Editorial from APR Vol.2,#4 - Spring/Summer 1997

The End of the Welfare State?

While I've never been a direct supporter of the welfare system, it's hard to ignore the meaning of its ongoing process of bipartisan "reform'' for those who depend upon Aid to Families with Dependent Children or food stamps to survive at their current subsidized levels of consumption. When the money starts slowing down the logical result will be steadily increasing amounts of hunger, disease and desperation, and that's not counting the massive increases in crime, child abuse and despair that will surely follow.

Of course, I'd like to see the welfare system abolished as much as anyone else. But the "end of welfare'' in a post-capitalist world would have an entirely different meaning than it does in our current predicament—in the almost complete absence of any genuine community. In a social landscape bereft of any significant practice of mutual aid—or even much lip service paid to any egalitarian ethos—those least able to fend for themselves will be kicked down another level or two on the economic pyramid. In a society consciously constructed and regulated to maintain a permanent pool of unemployed and "underemployed'' (in order to keep workers powerless, industrial discipline relatively high, wages down...and wage pressures on inflation minimal) it is inconceivable that plentiful opportunities for everyone to participate in the creation of social wealth would ever be allowed. The writing on the wall is clear. Third World poverty levels will soon become the new scale by which the illusory monetary wealth of North American poor will be measured.

There is something for everyone to dislike in the very idea of creating a permanent bureaucracy of professional aid distributors living in a symbiotic relationship with millions of (mostly) women and children in order to redistribute relatively small amounts of national wealth to those most clearly left out in the cold by capitalism. The image of welfare recipients gleefully partying on generous benefits seems to have an irresistible appeal to many social conservatives, driving them to self-righteous rages of misplaced envy. For racists it is the image (no matter how unreal) of minority women being encouraged to breed irresponsibly that drives them into a fury. For unrestrained capitalists any government support for economic victims is an interference with the "free market'' (while corporate subsidy, tax breaks for the rich, and the elimination of entrepreneurial and investment risk are the proper roles for government according to this perspective). For unthinking, resentful taxpayers, of course, it is the idea that distasteful people are undeservedly living off of the taxes they pay, never mind wherever it is that the vast majority of their taxes go (that's not important to Rush Limbaugh, so it's not important, period).

It's somewhat, though—given the actual function of the mass media—not unexpectedly, remarkable that the actual structural purpose of the welfare system for modern industrial capitalism is never mentioned in public debate over the issue. It's permissible to narrowly frame the debate as a moral issue, or an issue of fiscal responsibility, or an issue of the proper role of government. And in some circles (for example, on many talk radio stations, and in some conservative publications) it's even permissible to frame the issue in implied terms of racism, white supremacy or eugenics. But in the mainstream media it's never permissible to take a straightforward look at the structural role welfare actually plays in industrial capitalism. Nor is it permitted to take a close look at the present historical reasons why welfare is up for reform or elimination precisely when our political and corporate rulers at last see no credible competition for people's allegiance on their horizon.

A major function of the mainstream media in this society is to distract the public from the most important social, political and economic questions, so that they are never even posed, much less actually discussed. It is up to alternative media to raise these questions. If alternative media don't research and analyze the social, economic and political interests which orchestrate mainstream media debates, their origins will remain mystifying for the vast majority of the population. Ideologically loaded issues like welfare reform, free trade, foreign aid, overpopulation, environmental protection and the war on drugs—to name a very few—can only be thoroughly discussed and analyzed in an alternative media which is relatively free from pervasive, censorious corporate, governmental and institutional influences. By no means are all, or even most, alternative media interested or capable of this level of discussion and analysis. But it definitely won't be found anywhere else.

Jason McQuinn

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Updated: 11/28/2000