Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, November 21st, 2008 - 48 comments
Categories: national/act government, welfare -
Tags:
It’s very easy in our individualist, consumerist, capitalist society to say ‘if you’re poor, it’s your fault, don’t come looking to the rest of us for help’ – ‘it’s your fault for marrying an alcoholic, don’t expect us to pay to house your family’, ‘it’s your fault you got pregnant when you couldn’t afford to support the kid’. It’s a sentiment that we hear expressed all too often by the Right, who seem to think that if you’re in a tough situation that’s your problem and that anyone claiming a benefit is just a bludger. Hopefully, we will see a sea-change in that attitude over the coming years.
We now have two National ministers, one of them prime minister, who make a big deal over the fact they relied on the State to house and support them for significant periods of their lives*. Most of the rest have also benefited from the welfare state, if not from housing and benefits then from free education and health-care for themselves and their families. It would be hypocritical and callous in the extreme for these people who did so well thanks to our social safety-net to now start taking that net apart.
Is the welfare state perfect? No, of course there are always examples of abuse and things that could be improved. But that’s not an argument for throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Because some beneficiaries go on to great things, is that grounds to punish those who don’t with work-for-the-dole type policies? No, the welfare state is about ensuring that what our society believes is a minimum acceptable standard of living is available to all. If it can be a springboard for some to go on to great things, fantastic, but we can’t expect all beneficiaries to become ministers or even get into work. It is sufficient that most people are on benefits for short periods and very few try to abuse the system (as if living on $200 a week with nothing to do is a great life).
The experience of nine years under Labour has been that people are keen to get off benefits, if there are jobs to be had and support to get them into work. That’s why we’ve seen benefit numbers reduce 30% (100,000) in nine years.
We can but hope that the new Government will think twice before attacking benefits. Not just so future John Keys and Paula Bennetts get the opportunities they had but so every Kiwi who falls on hard times knows that the rest of us will be there, collectively, to break their fall.
*(in fact, there were former beneficiaries in the previous govt, they just didn’t make big deal out of it)
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“So Gates keeps a few hundred starving children alive while he benefits from the system that created a history of poverty from slavery and wage slavery.”
Rave, you seem to have a fairly utopian view of the past. Do you believe that poverty did not exist at some point in history? Do you believe that society was less violent and living standards were higher at some previous time in history.
Please let me know when that was.
Ben R
No slavery existed before the capitalists reinvented it. Point was the capitalism came along and refined it for profit. Now we have a system that lives off wage slavery and its effects are obvious – rising global inequality and poverty, 28000 kids dying of preventable disease every day, and a collapsing finance sector bailed out by the ordinary people. Capitalism doesnt have the means to reverse these effects only worsen them.
My point is that capitalism while it has created the possibility of great advances has outlived its usefulness and we should take its current crisis as a signal that it needs replacing. Instead of rewarding the rich for exploiting us we should be socialising the economy for the benefit of all.
Does that give you a clear enough picture?
Rave I don’t know what fantasy land you live in
“No slavery existed before the capitalists reinvented it. ”
What ?
Your suggestion of replacing our current system would be reasonable if your proposal wasn’t it’s replacement with communism which is frankly laughable – I suggest you read iprents post on the appeal of extremist parties like RAM to get a feel how the NZ public feels about these extreme politcal suggestions.
Rave surely you are writing in jest – I suggest you might want to take a trip back in time to pre european New Zealand.
The biggest issue with the welfare state is it’s potential to create dependance – people need to feel and be rewarded for their own enterprise – otherwise we would all sit round and smoke dope and surf all day.
The biggest issue with the welfare state is it’s potential to create dependance – people need to feel and be rewarded for their own enterprise – otherwise we would all sit round and smoke dope and surf all day.
Only a relative handful of genuine no-hopers (and hell they are fellow humans too) are really content to sit around and do nothing all day… especially on the few hundred a week that the dole is worth. Most people on benefits would love nothing better than to get off it and into a job that earned not only better cash, but some self-respect as well.
The real problem they face is the so called poverty trap, the effect that by the time they pay tax, transport, child care and other sundry costs, plus lost opportunity to earn the odd cashie on the side… the nett difference in actual disposable income is not all that great. (It’s also worth noting in this context that a full time 40 hour week on the minimum wage is around $27,000 pa; yet this is not all that much lower than the median income in this country!!!)
