Friday, November 22, 1996
WELFARE:
Economic reality is source of social problems, not aid systemBy
Nari Rhee
Regarding Brian Choate’s Viewpoint piece advocating welfare
cuts, "Handouts don’t reflect America’s values" ( Nov. 11): Both
his line of argument and his fast and loose representation of his
subjects are extremely objectionable, arrogant and misinformed.
Choate argues that welfare hurts the poor  in fact, that
it is unfair to those among the poor who work. Choate claims that
people working menial jobs wouldn’t want aid, and that they oppose
"handouts" in principle. To support this argument, he manipulates
his representation of a low-wage worker in a pizza shop in a manner
that is reprehensible.
The "pizza man," the author claims, " … wouldn’t look to the
government for his dough because it is against his values." But
nowhere in the article is there any indication that Choate even
spoke with the man. I can only conclude that this statement is
nothing but a product of the author’s own self-righteous,
hyperactive imagination. This is unfair and dehumanizing to the
worker for whom he arrogantly presumes to speak. As for the masses
of undeserving poor, I doubt that Choate has more than a few shreds
of second-hand anecdotal evidence to substantiate his prejudices.
He renders them voiceless and invisible, the most convenient
scapegoat.
Choate’s analysis of welfare is ill-informed, ahistorical and
myopic. His individualistic solutions to the welfare dilemma Â
that the poor should just work harder  flies in the face of
stark economic realities: declining real wages and increasing
marginalization of workers (in terms of bargaining rights, job
security, etc.). His narrow conception of welfare (as assistance to
the unemployed and the poor) ignores the history of extensive
middle-class welfare, such as Social Security, subsidized home
mortgages and corporate welfare in the form of tax breaks,
incentives, and outright subsidies. These programs have enjoyed
considerable political support because they benefit powerful
constituencies, while programs for the poor have been plagued with
questions over their worth.
For the working class to oppose welfare is pure folly and
against its rational self-interest. AFDC, along with unemployment
insurance, serves not only as a safety net but as a protection
against greater exploitation by capital. It sets a floor on wages
and working conditions by setting a bare minimum that employers
must match or exceed if they expect to hire workers. If AFDC and
general assistance look more attractive to potential workers than
certain jobs, the real problem is that the jobs are so exploitive,
not that welfare provides too much.
For the working class to support forcing families into a dismal
labor market without a demanding full employment policy with living
wages is quintessential false consciousness. It reflects the
hegemony of an individualistic ideology that only benefits capital
and harms the rest of us.
Progressive reformers and organized welfare recipients have long
called for better job training, health care reform and affordable
child care so that the poor can work and live decently. The
outlines of truly constructive welfare reform existed long before
the recent draconian measures to kick people off the rolls.
But at the core, the conservative political thrust behind
welfare reform has never been concerned with good policy or helping
the poor. What’s really at stake is labor discipline, especially
against those workers who occupy the most marginal segments of the
economy. Racism, sexism and political retrenchment also figure
heavily into the attacks on welfare. Recent cutbacks constitute a
symbolic (and substantive) taking-back from the ranks of the poor
(especially women of color) the gains they had obtained through a
national mobilization in the late ’60s and early ’70s. They are
about breaking down what flimsy walls we have constructed through
decades of struggle to protect human beings from the excesses of
the profit motive.
The poor are so easy to judge, to scrutinize under a microscope
for flaws in character or spirit. Maybe we judge them, clinging to
the myth of bootstrap meritocracy, in order to assure ourselves
that "we, the meritorious," are fundamentally different from "they,
the lazy." Thus we exempt ourselves from the possibility of
destitution and the very humiliation that we impose on the
have-nots. But this is a morally bankrupt way to build such a false
sense of security. To demand that individuals just work harder is a
false solution to the structural crises in employment and security
posed by the modern economy. These problems are collective, and can
only be solved collectively. Let’s not blindly champion individual
responsibility to the exclusion of social responsibility Â
which is after all the foundation of good citizenship and a good
society. Choate’s version of "American values" is morally bankrupt
and devoid of vision, a poor foundation on which to build a social
contract. We can do much better.