A Political Dilemma: an incident at Redcliffe 1994.
On a bright and sunny day, I walked from an office to buy a pie for lunch. As I walked by the local pub I observed two women in their mid-to-late twenties leaving the pub. One called out to a friend, a mother of similar age, and crossing the road with a young girl in hand. "How you goin?", to which the friend replied in a very loud voice, "The boyfriend's pissed off, but it's okay, I'm fucking the ex!".
I was shocked, and saddened and concerned. Why so shocked ...? The language was not new to me, the circumstances were not new to me, I am no prude. There was a link between me and the mother, above and beyond the concerns of observing poor behaviour from an adult, especially in front of a child. I am a taxpayer and she was a beneficiary.
Reflect for a moment on the myriad implications of that relationship. Did the taxpayer have a right to pass judgement on the behaviour of the beneficiary? Did her behaviour make her undeserving of the assistance? What are her rights to receive that assistance? What are the taxpayer's rights to expect a "good result" from that same assistance? What would constitute a good result?
Am I revisiting a debate that was settled at least by the time of the Beveridge Report in Britain 1942, or the Report of the Joint Committee on Social Security 1940-1943 in Australia?
"The plan is not one for giving to everyone something for nothing and without trouble, or something that will free the recipients from their personal responsibilities. The plan is to secure income for subsistence on condition of service and contribution."
Beveridge, W. Social Insurance and Allied Services, para. 455.
Yes, I am revisiting the debate because there are a number of matters that have not been settled, or at least not to the satisfaction of this observer. Both the Coalition government and the Labor opposition have begun to use the language, and presumably this reflects their reasoning, of mutual obligation in their discussion of unemployment benefits.
Of the two broad approaches to welfare, the "social contract" and "citizenship rights", the parties view appears much closer to the idea of a contract, than the more favoured "citizenship" theory that now appears to support much of the current debate on the welfare state.
In very rough terms the basis of the contract in the welfare state may be two-fold. First, an acknowledgment that each of us derive some benefits through the social sphere, which creates an obligation to both "put back in" and "draw from" the common stock. Second, a risk minimisation strategy, "there but for the grace of God go I", which does not create an obligation on the individual to put in, indeed it requires some consent, but is good insurance against the possibility of falling into poor circumstances.
In the citizenship view, one's right to be aided or to have certain life chances protected is derived from membership of the society per se and not from prior hypothetical or actual agreements or contracts. You have not chosen to enter society, you have not given consent. The basis of the citizenship theory is that social outcomes are no-one's fault, which is in sharp contrast with a strict contract approach which argues that there is no obligation unless there is a deliberate wrong.
It is reasonable of a Labor party person to argue that the contract approach should recognise that the source of some wrongs are social and not able to be sheeted home to an individual. It is also reasonable to argue that the citizenship theorists should recognise the costs of no-one bearing any responsibility other than at the societal level.
Keeping these goalposts in view, what are rights to welfare actually rights to? What set of rights is required to "confer, protect and guarantee the status of persons as full members of society?" As if that is not a difficult enough question, one could ask, what obligations are there on each member of society? Does each citizen have a duty to maintain her/him self as an independent member of society? I cannot escape this uncomfortable relationship, this feeling that "I am my brother's keeper".
Well, if I am then I am entitled to ask the following sorts of questions:
Is the Welfare State sowing the seeds of its own destruction?
Has it created attitudes, or do attitudes now abound, which make its operation less useful, or even harmful? For example, it can be argued that the poor are victims of circumstances, and the government has a duty to remedy their problem. But even in circumstances not entirely of their own making people are personally responsible for their actions. What are the implications for policy?
If poverty is the result of external forces, and these are unjust, the "victim" is entitled to compensation. However, does not this send two messages, that the victim is incapable of solving his own problems, and provides a rationale for group hatred and demands for political discrimination?
Welfare rights are resource rights. They demand that political power be used to take the earnings or savings of one group for transfer to another. Such rights can divide the community into warring factions, and undermine the consensus and consent necessary to operate the system.
To some extent there are assumptions creeping into the welfare state that I doubt have any broad support in the electorate. There are no innate rights to other people's resources, they require consent and consent entails making judgements about the receiver of the resources , and I think that is another reason why I was uneasy at Redcliffe that fateful day, and ever since. ...
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