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My cynical opinion is that most voters would rather have their poor neighbors go through an intrusive welfare system than simply receive checks, even if the sim

by sethg 15y ago

My cynical opinion is that most voters would rather have their poor neighbors go through an intrusive welfare system than simply receive checks, even if the simpler system would be cheaper. There’s a perverse sort of transaction going on: you receive welfare in exchange for abasing yourself in front of a bureaucrat, acknowledging that the bureaucrat has the right to decide whether or not you belong to The Deserving Poor, and admitting yourself to be Deserving.

gyardley 15y ago
Maybe. One of the reasons I'd ideally like (in that magic fairy land we can't get to from here) small, cohesive, homogenous communities to be the ones that take care of each other, instead of relying on some sort of centralized authority, is because it allows the community to set standards for morality and behavior - not just for the poor but for everyone. When you're dependent on a group, you're accountable to that group, and often held to a higher standard than you might hold yourself as an individual. Wanting a bureaucrat to evaluate and judge welfare recipients worthy or unworthy is probably just that same desire for accountability - if you're drawing down the resources of a broader, nationwide group, you should somehow be held accountable to that group. This isn't a bad instinct to have, but it's impossible to implement at the inhuman scale of federal and state governments - the welfare recipient doesn't feel particularly accountable to the abstract community of 'America as a whole', and 'America as a whole' has no shared standard to hold the individual to. So instead we get Byzantine shaming rituals that just waste everyone's time and money. I was hoping the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives could lead to some interesting changes here, but unfortunately that's largely gone nowhere.
- _delirium 15y ago
  Oddly enough that's almost exactly the opposite of one of Hayek's justifications! He wanted a more individualist society where people were free to do their own thing, join/leave groups, etc., rather than feeling compelled to stay in their own tight-knit ethnic/religious/etc. groups, usually the ones they "chose" by accident of birth. And he thought one way that could happen is if the de-facto safety-net role played by those groups (e.g. the way the Mormon church has a strong safety net) was replaced by a basic state floor, freeing people to break ties with the tribalist groupings they didn't want to be in, but until now had felt compelled to stay with for safety or out of fear. Brief quote: http://www.kmjn.org/snippets/hayek79_minimumincome.html http://www.kmjn.org/snippets/hayek79_minimumincome.html I do think there's something to be said for cohesive groups, but moving between them is quite hard if there's no higher-level safety net from some more neutral source like the U.S. government. I know more than one person who wants to leave a church they don't like or believe in theologically, but stays because they're not sure how they'd replace its social/economic network. Especially the case with groups like the Mormons who combine a strong internal network with shunning of people who leave, making the drop-off in support you'd get by leaving seem like a daunting cliff.
  - gyardley 15y ago
    Ha, that's such a perfect quote - thanks. I can see Hayek's much more of a libertarian than I am!
robocat 15y ago
From what I see, obtaining and then maintaining your welfare payments requires ongoing make-work... Standing in queues, applying for jobs you don't want or can't get, regular paperwork and meetings with some bureaucrat that hates their demeaning job more than you hate talking to them, doing employment courses (how to write a resume, how to do an interview, etc.) or skills training (that may cost money or debt, but often has zero chance of helping you get work), etc etc. The system is abusive... Intentionally... it's goal is to "improve the numbers" by pushing people out of the system (onto the street, onto relatives, suicide, illegal jobs, whatever).

by sethg 15y ago

gyardley 15y ago

Maybe. One of the reasons I'd ideally like (in that magic fairy land we can't get to from here) small, cohesive, homogenous communities to be the ones that take care of each other, instead of relying on some sort of centralized authority, is because it allows the community to set standards for morality and behavior - not just for the poor but for everyone. When you're dependent on a group, you're accountable to that group, and often held to a higher standard than you might hold yourself as an individual. Wanting a bureaucrat to evaluate and judge welfare recipients worthy or unworthy is probably just that same desire for accountability - if you're drawing down the resources of a broader, nationwide group, you should somehow be held accountable to that group. This isn't a bad instinct to have, but it's impossible to implement at the inhuman scale of federal and state governments - the welfare recipient doesn't feel particularly accountable to the abstract community of 'America as a whole', and 'America as a whole' has no shared standard to hold the individual to. So instead we get Byzantine shaming rituals that just waste everyone's time and money. I was hoping the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives could lead to some interesting changes here, but unfortunately that's largely gone nowhere.

_delirium 15y ago
Oddly enough that's almost exactly the opposite of one of Hayek's justifications! He wanted a more individualist society where people were free to do their own thing, join/leave groups, etc., rather than feeling compelled to stay in their own tight-knit ethnic/religious/etc. groups, usually the ones they "chose" by accident of birth. And he thought one way that could happen is if the de-facto safety-net role played by those groups (e.g. the way the Mormon church has a strong safety net) was replaced by a basic state floor, freeing people to break ties with the tribalist groupings they didn't want to be in, but until now had felt compelled to stay with for safety or out of fear. Brief quote: http://www.kmjn.org/snippets/hayek79_minimumincome.html http://www.kmjn.org/snippets/hayek79_minimumincome.html I do think there's something to be said for cohesive groups, but moving between them is quite hard if there's no higher-level safety net from some more neutral source like the U.S. government. I know more than one person who wants to leave a church they don't like or believe in theologically, but stays because they're not sure how they'd replace its social/economic network. Especially the case with groups like the Mormons who combine a strong internal network with shunning of people who leave, making the drop-off in support you'd get by leaving seem like a daunting cliff.
- gyardley 15y ago
  Ha, that's such a perfect quote - thanks. I can see Hayek's much more of a libertarian than I am!

robocat 15y ago

From what I see, obtaining and then maintaining your welfare payments requires ongoing make-work... Standing in queues, applying for jobs you don't want or can't get, regular paperwork and meetings with some bureaucrat that hates their demeaning job more than you hate talking to them, doing employment courses (how to write a resume, how to do an interview, etc.) or skills training (that may cost money or debt, but often has zero chance of helping you get work), etc etc. The system is abusive... Intentionally... it's goal is to "improve the numbers" by pushing people out of the system (onto the street, onto relatives, suicide, illegal jobs, whatever).