This is a question I come across over and over and over again. At university, I often get into long heated debates about the benefits of socialised health care, public education and the welfare system. Naturally my opposition creates complete and utter confusion amongst the leftists and many a centralist as such a position hardly maintains the status quo. The one thing I consistently find is that those who most vehemently defend the welfare state almost unwaveringly come from an upper-middle or upper class background. They were raised often in nuclear families, their parents owned their own home and it is not unusual to find that the family had two or three cars. They payed their taxes, happy with their wealth, satisfied they have done their part to help the impoverished in this country.
As you might have guessed, it is not so rosy living in the working class. Although raised in a single parent minimum wage family, beyond student assistance, we did not accept welfare payments. We had private health insurance as Medicare coverage was inadequate anyway. My greatest concern with the state was not to get financial assistance, but to avoid the financial strain their bureaucracy created. It wasn’t food, education or health care that we had trouble affording, it was the fees, taxes and BS that one faces at every corner.
Growing up, the things I enjoyed most were hunting and fishing, these are the things I spent virtually all my time doing. At a very early age the first gun my father gave to me was taken, and when I was old enough, the obligations I had to fulfil to get a firearm changed so it was not possible for someone of my status to get another one. As a young man I also fished with my friends constantly, if not at the beach or Lake Illawarra, it was for minnows and eels in the local creek. We had our rods and we used whatever we had for bait, stealing many a steak from the freezer. About 7 or 8 or so years ago however, all of a sudden we needed licenses to fish these public waterways. $75 sounds a pittance, but to a group of boys with no money, it was hard to justify.
As I grew I wanted to get my Drivers License. This sounds simple but not in Australia. To this day, I have not been able to achieve this goal. As a youngster, my family had one car, the car my Mum drove to work in. It was not possible to learn using this car as our income relied on it. The few lessons I could get in other cars, despite how quickly I learned, I could not try for my license as I needed to clock some obscene 120 hours driving to even attempt, all for our safety to be sure. If I was, or were to now, pay for lessons, a license would cost me upwards of $6000. Obviously not realistic.
This is the meat of what keeps the poor in their place.
This problem is clearly not unique to Australia. Recently I read “Deer Hunting with Jesus” by Joe Bageant, a small town liberal who repeatedly puzzled as to why the poor kept “buying” the ‘individual responsibility’ maxim sold by the Republicans. He repeatedly tried to ascertain why the poor in America seemingly voted against their interest. He couldn’t understand their pride in rejecting welfare. What he failed to realise is that what he defined as their interest is of only minor importance. The bread and butter of helping someone in poverty succeed beyond their means and to live happily is not to provide them a welfare crutch, as those who truly wish to change their lives rarely accept it, but to remove the taxes, fees and regulation that act as a constant impediment to achievement. The small things in which the working class find enjoyment, a cigarette, a beer at the pub or even a spot of fishing or hunting, this is what needs protecting, or rather, what needs to be left alone. To push socialised health care on Americans is to push an obligation to their fellow man to look after their own health to ‘limit liability for society’, that is a violation of human rights.
In short, the poor do not want to be looked after like children, they want their autonomy back. Being poor does not remove any understanding you have of the consequences of your actions, a smoker or drinker knows they are hurting their health. Taxing an addictive product 1000% to let them know is specious reasoning at best. So cut the taxes, trim the regulation, and stop passing laws…stop enslaving people into lives of mutual obligation, let them be free.
A very interesting article Seb. Mary Ruwart’s book ‘Healing Our World’ has a great chapter on how regulations, licensing and the minimum wage break the bottom rungs of the ladder of affluence which poor people need to escape poverty. You can read it at http://www.ruwart.com/Healing/rutoc.html.
Unfortunately many poor people do get on welfare and this could be just as detrimental as all the regulations. It creates disincentives for people to get work or change their lifestyle. I think the best example of this is in remote indigenous communities where there are frequently employment opportunities offered (by government, unfortunately, as there isn’t any potential for real jobs out there) but men will not take them because they have a guaranteed income from welfare which doesn’t involve lifting a finger. This leads to substance abuse from boredom and breakdown of families.
As for drivers licenses: I recently finished getting my license and it was incredibly frustrating how long it took: over 2 years due to difficulty finding time between studying and working. Luckily I had people willing to lie about driving with me to make the 50 hour requirement or else it would have taken much longer. The whole process cost me at least $1,500. My honest suggestion: find a corrupt driving instructor and bribe him - it’ll be cheaper and much less of a hassle.
By the way… imagine how different things would be if roads were privately owned. The owners would want potential customers using their service as quickly as possible so getting licensed would be quick and painless. But with the government monopoly on roads (and licensing) they have no incentive to provide people with mobility so I predict getting a license will continue to get harder and more expensive.
Bah! The link to Healing Our World shouldn’t have a full stop on the end… it’s http://www.ruwart.com/Healing/rutoc.html
You have good point about getting a license, if you don’t have a car and family members who are willing to assist, then you’re basically screwed. And you can’t drive without a license. When you think about the way the roads are designed, those running our country don’t really want you to have a license, or own a car, because that gives you freedom, to go and do what you like. They don’t like that.
I remember a long time ago reading a study done in the states which found that car ownership is the easiest way to get people out of poverty. But our left-leaning governments do whatever they can to make life hard for you if you want a license or want to own a car. Taxes, tolls, crap roads, tunnels, it’s all geared to make it difficult for you.
Coming back to the poor and politics, in my opinion those who claim to care for the poor are often the exact opposite. Welfare is all well and good when you have nothing and want to be nothing more than a parasite. But in this country, when you start working harder than the parasite, you work extra hours, take a second or third job and bring in more money, you get penalized via higher taxation and reduced welfare.
I’m not on a high tax bracket but i have a second job, it really pisses me off when i have to pay extra in tax, i mean it’s not like my second job involves steal things and flogging them off, i work for it, but i get punished for working extra. It’s a disincentive for people like me to work extra.
Rob, cheers for the links, it looks an interesting read. I couldn’t agree more with both of you about how much of a disincentive welfare is. It is a support system designed to help only those who do not wish to progress their life. Of course, I suppose some form of a disability pension and perhaps voucher welfare is required.
On cars, I think this very modern ’safety’ approach, demanding obscene amounts of energy and resources to become licensed is at least partly a ruse of the environmentalist movement. The reduction of the amount of cars on the road has always been on the agenda. Naturally, that reduction was always going to be amongst the poor.
I’m not sure privatising roads is the go though, if only from the experience of rail gauges. I don’t particularly fancy passing six tolls when traveling from town to town, nor do I like the idea of trying to grasp a completely new set of road rules depending on where I go.
If you want to see the ultimate in welfare dependency, have a read of this, KG from Crusader Rabbit emailed it to me. I need to get the blood pressure down before i post it. I just hope it ain’t that bad here.
I doubt it. One of the good things Howard did during his time in executive was to make Centrelink a far less viable long term option.