1,097
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
2 collections
    1
    shares

      If you have found this article useful and you think it is important that researchers across the world have access, please consider donating, to ensure that this valuable collection remains Open Access.

      State Crime Journal is published by Pluto Journals, an Open Access publisher. This means that everyone has free and unlimited access to the full-text of all articles from our international collection of social science journalsFurthermore Pluto Journals authors don’t pay article processing charges (APCs).

      scite_
       
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      The Harms of State, Free-Market Common Sense and COVID-19

      Published
      research-article
      Bookmark

            Abstract

            The markedly high levels of preventable death and injury from COVID-19 in the UK have been refracted by government appeals to “British common-sense” in response to the crisis. We critically explore this appeal as a generator of harm continuous with free-market common-sense (FMCS) that stretches back to the start of the 1980s and the Thatcherite assault on state protections, “enemies within” and expertise in the public realm, driving and legitimating a broad landscape of harm under neoliberal restructuring. This is the context for understanding government responses to COVID-19 and the Grenfell fire, both of which have resulted in avoidable death and injury and both of which illustrate the role of “common-sense” in the demonisation and blaming of the victims of state violence along with a deligitimation of expertise in public health. Following Gramsci's conceptualisation of common-sense and its role in cultivating a never-guaranteed consensus for the continuance of capitalist state power, we explore the emergence of Gramsci's “good sense” in the current juncture and its challenge to the harms of state that FMCS has generated.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Journal
            10.2307/j50005552
            statecrime
            State Crime Journal
            Pluto Journals
            2046-6056
            2046-6064
            1 April 2021
            : 10
            : 1 ( doiID: 10.13169/statecrime.10.issue-1 )
            : 170-188
            Affiliations
            [1 ] The Open University
            [2 ] University of Liverpool
            Article
            statecrime.10.1.0170
            10.13169/statecrime.10.1.0170
            29574912-a4c7-4147-941c-32ec26abaff5
            © 2021 International State Crime Initiative

            All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

            History
            Categories
            Custom metadata
            eng

            Criminology
            free-market,common-sense,Gramsci,good sense,state harm,COVID-19,Grenfell

            References

            1. Anderson, B. (1983) Imagined Communities. London: Verso.

            2. Apps, P. (2020) “Rydon manager brands Grenfell residents who complained about fire safety ‘aggressive‘”, Inside Housing, 22 July. Available online at: www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/rydon-manager-brands-grenfell-residents-who-complained-about-fire-safety-aggressive-67256 (accessed 10 August 2020).

            3. Ashton, J. (2020) “The cost of Boris Johnson's COVID-19 ‘business as usual‘”, Byline Times, July 8. Available online at: https://bylinetimes.com/2020/07/08/the-cost-of-boris-johnsons-covid-19-business-as-usual/ (accessed 15 August 2020).

            4. BBC News (2019) “Grenfell Tower: Jacob Rees-Mogg criticised for ‘insulting’ comments”, 5 November. Available online at: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-50302573 (accessed 10 August 2020).

            5. BBC News (2020) “Coronavirus: Nearly two million claim universal credit”, 4 May. Available online at: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52536210, (accessed 10 August 2020).

            6. Booth, R. (2018) “Grenfell emails reveal turmoil at council in aftermath of fire”, The Guardian, 8 June. Available online at: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jun/08/grenfell-emails-reveal-turmoil-at-council-in-aftermath-of-fire (accessed 10 August 2020).

            7. Bradley, G. (2019) “From Grenfell to Windrush, state racism kills – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly”, Open Democracy, 13 June. Available online at: www.opendemocracy.net/en/opende mocracyuk/from-grenfell-to-windrush-state-racism-kills-sometimes-quickly-sometimes-slowly/ (accessed 10 August 2020).

            8. Buchanan, L., Bui, Q., and Patel, J.K. (2020) “Black Lives Matter May Be the Largest Movement in US History”, The New York Times, 3 July. Available online at: www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/03/us/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html (accessed 10 August 2020).

            9. Calvert, J., Arbuthnott, G., and Leake, J. (2020) “Coronavirus: 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into a disaster”, The Sunday Times, 19 April. Available online at: www.thetimes.co.uk/article/corona virus-38-days-when-britain-sleepwalked-into-disaster-hq3b9tlgh (accessed 10 August 2020).

            10. Campbell, A. (2020) “MPs need to stop letting Boris Johnson gaslight the public and stand up for honesty”, The Independent, 12 July.

            11. Campbell, A. and Morgan, E. (2020) “Comparisons of all-cause mortality between European countries and regions: January to June 2020”, Office for National Statistics, 30 July. Available online at: www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/com parisonsofallcausemortalitybetweeneuropeancountriesandregions/januarytojune2020 (accessed 10 August 2020).

            12. Charlesworth, S. J. (2004) “Reflections on working-class space, being, and experience”, Space and Culture, 7(3): 327–342.

            13. Clarke, J. (2020) “Building the ‘Boris’ bloc: angry politics in turbulent times”, Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture, 74: 118–135.

