Do the long-term unemployed in Britain today have any real right to continue to exist as they are, as fickle, lazy, work shy, miserable ragamuffins seemingly laughing heartily in the face of every hard-working man and woman in the country? In the strict sense of the word I would say, “No!” But this if only that such blatantly ignorant, unproductive and socially irrelevant people if unable to support and maintain themselves are, as such, economically redundant unproductive units of insignificant, spineless antisocial protoplasm – indeed, they are a complete waste of living-space in any decent, law abiding society.
This is not because I would condemn the long-term unemployed out of hand for being continually unemployed in a society where a currently up to date employment history (with curriculum vitae attached) is “de rigueur” for gaining wothwhile long-term employment of any kind, or they remain unemployable. And which “state of affairs” in this country is inevitably the rigorous social norm, or is especially enforced by an ordered, bureaucratic, regulated system of paid employment. No, I would not condemn them for failing to fulfil that viciously draconian requirement of the job market. But I would condemn the long-term unemployed of today outright purely and deliberately for knowingly and wilfully being recalcitrant unproductive economic and social units of the British economy. And then for being so easily able to live with it as well, just so long as the various State benefits just keep on rolling into their basic bank accounts every payday, regular as clockwork.
Personal productivity in our fast paced, technologically advanced modern world means a person being able to look after himself or herself as a self-aware, self-motivated, self-reliant social unit in society. It does not mean then that any naturally useless, inherently worthless long-term unemployed person is also necessarily utterly and totally meaningless, or necessarily has no real meaning. The naturally drab, sanguine, dull, lacklustre, useless, or economically and socially unproductive long-term unemployed person indeed has a very real meaning: to be unproductive at the expense of the society he or she lives in, survives within, or inhabits as a virulent parasitical growth upon the body politick. This is the sheer, raw, intensely personal meaning of the lack of moral and spiritual meaning and purpose to his or her life that a long-term unemployed person has to contend with in Britain today.
The Marxists had a nice, neat, even polite word for the long-term unemployed, these economically unproductive, antisocial individuals exiled from decent society – Lumpenproletariot, they called them. Characteristically lumping them all together in one saggy, wrinkled under-bottom of social classification, or, for convenience – an underclass. Although they did not include the upper classes in this decidedly dodgy class-ridden definition of lazy, lacklustre, good for nothing, low-life scum – an almost criminalized “outsider” group of lackadaisical unemployables. In effect, the Marxists expected the upper classes to look after themselves at the expense of the social underdog, clasping political and economic power tightly to themselves as they went (and the upper classes weren’t wrong in that, only being crass, mean, and opinionated over it, as usual). No, the long term unemployed in this country are a long way towards being classified as being a classic case of Lumpenproletariotism, and especially if they cannot and have not ever done any useful, productive work in their entire lives. In fact, I would go so far as to say that they have not, and probably never had, and probably never will have, any practical understanding or appreciation of the work ethic, as amazing as that sounds to some.
How then would it be possible to totally eradicate the long-term unemployed, these basically underemployed, basically unemployable, basically totally irrelevant, socially-naïve persons of ill repute from the face of the planet in a decent, law abiding, humane way? This is the stark social dilemma which confronts modern British society today. Of course, idealistically speaking, this is not a very practical thing to do anyway, as even those in receipt of any form of Government State benefit, of any kind (be it a service, a utility, a product, or (perhaps more relevantly) any regular benefit-based payment from out of the Welfare State’s enormously bureaucratic benefits system), can be questioned as to their inherent social usefulness as and when they receive it if they have not already “paid into the pot” on a regular basis to help pay for it.
No, the question of what exactly to do about the long-term unemployed remains a nagging problematic quandary, an irritating social conundrum to the average working person, working hard every day for his or her well-earned crust of bread. Even if these hard working people themselves, in their desperate desire and fawning need for work itself (if only to massage their grossly enlarged egos), are as a result often being exploited in a myriad of different ways. In turn, inevitably, they are being imposed upon every day in a myriad of subtle ways, by those who best know how to exploit, use, and manipulate that very basic desire of ordinary, hard-working people to be socially useful, productive, wage-earning, morally motivated human beings. Ordinary people of average intelligence who are driven to work every day, solely by the driving need to improve their own desperate economic position and to maintain their essential social prestige.
