Work For Welfare
And just what the hell is wrong with this new welfare plan?
Under the plan, claimants thought to need "experience of the habits and routines of working life" could be put on 30-hour-a-week placements.So, people who may be taking out the piss out of the benefits systems are going to be expected to do some work in order to justify their ongoing benefits payments. What the hell is wrong with that? It is basically saying that those who want benefits should have to work for them. Like, say, the vast majority of poor sods in this country. How the hell can that be controversial?
Anyone refusing to take part or failing to turn up on time could have their £65 Jobseekers' Allowance stopped for at least three months.
The Work Activity scheme is said to be designed to flush out claimants who have opted for a life on benefits or are doing undeclared jobs on the side.
Fortunately, the Archbishop of Cunterbury is waiting to tell us:
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, expressed his concern, telling the BBC: "People who are struggling to find work and struggling to find a secure future are - I think - driven further into a downward spiral of uncertainty, even despair, when the pressure is on in that way.
"People often are in this starting place, not because they're wicked, stupid or lazy, but because their circumstances are against them, they've failed to break through into something and to drive that spiral deeper - as I say - does feel a great problem."
Fundamentally, I don't get his point. If people are genuinely trying to find work as part of a quest for a stable future, then surely the government helping them with a work placement is rather helpful. Yes, it may not be the sort of work they want or aspire to, but remarkably few people actually have a job they proactively want to do. And this scheme isn't even aimed at genuine jobseekers - rather, it is trying to deal with welfare careerists and benefit cheats - those people who really shouldn't be paid for doing fuck all. And this is the point; people working for money is the norm. The fact that some people live of the beneficence of the state should not given them immunity from the need to work to earn money.
Sure, this policy will give certain people a stark choice - work or not get money. But the vast majority of people in this country have that choice and choose the former each and every day. There is nothing - fucking nothing - controversial about saying people should have to work for a welfare cheque. If you are on welfare and don't want to work then that's fine - that's your choice. But don't be surprised when the state - or the British taxpayer, more accurately - makes the choice not to fund you anymore.
Labels: Benefits, The Archbish, Tories, Welfare State, Worthless Cunts
posted by The Nameless Libertarian @ 9:17 pm
9 Comments
9 Comments:
I like to call this the conscription problem.
As an ex-serviceman I find a certain type of person likes to say in my presence that the problem to all our ills (or whatever social ill we are discussing)is conscription, expecting my full and enthusiastic agreement. When I say something along the lines of absolutely not, c/w with invective depending on company, it is great to see their jaws drop.
My argument, at its simplest, is that in the end the service will just discharge any recalcitrant back in to society, however the welfare state cannot discharge citizens.
As I've just said to my wife, in the end all systems are gamed.
Loved the comment on Canterbury, I half heard him on the idiot lantern, what a twat.
I say bring it on. Best idea re benefits I have heard, ever. I for one hope it get's implemented.
Mummy x
http://andtherewasmethinking.blogspot.com/2010/11/id-do-it.html
I've suffered a couple of bouts of unemployment, the worst lasting for 10 months. During that time I did everything possible to find a suitable job including a short college course, door knocking at local businesses etc The dole money wasn't great but it helped us through and I would have been prepared to have done some work like this despite having been a tax payer for the preceding 15 years.
My fortnightly trips to sign on were an education. I met an old acquaintance in the dole queue one day that offered cash in hand electrician services, and said that his business was doing really well. On another occasion I heard a guy behind me complaining that it was taking too long to sign on because he had a job to go to - as he left I saw he get into a white builders man. One sickening experience, I saw one of the dole office employees reduced to tears by a screaming Irish man who was outraged that his tax payer funder TV had not arrived and his 6 kids had nothing to do.
Some people need a bit of help to get through temporary situations, but I've seen so many abuses of the welfare system to know that it needs a serious shake up.
As for the Archbish, he should fuck off, the irrelevant twat.
NL, very surprised to see you are agreeing with this idea; ideologically is is completely at odds with libertarianism: Skewing the labour market, coercion of the destitute etc. In fact you're closer to advocating communism than libertarianism with this view. I realise my comments are a little thin but I've not got time at the moment to go into detail, but would be pleased to discuss this at a later date...
I have a horribe vision of some god awful sadistic social services beurocrat with a clipboard and a big fucking hat disdainfully herding a group of fat, half-cut welfare claiments on the verge of a road picking up litter. "you haven't earned a cigarette break. Do as I say or I'll mark you down as non-compliant"
You know this is what will happen. Why? Because britain, and in particular the british public sector, is full of ghastly people not benevolent, compassionate do-gooders.
A truly horrific vision that I don't want any part of even if I hate benefit cheats and the idle.
Shudder
Timac,
I think your vision has some merit - there certainly will be jobsworth public sector types on a power trip against the workshy and the benefit cheats. But not all people in the public sector will be like that, no matter what view you might take of that sector.
And you probably need to come up with an alternative to this policy even if you don't like it - allowing things to carry on as they are is arguably more damaging than getting people to work for their benefits.
Anonymous,
I think your choice of phrase is very revealing - no-one is talking of coercing the destitute. Instead, we are talking about benefit cheats and the career welfarists being forced to work for the money they claim from the state (and, of course, the British taxpayer). That is not controversial and in no way is a contradiction of libertarianism. In fact, the status quo - where a group of people (long-term welfare claimants) are privileged over the people they claim money from (the taxpayer) - is both unfair and illiberal. If I turn up to your house and demand that you keep me because I don't want to work, you'd probably tell me to fuck off unless I can offer something in return for the money. That is all this scheme is. A simple transaction - you want to claim money from the British taxpayer on an ongoing basis, you need to earn it.
To call it communism betrays a complete lack of understanding of what communism is.
TNL
couldn't we send them off to work with real volunteers at soup kitchens or something? I dunno. I don't want to give any more authoritarian power to state workers, that's all. I suppose it comes from my experiences with people in fucking big hats, I suppose.
Timac has a good point about soup kitchens.
When my son was 16 he couldn't get a summer holiday job so I insisted that he work in a charity shop (he chose red Cross) and paid him minimum wage. No work no money.
I like to think this gave him a good work ethic and social conscious as he ended up doing extra hours as a volunteer.
Timac,
I quite like your idea about soup kitchens (and getting them to do other voluntary work) but the principle would be very similar to the current scheme - they would still be expected to work in return for benefits. Sure, volunteering might mean they interact with less egregious people that working in the public sector, but still... And I'm also not sure how I feel about people effectively being paid to volunteer - it sort of makes a mockery of the idea of volunteering. But I suppose it wouldn't make a difference to the charities concerned as the taxpayer would be paying the wages through benefit payments rather than the charity.
I don't know; I like the idea, but it isn't without potential potholes (like most ideas, in fairness).
TNL
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