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WELFARISM AND THE DESTRUCTION
OF VALUES
by Lindsay Mitchell
The following is a text version of a speech delivered by Lindsay Mitchell at the ISIL World Liberty
Summit in Rotorua, New Zealand (July 2004).
Introduction
As a teenager I went into the city with a bunch of my friends to see
the movie, "The Way We Were." On a bench near the theatre were two drunken derelicts. I must have been
fairly sheltered until then because the sight and stench of these men stayed in my mind as vividly as the vision
of Redford making love to Streisand, which is saying something for an adolescent girl.
When I ventured to the only other girl who had noticed them,
maybe we should try to help them, give them some money perhaps, she said to me, "My Dad would
buy them a meal, but never give them money. They'll just drink it." Curiously, this remark also
stayed with me, although it was made nearly thirty years ago.
When we try to help people in need, what damage do we
do in the process? This question loomed again in 2001 when a horrific child abuse case
unfolded. A 21 month-old girl arrived at hospital dead; her face was scalded, her body covered in
bruises, there was internal bleeding into her stomach and her vagina was lacerated. She had
ultimately been shaken to death.
Maltreatment of children isn't highly unusual in New Zealand,
a terrible but true fact. UNICEF research published last year found, in the developed world, New
Zealand has the third highest rate of deaths from maltreatment amongst under-15 year-olds; third
only to Mexico and the US.
In 2003, there were over a thousand prosecuted cases of
offences against children. Just last week we had yet another front page headline about skyrocketing
child abuse notifications.
It transpired those charged with this child's manslaughter were
not only living on welfare but also defrauding the system. Therefore, I drew a conclusion. My tax
dollars were supporting a badly dysfunctional system. A system so dysfunctional it had to be
stopped. An overreaction perhaps, but the baby girl was the same age as my daughter. I could
visualise her vulnerability acutely and indirectly, rightly or wrongly, I felt some responsibility for her
miserable short life.
I resolved to begin speaking out against welfare abuse and
specifically the single parent benefit, which affects not just the primary recipient but the children in
their care.
As a vehicle to hang a campaign on, I decided to petition
parliament. We have mixed-member proportional representation, which features a provision for
members of the public or groups to petition parliament. A petition, in my case asking for a review of
this particular benefit, will be allocated to a select committee made up of members of parliament.
Further submissions are invited and some resulting action may occur.
Some of what I relate today is drawn from the correspondence
my campaign has generated, both to me and to the media.
Going back to the incident that provoked me, of course, it
seemed obvious that this incident was played out at the extreme margins of society. Most people on
welfare don't kill their children or anyone else's. Most people on welfare hold similar values to
those who work and support themselves. Or do they?
Before I attempt to answer that question, I must make a vital
distinction between people who resort to welfare as a temporary respite or are genuinely
incapacitated, and those who use it long term, in a lifestyle sense and see it as their right to do so. It
is the second group that is my focus; for want of a better definition those who believe the world
owes them a living.
So, what are the values we hold? For the sake of this
discussion, I will treat values as interchangeable with principles. I know there are some we share;
respect for private property, peaceful and voluntary interaction, freedom of expression and the rights
of the individual over the collective. Further values necessary for these to survive are honesty and
effort. What I consider here today is the loss of these interlinked values, the consequences, and who
is to blame.
Respect For Private Property Vanishes
In today’s welfare state there are two problems operating
concurrently. There is the corruption of the individual who has ceased to be self-reliant which leads
to self-justification and dishonesty. Then there is the corruption of society when it patronises and
rewards this dishonesty. Here is how it works;
I'd hazard a guess that some welfare dependents think money is
merely something the government prints at will. There is no understanding that the money they
receive is the product of somebody else's efforts. Because they don't understand this, they rationally
resent their relatively small share.