Of course, purely as an economically necessary result of this, some say that for doing so these ordinary, hard working people are merely bonded wage slaves: working like mules for a pittance and performing tricks for their economic masters’ continual amusement. I say that, as they have nothing better to do with their time, this state of affairs of being mere employees is their natural position in life anyway. In this society this sort of ordinary, average, workaday people are paid their due for what they can do (even if in reality it is only a mere pittance), and that is all they can expect for working hard in this society, their due – nothing more, nothing less.
But then that is another matter (one of cold, hard economic necessity maybe), for we are still left with the question of what to do with these scruffy, no-good, lazy, lacklustre, lackadaisical, down-trodden, ostracised social misfits, these great supine protoplasmic invertebrate jellies, the long-term unemployed. And especially with those sad, virtually “institutionalised” ones whom just will not do any work at all, and do it all day long, every day. They being caught as they are, much like confused laboratory rats in the maze of a increasingly depressing social and economic cycle, and then never ever even cared enough about it all to try to get a real, decent job in the first place.
Thus, these scruffy social miscreants with no apparent social or economic use whatsoever, these mealy-mouthed, socially unproductive economic units lacking even the basic desire to work to produce something of economic value to the world (but then still with the insatiable desire to consume what they have not produced), must face being systematically eradicated from the face of the earth by the society they have so blatantly scorned and that has so deservedly rejected them in turn. For them the Government says that they must “go to work” in a steady, socially productive manner (to perform the regular, daily work-task of full-time employment in imitation of, if not in mockery of, the essentially liberating work ethic of hard working workers), or face being expunged from decent society, utterly condemned and ostracized for their pursuit of an indecent, morally obscene lifestyle.
Yes, the Government says these socially uncooperative individuals must join the intrepid British workforce in working for a crust of bread, and not be left alone to be thrown it like a mangy dog would a bone by its master. This is the truly Herculean task that has been appointed by the Government for the Jobcentres to accomplish, and is one that is apparently slightly easier to accomplish that getting a corpse to get up and go to work every day to earn his or her daily bread. Then, apparently, when this task has been done, these unemployable social misfits (probably laughing uproariously at our well-meaning efforts to utterly expunged them with impunity from the antisocial unemployment regime they live under), should also have the good grace to accept the plans which the Government has for them without making the least possible fuss about it as well, or ideally at least.
But it is not all negativity, it is not that (in their sublimely surprising sanguine state of vegetate existence where all the amenities for existing have been provided for them – gratis) they do not present a lucrative market niche in the ever-growing social and welfare amenities and educational and training facilities market that caters for them. In fact, the long-term unemployed represent a burgeoning business opportunity in this burgeoning area of social enterprise to provide social welfare facilities that, in itself, is a nice profitable market niche. Which is an opportunity for those in big business to create work out of, and so exploit and profit out of these useless social misfits’ uncomfortable social and economic position. This the Government knows well enough already. At least in this way they can still be economically useful units of profit bearing potential, and so contribute to the overall economic recovery as they do so.
No, despite this, despite even this capacity of the long-term unemployed to create jobs and employment opportunities for others (in the employment education and welfare administration field) to help them find work in the job market, these disgracefully unemployable social misfits, these local Jobcentre rejects, these barking-mad, back-biting mutts fed and kennelled by the Department of Works and Pensions, must be completely and utterly eradicated from the face of the planet. If only it is purely for reasons of good taste and ethical decency, and not sheer economic necessity. Yes, eradicated if not by others around them more used to working hard, long hours for a living hired to do so by the Government, then certainly by themselves alone – expunged from the inside out and consumed from within. Indeed, who in his right mind, in effect, would ever want to be, “One of them!” or be singled out as “social pariahs” by society and its various Government bodies in the first place?
Without doubt, these utterly useless, antisocial individuals, the long-term unemployed in Britain today, must be destroyed, condemned, expelled, extracted, excised, or, in effect, eradicated from society. In short, the present Government considers that they must be made to pay through the nose for what they do and how they are, and not anymore ever be allowed to require society pay to support their dodgy, unproductive lifestyle at the expense of the average hard working man or woman in the street.
