The National Council for the Social Development Policy Evaluation (CONEVAL) identifies and calibrates various social deprivation indicators to measure poverty in Mexico. Educational backwardness in 2020 affected 19.2 per cent of the population (24.4 million people). And 28.2 per cent of the population do not have access to health services and 52 per cent of the population (66 million people) receive social security benefits. According to CONEVAL, 22.5 per cent (28.6 million people) have insufficient access to food, 9.3 per cent (11.8 million people) have poor housing, and 17.9 per cent (22.7 million people) have limited services within the home. According to the National Income Survey of 2020, 8.5 per cent (10.8 million people) were in extreme poverty and 43.9 per cent of the total population was in poverty, which represents 55.7 million people. Although in 2008 the poverty rate was higher, 44.4 per cent of the population, the absolute number was lower, 49.5 million people. Only 23.5 per cent of the population were neither poor nor vulnerable (29.8 million people), which clearly shows the immense extent of the vulnerability under which most Mexicans live.

However, one should highlight that this methodology represents only one of many ways poverty can be measured and analysed: “Social vulnerability is the result of the impacts caused by the current development pattern, but it also expresses the incapacity of the weakest groups in society to confront, neutralize or obtain benefits from them” (Pizarro 2001: 25).

THE FIGHT AGAINST POVERTY

Since the 1990s, government strategy to tackle poverty was to identify the lowest-income groups in society and implement policies that would allow optimal public spending. The first programme as a strategy to fight poverty was the Education, Health and Food Program (PROGRESA), whose main objective was to improve the nutrition and diet of the poorest in the country (Cárdenas 2015: 803). The government based the initiative on health and education actions to ensure the delivery of a food basket, directed especially for women and children in extreme poverty conditions in rural areas. With the initial coverage of 300,000 families, the programme expanded to reach up to 2.4 million families (Levy & Rodríguez 2005).

These days a frequent lament from scholars not focused on the US or China cases is why they have to work so hard to convince their audience (especially for works under the arduous peer-review process) as to why their case matters. In other words, why should the audience care about the case or puzzle(s) in question? For the scholars themselves, the importance seems obvious but that is likely a mitigated result of self-selection bias. As scholars focused on Asia, and Korea in particular, we have our biases but Korea’s track record of economic and political success is, holding such biases constant, nothing short of astonishing. It was our intent to provide the reader with a firm understanding of the causes and consequences of these empirically counter-intuitive outcomes.

To reiterate, the puzzle this text sought to explain and why audiences outside of the peninsula should care is that South Korea is one of the few postcolonial states to emerge from being one of the least developed polities in the world to one of the wealthiest, having even caught up to its former colonizer in terms of its post-industrialized, knowledge-based economy. In addition to or, as we argue, a result of Korea’s economic miracle, Korea has furthermore emerged as a consolidated, liberal democracy, which we in turn classify as a political triumph for a population that had to endure decades of state-based repression and violence. Thus, in addition to those concerned with Korean studies, those interested in postcolonial economic and political development (i.e. democratization) in general should also have much to find of use and value through a better understanding of the case of Korea. Having established the puzzle, we now move to a summary of our theoretical approach and empirical findings and predictions.

To begin with, while a large portion of this book has been descriptive in nature, our descriptions and explanations were certainly informed by theory and our theoretical guide has been firmly based in not politics alone, nor economics alone, but by political economy proper. The logic for this is that all economic decisions are ultimately the observable implications and outcomes of political calculations.

Like millions of people over the two years when a global pandemic caused by a virus known as Covid-19 affected us all, I went through the stages of alarm, depression, resignation and just about coping! Although worried about children, grandchildren, friends and colleagues, I was not in charge of or responsible for children or students on a daily basis, but I observed the difficulties of many families, especially single parents, coping with the behaviours required of them as the government responded badly to the crisis. Just some of the issues were: lockdown in houses or flats, which was awful for those without gardens or access to parks and open spaces; the closure of schools with the expectation that parents or carers would “homeschool”; the efforts of teachers to provide online teaching and learning, or going into schools to teach vulnerable children (my daughter and daughter-in-law were among these teachers); the crazy shuffles over examinations, an increase in mental health problems and ever more inequalities between children. University departments closed down in early 2020, as did the libraries, staff and students suffered disruption, and by 2021 universities were still not able to workwithout restrictions. Just as we thought things were getting back to a new “normal” towards the end of 2021, along came omicron, another variant to Covid-19 to worry us all. I was able to keep writing, join the advisory board of a study of school exclusions, examine PhDs, struggle with Zoom and sadly wrote some obituaries for colleagues. The Africa Educational Trust that I had supported for years merged with another charity and some work goes on, despite government and other funding for overseas aid being cut.

