The Reality of the Welfare State
Why the Welfare State Isn't Really About Helping People
A recent Gary North newsletter commenting on the US elections contained a wealth of material. One of the topics he covered is what the welfare state is really all about. Although he is commenting on the USA, the same pretty much applies throughout the Western World.
"I had heard another Democrat on TV make the same point immediately after the election. "We are for values: the value of helping the poor." In reality, this is the value of filling immense government bureaucracies with college-educated, mostly white, Civil-Service-protected, union-protected employees, who then extract money from taxpayers, absorbing at least half for administrative costs, and handing out most of the rest to middle- class voters. This procedure is whitewashed -- and I do mean WHITEwashed -- in the name of helping the poor. The middle classes feel good about their compassion, not to mention $270 billion a year to send their kids to college. Not many ghetto kids are in college."
Harsh? I don't think so. Despite decades of welfare spending the relative position of the poor doesn't seem to have improved (as you would expect, I guess, given that the effect of welfare is to create a dependency mentality and actually dis-empower the people it is supposed to help). Of course, their absolute position has improved but that is no more than would be expected with the increase in the general level of prosperity (due, of course, to the operation of the free market despite the best efforts of the state to impede it!).
Gary also makes the point:
"Politics is a zero-sum game: winners profit at the expense of losers. Anyone who knows about zero-sum games knows that the winners are the bookies and the house. So, who are the political winners? The promoters. Who are the losers? The taxpayers."
When he refers to the "promoters" he is talking about the political establishment and the entire unelected, permanent government that exists. This is the awful cost that productive citizens bear under the current system of "mis-representative" democracy.
"But because the game of politics looks exciting, and it appears to the players to be winner take all, the illusion of having won prevails among the victorious 51%, and the reality of losing is blamed on the winners by the most recent losers. Meanwhile, the promoters deposit most of the gate's receipts."
This is what I was referring to in a previous post "Whoever wins...we lose!" The right wing camp both here in Australia and now the USA are crowing over the recent election victories. The harsh reality is that the underlying game hasn't changed and the best voters can hope for is that the "least bad" candidate prevails.
Before I get too depressed, it's worth recalling Churchill's comment about democracy. "It's a terrible system...until you consider the alternatives!" The point, however, is that Mankind's journey towards true freedom is a work in progress.
A recent Gary North newsletter commenting on the US elections contained a wealth of material. One of the topics he covered is what the welfare state is really all about. Although he is commenting on the USA, the same pretty much applies throughout the Western World.
"I had heard another Democrat on TV make the same point immediately after the election. "We are for values: the value of helping the poor." In reality, this is the value of filling immense government bureaucracies with college-educated, mostly white, Civil-Service-protected, union-protected employees, who then extract money from taxpayers, absorbing at least half for administrative costs, and handing out most of the rest to middle- class voters. This procedure is whitewashed -- and I do mean WHITEwashed -- in the name of helping the poor. The middle classes feel good about their compassion, not to mention $270 billion a year to send their kids to college. Not many ghetto kids are in college."
Harsh? I don't think so. Despite decades of welfare spending the relative position of the poor doesn't seem to have improved (as you would expect, I guess, given that the effect of welfare is to create a dependency mentality and actually dis-empower the people it is supposed to help). Of course, their absolute position has improved but that is no more than would be expected with the increase in the general level of prosperity (due, of course, to the operation of the free market despite the best efforts of the state to impede it!).
Gary also makes the point:
"Politics is a zero-sum game: winners profit at the expense of losers. Anyone who knows about zero-sum games knows that the winners are the bookies and the house. So, who are the political winners? The promoters. Who are the losers? The taxpayers."
When he refers to the "promoters" he is talking about the political establishment and the entire unelected, permanent government that exists. This is the awful cost that productive citizens bear under the current system of "mis-representative" democracy.
"But because the game of politics looks exciting, and it appears to the players to be winner take all, the illusion of having won prevails among the victorious 51%, and the reality of losing is blamed on the winners by the most recent losers. Meanwhile, the promoters deposit most of the gate's receipts."
This is what I was referring to in a previous post "Whoever wins...we lose!" The right wing camp both here in Australia and now the USA are crowing over the recent election victories. The harsh reality is that the underlying game hasn't changed and the best voters can hope for is that the "least bad" candidate prevails.
Before I get too depressed, it's worth recalling Churchill's comment about democracy. "It's a terrible system...until you consider the alternatives!" The point, however, is that Mankind's journey towards true freedom is a work in progress.
posted by Kevin Francis at
7:45 pm
