Abolish the Welfare State and restore some Respect

Samizdata has a long and thoughtful post on the dangers of the Welfare State. The supposed collapse of civil society that are politicians are currently in such a state about was predicted long ago as a consequence of the Welfare State:

during the nineteen fifties, I recall, there was a debate, at any rate in Britain, engaged in by diehard free-marketeers, about the long term consequences of the Welfare State. The name of Anthony LeJeune springs to mind, but most of his recent writing nowadays seems to have been reviews of crime stories. Anyway, these diehard free-marketeers said that the Welfare State would corrupt the working class and turn then from the upstanding citizens that they then mostly were into barbarians. Diehard non-free-marketeers genuinely could not imagine this happening, and dismissed such fears as absurd. Most politicians, similarly unable to imagine that times might seriously change, concurred with the diehard non-free-marketeers.

While the problems have been hyped way beyond what is actually happening for the political purpose of furthering the New Labour's authoritarian instincts there is a problem out there. There has been a degradation in the levels of self reliance and social cohesion. There is simply nolonger a need for such things when all that is needed is to not be self reliant and the State will provide with other peoples money. Society does exist but it is not the same thing as the state. Unfortunately for many of the people that cause the probems that King Tony has grouped under his respect agenda society does not matter. It can deny them nothing since all they need is provided by the State. As Mr Micklethwait says:

for a substantial minority, mostly the minority whose lives are dominated by the Welfare State, there is now no such thing as polite society to be shunned by. The remnants of such a society may still exist, but it no longer has power over the barbarians who prey upon it.

What Tony Blair is trying to do is to recreate a "modern" substitute for such informal social pressures with the force of the law and with the power of the state.

This reminds me of what Bertrand Russell said about the difference between civilisation and barbarians.

The civilized man is distinguished from the savage mainly by prudence, or, to use a slightly wider term, forethought. He is willing to endure present pains for the sake of future pleasures, even if the future pleasures are rather distant. This habit began to be important with the rise of agriculture; no animal and no savage would work in spring in order to have food next winter, except for a few purely instinctive forms of action, such as bees making honey or squirrels burying nuts.

[History of Western Philosophy page 35 - The Rise of Greek Civilization, emphasis in the original]

The Welfare State has turned prudence from a virtue to a sin, rewarding the imprudent with the wealth of the people willing to work for their own futures. So it is no wonder that the savages are thriving at the expense of the civilised.