The Beveridge report was famously popular, with people queuing up to buy it. Beveridge was certainly concerned to reflect in his proposals his views about what the British public believed was fair and would put up with. But his blueprint and the prior reports it built on were developed in a period still dominated by hierarchy and patronage. The leading thinkers behind them were from privileged backgrounds with a strong flavour of what we now call the “white saviour complex” in relation to international development: solutions developed and delivered by well-intentioned outsiders with little or no input from those they intend to help and certainly no ceding of power to people with direct experience of the issues under consideration. Since the initial setting up of the welfare state, it has been built on and adapted over time to meet changing political imperatives but rarely with much involvement of those with direct experience of the system or other parts of the public. Even very big changes – such as the introduction of universal credit – have been pursued with extraordinarily little involvement from either the wider public or those with direct experience of the system.

This lack of public engagement has become more problematic as the cost of the system has increased and the problems it needs to address have evolved. There has been a constant pressure to reduce the cost of many parts of the system, with little or no substantive discussion of what we, as a society, really value and want to maintain, let alone how we collectively want the system to evolve to meet modern challenges. Attacking and defending specific benefit levels or conditions have consumed the debate, leading to constant changes back and forth as political pressures shift.

If we want to create a better social security system, it has to be based on sustainable public consent. That doesn't mean taking the latest poll and enacting it on the backs of people who are already facing hardship. But it does mean engaging the public in thoughtful deliberation and focusing on the underlying commitments that we want to make to each other. We should appeal to our best sides in this: to our empathetic, hopeful, compassionate selves. We should not allow prejudice and stereotypes to dictate policy. But the proponents of new ideas and radical solutions can't simply ignore the public's views.

Squalor simply defined: your habitat kills you. Squalor is inextricably bound to mortality and ever-increasing proximity to death caused by overcrowded quarters, damp abodes, polluted streets, and even petroleum-clad buildings. Some of these conditions are recognizably squalid and conjure conventional images of the poor and destitute. But some might surprise. For instance, consider the possibility that young professionals who stretch their budget to mortgage a leasehold in dangerously built apartment complexes are suffering from squalor. We know this giant from a hundred different books and films. We might not appreciate just how closely it stalks many of us.

Within squalor it is possible to find Beveridge’s other giants gestating – want, disease, ignorance and idleness. Yet squalor is distinct in so far as it is the only giant that does not directly reference human faculties or needs. Squalor, instead, is a condition of the built environment in which humans live. Etymologically, squalor derives from the Latin squalidus, meaning, “to be covered with dirt”. Squalor, then, intonates a covering over and defiling of humanity. The word has also come to imply a kind of osmosis between humans and their lived environment. Where the human ends and their habitat begins is unclear. For this reason, “good” homes and streets equals worthy humans, whereas “bad” homes and streets equals unworthy denizens.

The aim of this book is to provide a political history of squalor in Britain from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. We are not interested in a past that is dead. Rather, we hope to provide a “history of the present”, that is, a history that helps to illuminate contemporary challenges. Crucial questions that will guide this illumination include: what elements of squalor persist over time, and how are they part of the bedrock of British politics? How has squalor changed its form? What should we name as squalor in our present day? And, when it comes to slaying the giant of squalor, what are the forces of continuity and who are the agents of change?

The objective of this book is to demonstrate that squalor in Britain has been consistently re-made by political elites, even as they have pursued policies to ameliorate squalid conditions.

The UK has a skills problem, but it is not a straightforward one. On the one hand, we have an oversupply of skills. According to the 2011 British Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS), 19 per cent of respondents felt their skills were “much higher” and 33 per cent “a bit higher” than those required by their job (Sutherland 2013). The absence of good quality part-time jobs we highlighted earlier means that women in particular are often trapped in jobs for which they are overqualified. For example, a survey carried out in 2015 found that 52 per cent of retail workers feel overqualified for the work they do (Ussher 2016).