Those who do understand the source of their income have an
attitude that the productive person's money isn't rightfully theirs because they got it by exploiting
others and they have too much of it anyway. There is no end of people who see themselves as
victims of some sort of injustice or unfair treatment, be it of sexism, ageism, racism, capitalism or
colonisation. These people, with their inevitable collectivist mentality, demand recompense from all
of society.
Either thought process leads to the conclusion that the
world owes them a living, and any avenue by which they subsequently obtain money is,
to their mind, justifiable.
When that avenue is welfare it is common to hear people use the word "earn" in conjunction with
"benefit" and it's not unusual to hear beneficiaries indignantly reminding us that they too pay tax on
their "earnings" – that they too are contributing members of society. The dishonesty has begun.
Charles Murray, American welfare analyst provides an extreme
example of the abuse of private property and the subsequent self-justification. In the slums of
Washington the slang for mugging is, "getting paid." Similarly, we the taxpayers get mugged so the
non-productive can get paid.
Who Is To Blame?
Of course, most politicians don't see it as mugging. They
believe society thinks the existence of destitute people is unacceptable in an affluent country like
ours. So, they try to make sure there are no destitute people. In doing so governments have made
access to an increasing array of benefits a universal legal entitlement because they
cannot be judgemental about the reason a person needs help to avoid destitution. Their own self-
justification, we do not make moral judgements, has begun.
For instance, when the single parent benefit was introduced, it
was made available to any parent irrespective of the reason for their sole parenthood.
Over time, this has had some appalling consequences that I will explore a little later.
The department that manages welfare dependents is currently
and euphemistically called The Ministry of Social Development. In Wisconsin, they call their
counterpart, the Department of Workforce Development but what's in a name? I would suggest, the
world of difference.
Our Minister for Social Development, Steve Maharey, recently
admitted that, in a case of benefit fraud, whereby a woman was going to take 160 years to repay a
sum out of a further benefit payment, his hands were tied. Governments cannot make moral
judgements.
He said,
"Government have no choice but to continue paying the benefits to which fraudsters are legally
entitled. Changing the law to deny fraudsters benefits would create another problem of destitute
people."
So there you have it. The State condoning, no, let's be truthful,
rewarding dishonesty. This isn't lost on those who work with beneficiaries.
Sometimes, the destruction of values is contagious. The
Department of Work and Income runs education programmes to teach staff about the consequences
of theft – at least they did in 2002 after 28 staff had stolen almost $1 million in benefits.
Perhaps, Jim (Peron), the Institute should be sending them copies of
Bastiat’s "The Law," for some real lessons about what constitutes theft, and, indeed, who are the
biggest thieves of all.
But it isn't only theft; at all its various levels that the welfare
state has made acceptable.
Destructive Behaviours Made Acceptable
The welfare state has rendered respectable other behaviours
that society previously discouraged. Births outside marriage were once unwelcome because it fell to
the family, Grandma and Grandad, to bring up the child, or the child had to be put up for adoption or
the parents-to-be were forced to marry. None of these consequences were immediately happy ones.
Today out-of-wedlock or out-of-de facto births are
commonplace and socially acceptable. One New Zealand researcher has even claimed that a teenage
birth can be a positive development if it changes the mother's drug or alcohol abuse behaviour.
Promoting teenage motherhood as a method of reforming self-harming behaviour seems an
extremely risky strategy more likely to fail than succeed. If a teenage girl has destructive habits,
surely the aim of policy should be to discourage her from becoming a mother. Instead, we remove
the disincentives to teenage pregnancy by paying generous benefits that increase with the birth of
each subsequent child.
Staying with this theme of distorted logic, one of the main
defences of the sole parent benefit, which was introduced in 1973, is it allowed a woman to escape a
violent relationship. Notwithstanding there could have been a better solution than introduce a
universal parenting benefit, none of us believe violence should be encouraged or condoned.
So how many women did the government of the day believe
needed this escape route? A few hundred? A few thousand? Within twenty years, there were almost
one hundred thousand people on our domestic purposes benefit. But it didn't stop the problem.
