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By unworthy I assume you mean unworthy of our support and sympathy? What differentiates the "19th century style" worthy and unworthy poor is that unworthy poor
by brbsix 10y ago
By unworthy I assume you mean unworthy of our support and sympathy?
What differentiates the "19th century style" worthy and unworthy poor is that unworthy poor are thought to have made poor decisions and brought about their circumstances on themselves whereas the worthy poor were seen as suffering through little to no fault of their own.
Prior to the welfare state (which makes no such distinction) the "unworthy poor" served as an example of what not to do. Do we really want to discard that wisdom (even more than we already have)?
Put another way, is every poor person equally deserving of our support and sympathy? I would think not.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- c22 10y agoI think throwaway2048 meant something more along the lines of "worthy to participate in our society" and, unfortunately, whether you deem them worthy or not they are participants of society so reducing the friction of their interaction with society benefits all. (Friction rubs both ways.) The argument is that dropping this "distinction" could help lead to more pragmatically sound policies.
- golemotron 10y agoHow do you think this can be done when it is not controlled by policy as much as outrage culture in media and social media?
- c22 10y agoI'm not sure I understand your question. Are you saying policy is controlled by the media?
- golemotron 10y agoWhether a distinction exists in the minds of the public or not is not something that can be controlled by policy. Especially in a world where people can communicate freely on social media, and where mainstream media has a financial incentive to to amplify outrage.
- c22 10y ago> Whether a distinction exists in the minds of the public or not is not something that can be controlled by policy. I disagree with this, I think the interplay between policy, public opinion, and the media is more nuanced than that. I believe they can all have effects on eachother.
- throwaway2048 10y agoThe arguement is that such distinctions are a (massive) net harm to soceity, and mostly born of fake outrage news cycyle "trailer park welfare queen" bullshit. We would be better off without such nessisarily subjective judgements, and just do a better job of ensuring everyone can meet their basic needs.
- golemotron 10y agoSo the plan is to do UBI rather than get rid of "fake outrage news cycle 'trailer park welfare queen' bullshit"?