If you include working for families and public servants – the welfare state is massive!
But RedLogix – if you are not rewarded would you start up a company, do overtime, extra shifts, invest, save or study?
I think you missed the point.
Despite the fact that the effective differential between a benefit and a minimum wage income is not very high, that over the last five or so years when demand for labour has been exceedingly high… most people chose to work in a job rather than remain on a benefit. Even when their effective reward for doing so was not that great.
Obviously people expect financial reward for their efforts; but human motivation has more layers and complexity than that. Work is a huge part of our identity, it is our badge of belonging to the world we live in, and a way of expressing part of who we are.
In reality, even if one was paid quite well for it, most of us would quickly get sick of lying around doing nothing all day, or even doing some pastime we really enjoy. Many years ago I took a whole year off work to do what I love most… tramping. I spent the whole year in the Southern Alps, visiting as many valleys and ranges as I could. I had a great time and look back on that period with great nostalgia… but I also recall that in the last month I was getting sick of it. Sometimes it felt like I was trapped in a walking prison. In the end I couldn’t wait to get back home and back to work again.
On the other hand I believe that some folk really could just surf forever.
Higher Standard.
Rave I don’t know what fantasy land you live in
[the world where the bosses are being baled out by the wage-slaves]
“No slavery existed before the capitalists reinvented it. ‘
What ? [It should have read "No, ..." it was a reply to an earlier comment.
Your suggestion of replacing our current system would be reasonable if your proposal wasn't it's replacement with communism which is frankly laughable - I suggest you read iprents post on the appeal of extremist parties like RAM to get a feel how the NZ public feels about these extreme politcal suggestions.
[Frankly laugh away. When this 'system' as Bush calls it, cannot be saved, what would you put in its place?The 'extreme' capitalism of Bush and Key where the few rich bastards get richer on the wealth created by the big majority? That's extremism.
What NZers think about this will change when they discover who's being ripped off.
What I call communism has nothing to do with the ex Soviet Union. I suggest you give your brain some work and widen your reading from iprent on tiny parties to Karl Marx on Wall Street.]
We already have a work for the dole type service on Unemployment Benefit, its call JSS or Job Search Service.
Under JSS everyone recieving Unemployment Benefit must sign and adhere to a Job Seeker Agreement. If they break that agreement then they do not recieve the benefit. It operates on a 3 strikes your out policy if you fail to meet your obligations first and second time you can complete an agreed task to have your benefit restarted. The third time is an automatic 13 week stand down.
This is labours policy and it works because it does not allow people to stagnate on the dole.
What is happening at the moment is Work and Income are finding that those on DPB, SB and IB want to work but lack the confidence or work skills to do so.
The infrastructure is in place it was well built by the Labour government but Work and Income lack the teeth to get people to take the first step to independence. It has reduced most case managers to mere salesman.
Nationals policy of getting DPB and SB recipients on, easy, confidence building courses will work for most but not all beneficiaries. The success of the policy will depend on the descretion the case manager has when dealing with clients and also how competant and well trained those case managers are.
OK then Rave
Please enlighten us which state in the world at the moment or from the past do you propose we model ourselves on ?
None HS, enlighten yourself and find your own model.
How would you improve on a situation where the top 10% who control the banks and the big corporates have trashed millions of lives and now hold out their hand to those same millions to be rescued? Or is that OK with you?
I would say that the problem arises because this wealthy, powerful elite expropriates the worlds resources, hoards them or wastes them, and threatens the existence of the planet.
So it looks like the solution has to be one that replaces this system with a popular, democratically run system that conserves resources, equalises incomes and meets our basic needs.
The welfare state is an attempt at a compromise but for every step towards equality, this elite manages to reverse the progress.
What is your solution?
Here’s a contribution that may get you thinking.
Welfare is not really charity. It’s just a tax we pay to prevent certain social problems, so that we have a society that most people actually want to live in.
The work for the dole thing is a joke. We have structural unemployment because of the economic policies that our governments pursue. The idea that individuals are completely to blame for persistent unemployment other than in a few cases, is a pernicious lie, invented to shift blame on to the victims of state policy.