Women were still living in violent relationships. We know this because the following then
happened.
In 1996, a case was taken to the Court of Appeal. Miss R lived
with Mr T from 1974 to 1992. They never married. She had a child to Mr T in 1977 and received
various welfare benefits. After an anonymous tip-off that she was in fact in a relationship with the
father, she was investigated by Work and Income in 1992 and convicted of fraud. Miss R
unsuccessfully appealed to the High Court. She then took her case to the Court of Appeal.
This court found that, in order for a relationship to be "in the
nature of a marriage" two essential features must be present:
- a degree of companionship demonstrating an emotional commitment and
- financial interdependence
In Miss R's case, neither of these features was judged present.
Her conviction was overturned and she was judged entitled to
the welfare payments she had previously been directed to repay.
Predictably, the court decision brought forth a stream of people
in similar circumstances wanting compensation for having been denied a benefit or made to repay
one. By March this year around $6 million, an average payment per case of approximately $2,500,
has been paid to sole parents who were incorrectly deemed to be living in a marriage-type
relationship between 1996 and 2000. 2,108 cases have had their debts disestablished and refunds
made where applicable.
Notice what has happened here. We have gone from paying
people to escape violence to paying them to live with violence. The erosion of the
original reason for the payout, and the values behind that reason, become lost in the detail of handing
out the money.
In the United States a similar debate rages. Advocates for
unconditional welfare over work argue that an abusive mate might prevent a mother attempting to
work from getting out of the door, that it would be embarrassing for her to go to work with a black
eye and, if she isn't home, who protects her children?
The counter argument goes, extending welfare to abused
women merely encourages the continuation of the abuse (or the continuing claim of abuse). Sally
L.Satel, a psychiatrist and lecturer at the Yale School of Medicine says, "Consider: a mother and her
children are living with a shiftless lout who sponges off her government check, food stamps and
Section 8 (state funded) apartment. He learns that battered women can keep getting their benefits. If
keeping his partner brutalised means a regular check for him, some men will do just that."
And frankly, some women will put up with it.
She also argues that the broad definition of "domestic violence"
means virtually any woman can qualify for an exemption from work requirements.
New Zealand law also applies a very broad definition of
domestic violence, including verbal and psychological abuse. Similarly, many women could use it to
argue that her relationship is not 'in the nature of a marriage'. Satel asks, if women are encouraged to
'cry wolf' to keep their benefits, what will happen to the genuine victims of domestic violence?
This is the can of worms New Zealand has opened with the
Court of Appeal definition. I repeat, we have gone from paying people to escape
violence to paying them to live with violence. As long as the woman is 'getting the bash,' the de
facto relationship is legally null and void and she is therefore entitled to welfare. Any argument,
however perverse, is OK to avoid making moral judgements or running the risk a person might be
made destitute.
We now, thanks to the welfare state, condone the most base of
relationships; relationships nevertheless capable of producing children who will grow up witnessing
violence and dishonesty as the norm, who may themselves reach adulthood devoid of decent values
as a result.
Force Is OK
Speaking of violent homes, the writer of a letter I received quite
possibly grew up in one. It was from somebody describing herself as a member of the "Southside
Bitches" and said, "How dare you mother fuckers stop my DPB? I'll fuck you up bitch. Yea".
Remember, this is a mother writing. One with a very strong but misguided sense of what belongs to
her. So much so, it justifies violent force.
Another of the values we share, peaceful interaction and respect
for person, has disappeared.
That over two thirds of female prison inmates were on welfare
prior to incarceration should be good grounds for assuming destroyed values can manifest in extreme
and repeated lawbreaking.
The Ministry of Social Development's organisational policy
requires staff home visits to beneficiaries be in pairs due to security concerns. During 2001 however,
a pilot project involved unaccompanied home visits to discourage the pursuit of a benefit application.