Recent research from academics at King's College London and Working Families (2021) has shown that a need to compromise on finding work that better aligns with people's skillsets, qualification levels and capabilities in order to access part-time/flexible jobs that allow them to fit around caring and other non-work needs means that many workers are trapped in low pay despite being highly skilled. People working in jobs where their skills are not being used earn less and have fewer opportunities for progression. They also have lower well-being, motivation and job satisfaction compared to workers with skills that are valued and put to use (Boxall et al. 2019).

There is also a problem with undervaluing people's skills. In some low-pay sectors such as social care, it is not the case that skills are being underused – rather, that they are undervalued. UK care workers are amongst the lowest paid in Western Europe, and the scale of underpayment across the sector means that many care workers are denied even minimum entitlements (Gardiner 2015). Recent legal battles for equal pay in retail, where certain roles, more likely to be carried out by women, have been undervalued compared to others, also show that undervaluing of skills is a common experience for many low-paid workers (Butler 2021).

With the accession to the Spanish throne of the House of Bourbon, a slow but profound transformation of the philosophy and purpose of the new ruling monarchy got underway. The so-called Bourbon Reforms that began to take shape in the Americas by the 1770s had a political component, to secure the political and economic supremacy of the Crown over its colonies around the world, and economic, to increase the Crown’s revenues for the benefit of the metropolis in Spain at the expense of the colonies. The consequences for New Spain, which would become Mexico, were many in both respects (Pérez Herrero 1992). Criollos, children of Spaniards or of pure European origin, which had played an active role in political affairs for centuries under the Habsburgs, lost much of their access to power and influence on public matters. Even the Viceroy lost much of its power as the administrative structure shifted towards “intendancies”, whose head reported directly to the king. On the economy, taxes were raised from all contributors, including the “Indian republics” and some subsidies were provided for the mining sector. Most monopolies were abolished, and “free” trade was declared, although some state “estancos” or monopolies were reinforced, in particular the tobacco monopoly, which at the beginning of the nineteenth century hired 15 per cent of the economically active population, produced 130 million cigarettes and 6 million cigars a year, and generated between 3–4 million pesos of income to the Crown, a figure similar to that of mining (Deans Smith 1992).

All these measures expanded production and trade, especially silver mining which reached 21.6 million pesos a year on average (Soetbeer 1879), increased taxes and the tithe for the Catholic Church, and prompted rural migration to the major cities, which grew in size and complexity. Inequality, however, continued and was evident in terms of wages and a divide of social classes. It was a nation of paradoxes at that time: it saw a larger increase in population than in Europe, but less prosperity for most; an increase in commercial food production, but starvation in some rural regions; great palaces and urban development in the cities, but low wages for workers (Van Young 1985).

Beveridge's report led to the creation of a social safety net woven to protect us all from cradle to grave. The social and economic advances this heralded were a boon to the health and well-being of the population. Infectious disease, although not altogether eradicated, rescinded and lifespans extended. But complacency and hubris set in. Humankind's encroachment on our fragile global ecosystem has enabled disease vectors to emerge or gain new strength, and we have become blind to the consequences of the social production of health in an uneven, polarizing social system. These consequences extend across the life course but are most damning at the cradle. The penalties to health and longevity imposed on our (unborn) children because of things like their postcode, ethnicity and class are a structural violence. Life expectancy is often viewed as the ultimate marker of health. Is it then the ultimate injustice if there are inequalities in chances of survival to even your first or fifth birthday? Such inequalities in chances of life itself are a very good place to begin this chapter’s review of the health and well-being of the children of today. A compromised start in life is a strong predictor of sustained disadvantage in health, well-being and social and economic outcomes. Surviving childhood and adolescence is not enough to safeguard against the ills of tomorrow. Our discussion of the rising prevalence of childhood obesity and adolescent mental health problems will lay bare the catastrophe of tomorrow foretold by the health and well-being crises of today.

INFANT AND CHILD MORTALITY

Globally as many as 15,000 children under the age of five die every day. In low-and middle-income countries, infectious diseases claim the lives of countless children (pneumonia is among the leading causes of death). Limited access to appropriate maternity and paediatric healthcare reduces opportunities to treat and prevent the spread of infectious disease in many countries. Poor living conditions, including a lack of clean water and food, only serve to worsen the death toll. But in high-income countries such as the UK, where relatively few live in a state of privation, deaths of children are not as rare as we might expect.

