meritocrat

Welfare creates dependency.

Is it just for a person to derive their existence from the state? Why not enable people to be independent?

Jat

That is a myth for the most part.

Ab_Normal

What alternative(s) do you propose?

meritocrat

Nothing.

Derec

I voted no but your poll was really way too blunt.

Welfare in some form is needed but it needs to be radically reformed. Government aid should be geared more to job training, less with maintainance payments. Also governemnt should be able to conscript non-sick welfare receipients into things like cleaning the highways. At least in these parts there is way too much trash on them.

Also, people who are on welfare but play lottery or folks paying with food stamps in the grocery store that wear brand-name clothes definitely get too much of tax payers money. Although limited-use credits (food stamps, housing allowance, tuition waiver ...) is much better than the all-purpose cash.

Just my $0.02 (plus tax) worth.

UMoC

orac

Not entirely true. Welfare can be misused, and it can be implemented badly, but this doesn't automatically invalidate the entire concept.

Of course it's completely and utterly unjust for a person to derive their "existance" from the state. (I asusme you mean their source of food, clothing, shelter, etc.)

As a natural conclusion, I propose abolishing all copyright and patent laws and all contract laws. No doubt people like Bill Gates will approve, as they absolutely hate having to be supported by the state.

Hold on, there's something not quite right here. It's almost as if rich and successful people benefit from tax money being used to enforce laws that benefit them.

A better question might be "is it just for poor people to benefit from the state, or is that right restricted to rich people?"

Another interesting question might be "who does the state exist for?" If the purpose of the state is to benefit people, what does a person have to do in order to qualify for a particular benefit?

ohwilleke

Welfare was invented because many people are dependent, whether you help them or not.

The problem is not that capitalism doesn't work, but that it works too well. People who can do work with value in the market place can be compensated for that. People who cannot do work with value in the market place, don't get anything.

There are plenty of people we don't expect to be able to support themselves in a capitalist society. Some people disabled and unable to work. At a certain age, disability becomes so prevailent, that individually ascertaining the existence of disability is more costly than simply treating everyone above a certain agae as disabled. We don't expect children to support themselves.

These simple assumptions about who can and can't work, underlying the core of the welfare state and are reasonable.

We rely on non-capitalist family obligations to deal with many people who are incapable of supporting themselves. Parents generally support their children. Children often support their parents. Spouses generally support each other.

But, the welfare system steps in when a person who has a duty to support a dependent person is incapable of doing so.

People who we deem capable of supporting themselves, such as able bodied adults with no dependents, are generally eligible for little or no welfare. But, we support parents of children, because we can't help the children without helping the parents.

Experience has shown that private sector charities do not meet the need. Churches have not taken care of the poor and needy, and neither have secular non-profits. The task is more expensive than people are willing to give voluntarily to pay for.

More generally, we do have an obligation as a society to not let people starve and die. We have need to have a proper system of incentives that rewards the law abiding needy, over those who break the laws, which is not true in the absence of a welfare system. The absence of a welfare system encourages crime. The U.S. and other countries with welfare systems do not have the squatter cities based on theft of land and utilities, found in countries that do not have them.

It is all good and well to let people be independent and to encourage them to be independent, but not everyone is capable of that. A two year old kid, or a grandma with Alzeimher's who doesn't know who her own family is, are both not capable of being independent no matter how much we wish it to be so.

Loren Pechtel

See my earlier proposal on how to handle welfare.

Nikolai

Link? Thanks.

excreationist

Nikolai:
See the Welfare replaced by free shelter, etc, for all thread for Loren's ideas. I have some ideas there too.