Because I am busy and lazy at the moment, I wanted to copy a portion of an email that I sent to someone a week or so ago, as part of a discussion about whether the success of European welfare states compared to that of the U.S. can be attributed to better management:
Good management/competence is a reasonable hypothesis concerning the success of welfare states when one is operating under the premises that 1) "the government" or "the state" is a singe, coherent entity; 2) it has coherent aims; 3) in large part those aims concern the "common good"; and 4) stated aims more or less reflect true intentions.
However, I don't accept any of those premises, so that is why I do not reach the same conclusions. I believe that in this world most of the shots are being called by a group of corporate/capitalist elites with conflicting interests, and that the state is simultaneously a means of (sometimes sloppy) compromise as well as a reflection of competition. The intentions of people who are employed by or influence the state are incredibly diverse. The state is not a "container of power" so much as it is an effect (or "emergent property") of power struggles.
I do not believe that the state exists to serve the common good (I believe that is a lie propagated to generate consent). I do not believe that when an action is taken in the name of a state that the publicly proclaimed reason for that action reflects the true origin of the decision. Although I do not believe that the state operates like some monolithic Big Brother, I do believe that language is purposely employed to shape consciousness and influence behavior. For example, when American citizens are told that the troops are "heros" who are "risking their lives so that we can be free," I think that is a strategic way of getting people to willingly risk their lives for causes that do not benefit them.
Therefore, when I even hear the word "welfare," I am immediately inclined to consider what social reality the word may be distorting. Additionally, because I believe the state, as an outgrowth of corporate/capitalist power struggles, can only be understood in relation to the global economy, my first line of attack is to place the "welfare state" in a larger context in order to make sense of it.
For this reason, I cannot escape the fact that the examples of successful welfare states just so happen to be among the wealthiest nations in the world, while the U.S., though wealthy, has one of the largest income gaps in the world. To me this does not seem insignificant.
Moreover, I think the history of the welfare state is very telling as to its role in a global capitalist system. It emerged in its modern form as part of a larger project of protectionism among some European states, at the behest of industrialists, partially as a means of stemming the outflow of labor as well as subsidizing labor costs (including the training/education required for employment). This fits with the state's role within the capitalist system which is, in large part, diffusing risk (which continues to increase as a result of the exponentially growing investment requirements as capitalism evolves) through various sorts of subsidies and the like.
I think the U.S. has not had the same type of welfare state, then, not only as a result of the more widespread socio-economic inequality, but also following from its particular role in the global economy. At the same time that European states were employing protectionist policies, the U.S., on the contrary, was receiving labor and pursuing economic growth primarily through foreign investment and exports. In other words, U.S. capital flows were more externally-focused while European capital flows were more internally-focused, and I think that the European welfare state is a reflection of those dynamics.
Furthermore, I do not know if I can quite accept the claim that the welfare state has helped to reduce poverty. Not only are the numbers not very compelling, but I think it is difficult to reach any such conclusions based on the fact that the development of many welfare states occured during or immediately prior to periods of great economic expansion, and so it is difficult to say what would have happened if that were not the case.
I will grant that when welfare states have been constituted in Third World nations, for instance in Latin American countries, it has helped to mitigate some of the effects of global poverty. However, I would say this is partially due to the fact that nationalization of industries is also a means of putting those industries out of the reach of foreign multinational corporations, and thus preventing capital from flowing out of the country. In addition, such states have historically not been stable because of political/military pressure from the industrial north.
Overall, I am skeptical of the welfare state because it preserves the system rather than challenging it. While welfare states were developing in the industrial north, the gap between the wealthiest and poorest nations in the world was increasing starkly; the same processes that enabled economic "progress" and raised standards of living in the north concomitantly lowered standards of living in other parts of the world. So, I see the welfare state more as a privilege of the wealthy, just like "democracy."
I think that "the welfare state" is more a heterogenous set of policies and institutions managed by different people for different purposes, some beneficial, some harmful. Mostly, though, I believe those purposes support the status quo by pacifying anyone who might challenge the system, managing poor people (welfare recipients in the U.S. and abroad are notoriously monitored/spied on by the government), subsidizing labor costs, and in some cases helping to preserve the "natural" level of unemployment.
