The evil called the welfare state

Politicians of many hues and social activists of many kinds have this strange and strong and very nearly perverse belief that there is a need to create Constitutional rights for all possible things — right to work, right to education, right to food — so that the state is bound to deliver on its obligations to the poor, and if it fails to do so it could be charged guilty. They believe that this is the way to make the State responsible and accountable. These busybodies believe quite ardently that they are standing up for the poor, and that they are pinning down an indifferent and a callous State. And they are sure some good will come out of this at the end of it all.

Generally, people who want to do good end up creating more trouble without meaning to do so. Those who want the State to do right and to do well by the people are unwittingly creating a patriarchal — something which all of them hate with all the rage they can muster — state, and forcing the poor people to become permanently dependent on a benefactor. Of course, they will say that when the state fulfils its social and economic obligations towards the poor, it is not doing a favour and that it is merely duty-bound to do so.

There is something troubling about this. The simple fact is that the more one is dependent on the State, the less free one is. One of the defining features of freedom is that you are responsible for yourself, and that includes your basic and other needs. Yes. The self-reliant man/woman is the free man/woman in the old fashioned, classical sense. What the State ought to be doing is to ensure that no one comes in the way of enjoying your freedom — other individuals, other groups including the state itself. Put in another way, all of us have put up this mechanism called the State so that we can enjoy our freedoms. By legislating rights which only the State can fulfil, we are letting go of some of our invaluable freedom.

Why is it then we let ourselves into this trap of allowing the State to provide for us — our work, our education, our food? We ought to be doing these things for ourselves and we can do it. The State’s business is to leave us alone to fend for ourselves, physically, emotionally and intellectually. We do not want it to be playing the Big Provider. This would be allowing the state to police our lives in every which way.

There is need for a strong movement to oppose all those who want to extend the activities of the State which would touch our lives in all its aspects. Even the poor would not want to be reduced to the status of beneficiaries. They have a sense of self-worth which is overlooked by the social activists, who descend upon them from their pedestals of social and intellectual privilege.

Much of the sense of helplessness and panic that is seen among the people in the face of the H1N1 flu is because people have stopped thinking and they have been made to believe that the State will think for them. Ultimately, it is the people who will have to handle the pandemic at the individual level and they must have the confidence that they can do so. The health infrastructure is useful, crucial and necessary but it cannot and should not replace our ability to handle a crisis at our own level.

The politicians and policymakers are only too happy to be playing the boss and pretend that they are only doing it for our sake and they have nothing to gain from it. Does this mean that we need to dissolve the State? We need not opt for that extreme solution. What we need is a circumscribed state. It should not be allowed to become a leviathan, even a benign one. The welfare State is an evil in the guise of an angel. There is a compelling need to wean people away from this pathetic dependency syndrome. Very soon we would be legislating rights for people to remain happy, to have families, even to think for ourselves. This is the dystopia that awaits us round the welfare State corner.