Over at The New Statesman, the Littlejohn of the Left - aka Laurie Penny - is up in arms about welfare reform. It's at her usual level of hyperbole and melodrama - note the hint at a link between government policy and suicide. But her case, such as it is, can be summed up in the final paragraph:

There used to be a liberal consensus that it was the government's responsibility to provide employment and ensure that those unable to work were entitled to a minimum standard of living. As the Welfare Reform Bill oozes unchallenged through the Commons, the real scandal is not that the government is lying through its teeth in order to justify its evisceration of the welfare state. The scandal is that no one in Westminster is prepared to make a moral case for welfare provision as the honest heart of social democracy.

First up, there is, and has never, been a liberal consensus in this country. Indeed, "liberal" is a word that has been truly stretched beyond its elastic limit. It is largely meaningless now. Besides, there is a strong case that what Penny is alluding to is actually socialism rather than liberalism, and there are many liberals who have argued that socialism is an enemy of liberalism.

Secondly, we have the term thrown in there about a "minimum standard of living". Fine, you might think - until you start to examine what that phrase might actually mean. Then we hit the problem of the fact that there is no consensus on what a minimum standard of living is. It could just be having a roof over your head and food on the table; it could be much more than that. A lot of this boils down to the old debate about whether poverty is absolute or relative, and that's an important distinction for the case that Penny is trying to make. See, if poverty is absolute, then I might agree that we can find and then ensure we deliver a minimum standard of living for all. But if it is about relative poverty, I rapidly lose interest. At that point a minimum standard of living drifts towards the redistribution of wealth as a means of delivering an equality of outcome - an idea I find intolerable, nonsensical and idiotic.

Then we have the accusation that the government is lying - we aren't given any real evidence for that, we just have to take Penny's accusation at face value. Which is a real problem, given her tendency for hyperbole and hysteria. Yeah, the government might well be lying - wouldn't be the first time. However I would like a little more evidence than just the say-so of Ms Penny, though.

And "evisceration of the welfare state" is a class Penny-ism - it can't be welfare reform or harming the welfare state. No, it has to evisceration - only that is melodramatic enough.

Then we move onto the heart of the matter - Penny's assertion that no-one is making the case for social democracy. Note, as an aside, how we've moved from liberalism at the start of the paragraph to social democracy at the end - the two are not synonymous, Laurie, not in any way. But the real point is that Penny seems to think that making the case for welfarism (which is effectively what she's calling for) is not as easy as she makes out. Yeah, you can do as she does and tug on the heartstrings. You can talk about destitution, about suicide and about the long-term sick having to go out to work (which surely isn't a problem if they are able to do that work despite their illness). But you also need to explain at what level welfare provision stops and at what point people should have to go out and work for a living - just as those who are paying the welfare claimants (i.e. the taxpayer) have to do. There is a moral question here, and there is also an economic one - how is any welfare state going to be funded? The money just doesn't appear by magic, you know. It comes from those who pay tax.

And as a final point it is worth noting that this is not an attempt to destroy the welfare state, but rather to reform and improve it. The tone of Penny's article is typical of her general style but also gives away the innate conservatism that she now shares with so many of her Labour/left-wing brethren. There's nothing radical about opposing reform to an imperfect institution such as the welfare state. In fact, it is conservative bordering on the reactionary. Which is perfect, really. Laurie Penny as reactionary conservative. More and more like Littlejohn with every passing day.

The Problems With Tax

To me, there’s no question about it: taxes should be reduced, and the tax system fundamentally changed. Yet we live in an age where people listen to the likes of Richard Murphy when they talk (apparently without irony) about The Joy of Tax, and where people attempt to damage the productivity of businesses that carry out perfectly legal tax avoidance actions. So at this point it is probably worth offering a personal perspective on why I think tax is bad; or, at the very least, tax is not a de facto “good”.

Let’s start by looking at the counter-argument to any claim that an individual might not want to pay tax: we pay for any number of different goods through choice, so why not choose to pay tax which offers both the individual and others clear benefits?