Showing posts with label welfare state. Show all posts
Showing posts with label welfare state. Show all posts
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Absorbing the Resistance
One way in which the socio-economic hierarchy (and the large-scale impoverishment of much of the human population that it entails) has managed to perpetuate itself throughout the development of capitalism must be credited to the way in which various actors interested in maintaining (or exaggerating) the status quo have strategically redirected and absorbed the resistance movements that have cropped up in the past couple centuries, making sure that none presented any series challenge to the system. Potential resistance elements are used to clean up and contain the damage caused by capitalism (the band-aid approach), such that they are essentially working to support the system, further its viability, rather than change it.
I could perhaps expand this discussion beyond capitalism, looking at resistance and the political-economic order prior to the development of capitalism. However, partly due to the limitations of my own knowledge, I stick to the capitalist era.
The Welfare State
The first rumblings of resistance (in the 18th and early 19th centuries) came primarily from within the ranks of the newly formed working class. The workers were being paid next to nothing, their working conditions were abysmal. The revolts that accompanied the emergence of capitalism had the potential of disrupting the whole project, of putting an end to it before it even began. If it were not for the engineering of the welfare state, this would likely have been the case.
The welfare state looks, on the surface, like a simple compromise between the workers and the capitalists. Particularly so if you, like the workers, view the state within the framework of social contract ideology, rather than seeing it as a tool of the capitalist class. In fact, the birth of the welfare state is more the solidification of a relationship between the capitalist class and the state which has more or less held, albeit with increasing complexity, since that time, wherein the state is used as a means to diffuse risk (for example, in the welfare state, by subsidizing the cost of labor, pacifying the workers, etc.).
The Technocrats
As these workers' struggles continued in waves, before essentially petering out after the Depression of the 1930s, another group of potential defectors was emerging (throughout the 19th century before reaching an apex in the early 20th, coinciding with the second phase of capitalism). These were educated, science-minded, socialist-leaning professionals. Socialist, but not Marxist. They believed strongly in the welfare state, and sought to expand its functions to include technical administration of population and territory for the purpose of increasing productivity, efficiency, health, and happiness. Their "socialist utopia" was one in which bureaucratic experts managed and ordered all aspects of human life, mitigating the harmful effects of capitalist industrialization (pollution, disease, poverty, crime). Their primary goal was to root out sources of pathology: to decrease pollution, to eradicate disease, to remove and/or rehabilitate the "criminal elements" in society. However, they never addressed the real causes of any of these "pathological" elements.
The technocrats were easy to take care of. Since they, too, held faith in the state's ability to solve social problems, they were effortlessly absorbed into the state. Government agencies were created so that they could apply their expertise in public health, urban planning, criminology, environmental science, social work, pyschology, sociology, etc. As part of, or in alliance with, the state, they tinkered away, implementing haphazard projects at worst, taking some of the sting out of the harshest aspects of capitalism at best, but all the while they were supporting the forms of domination (the state, industrialization, science, bureaucracy) responsible for the ills of the current world order. Like the welfare state, governmental bureaucracy and its technocrats are still part of the political-economic infrastructure.
Foundations and Nonprofits
Following WW2, with the third major phase of capitalist development, another group has risen to the fore. These are people who would be technocrats - they are practically interchangable - yet they choose to work "outside" of the state. In part, they view independence from larger governing structures as a way to maintain the authenticity and progressive ethos of their movement. The rise of nonprofits (a very large profileration in the post-WW2 era) has also been a means by which the burden of bureaucratic governance and responsibility for mopping up the messes of capitalism has been transferred away from the state and consequently been "privatized."
The function of foundations - essentially large corporate tax shelters that also, to a much smaller degree, serve as a source of funding for nonprofits - ensures that the nonprofit organizations with the most resources will pursue projects in compliance with corporate interests. Hence, nonprofits may nominally be "independent," but the reality is that they are dependent upon states and corporations for funding, both of whom then control the agendas of these organizations.