On this occasion, staff were trained to use cell phones for security, not make home visits out of cell
phone range and to leave the property at the first sign of danger. Some case managers declined to
participate.
Speaking recently on National Radio, renown New Zealand
criminologist, Greg Newbold, pinned the primary cause of crime on our culture of welfare
dependency and blame. As one who experienced the prison system as an inmate, you might expect
him to know what he is talking about.
The use of force, physical or otherwise, also underpins much of
the thinking of socialists and radical feminists. Their aspirations are steeped in the use of force and
again, it is welfare that furnishes and perpetuates their goals. Their own freedom is axiomatic and
unquestioned but nobody else's counts.
Force against the unacceptable is acceptable – some are more
equal than others (Orwell’s wisdom still holds true.)
Sometimes, on the face of it, their ideas seem relatively benign.
Here is a typical defence of taking welfare published in a local newspaper;
"Dear Editor, I'm stunned that a mother (Lindsay Mitchell)
could have such awful attitudes. I have worked in childcare long enough to say that while it suits
some families to use these facilities, having someone else raise our children should be a choice, not
forced upon us".
The following is a response from a young male writer, "Dear
Editor, I find it amazing that Ms X obviously does not see the hypocrisy of claiming for herself the
right to choose how her children are brought up while denying the rights of people who bear no
relation to her, to chose not to fund her decisions."
And a further comment from another young male
correspondent, "To Ms X, we all understand that times are bad and she isn't the only one feeling
financial hardship – many Kiwis are financially strapped. So why does she feel that she has the right
to alleviate her financial hardship by taking money essentially stolen by the taxman from other
families to support hers? I see nothing in her article about the father contributing to the cost of
bringing up of her child nor do I notice any reference to her asking her family for help. No, total
strangers who have no influence on the choices she makes in life must be made to pay."
By the way, I know these writers are young men because I
routinely contact and thank anybody who supports me. But, isn't it heartening to behold some
straight thinking? Probably Miss X thinks her belief in a home upbringing is a good moral
value. But it isn't. It's a preference, the realisation of which relies on a bad moral
value, the sanctioning of state force to plunder.
Incidentally, the conservatives get themselves into all sorts of
trouble with the argument this young woman puts. They are don't like the single parent benefit, but
neither do they like children going into day-care while their mums work. It is an impossible task to
reconcile these two views.
Your Life Is Not Your Own
The argument for a parenting benefit that most offends me is,
"children are a public good." This perverse justification completely denies the value Libertarians
hold that the individual has the right to exist for his own sake, that his life belongs to him. In the
welfare state, the child is reduced to no more than a future taxpayer and the parent is to be exalted
and paid for aiding his progression to this status. This objection has been put to me many, many
times, particularly from those students of Women's Studies, which, I think, must include a unit on
"Sanctimonious Self validation for Socialists."
Even if you didn't value the liberty of the individual and
bought the 'public good' argument, the chances that the child will grow into a taxpayer are, anyway,
greatly reduced by an upbringing on welfare. Growing up in a home where nobody works is more
likely to produce children without a work ethic, lacking the values of self-reliance and independence.
A study of NZ data found:
"The true correlation coefficient between welfare participation of parents and their offspring is
somewhere between one-third and two thirds, but probably much closer to the lower limit in this
range. Approximately one-quarter of this effect appears to operate through the lower educational
attainment of children reared in families receiving social welfare benefits."
A US study was consistent with this finding. It showed that
29.3 percent of welfare recipients had parents who received welfare as children and a remarkable 7.5
percent are third generation recipients.
Our government recently introduced a policy of refusing to pay
the dole to people who move to areas where there are few employment opportunities. I asked the
Prime Minister why the policy wasn't being applied to single parents. After saying single parents
aren't work tested so could not be included in the policy, she went on to admit that in areas like the
far North and the East Cape some children have never seen mum or dad – even grandma and
granddad – go to work. She described how long term demoralisation sets into these communities and
they are rife with crime, drug-taking, alcoholism, ill health and obesity problems.