Ideally, they must be marked out for what they are, preferably by their own inner knowledge of themselves as being nothing else other than totally useless and meaningless nonentities, marked out as being purely unproductive economic and social units in a necessarily economically productive and socially meaningful society. And then, as an added bonus to those working all day, day in, day out, for small financial gain just for something constructive and socially meaningful to do with themselves (and watching what occurs for a leisure and recreational activity), to be eradicated, expunged, excised, or otherwise extirpated from good, decent society as painfully and publicly as possible. This mainly just to teach the long-term unemployed this one hard economic and social lesson in life and which they had better not forget: That there is no such thing as a free meal in the real world.
The subtle art of the con game: A brief review of Professor Philo T. Cozener’s autobiography, My Life and Times as a Confidence Trickster (published by the Roycroft Press in 1908).
A great number of the classic tricks of the age-old human practice of the con game are known from many works from the world of literature; most likely, or on the whole, they being semi-autobiographical work cashing in on the leftovers of a wasted life. While sharp, savvy, savagely brutal precepts, maxims, aphorisms, parables, and insightful anecdotes about confidence trickery can turn up in the most unlikely places in the literary world, from the works of Aristotle to Zeno (excluding Diogenes), or even from Austen to Zola (including Dickens), and beyond. Although I suspect that not a great number of the more fanciful scams portrayed therein would now be of much real use for budding confidence tricksters, even if they could be effectively extracted from their original context.
As such, many, truisms, euphemisms, and precepts concentrating mainly on the shifty principles of the conman’s art as first put forward in a fairly coherent form, can be found in the writings of that famous 19th century Yankee charlatan, shyster, confidence trickster, and swindler of gullible businessmen, Prof. Philo T. Cozener, in his autobiography, My Life and Times as a Confidence Trickster. This is a brief, sensationalistic, but still insightful work, being a short 149-page book that was published in 1908 in a now rare, signed limited edition of 350 copies printed on hand laid paper. It was privately printed by the Roycroft Press for the author at Elbert G. Hubbard’s renowned arts and crafts workshop in North Aurora, New York State. Nowadays it is quite a hard book to track down, even in its second and third issues, even in the specialist antiquarian bookshops of Charring Cross Road.
The renowned Professor of flim-flam, blarney, and spiel from Yonkers, and self-acclaimed master of the confidence trick, was the man (and not a lot of people know this) who reputedly tried to sell the French the whole concept of building the Statue of Liberty out of the newly-available, lighter, cheaper, and rust-proof aluminium, instead of the more traditional (but subject to verdigris decay) bronze sheeting; though, surprisingly enough, without gaining much credit for it at all, monetary or otherwise. He was apparently in cahoots with many of the professional conmen of the New York underworld at various times in his career, switching loyalty between whoever was in charge of the most lucrative con game in town at the time, which was usually something to do with the burgeoning bunkum bunko-traps and such-like, and other similar slight-of-hand malarkey.
Always staying in the shadows, a supporter of more famous individuals rather than appearing to be an obvious driving force, he preferring to remain a subdued presence in any of the more high profile activities involving some form of illegality or another. He was known, not as the man with a thousand faces, but by a dozen different names mostly of Irish Catholic origins, holding separate bank accounts in each name and set up to launder money through each one. Thus he managed to avoid the clutches of the law for longer than most of his contemporaries in the field, justifiably earning the nickname of “The Professor” among his associates. But, as is inevitable really for those who repeatedly cross the line of lawful common sense, he was finally apprehended, tried, and sent to Sing-Sing correctional institution for his crimes.
As the story goes, he was caught red-handed by one Alexander “Clubber” Williams, the New York Captain of police, apparently trying to sell some fake blueprints of the Brooklyn Navy yard’s’ new Dreadnaught battleship turbine engines to some Japanese technology investors. They even wanted to take a whole turbine engine apart and ship it back to Tokyo to use as a prototype engine design in their own growing modern model navy. Unable to do this legitimately they resorted to industrial espionage, exploiting newly forged Yakuza connections with the New York underworld. In the headlong pursuit of this shifty policy change they eventually fell into the clutches of the New York confidence men’s fraternity, who dealt with them accordingly, sending their best man up against them. But they could only get hold of the blueprints they wanted at extortionate cost, or so they thought, being conned into buying into a number of huge real estate deals selling some useless tar-soaked grazing land in Texas as part of the price of obtaining the desired documents.