Now, it is true that I choose to spend money on various things. These are both things that offer a tangible benefit to me (such as paying for my various postgraduate studies) and things I just enjoy (books, DVDs etc). I also pay for essentials even if I would rather not – like rent and food.

And I have no issue with paying for essentials through the tax system. The first problem comes, however, with the level of tax I am expected to pay for those essentials. Take rent: before moving in somewhere, I shop around to get value for money. Not so with the tax system. I am forced to contribute money to the NHS, for example, even though when I try to use those services I am required to wait for ages and am generally seen by someone who frankly mocks the title of “medical professional” through their incompetence and disinterest. There’s no shopping around with tax; you pay the rate you are told to pay by the government. In fact, unless you are self-employed, you don’t so much pay that money as have it taken from you on a monthly basis without ever really seeing it for yourself. Therefore, the first reason why I resent paying taxes is because I resent seeing my money wasted in the way the British public sector wastes it, year in, year out.

The second problem comes with what the money is spent on. Now, I might choose to walk into HMV, and once there, I might choose to buy some products. Of course, I’m only going to buy stuff I have no ethical objection to: I might buy a DVD boxed set of a TV series I want to see. I’m not, however, going to buy anything associated with The X Factor, since I believe that show is partially responsible for the nosedive in the intellectual capability of people in this country. The same is not true of tax; quite simply, I pay for things of which I simply do not approve. I have no problem with paying for police officers to investigate crimes; I do have an issue with paying for thug-like riot police who possess no concept of proportionality. Likewise, I’ve no objection with my money being spent on armed forces to give this country a defensive capability, but I do resent the money I earn being spent on wars of aggression in Afghanistan and, in particular, Iraq. In short, I can’t choose what my money is spent on, regardless of my own ethical considerations.

And the problem of choice – which underpins this whole post – is also at the centre of my final objection. I walk into HMV and there is no-one compelling me to make a purchase. I can turn around, walk out and go somewhere else or simply not spend any money at all. The same is absolutely not true of tax. I pay tax or I go to prison. There is no choice with taxation; it is extracted from the population under duress using menaces. Furthermore, there is no opt-out. Even if I choose never to use a single public service and therefore cost this nation nothing, I still have to pay tax. There is no way of choosing not to participate in the tax system, just as there is no way of choosing not to have my money spent on things with which I just cannot agree or a way of choosing not to have my money wasted on bureaucracy and ineptitude in the public sector. In short, the tax system we have in this country is illiberal and almost seems set up to provoke the genuinely intellectually engaged into resenting it.

Of course, it could be very different. Show me my taxes aren’t being wasted, and I’ll feel happier about having it taken from me. Give me an opt-out in areas which I would rather fund myself, or over tax money spent on illiberal domestic policies and aggressive foreign policies, and I’ll start to feel comfortable about the government taking so much of my income. But until that happens, I’m going to see tax as a problem and anyone who avoids tax as not immoral or wrong, but rather someone attempting to maximise their own freedom in the face of draconian legislation and inept, government led waste.

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.

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.

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?

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."

Good ol' Rowan Williams - he always manages to make the separation of Church and State seem like not only a good idea, but absolutely fucking essential.

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.

The Entitlement Culture (and how to end it)

About this time last year, I thought about writing an article called “The Entitlement Generation” – about all the graduates emerging from universities and claiming they were entitled to a job because they happened to do a degree. The point was not just to point out the hopeless naivety of that position, but to illustrate just how the society they are in make them think that they are entitled to a job by dint of having a degree (often in an irrelevant subjects). However, looking at our society today, it is clear that this sense of entitlement is not just in our students but can be seen across our society.

You only have to look at the response to the Coalition’s cuts – cuts are fine until they cut something that an individual is entitled to. Take the mindless whining about the cut to the playground scheme – the sense of wronged entitlement is palpable. They were entitled to that money and now it isn’t there – who ruddy dare the government take that money away?

The knee-jerk reaction is to just say “oh, do shut up!” No-one is entitled to money from the government – not least because that money actually comes from the taxpayer, rather than from the government. My initial thought is always “do what you want, but don’t expect it to be funded through my taxes!”

