Something of an interesting philosophic difference

Consider this:

Parents becoming ‘invisible welfare state’, says Labour’s work tsar

Alan Milburn warns of ‘whole generation of young people’ who are becoming reliant on their parents

That’s not just the headline writer either:

“Official figures on Neets mask a family support system that is on the brink,” Mr Milburn told The Times. “Too many parents are becoming the invisible welfare state.”

At heart here is a philosophic difference.

We are - as with Hayek, Smith and all the rest of the classical liberals - entirely in favour of a welfare state. That is, a state which provides a welfare system. But not in the sense that Andy Burnham is using it, nor as we think is common among all too many.

For that Burnham idea certainly seems to be that the state takes care of everything. Parents - or wider family, friends, charity, whatever - are only to fill in the gaps if the state fails. Our own ideal of a welfare state is that of course there are things that parents - or wider family, friends, charity, whatever - cannot cope with and the state and its welfare are there to fill in those gaps.

An example of the difference. In Britain the lifeboats are and near always* have been an entirely charitable endeavour. It works, it’s fine, nothing need to be done about it. We have actually seen people complain that the fact that the RNLI is a charity is an abomination, this is something that should, must, be done directly by the state.

We might well be wholly out of step with the zeitgeist but we really do insist that the correct welfare state is the one that fills in the gaps that society itself cannot fill - not this idea that society is only there to cover the welfare state gaps.

Tim Worstall

*There was a state attempt to subsidise it at one point but the institution itself found that it lost more than £1 in donations for every £ received from government.