The common thread among all these resistance movements is that they have all sought solutions within the state, all tried to work within power structures rather than trying to fundamentally challenge them. They have expended a large amount of resources and energy making minor adjustments to, but leaving basically intact, the structures of domination by which they are oppressed. A lot of human effort that could have been used for systemic change, wasted on small "tweaks."
I could perhaps expand this discussion beyond capitalism, looking at resistance and the political-economic order prior to the development of capitalism. However, partly due to the limitations of my own knowledge, I stick to the capitalist era.
The Welfare State
The first rumblings of resistance (in the 18th and early 19th centuries) came primarily from within the ranks of the newly formed working class. The workers were being paid next to nothing, their working conditions were abysmal. The revolts that accompanied the emergence of capitalism had the potential of disrupting the whole project, of putting an end to it before it even began. If it were not for the engineering of the welfare state, this would likely have been the case.
The welfare state looks, on the surface, like a simple compromise between the workers and the capitalists. Particularly so if you, like the workers, view the state within the framework of social contract ideology, rather than seeing it as a tool of the capitalist class. In fact, the birth of the welfare state is more the solidification of a relationship between the capitalist class and the state which has more or less held, albeit with increasing complexity, since that time, wherein the state is used as a means to diffuse risk (for example, in the welfare state, by subsidizing the cost of labor, pacifying the workers, etc.).
The Technocrats
As these workers' struggles continued in waves, before essentially petering out after the Depression of the 1930s, another group of potential defectors was emerging (throughout the 19th century before reaching an apex in the early 20th, coinciding with the second phase of capitalism). These were educated, science-minded, socialist-leaning professionals. Socialist, but not Marxist. They believed strongly in the welfare state, and sought to expand its functions to include technical administration of population and territory for the purpose of increasing productivity, efficiency, health, and happiness. Their "socialist utopia" was one in which bureaucratic experts managed and ordered all aspects of human life, mitigating the harmful effects of capitalist industrialization (pollution, disease, poverty, crime). Their primary goal was to root out sources of pathology: to decrease pollution, to eradicate disease, to remove and/or rehabilitate the "criminal elements" in society. However, they never addressed the real causes of any of these "pathological" elements.
The technocrats were easy to take care of. Since they, too, held faith in the state's ability to solve social problems, they were effortlessly absorbed into the state. Government agencies were created so that they could apply their expertise in public health, urban planning, criminology, environmental science, social work, pyschology, sociology, etc. As part of, or in alliance with, the state, they tinkered away, implementing haphazard projects at worst, taking some of the sting out of the harshest aspects of capitalism at best, but all the while they were supporting the forms of domination (the state, industrialization, science, bureaucracy) responsible for the ills of the current world order. Like the welfare state, governmental bureaucracy and its technocrats are still part of the political-economic infrastructure.
Foundations and Nonprofits
Following WW2, with the third major phase of capitalist development, another group has risen to the fore. These are people who would be technocrats - they are practically interchangable - yet they choose to work "outside" of the state. In part, they view independence from larger governing structures as a way to maintain the authenticity and progressive ethos of their movement. The rise of nonprofits (a very large profileration in the post-WW2 era) has also been a means by which the burden of bureaucratic governance and responsibility for mopping up the messes of capitalism has been transferred away from the state and consequently been "privatized."
The function of foundations - essentially large corporate tax shelters that also, to a much smaller degree, serve as a source of funding for nonprofits - ensures that the nonprofit organizations with the most resources will pursue projects in compliance with corporate interests. Hence, nonprofits may nominally be "independent," but the reality is that they are dependent upon states and corporations for funding, both of whom then control the agendas of these organizations.
The common thread among all these resistance movements is that they have all sought solutions within the state, all tried to work within power structures rather than trying to fundamentally challenge them. They have expended a large amount of resources and energy making minor adjustments to, but leaving basically intact, the structures of domination by which they are oppressed. A lot of human effort that could have been used for systemic change, wasted on small "tweaks."
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