You might think that a question about taxation would be equally valid whether asked by Jack the Ripper or Mother Teresa.

But you would be wrong.

The ruthless campaign against Duncan Storrar after his intervention on Q&A illustrates the ongoing political utility of moral assessments of the poor.

The earliest iterations of what we’d now call welfare policy developed after the accession of Edward VI in 1547 distinguished very explicitly between the “deserving” and the “undeserving” poor.

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Capitalism requires a certain level of unemployment. As Richard Dennis notes in his book Econobabble, “governments in Australia like to have at least half a million unemployed people at any point in time”.

But discussions about the structural necessity of human misery easily push in radical directions. If the problem’s recognised as systemic, people might demand that the system be changed.

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That was why the early poor laws emphasised the morality of the individual supplicant rather than the ethics of the social order.

It’s an emphasis that resonates today.

The sociologist Abram de Swaan argues that, all across Europe, three main criteria have been used to separate the deserving poor from their undeserving brethren.

The first of them is proximity.

It’s only “our” poor who deserve succour. Foreigners, immigrants, minorities, and anyone else deemed somehow “other” are entitled to nothing. At best, they’re someone else’s problem; at worst, they’re spongers and parasites. The contemporary asylum seeker debate provides an obvious example.

The second criteria is (dis)ability.

If the poor are assessed as being physically capable of work, they’re undeserving – and they probably need to be punished. The English Poor Act of 1552 duly decreed:

If any man or woman, able to work, should refuse to labour and live idly for three days, he or she should be branded with a red hot iron on the breast with the letter V and should be judged the slave for two years of any person who should inform against such idler.

That’s tough love, Tudor-style.

The final criteria is docility. In many ways, it’s the most interesting of the three.

The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 established the workhouse system, in which the destitute would only receive relief if they entered a prison-like facility. The idea was that, as a royal commission into the operation of the poor laws explained, “work, confinement, and discipline will deter the indolent and vicious”.

But it wasn’t enough merely for the poor to work. They also had to display the right attitude.

In 1867, the children of the workhouse in Wrexham in North Wales staged a Christmas concert. To demonstrate, they’d absorbed the sentiment fitting to their station, the infants carolled a “Song of Gratitude” to celebrate their confinement:

God bless our kindly Master

Likewise the Matron too:

So wise to rule, so kind to bear,

With faults we often do.

Now while we are singing

Our thanks to all we give

Who smile on lowly children,

Long may they happy live.

The Daily Telegraph recently provided an illustration of what a similar attitude might look like today.

“ScoMo, Hero of the Hard Worker,” proclaimed the Tele’s headline, the day after the most recent budget. The accompanying cartoon portrayed Scott Morrison as seen by these hypothetical workers, who apparently envisage their treasurer as a buffed-up Superman.

God bless our kindly master, indeed.

The corollary of this emphasis is that, by definition, those who ask for alms shouldn’t be given them.

In Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens famously describes what happens when one impoverished boy chooses not to be docile.

Photograph: Daily Telegraph

The board were sitting in solemn conclave, when Mr. Bumble rushed into the room in great excitement, and addressing the gentleman in the high chair, said, ‘Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked for more!’ There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every countenance. ‘For more!’ said Mr. Limbkins. ‘Compose yourself, Bumble, and answer me distinctly. Do I understand that he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?’ ‘He did, sir,’ replied Bumble. ‘That boy will be hung,’ said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. ‘I know that boy will be hung.’

You can see, then, where Duncan Storrar went wrong. By posing a question of assistant treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer – and, what’s worse, a question that she couldn’t answer – he displayed a disturbing level of self-confidence. The resulting headlines declaring him a thug and a criminal duly played upon centuries of tropes about dangerous vagabonds and impudent paupers.

But the intensity of the reaction also reflects the peculiar conjunction in which we find ourselves: on the one hand, an economic situation akin the early 20th century; on the other hand, a political environment more reminiscent of a hundred years earlier.

Since the global financial crisis, the sclerotic global economy has generated a level of inequality reminiscent of the Jazz Age. At the same time, the vehicles of mass democracy developed during the 20th century (political parties, trade unions, pressure groups, etc) have been either destroyed or hollowed out of all social content. An apathetic cynicism now prevails throughout most industrialised countries about a political process perceived as irrelevant to ordinary people’s lives.

In that context, it’s not surprising that interventions by outsiders can spectacularly break through the status quo. A zinger about tax from the Labor party wouldn’t have had nearly the same impact: Duncan Storrar’s words resonated because we almost never hear poor people speaking on their own behalf.

Of course, that’s also the reason for the backlash. If the poor lose their docility, there’s no telling what might happen.