- Multinationals -

Cutting through the stereotypes

Posted by: Samuel Day Fassbinder ( Citizens for Mustard Greens, USA ) on March 15, 1998 at 21:43:08:

In Reply to: a hand up not a hand out. posted by Dan on March 12, 1998 at 15:48:40:

>> The State, our greatest asset in protecting the electorate and providing
>> welfare is totally undermined!

> As long as its a mission of the State to provid welfare, then the State is
> indeed doomed.

Nonsense. The purpose of a State, as Anatole France noted so long ago, is to take wealth from one set of people and give it to another. Almost everywhere this flow goes from the working people to the rich. It's time this flow went the other way.

> The State is made up of its people and a people living off of welfare instead
> of the fruits of their own labor are doomed.

At least welfare provided the people with some compensation for the world they build, the same world the super-rich claim as their own. The people are deprived of the "fruits of their labor" because they have failed to overthrow the owning classes, the classes that rip off their labor, day in and day out. Most welfare recipients are also working people. Welfare at least provides the people with a little return on that same labor.

> Welfare does not encourage people, a handout is demeaning.

Welfare encourages people to survive on the insufficient wages they're earning. Handouts mean sharing, the mark of a better society. They're only "demeaning" to people like Dan who want the super-rich to own everything and whose arguments thrive on false stereotypes of welfare and work.


Follow Ups:

The Debating Room Post a Followup