The Tories are giving the green light to employers to do what they want

[Phyllis Stein]

The fact is Bruce that there is no evidence now or in the past of society creating the welfare system you espouse. The only inclusive welfare systems that have ever been created have come from Government led by our very own Clemence Atlee in 1945.

Look at how societies across the world treat the poor and sick - look at the rapidly developing nations like India, Brazil and China and see how appallingly the needy are looked after - Society can not be trusted to look after those that require help. It is only provided when Government makes it possible through policy and funding.

FACT!

Beat me to it. Nice.

 

[Phyllis Stein]

So the infastructure exists to allow peer-to-peer welfare quite easily, so the only real obstacle would be whether people are good enough to help out their fellow man. I reckon if we did a quick straw poll on here asking folks if they'd be up for helping each other that the vast majority would be, and indeed there has been support and help offered to members on here from people that have never even met them. So if we assume that GOT is a decent cross section of society, why would we need a government to press gang us into being good?

Nicest thing I can say about that is 'hocus pokus'. Assuming this forum or any forum is a decent cross section of anything is absurd. For starters I'm saying this place is 90% men, at least.
So far as charity goes, how many have complained about tough times, people giving less because they have less etc. Charity is great when the going is good, when times get hard people stop being so virtuous. You see saying you are all for a good cause is a lot easier than following through with it, today and tomorrow and after that. People are lazy, and stupid, and boring, and selfish. You can measure a society by its basest member. But society as an entity has changed, there are more parts of society living off of the vices and habits of other sections than ever before, and trying to pull up by the bootstraps the financially less well off, or the poorest educated, or whatever factors have been part in their respective standings is impossible because it will impinge on the welfare of others (I'm not saying all of soceity is a blood thirsty monster looking to squeeze whoever is unlucky enough or stupid enough or pressured into whatever situation - but said leeches do exist) and so encounter resistance. We like to believe democracy can save the day and consensus will prevail, but the game is rigged, rich enough with the right chums means your policy gets in one way or the other or the other. Revolution sounds great, but you'll have to shift those raking it in (money and power) currently before the status-quo which pays them handsomely can be scuttled.

 

[Phyllis Stein]

Not really sure it reflects well on mankind if you think any other way does it? I mean it goes back almost to the original post, because the insinuation is that if government weren't standing over employers with legal threats, that the majority would all too gladly place their employees into harms way, whether implicitly or explicitly.

Mankind disgusts me daily. There is no insinuation. Is madness a sane reaction to a mad world? Life is violent, messy, nasty and manipulative - you cant undo millions of years of evolution with the stroke of a pen. Day to day life has altered so much in just 20 years, once a donkey gives in you can thrash it as much as you like but it wont give - it isnt stubbornness it is the inability to go any further in the time frame. Evolve or die - a brutal, even Neanderthal ideal. (And look at what happened to them).

 

[Phyllis Stein]

There is no evidence that Welfare works.

Again, I refer you to Tom Woods' presentation-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwEcH7HGSZY@18m

summary:

- From the start of the industrial revoution to the 1960s, Poverty rates fell from 95% to 14% in the absence of any large scale welfare programmes
- From the end of the 1960s to the 1990s, poverty rates then stagnated around this level despite social security spending quadrupling in real terms



Likewise, in this country, you can say that the NHS is a force for good, but how do you know that? It also drains every tax-paying citizen of resources that they would use to otherwise buy their own healthcare through the free market. Remember the broken window fallacy - that which is not seen. Health insurance is done a lot cheaper and a lot better in almost all other developed countries on the free market. What have you got against that?

Did Gordon Brown manage to reduce child poverty despite all his rhetoric and the amount of money he pumped into this anthropological programme of his?


As for developing countries - the mistake is to judge them by the standards of the developed countries. Instead judge them from where a generation ago. Real wages have risen 5-fold in China since the early 1980s, and living standards have improved considerably. This wealth wasn't created by governments taxing the fledgling millionaires and redistributing it to the peasants; it was done through the forces of the free market.

Capitalism is a machine oiled with the blood of its workers, nepotism still rules, and those on the outside get colder and more hungry by the day.
Poverty stats are ludicrous, work here in the industrial revolution meant less work elsewhere. Look at manufacture here now to weigh up the implications.

 

[Phyllis Stein]

I can't speak for Webby, but as I've made clear in my posts above, I'm not opposed to folks helping each other whatsoever. What I'm opposed to is the government forcing us to do things we may not agree with.

I can only assume that if are so in favour of the welfare state in its current guise that you'll never utter a single complaint about any single government policy because you've tacitly admitted that all government work is automatically in the best interests of the so called majority.

You really can't have your cake and eat it here and like government forcing our hand if it's on things you agree with, yet kick up a stink when they do things you don't agree with.

By the way, the red was for the language. No problem at all with folks having different points of view, but there's no need to insult others on here.

Are you drunk? That has one of the most obnoxious things I have ever read. And coming from you after your insinuations about government making people contribute towards 'good'. ''cake and eat it'' Bruce sir, the irony.

 

[Phyllis Stein]

As much as I am in favour of a welfare state in some form, I do find it concerning some people see welfare as something they are entitled to, something to depend on, the be all and end all, as opposed to something to help them get by while they try and better their situation.

Bettering ones situation wont mean ever having attended Eton though. People despair, when there is no hope there is only hopelessness and the spiral that entails. 'Oh if I could win the lottery', 'Oh if I/we didn't have these kids', 'Oh if I had stayed on in school', 'Oh I have tried to quit smoking/drinking/gambling/taking drugs'.
Lowest common denominator, when one cant better ones situation one can easily fall into the cycle of nothingness which is escapism - in any and all its forms.
Unemployment was massive in the 90's, and the 80's and the 70's. (just caught your 'cycle' part). Jobs for the sake of jobs dont work, they are a dead end, they dont last and those in such positions resent there place and their employers. Its a no win there unfortunately.

 

[evilwebby]

lots of stuff

What drugs are you on, seriously? You've spouted a load of crap prose with no coherent arguments except to insinuate that people of my mindset are savages who would sell their mothers down the river.

I don't doubt that there is some nobility behind the concept of welfare, but the reality is that IT DOESN'T WORK. It does more to trap people in poverty than it does to lift them out of it. I judge a programme or a system by its results, not by its intentions.

As the saying goes, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

 

[Phyllis Stein]

Firstly

Secondly, I didn't mention anyone selling anyones mother. You consider my views crap, I know yours are worse.
And how you are singling the UK out for the poverty trap is another golden arrow in the coffin of your arguement, with regards hell, better to rule there than serve in heaven. Ay Comrade.




PS. For the misquote, that puts you lower than a kopite in my book. Crack on.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Are you drunk? That has one of the most obnoxious things I have ever read. And coming from you after your insinuations about government making people contribute towards 'good'. ''cake and eat it'' Bruce sir, the irony.

Not at all. The whole premise of the welfare state is that you give the government permission to take whatever money they want from the working population to give to sections of society they deem worthy of receiving it.

So you're accepting that concept when you agree with the consequences, therefore I believe it to be hypocritical when you critisize that concept just because you don't agree with the consequences.