Utopian Welfare

In this essay I aim to describe how I would construct the optimal welfare state. Welfare is a relatively autonomous part of society and thus allows us to devise a system that is applicable in most societies. Other areas of my utopian vision are much more entwined and require certain conditions from other areas to work appropriately. With this not being the case for welfare this essay may be useful in more respects other than utopian ideals in the present day. I recently found myself returning to this topic when a friend noted the significant number of absentee parents in the recent trials of the under aged English rioters. They postulated a potential positive correlation between the parents that would not attend a court hearing for their child and a disposition for those children to have criminal behaviours. They substantiated this claim with two recent scientific studies on birds and on monkeys, where those individuals who are not offered some degree of parenting act very poorly towards the other members of the group in later life. Much as one can use statistics to almost any end they see fit the underlying point is valid; that poor upbringing does appear to be the most common trait in troublesome persons. I sat there for a while unable to think of a single friend I had or person I respected that did not have moral, caring and supportive parents.

The fact that love and support while an individual develops is highly beneficial is far from a revelation, the trouble is how does a society ensure that this occurs as much as possible? H. G. Wells offers us a solution to this problem that does not sit to comfortably in ethical areas but that assuredly would obtain the desired effect more frequently. He suggest a licence or the necessity to obtain the right to have children in society, which causes multiple new problems in attempting to solve one. Firstly it would not only deny a freedom, but the most fundamental freedom and reason for existence we have (procreation). Secondly, it would create an underclass of “unlicensed people” who would be subject to discrimination and suffering if either history or writers are anything to go by. Thirdly the conditions for allowable procreation would need to be determined in some manner leading to some very awkward merging of politics in to genetics. If the requirements for this licence were not appropriate then it may also do harm to society in the long run rather than any good. I find eugenics morally grey at the very best of times and deem it a very dangerous tool to use regardless of application. I can appreciate the need of eugenics in population level control as that is essentially a survival tool and presumably also a last resort. I cannot however condone the use of eugenics in the hope of bettering people as this would seem to be fuelled by impatience rather than necessity.

[As an aside, genetic engineering is clearly the way to approach the bettering of man as improvement to society erodes the usefulness of evolutionary mechanics. This offers individuals the right to choose the best bits of themselves rather than allowing society to choose what it deems are the best people to breed. I am not against playing god as it has frequently been coined, which seems odd as we have been selectively breeding for millennia achieving similar ends over a much longer time period. I am against the denial of personal freedom hence the disapproval of eugenics, I fear however we do need to play god as medicine and other technologies allow us to devolve. Possible evidence to support this is the notable levels of infertility and poor eyesight in humanity.]

In accepting that eugenics is not the answer to encouraging good parenting and therefore creating a supply of good members for society I tried to conceive of a way in which bad parenting could be discouraged. The only suggestion I could make towards this end is the threat of potential legal action against not only the perpetrator of a crime but also to a lesser extent to their legal guardians. I suggested a financial disincentive, perhaps a requirement to pay a portion of the cost of incarceration or punishment. The same friend who began the debate found this idea abhorrent due to the presumed guilt of the parents pre-trial. They argued this would deny freedoms and was unjust, which I had to agree with. The idea of penalizing parents for antisocial offspring was left at an impasse as no solution could be found to remove the injustice that didn't waste a lot of time and effort, and as always be subject to abuses based on wealth.

At this stage in the debate I realised that we are essentially doing the exact reverse of this in the UK and probably many other places too. We do not need to penalise bad parents, we first need to stop providing additional incentives to have children. While child benefits are born of the best intentions I would argue that they have the reverse effect, rather than ensuring all children have an appropriate start in life they create a selection of people who have been brought into this world for the financial advantages they will bring to the parent. Even those people who are not so directly mercenary with their parenting will still often be swayed to some extent in their decision to have children by the financial aid. This is not to say that people shouldn't consider their finances before conceiving but that financial reasons should be secondary to the desire to have children. Any person who does not desire kids as their first reason for having them should not have them as their parenting will be equally second rate (unless they then grow to have their kids as the number one priority which is fortunate but does not mean having them in the first place was not reckless of them).

I wish to find a compromise where cash handouts to parents do not exist and thus cannot provide incentive to second rate parents but that still ensures appropriate provision for children born into poverty. It would be for much the same reasons that people are encouraged to give food and clothes to homeless people rather than money, as often that money will end up being spent on other things. Cash handouts for having children is my prime target but in general I wish to create a welfare system which never provides cash support. This has been realised in health and education in the UK as a service is provided rather than cash to sort out the requirement privately and independently. Ill people are not given a pile of money and told to go and find private care, and if they were what proportion of people would put up with the malady and pocket the money?