Yet this view – while technically being correct, does rather lack an understanding of why people might be tempted to think that they are entitled to funds from the government. It might well be because they have to give so much to the government through their taxes. Actually, no, “give” is not the right word – the government takes taxes – in what feels like ever-increasing amounts.

So why shouldn’t we demand things from the government? We pay for the fucking thing, so why shouldn’t we get some sort of return on our forced investment? You wouldn’t walk into a supermarket and give them a hefty percentage of your salary and then walk out with nothing.

Of course, it isn’t as simple as that. Tax money does go towards some goods – the NHS, schools etc. The problem is that the amount of money the government is taking from us is going up, while the quality of what they provide is at best stagnant, and at worst rapidly deteriorating. If the government was a business reliant on winning money from people it would have gone under a long time ago. It is only because it can demand money from people that it can keep the income coming in. But therein lies the problem. Now, when it is demanding more money from people at the same time as offering those people less. Of course people feel they are entitled to things from the government – they’re still paying for that government after all.

The only way in which we can end this culture of entitlement is by redressing our relationship with the government. If we want to feel that they are entitled to less from the government, then the government needs to take less from them. Ideas like the Big Society don’t cut it. “Your Country Needs You,” says Cameron. Well, frankly my country can fuck off – it has taken enough from me already.

There is a culture of entitlement in this country, and it has been created by our tax-hungry and profligate government. For that culture to change, the government needs to change in a far more radical way than anything being offered by the mainstream political parties. The state needs to get smaller – much smaller – and in doing so return both rights and responsibilities to its people.

How to cut Benefit Fraud...

... in one easy step - make the benefits system far simpler. Cull the number of benefits people can claim without necessarily drastically cutting the amounts people receive. Make the whole system less complex and more transparent and guess what? It will be easier to spot fraud. And, also on the plus side, it will require fewer people to manage the system, meaning you can save money there as well.

The same for tax - you want to reduce tax evasion? Make the tax system simpler. You want to make it really easy? Introduce a single, flat tax rate. Guess what? It will also be easier to administer, so you'll require fewer people to do so, meaning you save money.

I know what you're thinking - this isn't rocket science. In fact, to most people, it should be blindingly fucking obvious. Then you hear about Cameron's proposal to offer a bounty to companies who help then find benefit cheats. Oh, do fuck off David. Make your system simpler. Make the massive bureaucracy fit for purpose. If you're not going to fundamentally change the nature of government in this country - and from all the available signs, Davey boy isn't - then at least make it a little bit less inefficient. Or at least make it a little bit less easy to commit fraud than through slipping through one of the numerous glaring gaps in the system.

Precious

I must admit, I really didn’t know what to make of Precious before I sat down to watch it yesterday evening. It could have gone either way – it could have been a challenging and rewarding view or it could have been sentimental tripe. It was the former – very much so.

Detailing the grim life of an illiterate black teenager in New York in the 1980’s, it pulls no punches in showing just how unpleasant life can be. Precious is pregnant for the second time – her first baby, called Mongo (as a brutally descriptive term for the baby’s Down’s Syndrome) lives with the grandmother, except when the social worker comes around. The father of Precious’ children is her father – she was raped by her father from a young age. Her mother despises Precious for stealing her lover from her, and is horrifically abusive towards her daughter as a result.

In fact, the mother is one of the most memorable screen monsters I have seen in a long time. She lives off welfare, sitting in her chair, eating, occasionally retiring to bed to masturbate. She throws bottles at her daughter’s head, then throws water in her face to revive her. She despises her disabled granddaughter, and treats her mother with barely disguised disgust. She has no issue with dropping a baby to the floor, and indeed attempts to hurl a television set onto the heads of her daughter and her newly born grandson. She is a simmering bag of lard and barely contained hatred. When her lifetime of resentment and cruelty is exposed by a social worker, she does what all bullies do – she retreats into self-pity and desperate begging. As a character, she is simultaneously contemptible and terrifying.

