What Welfare Does to People

[aequalsa]

I'm not trying to pick bones here..

but welfare can't do anything to anyone can it?

I think this statement is key to the authors premise,

the welfare state therefore requires people to be stronger and morally superior to people in societies lacking a welfare state.

I'm not one to eschew personal responsibility, but I have to agree with him. In any statist scheme, a few generations removed and knowledge is lost in a generally selfish way. Take specie backed currency for example. I'm 34 and would have to go back 4 generations in my family tree before stumbling across anyone that even remembers gold backed dollars. Even further for someone who remembers not having a monetary cartel.

Prior to 1913, more than a few elections for president were won and lost primarily over the issue of banking. Currently, of the voting populace, how many out of 1000 have even a vague idea of the causes of our current banking crisis? I'd be surprised to find 1 or 2. So one view is, that these are lazy philosophically unsound people who should know more about the world they live in and what is happening to the thing they spend most of their lives chasing after. The other view is that FDIC insurance causes people to believe their money is safe no matter what, and their time could be better spent doing something other than reading economic journals to try and wrap their minds around this ridiculously complex issue.

Now multiply that by every other BS thing they ram down our throats, and it's easier for me to understand how people just go with the flow. It takes an unusual amount of courage and energy to take the path of most resistance.

Once enough generations go by and the social stigma is removed from welfare, people are confronted with a choice of working at their(usually) unsatisfying job or having an easy semi-retired life while some other fool takes care of you. Especially when the amount is equitable. If the average person is given the choice to work doing what someone else wants them to do or be paid nearly the same amount to float around and do whatever they feel like, we shouldn't be surprised by what they choose.

I understand the long term ramifications psychologically and am in no way advocating this approach to life. Im just noting that to require the world to be filled with reasonable long term planners capable of extreme delayed gratification is an exercise in futility. The environment shapes our choices and in that process shapes our behavior.

[L-C]

Thomas, why didn't you solve your problem without welfare?

Does it make sense to vilify something when it helped you in your life?

If it weren't for welfare, people on welfare would be self-sufficient without welfare. Do you see how?

As for your second question: Yes. Thomas only reclaimed what was rightfully his to begin with. He did not have a say in the creation of this system. It did not help him. The potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars (even millions, I don't know what he makes) he'd have without taxes would've helped him.

[Eiuol]

You're not a Russian citizen. If you work more, you earn more and can pay for your own private medical care.

Why should you refuse a sum of money that was stolen from you/will steal from you?

Edited August 18, 2009 by Eiuol