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For the first part, that will always be necessary. The people are supposed to decide through indirect democracy who is qualified to receive welfare. But your s
by noworriesnate 1y ago
For the first part, that will always be necessary. The people are supposed to decide through indirect democracy who is qualified to receive welfare.
But your second point is very true. It can be very painful to interact with the bureaucracy, something people shouldn’t have to deal with when they’re at the bottom of the barrel.
- dragonwriter 1y ago> For the first part, that will always be necessary. There's no reason it has to be. > The people are supposed to decide through indirect democracy who is qualified to receive welfare. There's no reason the people couldn't decide, through democracy (direct or indirect, as is their pleasure; certain existing governments only embrace one, but the people can always change that, too) that the answer is "everybody gets the public service/benefit; and the payment comes through the tax system" and have one tax bureaucracy instead of a tax bureaucracy and a separate eligibility verification bureaucracy for each program.
- noworriesnate 1y agoOkay but, what about scammers who pretend to be your grandma to steal her benefits? What about people who died and their children are now stealing their benefits? What about a 16 year old child who runs away, does he qualify for benefits? What about the children of divorced people, who gets the benefits? What about non citizens? There absolutely has to be a verification system. I guess, to steel man your argument, you could issue cryptographic IDs or have government offices with biometrics to authenticate. That would simplify some of the problem. I’m definitely not saying simplification isn’t possible—just saying that verification will always be necessary work.