I’m tall,so I have to prop my monitors up on books at work. Under my monitors are all my textbooks from my favorite class in college “Welfare States in Comparison.” That class blew my mind wide open as to what a comprehensive, intentional and effective welfare state is, as opposed to a collection of hodgepodge “safety nets.” Systems like single-payer, for a relevant example, are an improvement in the system of healthcare at it’s root, not just a subsidy for those who can’t.
Social Programs vs. Charity
In that class we talked a lot of charity vs. welfare, and by extension private charitable / non-profit vs. Government welfare and social programs. Conservatives’ feeling that government assistance should step in only if a family can’t provide is related to this idea. It’s built on a framing of sickness, disability and need, generally, as a job for charity, whether it be from the family, the church, or other charity, because those organizations “care” about the person. To them, the uncaring state is the opposite, and seeks to remove the family from the equation and replace it. I don’t think we’re going to be able to obliterate this divide, but I think that we can chip away at the framing that a strong, well-planned welfare state undermines families’ responsibility to take care of their own. An effective social program should actually make it easier for families to take care of their own by making the systems they have to interact with and access more efficient and more robust.
You Can’t Pick your family…
I personally think the idea that people should get assistance only if their families can’t provide ignores how truly horrible some people’s families are, and what an unfair, luck-of-the-draw situation a sick person in the care of an abusive family faces. If your family is resistant to the idea that country of birth is luck of the draw and shouldn’t determine one’s financial future, this will be another tough one, but perhaps an angle to consider.
I’ve Got My Own Problems
The third aspect of the charity/family vs welfare state is the idea that families already struggling shouldn’t have to support some lazy stranger, who could support themselves if they tried. The only answer to this, I think, is the “one innocent man/ten guilty men” argument. If a true improvement in the system of social services across the board would end up supporting some “undeserving” people, while helping all the “deserving people,” is it worth sticking with a shittier system for everyone, just to make sure some “undeserving” people don’t accidentally get their hands on it? How much better would the system have to be to make this chance worth it? What form would it have to take to make this chance worth it? The “you agree we should pay taxes for roads, though!” is a pretty tired cliche, but applied to this case, I see the issue of social programs as analogous to “would you pay for shittier roads, just so poor people wouldn’t have a smooth ride?”
Social Service Compromise
There was an article a while back on the Guardian about a woman being considered for a Trump post who was the daughter of a very left-wing immigrant family. She, as a healthcare consultant to republican state legislators, was the author of incredibly punitive welfare restrictions in some very red states, including very harsh and invasive needs testing for cash assistance and onerous volunteering requirements for unemployment. She’s generally presented as an enemy to social welfare causes, I felt the same way during the first part of the article. Toward the end they noted, however, that she had gotten states to adopt social programs that they wouldn’t have otherwise, by adding these provisions. I walked away from the article thinking she may be more clever than the rest of us. She may have just found a way to give the reddest states their first taste of social welfare, and at least give them a chance to see that things could work in their state.