            14. Crehan, K. (2011) “Gramsci's concept of common sense: a useful concept for anthropologists?”, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 16(2): 273–287.

            15. Daguerre, A. and Etherington, D. (2014) “Welfare Reform in the UK under the Conservative-led Coalition government: ruptures and continuities”. Available online at: www.mostewartresearch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Welfare_Reform_in_the_UK_PubReady.pdf, (accessed 10 August 2020).

            16. Gilroy, P. (1987) There Ain't no Black in the Union Jack, The Cultural Politics of Nation. London: Routledge.

            17. Gov.uk (2020) “COVID-19: Understanding the impact on BAME communities”, Gov.uk, 16 June. Available online at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-understanding-the-impact-on-bame-communities (accessed 10 August 2020).

            18. Grenfell Tower Inquiry (2017) Grenfell Tower Inquiry. Available online at: www.grenfelltowerin quiry.org.uk/key-documents (accessed 10 August 2020).

            19. Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks. London: Laurence and Wishart.

            20. Gu, E. (2020) “This is the hard to swallow truth about a future corona virus vaccine (and I am a doctor)”, The Independent, 13 June.

            21. Hall, P. (2020) “The dangerous legacy of the Cummings affair”, New Statesman, 8 August.

            22. Hall, S. (1983) “The great moving right show” in Hall, S., Jacques, M. ed. The Politics of Thatcherism. London: Laurence and Wishart.

            23. Hall, S. and O'Shea, A. (2013) “Common-sense neoliberalism”, Soundings, 55(1): 9–25.

            24. Jones, O. (2011) Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class. London: Verso.

            25. Kirby, J. (2020) “‘Black Lives Matter’ has become a global rallying cry against racism and police brutality”, Vox, 12 June. Available online at: www.vox.com/2020/6/12/21285244/black-lives-matter-global-protests-george-floyd-uk-belgium (accessed 10 August 2020).

            26. Lawless, S. (2005) “Disgusted subjects: the making of middle-class identities”, The Sociological Review, 53(3): 429–446.

            27. Luyendjik, J. (2019) “Europe isn't the enemy – demonising us is undermining Britain”, The Guardian, 29 September.

            28. McKee, M. (2017) “Grenfell Tower fire: why we cannot ignore the political determinants of health”, British Medical Journal, 357: 1–2.

            29. Mein, S. A. (2020) “COVID-19 and health disparities: the reality of “the great equalizer”, Journal of General Internal Medicine, 35(8): 2439–2440.

            30. Perrigo, B. (2019) “‘Get Brexit Done’: The Three Words That Helped Boris Johnson Win Britain's 2019 Election”, Time, 13 December. Available online at: https://time.com/5749478/get-brexit-done-slogan-uk-election/ (accessed 10 August 2020).

            31. Rana, J. (2020) “‘Excluded’: 3 million self-employed locked out of support have their hopes dashed as Rishi Sunak fails to help them in his mini-Budget”, This is Money, 9 July. Available online at: www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/smallbusiness/article-8502689/Forgotten-3million-self-employed-fail-help-mini-Budget.html (accessed 10 August 2020).

            32. Shariatmadari, D. (2020), “‘Invisible mugger’: how Boris Johnson's language hints at his thinking”, The Guardian, 27 April. Available online at: www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/27/muggers-and-invisible-enemies-how-boris-johnsons-metaphors-reveals-his-thinking (accessed 10 August 2020).

            33. Smith, D. (2020) “The dangers of becoming addicted to Rishi Sunak's job furlough scheme”, The Times, 27 May. Available online at: www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-dangers-of-becoming-addicted-to-rishi-sunak-s-job-furlough-scheme-7mtlwfdq7 (accessed 10 August).

            34. Thatcher, M. (1990) “Thatcher's Speech to the Czech Federal Assembly”, Making the History of 1989. Available online at: http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/74) (accessed 12 August 2020)

            35. Tombs, S. (2016) Social Protection After the Crisis: Regulation Without Enforcement. Bristol: Policy Press.

            36. Tombs, S., and Whyte, D. (2003) Unmasking the Crimes of the Powerful: Scrutinizing States and Corporations. New York: Peter Lang.

            37. Tombs, S., Whyte, D. (2007) Safety Crimes Cullompton: Willan Publishing.

            38. Tyler, I. (2013) Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain. London: Zed Books.

            39. White, C. and Nafilyan, V., (2020) “Coronavirus-related deaths by ethnic group, England and Wales methodology”, Office for National Statistics, 7 May. Available online at: www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/methodologies/coronavirusrelateddeathsbyethnicgroupenglandandwalesmethodology (accessed 10 August 2020).

            40. Wild, M. (2007) “‘On your bike …‘”, BBC, 16 May. Available online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/6660723.stm (accessed 10 August 2020).

            41. Wohland, P., Rees, P., Nazroo, J., and Jagger, C. (2015) “Inequalities in healthy life expectancy between ethnic groups in England and Wales in 2001”, Ethnicity and Health, 20(4): 341–353.

            Comments

            Comment on this article