What is the goal of the welfare state? Does it elevate the poor? Or perpetuate the cycle of dependence?

Question

What is the goal of the welfare state? Does it elevate the poor? Or perpetuate the cycle of dependence?

Answer 1

Perpetuates the cycle of dependence!!!!  AND adds onto that dependence!!!!

Answer 2

I can only speak from my experience with people who are on welfare. Some are just lazy no ambition having baby makers, some are just using the system to get some extra cash while their common law husband or boyfriend bring home the money, some are living with a family member who pays all the bills and the welfare money is just their spending money.

I've had the pleasure of being in a welfare and food stamp office before. Everyone looked shady. No one looked or acted normal. I'd say a good majority looked like they were on something. They all had that, "gimme gimme gimme" "where's my money" attitude. It was disgusting. These people are dependant on chump change and that right there shows that they've got psycological issues.

Answer 3

From a Christian perspective, welfare is immoral and wrong. However, helping one another, when they need help, is Christian. In terms of the goal of the welfare state, I believe its much more convoluted than people think about. I believe it was created to bring the competitive nature of the US to a lower level. It not only does not elevate the poor, but it keeps the poor more poor and it destroys the poors ability to get a "foot up" on their bad situation through the enabling of their bad habits and unwillingness to work harder. In fact, our society rewards people for not working and having more babies under the welfare system. The more kids, the larger the check. The welfare state, scientifically through any and all legitimate statistics, proves, beyond any shadow of any doubt, that it does perpetrate the cycle of dependency. Its a bad idea in struggling economy. Prior to the depression, it didn't exist and everyone seemed to quite well. Now look at what it has done as it has created a new kind of industry which are the "race pimps" such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson who make their living from the welfare state by crying for more and more money for thugs who do not, and have no intention of wanting to go getting any kind of a job.

Answer 4

Hey Bryan if after nearly 40 years of this policy it is quite easy to see the goal of the system is create a underclass system don't educate them so they don't become smart enough to see they are being used.

The system reminds me back in the 70's when the tobacco industry through it's surrogate's would pass out free cigarette to high schoolers even at 16 I knew what their motivation was some human beings are not bright enough to put 2 and 2 together.

Answer 5

I believe that many people working for the bureaucratic institutions that administer welfare programs are sincere in their desire to relive the suffering of the poor. However, there are also far too many for whom welfare programs are a means to political power in the interest of socialism. The radical socialists of the 1960’s may have shed their disheveled looks for the semi-formal attire of white collar society, but you shouldn’t allow that to lead you to believe that they abandoned their radical views. They simply found a better means by which to achieve the revolution. The only real change that occurred was tactical in that they went from a demand for socialism-from-below (pure Marxism) to socialism-from-above (Fabianism, Democratic Socialism and Bureaucratic Collectivism). To the committed radical, these people did abandon the cause for a better life in “the establishment” but nothing of the sort occurred.  As more and more of their ilk went into the various professions such as journalism, entertainment, government jobs, education and politics, they soon realized that the establishment that they had been attacking so vociferously was already reflective of their views and had been for quite some time. The dominant institutions of society were their institutions. The only difference was that they had adapted the dress, language and mannerisms of mainstream society. Many of those radicals spent their youth criticizing welfare programs as “attempts of capitalism to same itself from the impending proletarian revolution” (Tom Harkin). What Harking and other radical socialists (communists) came to understand was that these programs were useful for the Left in keeping the poor dependent on the very institutions they themselves commanded. Moreover, as government institutions, not private charities, they were guaranteed a permanent place in the budget which also means guaranteed growth. The first objective of a bureaucratic institution is to perpetuate itself.

Welfare has been the primary cause of the destruction of Black families in the US.

So yes, these institution are meant to perpetuate a cycle of dependency. It would be unfair however to assume that everyone working for them has that same motive. Some are just misguided idealists who have yet to be mugged by reality.