Surely good policy should discourage single parents from
moving their families to environments where the erosion of values is so painstakingly and physically
obvious?
There are families in these communities that show the loss of
self-reliance and the work ethic can lead to the loss of all values.
Non-Judgementalism Is Now A Value
So far, I have laid the blame for lost values with the
government but the blame extends beyond the policy makers. As well as with academics spouting
socialist ideas blame lies also with social workers, counsellors and the like.
While I was working on this speech an e-mailer posted a
question to a discussion group for social workers on the very subject of values and I can't resist
sharing it with you. The question was, "What is the one most important value held by Child and
Youth Workers in the field?"
The response, "... the value of working on ones own issues so
that not only is counter transference minimized, but awareness and familiarization of ones own
process assists in preventing making mistakes in interfacing and helping today's youth to have an
enriched life." We in New Zealand call this a Parekuraism. A term coined after a government
minister, Parekura Horomia, who habitually constructs very long, convoluted sentences that nobody
can understand.
Many people who interact with welfare dependents regard
being "non-judgemental" as a value in itself. James Payne, in his wonderful work, "Overcoming
Welfare" writes,
"Today's social workers have genuinely internalized a value-free approach. Instead of guiding
clients away from foolish choices they set up systems that reinforce them."
Another of my favourite though slightly less uplifting writers,
Theodore Dalrymple, would concur with Mr Payne's observation. In his book, Life at the
Bottom, there is chapter entitled, "What is poverty?"
In it, Dalrymple describes how he observes, during the course
of his work in a British hospital, new doctors arriving from countries like the Phillipines and India.
How they view the welfare state undergoes a transformation. Initially they think it wonderful that
care goes beyond the merely medical and extends to food, clothing, shelter and even entertainment.
Gradually, however, they witness the condition and reactions of people they are trying to help, often
drug addicts, victims of violence, overdoses, etc.
Dalrymple writes,
"By the end of three months my doctors have, without exception, reversed their original opinion that
the welfare state, as exemplified by England, represents the acme of civilisation. On the contrary,
they see it now as creating a miasma of subsidised apathy that blights the lives of its supposed
beneficiaries. They come to realize that a system of welfare that makes no moral judgments in
allocating economic rewards promotes anti-social egotism. The spiritual impoverishment of the
population seems to them worse than anything they have ever known in their own countries."
Dalrymple doesn't solely blame the destruction of values on the
rise of the welfare state, incidentally. Neither do I. It did, in his opinion, however, provide the
necessary conditions for the development of the worldview that makes the underclass.
In reality, societies have to make moral judgements. They are
the glue holding people together. That making a moral judgement has become virtually illegal in our
state-run social services is the primary reason why they are failing and will continue to fail regardless
of how much money is poured into them. Being unable to discriminate is exactly why government
should not be in the business of providing charity.
Welfare State Destroys Freedom Of Speech
Last but by no means least, freedom of speech is a value we
share and celebrate with this Summit. It means anyone’s ideas must be able to be heard no matter
how loony; all people have a say in their world, not just an elite few. But freedom of speech has also
been undermined, by the thinking that drives the welfare state.
To speak against the welfare state is severely frowned upon in
many quarters. During the course of drumming up support for a public meeting to discuss our
dependency problem, I contacted a lady who had sent a page of petition signatures and a letter of
support. It turned out she had just retired from the department of Work and Income. She said that
she doubted the people who had signed the petition could attend the meeting as they were all staff at
the department and a conflict of interest might arise! The people who best know what welfare does
are least able to express their views.
Another supportive worker at the coalface contacted me. After
a lengthy and, frankly, heart wrenching conversation I asked if she would let me write up her
personal story, which was a progression from welfare to work; from apathy to hope. Unfortunately,
her supervisor wouldn't allow it.
