"Strike that. Reverse it."
Posted on 08/06/2010 9:06:49 PM PDT by Libloather
Can capitalism live without the welfare state?
posted: 6.18pm Tue 3 Aug 2010
The Tories are taking the knife to public services and the welfare state—but how far can they go? Socialist Worker examines the role of welfare under capitalism
The benefits system is on the verge of collapse—or at least that’s what Tory minister Iain Duncan Smith claimed as he launched the latest attack on the welfare state last week.
Think-tanks and media commentators revel in telling us that maintaining public services at their current level is unsustainable. But there is also an ideological attack taking place on the idea of the welfare state.
One minister, off the record, recently told the Times newspaper the rationale behind it. “The undeserving poor,” he said, “are undeserving.”
There is nothing new about cuts in welfare spending. Nor are the ideological justifications new. Labour Party right winger Frank Field has been hawking this rot for two decades.
The Tories are using the economic crisis to speed up the scale of the attacks.
(Excerpt) Read more at socialistworker.co.uk ...
Of course, just get rid of debt based fiat money - oh sorry that would mean getting rid of international bankers. Many heads of state have died trying to do just that!
Well, there's one way to find out.
I think it's worth a risk.
Can a 40 year old liberal live without a pacifier and diapers?
No...I suppose not.
Read Taylor Caldwell's book, Captains and the Kings....think you hit the nail on the head.
These are very dangerous times.
Why would a “Socialist Worker” care if capitalism lives at all?
Sure there is, they are myths. Welfare never gets cut, anywhere. Government will cut every manner of public safety expense or funding for any agency that actually benefits taxpayers possible before cutting welfare, always.
Because without capitalists from which to steal, socialists would starve.
Thanks for the tip. I shall pursue it immediately.
Well I know, but we’re not speaking from the viewpoint of omniscience, but the viewpoint of the worker who views capitalism as simply useless. Once he’s found out otherwise, there’s no more capitalism to worry about keeping alive.
Conversely, too many parasite affect the health of said host in a negative manner.
We're past the tipping point. More people on some kind of public dole than off...
You do the calculus from there.
No. The problem is they want us to wipe their ass as well. Speaking for myself that will never happen.
End welfare!!
Everyone makes it on their own or they can quit taking up space on this planet!!!
Communism is the worst form of pure capitalism.
At the local government level, funding comes in earmarked pots. Welfare is a federal/state program. Money for welfare cannot be used on anything else. The same is true of mental health benefits, public health services and child support collection. Local government services such as police, fire libraries, the D.A. all come from the same pot. It is the only pot where there is a bit of discretion on how the money is allocated. This is also the pot that is shrinking. State cuts and loss of property and sales tax combined with increased union wages has exacerbated the shortfall. That is why these services are cut while welfare is not cut.
Government really only is indicated for roads, sewers, police, fire etc...not taking care of peoples babies or their corns...
In Bizarro Land of ObamaBots, Government produces something and the private sector becomes irrelevant.
Cuba proves this to be an absolute lie.
“Welfare is a parasite on a healthy economy. As with all parasites, it cannot live without a host.”
Exactly. I call it a leech - anything in an economy that doesn’t produce more then it consumes. That includes the emerging technologies that people spin as economic development. One would be carbon capture technology. Sure new industry will spring up to meet the government mandates, but what will that industry produce and at what cost? Anytime a mandate makes an existing product cost more, produces little or nothing for that cost, it’s a leech.
“Know thine enemy. Socialists will ALWAYS want your stuff. Always.”
They are the enemies of America. They must go.
“Why would a “Socialist Worker” care if capitalism lives at all?”
....because they need the $$$ from capitalist enterprises to pay for their socialism. Socialism does not produce any wealth, it only consumes/destroys it. Socialists are parasites.
The strongest motivator the poor have to improve their lot in life is to be uncomfortable. The welfare state removes that motivator and all of society suffers as a result.
“We’re past the tipping point. More people on some kind of public dole than off...”
No kidding, the simple fact the question; “Can capitalism live without the welfare state?” is asked in a serious manner shows how far past the tipping point we are.
It did without the government's intervention for the first 140 odd years of our country, and we did just fine. Literacy was just as high without the federal education bureaucracy's involvement; and hundres of private charities from the Red Cross to the Salvation Army, gave the destitue far better care than generations of welfare have.
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