At the end of it all, together with owning vast tracts of worthless tar-soaked scrubland in Texas, the Japanese found they were only left with some inscrutable designs for some new fangled kind of inertia-powered flight. They supposedly being the novel ideas of some unrecognised boy-inventor going by the name of Bobby Goddard, who actually though he could fly a rocket to the moon if only he had the right kind of engine to do it with. Apparently, he was some unknown crackpot inventor (whose dubious fate more than likely is now completely lost to history) whom the Professor had enmeshed into participating in the scheme somehow or other, probably by promising to finance his future education at some Ivy League university. If the celebrated Professor had not tried to branch out from his main line of confidence trickery defrauding New York bankers of unused monies held on deposit, who knows, maybe he may never had gotten caught. Indeed, he might never have been heard of at all, and so gone unrecorded in the annuals of American confidence tricksters.
The Professor’s book itself is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a sensationalist piece of writing that touches on the raw essence of the con artist’s game, but may be more to do with a complete egotist’s overweening pride, vanity, avarice, lust, and greed. But then these are also natural human attributes that we all have to deal with one way or another almost every day of the week (usually as found in other people around us), and so might easily be overlooked in the man himself, simply for being purely human faults which we all suffer from on occasion. On this slightly controversial autobiography being published at the time by the Roycroft Press, I do not really expect any tacit approval of the book itself was really forthcoming in the literary world as it then was; or, come to think of it, of the various accounts of the scams and dodges included within it as being a valid subject for a legitimate Roycroft Press book. Which is probably one of the reasons why it is such a difficult book to get hold of, as commercial press reprints seem to be non-existent.
However, once the initial surprise about its insidious subject matter was put aside, I expect it could be appreciated for what it was, or as it was intended to be. As a common enough type of work that usually rounds off a misspent life that was lived, once it was lived poorly, and so was beyond all redemption (a fate reserved for any vain-glory amateur writer of sensationalistic autobiographical material, whoever he thinks he is). Of course, it shows us the true nature of the conman’s nefarious trade in the States at the time. But in a more serious vein, maybe it should really be considered as being more of a work that, through its focus on such a sensationalist subject, was still directed at the sensation-seeking public in general (they being ordinary, workaday people who liked to read lurid accounts of the current events in the crime world), rather than simply being a “rough guide to the con” for potential conmen, who probably wouldn’t read it anyway. It was, perhaps, more suitable then, as now, as being a popular magazine’s serialized page filler (where pages need to be filled quickly in some publication operating on the fringes of acceptability), and possibly best destined for the “Hello” magazine of the day.
This little-known work printed at the Roycrofters’ craft workshops, would probably be a “must have” reference source for anybody who seriously considered himself to be an expert on the history and nature of the con game in the States; and so for anybody with credibility who subsequently wanted to write a competent book on the subject. Unfortunately, there aren’t that many copies left around to be had, but fortunately, especially for any serious researchers into the subject of the con game, there is one available “on shelf” in the Bodleian Library storage facility at Swindon, Wiltshire, a short train ride away from central London. The Bodleian, or Oxford University Library, being one of the few copyright storage facilities of printed books in the world, and stores for future reference virtually every book printed in Britain to date, and also many printed in other English speaking countries, including the United States.
As hand printed books go, this rare autobiography of a conman is a pretty artefact: the title blind printed on soft leather boards, with brown washed silk endpapers, signed and dedicated by the author in the front, together with a copy number, “Copy No. 93.”, as usual the pages having been opened with a paper knife, with the publishers printing particulars and print history placed surreptitiously in the back of the book as per usual, and with the typeface chosen for the work immaculately suited to the subject. A collectable Roycroft Press book if I ever saw one. When I first saw it I was almost tempted to walk right out the door of the Bodleian with it tucked up underneath my arm; no one would really have missed it.