When a beneficiary advocate group organised a counter attack,
a DPB Symposium, I asked to speak but was refused a place. On attendance, I found that there was
spare time due to a cancellation. Naturally, it wasn't offered to me. One guileless soul in the
audience asked why single parents don't go on the unemployment benefit? This provoked a
collective audible intake of air and the poor girl was glared at. She just didn't understand the faux
pas she had committed.
The real crime was, not one of the speakers was prepared to
answer her totally valid question. If your children are your responsibility why aren't you out looking
for a job to support them?
At a Parliamentary select committee hearing, the very hub of
our democratic process, I was attacked by an extreme left-wing politician determined to discredit my
views in front of her colleagues. This is not only in that environment. Parliament and the select
committee process are about hearing the views of citizens – not suppressing them.
A supportive MP later told me she lodged a complaint about
the behaviour of this Member of Parliament. I am unaware of the outcome but the offender was,
shortly afterwards, voted out of parliament.
And there is always the left-wing media bias to deal with. I am
currently involved in a dispute with Radio New Zealand, this country's publicly owned radio station
which refused to allow my contribution to a public opinion show on the basis that I hold political
office. That political office comprises purely volunteer work in my electorate, posting pamphlets in
letterboxes, for instance. Yet, this same programme regularly allows Green party candidates and
activists from left-wing pressure groups, airtime.
A debate with the Principal Adviser for the Ministry of Social
Development, through the pages of another left-leaning publication, the Listener, ended when he
wrote, "I do not want to relitigate the issues that Mitchell raises, since it is clear that she has
misunderstood the papers she is citing." His contention was, it isn't the receipt of welfare that
affects behaviour; it is poverty. Never mind that the study I quoted from verbatim found
marked differences between the outcomes for children of poor families in work and the children of
poor families on welfare. For him poverty is the root of all evil. The reason for lost values is empty
pockets, not empty souls.
He overlooks the lesson of my grandparents' lives, and possibly
many of yours. They were poor but their values were good. Poverty, of itself, does not destroy
values.
Conclusion
But poverty remains the darling of the Left. It is pivotal to their
determinist world-view. Poverty is never the fault of the person in its grips and should be solved
through wealth redistribution. Unfortunately, the cure has proved far worse than the malady.
Material poverty needn't exist in this country. The only real
poverty experienced by people who deliberately live off the efforts of others is that of spirit and
values. The corruption of not having to obtain the approval of society because they will be kept
regardless, is complete.
And that note would be a good one on which to end, and we
would all feel reasonably comfortable and relieved to be on the side of right but I need to also point
to the values that have been eroded amongst those who do produce and contribute.
As James Payne points out in "Overcoming Welfare," we have
to expect more, not only from the poor, but from ourselves. Our own compunction to be actively and
voluntarily generous is reduced when the government steps in to do it on our behalf. And a tendency
towards apathy, because the mess we have created is so overwhelming, represents a lost value. If we
don't want government to be involved in welfare we must work towards or support alternatives.
Also, and I say this mainly for my own benefit, we must avoid
the negative products of resentment. American author, George Leef said, "Big government… holds
and inevitably uses the power to make some people better off at the expense of others. This creates
hostility, bitterness, and sometimes violence where there would otherwise be none."
There are days when the contest of ideas weighs heavily and
threatens to make me lose sight of the people I value, the activities I value. There are moments when
I seriously consider just retreating into my family and my art. The easy road would be to bury one's
head in the sand. And I know people who have consciously made this decision.
Last century, Thomas Merton said;
"Fear is perhaps the greatest enemy of candour. How many men fear to follow their conscience
because they would rather conform to the opinion of other men than to the truth they know in their
hearts? How can I be sincere if I am constantly changing my mind to conform with the shadow of
what I think others expect of me?"
Denial and false conformity are forms of dishonesty and
honesty is probably my highest value.
When all around us values are flying out of the window, we
need to hold on very tightly to our own.
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