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918–19 killed 228,000 people in the UK alone. The lack of a universal health service readily able to mobilize nationally, squalid living conditions for many and the diverted attentions of a public and government already plagued by war, created the perfect storm for this emergent flu to flourish. Although war and the infancy of virology are important factors differentiating the experience and response to the pandemic of 1918–19 with the Covid-19 pandemic a hundred years later, there are parallels. The ease with which the Spanish flu spread among the poorer or more crowded segments of society was, for example, replicated in the more recent pandemic. Covid-19 exacerbated existing inequalities in society, throwing into sharp relief the plight of those living and working in relative disadvantage, precarity and poverty. It also shone a light on the depth of the challenges facing our health and social care system. The history of the Spanish flu of 1918–19 may have been very different were a comprehensive, universal healthcare system already in place. The revolutionary social security system Beveridge inspired has been transformative to the health and wellbeing of the population. But the system developed has not kept pace with the wider transformation of society. Neither Beveridge who imagined it, nor Bevan who implemented it, anticipated an aged and ageing population that is ethnically diverse and that remains persistently unequal. Considering care during the Covid-19 pandemic illuminates the transformations that are now imperative.

CARE IN THE TIME OF COVID-19

Although not without problems, the Covid-19 vaccine rollout is perhaps the best illustration of how and why a universal healthcare system can be of instrumental importance in responding to a global health crisis. Under such a system, the vast majority of the population are registered with a single health entity, although this may be administered differently in different geographies. As soon as the vaccine was available, it was relatively straightforward to begin inviting people to receive the vaccination according to a predetermined schedule of priority. In fact, the NHS is practised at this, having championed mass routine vaccination programmes since its inception and through delivery of the annual flu vaccination. The foundations offered by practised vaccine rollouts were undeniably an advantage.

The UK was the first country in the world to grant approval for a Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use in December 2020.

So far we have discussed the importance of productivity to pay rates and the quality of work, demonstrating the need to improve productivity in the everyday economy through better management, and focusing on good work as a means of doing so. Now, we shall look at the other side of the employment relationship: namely, the power that people have over the nature and quality of the work they do. Examining the state's actions across a range of policy areas, we ask whether they empower or disempower the unemployed and low paid.

We start by examining policies to support people into work, and how these have developed over time. Normally, these policies are examined in very simple terms through their effectiveness or otherwise in enabling entries into work. Today, however, with job quality, low pay and limited pay progression being a much more important part of the UK labour market story, it becomes important to examine how policies to support people into work affect the quality of work people move into, and what happens to people after they have entered the workplace. We start by looking at the history of such policies, then examine the realities of today’s offer, and finally look at better ways to approach this crucial area of policy.

BEVERIDGE AND THE 1940S

Since the beginning of the modern National Insurance system on 5 July 1948, the state has provided both unemployment insurance and welfare payments to workless families without other sources of income. Although the purpose of these financial transfers has been to prevent extreme poverty, there was also recognition of the need for recipients to minimize their draw upon the state by looking for work.

Both Beveridge and the wartime government agreed that people who were unemployed should receive support from a placement service to help them find work (Clarke 1944), and that unemployment insurance should not be paid unconditionally and indefinitely. However, there were differences in views about what should happen after the expiry of the initial period. Beveridge said that “Unemployment benefit will continue at the same rate without means test so long as unemployment lasts, but will normally be subject to a condition of attendance at a work or training centre after a certain period” (Beveridge 1942).

When Beveridge was writing about the Giant of “Idleness” in 1942, his concern was primarily about the unemployment that had scarred the economy for two decades prior to the Second World War. Eighty years on, this is no longer the pressing issue. Today, we have historically high rates of employment, but also our highest ever rates of in-work poverty. The UK is stuck in a lowpay, low-productivity rut. We have a two-tier economy in which far too many people are working in poor quality jobs, with barely any training and little chance of getting on. Growth in the gig economy and short-hours work has brought insecurity to the labour market in defiance of employment protections built up steadily since the Second World War.