But I would never have gotten away with it, (as there’s always a witness, even if it’s only oneself), despite knowing full well from experience that, as Prof. Philo T. Cozener himself said at his trial, “He who dares do the unexpected, grabs the prize right out from under the noses of the unprepared.” Or, as he said on another, more promising occasion in a lecture to the Women’s Institute of Yonkers, New York State long before he was caught, and perhaps more relevantly, “The world about us distracts us from seeing reality as it is, the lucid mind (when made aware of it) concentrates its thoughts on overcoming this illusion, or it is simply part of it.” As, after all, when it comes to tricking people intent on concentrating upon the moment at hand, surprising them with its banality is perhaps the best way to do it.
But such things as petty pilfering is dishonest, and not the sort of thing basically honest people want to be involved in too often, if only for the sake of being afraid of being caught at it. And filching books from public libraries is something only the likes of people like Joe Orton could get away with with impunity; and even he was eventually charged with defacing public property in the end, as, in the end, he just returned them, vandalized with obscene graffiti. (These defaced copies of well-known works are now treasured possessions of the British Library, which actually puts them on show occasionally, often enticing groups of unsuspecting tourists, usually middle-aged Americans, in off of the main hall to see them in small, stuffy rooms with subdued lighting.) After all, when all is said and done, if an honest man is to go crooked over anything then it is much better for all concerned for him to do one big thing once, and then live on the proceeds ever after (much like receiving publishing royalties), and live much like a model law-abiding citizen from then on.
Reading of the good Professor’s sensationalist exploits, chock-full of moralistic tirades, clever anecdotes, novel observations and the contrite, condensed wisdom of a reformed confidence trickster, who had eventually been caught red handed at the game he though he knew so well, it seems a pity that his talents could not be employed in a more honest business. However, ending on a good point, I believe he ended his days as an evangelical preacher, preaching redemption to the converted in the mid-West. How much he was sincere about what he preached is open to debate, but, whatever he was on about, for many years he was very successful at it, at the zenith of his preaching fame at the height of the Great Depression he eventually dying of a heart-attack on stage in front of hundreds of wiling “schmucks”.
However, these numerous tricks of the trade he speaks about so profusely and in so much detail here in this book (despite his later digression from his natural career path), are still a handy reference tool for exploring how to fake and make and close deals, even in today’s world. Of course, they are a guide, an amusement, and also a rip-roaring yarn, but also a moral warning to us. And I think that the best thing to take away from this book of tall-tales is not to get above the bastion of reality that protects all those who take cover behind it. As once that is done, there is no cover from the slings and arrows of outrageous fate available there for anyone who does so, and he will eventually fall, like so many egoistic men before him have done, back into the abyss of self he crawled out of.
Further information on this particular Roycroft Press book, together with a micro-filch text document of the book, can be obtained from, The Archivist, Main Enquiry Desk, The Bodleian Library, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BG, United Kingdom. Specific catalogue enquiries or selective comments can be made by sending the communication to this email address: reader.services@bodleian.ox.ac.uk. It should be noted that the library would prefer to receive more complex enquiries in writing; this ensuring that the library staff understand the details of the enquiry correctly, and so that they can devote a sufficient amount of time to the answer. That is, if they deem the enquiry to be of sufficient merit to answer at all, and not ignore completely.
To any reasonable requests for catalogue information and reference enquiries, I have found that the Library will usually respond within five full working days of the receipt of an enquiry, but in all cases within ten full working days of the receipt of an enquiry. Full working days are Monday to Friday except for the Easter and Christmas/New Year closure periods. Furthermore, the Library is obviously also closed for the traditional British Bank Holidays (in a sort of long “lost weekend” event for Englishmen), so it is not a good idea to try to contact them on those days either. In addition, the Internet-based “Ask an Oxford Librarian” service is available for questions about the Bodleian’s collections and services, including admission to the libraries, its catalogues and electronic resources, copying, and inter-library loans. All that is needed to utilize this novel Internet-based service correctly is for the enquirer to be in possession of an enquiring mind beforehand, preferably before any enquiry is made.