What went wrong with the welfare state?

Dr Simon Duffy of the Centre for Welfare Reform for Bishop’s Breakfast - Bolton 6th November 2015

A joy to be back in Bolton, the home of my football

team and where, at the age of 8 at St Peter’s Halliwell I

became a Christian.

• Why is the welfare state a problem?

• What is the truth about the tax-benefit system?

• What is Austerity?

• Where has the North’s money gone?

• What went wrong with the welfare state?

Some people believe there is nothing wrong with the welfare state.

The only problem is a politically motivated attacks on the welfare state (“Thatcher’s Legacy”).

But even if that were true the fact that the welfare state has become so easy to attack is a problem.

We can’t just go back to 1945 - we’ve been there already - and this is where we ended up.

We need to think more deeply about what we mean by the welfare state.

Other people believe the welfare state was always a bad idea and that it was wrong for the state to take on responsibly for social justice.

They wish to take us back to a time when ‘charity’ was our only response to injustice (“Neoliberalism”).

Were they asleep?

The welfare state is a our response to the economic and social insecurities of the modern world.

Without the welfare state we create increasing levels of inequality, oppression and fear.

Before the welfare state Western society embraced fascism and communism.

…only legal and political institutions that are independent of the economic forces and automatism can control and check the inherently monstrous potentialities of this process. Such political controls seem to function best in the so-called welfare states whether they call themselves socialist or capitalist.

Hannah Arendt

Christ does not call his benefactors loving or charitable. He calls them just. The Gospel makes no distinction between the love of our neighbour and justice. We have invented the distinction between justice and charity. It is easy to understand why. Our notion of justice dispenses him who possesses from the obligation of giving.

Simone Weil

If the present order is taken for granted or assumed to be sacrosanct, charity from the more to the less fortunate would seem virtuous and commendable; to those for whom the order itself is suspect or worse, such charity is blood-money. Why should some be in the position to dispense and others to need that kind of charity?

William Temple

The welfare state is absolutely essential…

…but it needs to be better designed.

Many think the welfare means just benefits (i.e. they forget about the NHS etc.).

Benefits and tax credits should be treated as part of one tax-benefit system.

The system should redistribute resources, remove poverty and give security for all.

The reality is very different.

It’s time for radical reform.

Not further cuts in income for the poorest.

Scrap the DWP and create a universal basic income system via taxation.

Underpinned by a constitutional right to a decent income.

The welfare state has for a long time failed to address the issues of poverty and inequality.

But today things are going backwards even faster because of Austerity…

… but Austerity is a lie.

The reality is:

• Bailouts for banks • Subsidies for mortgage holders • Cuts in income and support for

disabled people and the poorest • Stigma and sanctions

The end result is increased poverty and inequality.

Many countries are going through crises of public spending.

However only the UK is being investigated by the UN for the its abuse of disabled people’s rights.

Why is this happening?

It’s certainly not economics.If you really need money don’t go to the people who don’t have it.

• Groups that have been targeted are not ‘swing voters’

• They are poorly organised and poorly represented in civil society (e.g. even the charities representing these groups are scared to speak out).

• The targeted groups are easy to stigmatise because they are already seen as having ‘lower social value’

Michael Young from his satire The Rise of the Meritocracy

“Today we frankly recognise that democracy can be no more than an aspiration, and have rule not so much by the people as by the cleverest people; not an aristocracy of birth, not a plutocracy of wealth, but a true meritocracy of talent.”

Yesterday’s satire has become today’s reality - meritocracy is now proclaimed a good thing - we are to be ruled by the ‘clever’.

But there is a big price to pay for this way of thinking…

Christians must oppose this way of thinking absolutely. We are all vulnerable, we are all equal.

One final thought…

…does Barnsley (or Bolton) really need Chelsea?

So what went wrong?

We must be hopeful and have faith in our own capacities and

in the possibility of new life.

www.centreforwelfarereform.org

@CforWR

If you want to find more information and resources on new ways of thinking and

doing then explore:

www.facebook.com/centreforwelfarereform