The presentation of welfare in this film is also interesting. It is made clear that the family is dependent on welfare – indeed, the mother insists that Precious gets herself down to the welfare office to maximise their government funding of their empty lives. The mother makes it clear that she sees no point in education. All Precious needs to do is sign on, and the rest of her life is taken care of. Interestingly, when Precious finally does flee from her mother, she is saved by the charity of her teacher, who takes Precious and her baby into her home. Welfare doesn’t save Precious, the kindness of another person does. The film presents a rebuke to all those who venerate welfare mindlessly, and who believe it is always better than private charity.

Which is the triumph of Precious. It is difficult viewing, and at times truly tragic. Yet is it challenging and through-provoking. And given the amount of bland, candy-floss film-making that passes for entertainment today, that is something to be celebrated.

"I do not believe that the mere fact of having little money entitles everybody, regardless of circumstances, to be permanently maintained by the taxpayers at an average or comfortable standard of living."

Barry Goldwater, 1964

Hell Hath No Fury...

...like a left-winger scorned. 

Penny Red has an interesting post up today. It reads like a howl of impotent - and slightly petulant - rage at the sudden realisation that the world doesn't owe her or her friends a living. It is a heartbreaking read, and you would have to have a hard heart to mock the post. Which, to be honest, was my original intention. It is so ripe with naivete and a surly disappointment in a world that hasn't matched a hopelessly utopian ideal that it is just crying out for a good verbal kicking. 

Yet it actually isn't the fault of the likes of Penny Red for their strangely needy relationships with the state. It actually comes down to the political class. They make the promises that everything will be ok, but they don't have the power nor the impetus to actually do what they promise to do. The classic is Brown claiming that he has ended boom and bust. He hadn't and he can't, but still he promised it. And when the recession hits, everyone is disappointed in him. Because he created an expectation that he couldn't possibly live up to. 

The Welfare State is another great example. DK would describe it as a massive ponzi scheme and I'd agree. You put in money - under duress and the threat of prison - and might expect something back when you get old/are made unemployed. Fat fucking chance, but the expectation is there. Politicians of all different creeds and colours make the promise that the Welfare State will look after you from cradle to grave, so is it really a surprise that people expect so much from it? And is it really a surprise that so many people become dependent on it? 

Likewise, a university degree has become the pinnacle of educational achievement, and a sure-fire way of getting both a job and a career. Politicians made the promise, and ended up pushing unsuitable people into unsuitable courses. And, of course, it doesn't end up with a happy ending. Three years done, and nothing to show for it other than the dole queue and some hefty debts. By all means, go to university, study what you want and have a great time. But don't expect a job at the end of it. Because that isn't the way the real world works. A degree doesn't mean you're owed a job. Pretty much nothing means you're owed a job...

If you go just about anywhere outside of politics, you learn pretty quickly that life isn't fair. In the workplace, at school, even on the street - things aren't fair. Yet the government propagates this myth that it will create a utopian world where, no matter what happens, it will be ok. The government will come through. It will create a utopia where you're not going to lose your home, and where you'll still have an income even if you aren't in employment. They are the used car salesman with the cheesy grin - they're selling you an old banger that is going to be much more trouble than it is worth. It is down to you to see through it. 

We have generations raised on the idea that the government is a benign creation that will help you in your hour of need. And the government has consistently let people down. Perhaps we do get what we deserve from our politicians. However, we need to be more cynical about the claims made by our politicians. I'd argue that the politician you can trust is the one who stands up and says "no, sorry, there's nothing we can do about that." And that is probably the one you should vote for.

Penny Red's article is sadly typical of yet another wasted generation of people who venerate government as the answer to every problem they face, and then get disappointed when government let's them down. It is time for everyone to grow up, and see the government for what it is - a limited concept with limited power, a necessary evil. And if you get your head round this and actually understand it, then guess what? You've freed yourself from the expectation of a happy ending from the government, and can get on living real life. Where you are dependent on yourself, rather the supposedly benign but utterly unrealistic and unfulfillable promises of the Welfare State.