated.

It’s not the whole story, of course. But once you start looking at how apps hoover up our cash, we can’t help feeling fleeced. We’ve been distracted by wars driving up prices. The digital cash grab is insidious.

THE CONVERSATION

A friend who runs a coffee shop told me last week that food delivery apps want 41 per cent from each purchase. “Do they pay for my electricity? Do they pay my rent?”, he asked. “What do I do?” Clearly, there’s money to be made through the apps, but only if there are enough customers willing to pay bloated prices. And that includes people who pick up their brunch from the shop. 

The next day, I was shocked to pay £16 for a shish kebab to be delivered from Just Eat. ‘Serves me right,’ I thought, ‘for being too lazy to prepare something for myself – or pop to a takeaway.’ But not really. The cost would be the same, if I went to pick it up for myself because the restaurant, and its visiting customers, are locked into the same prices.

Wanna take an Uber to pick up dinner? Spare a thought for the drivers being played by algorithms pushing down fares to drivers who say ‘yes’ to every booking, while playing cat and mouse with payments to those who select only the trips that make it worth their while.

And the beauty of these apps? Unregulated, minimally staffed, and largely commanding monopolies, those commissions whoosh out of our hands and into the owners of a small number of tech giants’ proprietors.

So while we talk about people needing help, or cutting back, or making better choices, I keep coming back to the same question: What control do people really have when prices are being pushed up by systems they can’t avoid? And when will the government or regulators step in? 

THE CATCH

We can shake our heads about the plight of people in hardship and the impact of wars and climate change. But when so much of everyday life is organised through companies taking a cut, it’s hard to know what any of us are supposed to do about it.

The worst thing is opting out won’t cut it either. Who loses out, if I refuse to pay those prices? Local businesses, their employees and our communities. Who gains if I don’t? Too often, the same platforms as before.

So where does that leave us? Cutting back, opting out, shopping local, deleting the app. Fine. But none of it feels big enough for the thing we’re up against. 

Image: Boys in Bristol Photography/Pexels