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The Last Word on Welfare
by G.Fitch
There were a lot of follow-ups to my article (the one asking
that moral uplift be abandonded when considering what, if
anything, should be done about poverty.) There must have
been something wrong with it. In accordance with the
customary practice of punishing the victims (you, gentle
readers) I'm going to reprint (slightly revised) my article
of long ago which answers every question and objection in
the realm of welfare and poverty. Then, it fell into a
soundless void, testifying to its cogency. Today, who
knows?
Yesterday[1], the U.S. Senate passed a historic welfare
bill, mandating work programs under Federal welfare for
the first time in history as a way of 'breaking the cycle of
dependency.' So, before it's too late and no one remembers
welfare -- one of the most exciting political phenomena,
after war, of all time -- here's the natural history of
welfare and its inevitable outcome. Had I known the Senate
was going to act, of course, I wouldn't have bothered with
the suggestion part, but what's done is done.
The original purpose of welfare was never to benefit the
poor but to protect the middle and upper classes from what
was seen as a public health problem with associated
aesthetic elements. In fact, the early attempts to deal
with this problem ('poorhouses' or 'workhouses') were
draconian by modern standards and have afforded scandalous
material for many a novelist. Subsequently it was found
that it actually cost more to work the poor than to give
them money, and welfare as we know it was established. Of
course, working the poor, now called 'workfare', is often
proposed as a deliciously punitive measure, but has been
always put aside, as of old, when its cost is contemplated.
Charity, that is, private welfare, while it probably
supports a great many people who are in effect hidden from
public view, was not then and has never subsequently been
adequate to handle the visible urban poor. Thus welfare
as we know it: the careful handout.
Another function of welfare became apparent in recent
decades: it provides a way to ensure a certain level of
demand for certain products. Many 'middle-class' persons
live off this demand -- for example, people who own or work
in supermarkets in lower-class neighborhoods. Consider the
food-stamp program: the constant flow of food-stamp money
through the supermarkets back to the farmer provides for
many jobs and stabilizes farm income. Even rightists (in
the food business) tend to appreciate food stamps, and
attempts by the current[2] administration to do away with
them have met with stout resistance even within its own
party. Besides those who benefit directly from doing
business with welfare recipients are the very many who
profit from dealings with this first group; thus the flow
of money spreads gradually upward through the entire economy
until it reaches the very highest levels. (This is known as
the 'trickle-up' system.)
However, there is a third function of welfare which is
somewhat at variance with the first two, and that is to
frighten the working classes with an image of the
degradation to which they may fall, should they cease to
work or otherwise fail to maintain the standards of their
class. (For the upper middle class, confident of their
status, this fear is often weakened to the point of a
delicious _frisson_, so that entertainment, rather than
instruction, is given.) So welfare, thus far, has not been
a simple matter of handing out funds to those who are poor.
Instead there is a distinct requirement that welfare
recipients look and behave in certain ways, in effect, that
they be jobholders of a sort.
In effect, welfare has become a job. To get welfare, one
must fill certain requirements and exhibit certain
behaviors. Even then, it may be difficult to get the job,
and many visits to the welfare office may be required before
status is granted. Such status is almost always provisional
and open to be rescinded at any time, so a constant
attention to one's performance is necessary. Elements of
this performance include inability to get a job or establish
a business, inability to get money from relatives or
associates, inability to learn, production of children,
possibly drug use or other self-destructive behavior, crime
and criminal associations, anomie, depression, and often
location in certain neighborhoods. Being or appearing to be
a member of certain ethnic or 'racial' groups is widely
believed to be a help, although the regulations of welfare
departments, as well as law, theoretically forbid such
distinctions. It is not unusual, at least in large American
cities, for certain kinds of work to become the 'territory'
of certain groups, and this process seems to have occurred
with the role of welfare recipient just as it did in the
past for police work, stevedoring, and so on.
In recent years, welfare has been depicted as a form of
charity or benevolence towards the poor. I believe that
this was essentially a strategy on the part of social
service workers to improve and possibly expand their
profession by appealing to the upper middle classes who
generally control the disposition of government funds.
Painting welfare as benevolence would have two effects: the
'donors' would have enhanced feelings of self-esteem, and
the theory of benevolence would call for greater
expenditures on the poor, thus expanding and elevating the
role of social service agencies. This strategy backfired
because the other working classes could not participate in
it; as taxpayers rather than tax spenders they could not
consider themselves 'donors', and the elevation of those
receiving welfare to a position where they could compete
for status and goods could not be seen as a benefit.
Whether it is moral or practical for the state to take from
the rich to give to the poor merely to ensure the survival
of the latter has been vigorously debated, since such a
practice may interfere with the right of the rich to do evil
or remain inactive in the face of it. Many would agree with
_The_New_Decalogue_:
Thou shalt not kill, but need'st not strive
Officiously to keep alive.
There is also a possibility that, by giving food to the
hungry, we may corrupt them. I need not dwell on this
idea since it has been faithfully expounded by many others
over a long period of time.
However, the public-health issue remains, and it is a dire
one. Especially in recent years, with the construction and
ascent to power of the drug empire, and the appearance of
AIDS, the poor have become a kind of human swamp sending
forth crime and disease, and provide a basis for all kinds
of social corruption.
I do not believe that our society can continue to tolerate
the poverty and welfare system as it currently exists,
however comforting or entertaining it may seem to certain
people. Therefore, it is my suggestion that the job of
welfare recipient be phased out, and personal poverty be
prohibited except possibly to those holding a license for
it. The remainder of the poor, except for the aged, would
be required to act like middle-class persons. If they could
not qualify for a job, they would be required to go to
school; otherwise, jobs would be provided, either through
the normal processes of the economy or through government
work projects (where the pay was normal for the type of
work supposedly done). Reasonable real estate, of at
least working-class standards, would be constructed. Drugs
would be handled by medical intervention, not by prison;
prison would be reserved for the violent and those who
refused to go along with the program. (The aged would be
taken care of by a special program which would simulate
middle-class conditions for the elderly, i.e. they would
be placed in special institutions out of sight.)
The cost would be high, both in terms of money, lost
emotional satisfaction for the middle class, and lost
freedom for the poor, but as the poor moved into the
production economy at least the money outgoes would decline;
eventually the program would more than pay for itself. And
we might find that we poverty wasn't so entertaining, after
all.
And if we didn't like it, we could always hold a lottery,
select 10% of the population, rob them of all they owned,
drug and infect them, and turn them out on the streets.
Then we would be back where we started.
--
[1] A day in October, 1987, I think.
[2] Reagan, of course.
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