Our economic and policy debate has failed to keep up with the reality of today's economy. Today, too often Conservative government ministers trumpet high employment rates whilst many in the Labour Party talk about the need to create jobs. The conversation feels like it is stuck in the 1980s or early 1990s and misses the elephant in the room: too many of those jobs don’t enable people to enjoy a decent standard of living and nor do they provide the security, dignity and prospects for progression to which we should all have access. Today's problem with the labour market is not a shortage of work but a shortage of good quality work: inclusive, decently-paid, and secure, with prospects for advancement. If Beveridge were surveying the labour market today, instead of the unemployment of the 1920s and 1930s, poor quality, insecure work and lack of progression would be the giant he would seek to slay.

We have argued throughout this book that underlying this crisis is the question of power and that the balance of power between low-paid workers and employers has shifted decisively towards the latter. People feel trapped: trapped by the lack of progression options but, most of all, trapped by the lack of alternative jobs that offer a better future. If there is no way out of your current workplace, and your employer knows that, what incentive do they have to try harder to keep you?

It seems fairly obvious that the state should have an interest in promoting good work, decent pay, and better progression. Higher tax revenues and a happier population are two of the obvious benefits.

Can you really die of shame? Can stigma be lethal? It is easy to think about poverty purely in relation to how much money people have and their material standard of living. But emotional suffering and shame are central to the experience of poverty. Even in the eighteenth century, Adam Smith commented that a linen shirt and leather shoes had been “rendered … necessary” by “custom”; “the want of which would be supposed to denote [a] disgraceful degree of poverty” (Smith 1776). A 2012 study published by the charity Turn2Us divided the shame and stigma experienced by people in relation to benefits into three categories (Baumberg et al. 2012):

• 1. Personal stigma – the feeling of shame at having “failed”, not being able to have and do the things that others can, being reliant on benefits or charity.

• 2. Social stigma – being judged by others as a failure, morally suspect, being to blame for your situation and wrongly claiming benefits or taking charity.

• 3. Institutional stigma – being treated badly by service providers, feeling humiliated by the process of claiming benefits or accessing other services.

All of these come up again and again among people in poverty, especially those with experience of the social security system and people using food banks. The 2012 study found that around three in ten of those with experience of claiming benefits had experienced moderate or high personal stigma, nearly half reported feeling social stigma and a whopping 85 per cent experienced institutional stigma.

Health studies have linked these feelings of shame and stigma to increased mental and physical health problems. A review (Elliott 2016) of the links between mental health and poverty highlighted the impact on young people's mental health. It found that “chronic exposure to poverty increases adolescents’ risks for developing conditions such as depression, and behavioural risks such as substance use, early sexual behaviour and criminal activity”. Girls were more likely to become depressed and boys to drink too much. Tellingly, it cited the impact of “a sense of helplessness and feelings of shame and inferiority”.

Many studies have documented the feelings of humiliation and distress felt by some benefit claimants, both because of media portrayals of them (social stigma) and the way they have been treated when claiming social security (institutional stigma):

Q: How are benefits claimants seen?

Alan: OK, ermm, parasites, skivers, work-shy, lazy, stupid, Feckless.

Every country is different and there are certain characteristics that make it particular with respect to others. At the same time, all share similar issues and problems, some of which are of particular relevance for the specific country. This chapter examines four topics that make Mexico “unique”. They are issues that are particular to Mexico and that, in spite of being present in other nations, are of particular relevance in Mexico’s twenty-first century. Those issues are (1) the proximity of the United States; (2) the war on drugs and organized crime; (3) corruption; and (4) the disenchantment with politics. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of Mexico’s place in the world.

MEXICO’S NEIGHBOUR

Mexico and the USA are two countries so closely linked to each other that it is almost mandatory to talk about both. Being geographical neighbours, Mexico and the US have had a very close relationship since the birth of both nations. Like all neighbouring countries, they have had their differences and some military confrontations. However, both have come to form, along with Canada, the world’s most important economic area in modern times.

In 1848, the United States and Mexico signed the Treaty Guadalupe Hidalgo to end the war between the two nations and begin a new peaceful relationship. The peace treaty would benefit both sides of the Rio Grande. The American dream became part of Mexican and Latin American societies. Life on the border generated new cultures, but not everything has been easy. This section will show how the historical relationship between both nations has developed since1848 to the present, and the economic and political implications for Mexico.

The current border between the United States and Mexico is approximately 3,185 km long, but this was not always the case. In 1848, with the dissolution of the war and the signing of the treaty, Mexico granted more than half of its territory to the United States and would have no claim on Texas. In return, it would receive $15 million for damage to Mexican territory.