The Welfare State, Globalization and the Rule of the Market

By Christoph Butterwegge

[This short article is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, http://www.sozialextra.de/konfi/skizzen/butterwegge.htm.]

The welfare state has been in the crossfire of criticism for some time. The welfare state hinders the economic upswing and can no longer be financed at least in its previous form. This is heard everywhere. “Globalization” is advanced as a key term of the social-political discussion that for many participants implies a specific development of the welfare state. The social cannot play a great role any more when economies grow together, the world market dictates policies of nation states and societies only function as economic positions or locations.

Questions press which were not answered in the past by either governing politicians or their advisors: Does world market integration of more and more economies inevitably lead to the reduction of social accomplishments in welfare states like Germany or is it a product of political decisions and power hierarchies? In other words, do interested circles of the business camp misuse globalization as a battle cry for their frontal attack on the social security system? What political alternatives exist to break the downward spirals regarding taxable profits, social- and environmental standards and the general level of affluence (mass income)?

The welfare state systematically regressing since 1974/76 or since 1982 must be reformed, democratized and decentralized. Bureaucratization tendencies and encrustations can be burst open without attacking its substance. What is central is refuting the neoliberal positional logic, reestablishing solidarity and reorganizing and extending the welfare state according to its key role for the development of a democratic and social civil society. In the long term, the bond of the system of social security to paid work and the wage rate (declining since the 80s) must be loosened. If all residents in Germany would be held to the social security obligation and protected from elementary life risks by means of a need-oriented basic security, poverty would be removed forever at least as a social mass phenomenon. Germany would be free of inner disintegration through increasing income differentiations.

Let's see some statistics, BA. What percentage of welfare recipients are just loafers as opposed to how many are truly needy.

For example, in Washington State, 90% of those who received public assistance also worked full time. Because of their crappy wages and absence of health care, they required state assistance, especially for their children. Sounds like a subsidy to money grubbing cheap ass "entrepreneurs" who don't give a fuck about their communities or the folk that work for them, or the families of these workers. Gee, how noble.

facts and figures

taxing the poor

"what's wrong with inequality?"

"corporate freeloader chief is Bush's choice to head treasury"

"year-by-year analysis of the Bush tax cuts shows growing tilt to the very rich"

raise the floor

center for economic and policy research

Great Info Lynx-11. Evidence of Bush Admirer's dream world coming true. God I love right-wing corporate rule. Get on it B.A! The rich aren't rich enough yet! Roll up them sleeves, we've got to get the child poverty rate up to 50%! Only then will we be satisfied!

>>When the number of riders outnumbers the number of pullers, and there is a one man-one vote democracy, then the riders will vote to keep riding. The pullers will tire of such an unfair system.

true. the pullers are the workers, and the riders are the lazy rich fat cats who voted Bush into office, and what BA's saying here makes lots of sense. The pullers ARE tired of such an unfair system, and it's not long now before they stop pulling altogether and turn the cart over.


>>In our society, businesses and corporations do a great deal of the pulling.

what exactly are businesses and corporations? who actually does the WORK that makes and drives a business or corporation, that pulls the economy? the shareholders who buy stock in it? the fat cat execs who figure out ways to beef up their PE ratios so the shareholders will buy more, so they can later make off like bandits with a stock dump just before the inflated price bursts on news of the real earnings?

BA makes it sound like businesses and corporations (abstract concepts) are like these big Paul Bunyunesque entities workin hard and "pullin" the economy along in their ox-carts a-sweatin the day away. funny how corporations are singular entities (legally protected "persons," anthropomorphised "beings") when it serves the interests of shareholders and corporate executives (i.e., taking credit for the real work some other humans have done), but the minute someone must be held accountable for any wrongdoing by the corporation, that singularity suddenly vanishes. Sure, there's a scapegoat CEO here or there, but suggest holding a whole corporation (and its shareholders) accountable for what it's done and the status quo jocks on Wall Street gasp and fall over themselves laughing at the absurdity of such an idea. "How could you possibly prosecute a corporation?" they laugh. "It's not a single THING--who would you take to court? Impossible!" Then they hide behind the 14th Amendment and claim personhood whenever it suits their needs. (You're in Santa Clara BA, you should know the history of Southern Pacific.)

But this all makes sense if you're trying to devise a system in which a bunch of rich lazy people can benefit from the hard work of other non-rich people and get a way with it. Just as the stock market system allows the corporation and its stockholders to avoid any responsibility for the bad things corporations might do to earn a profit, this way of thinking allows the abstract "corporation" to take credit for the real work done by human workers. It's a complete abdication of responsibility for any wrongdoing on the one hand, and theft of responsibility for the hard work of people on the other. Complete and total hypocrisy. And I thought conservatives were all about accountability and responsibility and stuff like that. Hmm. I don't know, they seem to me like lazy hypocrites who like to take credit (and profits) for the hard work of other people.

Michael Albert on pro-capitalist arguments

z forum

BushBlower: "Lynx - Do you know how to type? Ever tried to think for yourself?"

Are you kidding me, BushDickLicker!?!?! You wouldn't even know how to pee unless you checked the manual to see if you should hold it with your right or left hand...

...fuck off, BushBlower...

....Keep it up, Lynx!!!!!!

He's criticizing your spelling. It's only the most cliche sign of lameness. There's no real need to respond. Even a kid knows .....

Here's a link to B.A. getting his ass thoroughly kicked at Portland Indy. Really pathetic.

http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=37920&group=webcast

FYI: I copy and paste these "debates" with BA and send them to my friends. It really cheers them up to see what morons right wingers are, and how easily there "arguments" are countered. Without the whore media to prop them up they would be nothing. If there was actually debate allowed in this country, as on Indymedia, these right wing turds would've been flushed down the toilet decades ago.