would we be better off if the welfare state had not been created?

[Don Rizzle]

I certainly believe we'd be better off if the welfare state had not been created, by which I mean the development since about 1906.

The welfare state has created mass unemployment on a long-term basis. Before the welfare state, before 1911 when unemployment insurance was first brought in, unemployment was rare, small scale and temporary.

  
 I believe the whole character of Britain has deteriorated and changed: there's more crime, it's a less decent society because of the creation of the welfare state.

James Bartholomew  

Families and friendly societies supported those who were in need. The amount of dependency and unemployment and misery caused by unemployment was vastly less.

But the indictment against the welfare state doesn't just stop at unemployment - it starts with lower standards of healthcare than we would otherwise have had. Fifteen thousand people a year die because we have cancer treatment so far below the average of European countries.

Education levels are so low now that adult illiteracy runs at 20% according to the government's own figures.

I believe the whole character of Britain has deteriorated and changed: there's more crime, it's a less decent society because of the creation of the welfare state.

One of the terrible things that happen now is that not only are people low paid, but worse than that, the government taxes those people who it simultaneously defines as being in poverty.

If you earn just £10,000, or have an investment income as a pensioner of just £10,000, you will be taxed by the government which simultaneously says you are in poverty.

That is one of the effects of the welfare state. It now taxes the poor - which wasn't the intention in 1951 at all.

In 1951 if you were a couple with two children on average earnings you paid zero income tax. Now, if you're on a fraction of average earnings, you pay income tax.

The welfare state has got to stop discouraging work, stop discouraging saving, stop encouraging unmarried parenting and divorce, stop taxing the poor, stop encouraging fraud and lies - which is what it does.

JAMES BARTHOLOMEW (from the Gardian)



I'm interested to know what do you guys think? would we be better off without paying welfare at all, do you think families would start supporting more each other like they ust too?

[King Tech Quadafi]

I dont think the author you are quoting has an understanding of what the welfare state is.

Is this Bartholomew character an actual columnist, or a random letter to the editor?

I mean, he rails against taxes and an inadequate health system as part of a reason to be against the welfare state. This suggests he has a misunderstanding of what the term means and refers to.

If the welfare state- in this case, I am referring to the Keynesian welfare state- had not been implemented post WW2, the very concept of a health care system would not exist as we know it. As for being against taxes, the other alternative is massive tax cuts which in the modern era of welfare state retrenchment inevitably coincides with social service funding cuts. Which means the poor gettin a bigger dick in the ass.

Now whether the welfare state today is efficient (neo-liberals will of course disagree strongly) or not, is another subject for another day. But as for whether its implementation decades ago was good, of course, it was absolutely necessary.

Based on the established macroeconomic principles of the day, the Keynesian welfare state was necessary. The great depression and the world wars reflected the instability and inefficiency of the market in regulating the private sphere. The percieved "need" for govt interference was strong in order to maintain employment and keep inflation down. Spending was necessary then. Its not considered to be the case now, but the welfare state and everything  that came from it (safety net, govt spending) at the time was necessary for sure.

[Don Rizzle]

sorry i got them the wrong way round James Bartholomew wrote a book about the welfare state

Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee and James Bartholomew, author of The Welfare State We're In, give their views on the welfare state today.

maybe it was needed back then but i've tended to lean towards towards thinking we'd be better off without it now, some people want this system to last a life time but taxes are way too high and the economy would be better off without it thus the population too. however i think there should always be some help in health care, but the NHS is not working anymore. its a bottomless pit in monetry terms you can throw as much money as you want at it and you still have long waiting lists, and a culture to meet goverment targets that puts people at risk in some places ambulances have been waiting outside the hospital with the patient until A&E is ready for them so waiting times are met via a back door in the mean time these ambulances are unavaliable for those who need them. i think you should always have to pay something (when you can afford it) but susbsidies applied to what is for medical purposes but not for cosmetic or reproductive treaments, at the moment you can get pretty much anything free on the nhs and it takes the piss.

[dexter]

Corporations are the Biggest receiptants.

[dexter]

Check out David Stockman's book
The Truimph of Politics:Why the Reagan Revoltution Failed  1986
He was in the  Reagan Adminstration

[dexter]

Btw he said Corporate Welfare was AS Bad As any other forms of Welfare!

[dexter]

Real talk

[Infamous Josedy]

I wrote a paper stating why I oppose welfare, but this is of course in America.

[Don Rizzle]

I wrote a paper stating why I oppose welfare, but this is of course in America.

why don't u upload it

[dexter]

it should be changed and quick