Sunday, May 31, 2009

The Welfare State We'll Be in Soon - A Cautionary Tale


The English author, James Bartholomew, in his book The Welfare State We're In, discusses the serious societal changes of attitude and character that have "gone badly" in England, since the 1950's.

To illustrate this change gone badly, Bartholomew relates that before creating their welfare state of free education, free housing, pension and free medicine you could go to a soccer game and watch very orderly rows of fans applauding their team.

Today with a massive change in gang violence, of English fans out of control, architects have had to design stadiums to keep fans separate because now they are expected to fight each other after a game.

In 1950 only 3.4% of the population were on public assistance. Since then, England has experienced a 134% increase of wealth.

With such an increase, the 1950's government might have expected only 1% would be on welfare. Not true! Today 29% are getting pulic assistance. One third of the population!

Watch the panel discussion on his book at: (Advance the tape to start at 5:00 minutes)

http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=6105

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