NHS 27.0%

Education 19.4%

Housing 2.1% (benefits in kind)

Pension 17.8%

Incapacity 4.1%

Unemployment 0.5%

Income Support 9.3%

Child Benefit 5.0%

Disability Benefit 5.0%

Housing Benefit 6.4% (non-contributory)

Other 1.5% (of which 0.6% contributory)

This is the breakdown of UK welfare spending in 1996/7 from a total of £190 billion (roughly a quarter of the GDP and half total government spending). By 2010 the GDP had doubled but government total spending was more like a third of the GDP, of which 64% was made up by the above categories. Although a higher proportion of government spending in 2010 was upon welfare it is slightly less than in 1996/7 relative to GDP. The most notable change in the breakdown of welfare spending over that time period is that pensions increased from 17.8% to 26.6% which is to be expected and not really relevant to this essay. I provide these figured not to make any specific point but to show roughly how much money there is and where it goes so that the merits and feasibility of an alternate system can be appreciated.

My understanding of welfare is where society provides for those less able or less fortunate than the average person. It provides social justice and a mechanism by which “natural equality” may be moved towards. There are two main arguments to provide welfare in society, the first is offered by Edward Bellamy and has been mentioned previously in my essays. It simply states that most of our advantages cannot be attributed to ourselves but to our society and ancestors and thus the spoils should be more evenly distributed based on existence as well as aptitude rather than solely the latter. The second argument may be found within the reasons for the formation of society, that the whole may be more productive than the sum of it's constituents. By raising the situations of the lowest in society you will ensure an increase throughout and a greater average quality of life (an appealing utilitarian approach). This is not only for fiscal reasons but also resulting from reductions in crime and increased social morality and compassion.

While education does facilitate the improvement of society it is not something I deem to be provided for the less fortunate. Education is more akin to a service like public transport which helps all persons regardless of situation. Education is also one of the most important topics in a utopian description and will have significant time dedicated to describing the optimal solutions. For these reasons education will be outside the scope of utopian welfare and left for a topic all of it's own.

State health services are provided to those in need, and not with cash handouts, and as such are already in the form I should like to see other areas of welfare adopt. While I am sure the NHS and other state health services could be improved it would largely be organisational and logistical improvements rather than those of application. As I am far from an expert on how any health system is run I will leave such things alone. To the extents to my understandings the NHS is an area of society that closest represents it's utopian counterpart and for this it must be commended. I should recommend a similar system for any society, utopian or otherwise.

With health and education removed from the debate we are left with how to best apply child, housing, unemployment, incapacity and disability benefits, income support and state pensions. As far as I am aware each of these areas of welfare in the UK are, for the most part, cash handouts and also subject to abuses and fraud. The most pernicious of these is child benefits as it can incur second rate parenting but any welfare abuses are undesirable in society. By adopting a form more like the NHS ,abuses of welfare become harder and fewer. Where possible therefore welfare should be given in the form of a service and not financial aid. There are situations where it would be most convenient for the state to cover some of an individuals costs rather than force a change of lifestyle. These should be offered as long term repayment interest free loans from the state giving people a time buffer in which to sort their situation out so that they may not require the services of the welfare system. I will show where this may be useful once I have described the potential services state may offer in replacement of cash benefits. The key difference is the expectation of repayment for a cash benefit.

The main service I should like to see offered by a utopian welfare system is network of large communal care houses. These houses would be staffed with cleaners, cooks, nurses and various forms of care workers. The houses would be able to offer rooms of various sizes to any in need and completely free of charge. Meals would be made and also provided free of charge. I am not well versed enough in the care industry to be able to provide specific details on these houses. I do not know if these houses could be used for most kinds of people in need or if it would be better to specialize. I would like to think the former was best as it would be both easier to set up and more communal. I suspect the best solution would be as many as possible which would house anyone with a few specialist ones here and there for extreme and unusual people. These houses would be of a good standard but would only offer private rooms like bedrooms, with cleaning, cooking and social areas all being communal. They would offer less freedom to the individual than living in your own home would but ideally not a lower quality of life (assuming one can differentiate quality from freedom). Each house would be run by a state paid patriarch or matriarch as if it were theirs and all the other residents were their guests. Individuals or families could come and live in these communal houses. The aim would be to create a warm and friendly environment somewhere between a large family and a small society. There should also always be surplus rooms to requirement to ensure the service may always be offered. They would resemble some blend of homeless shelter, hostel, retirement home, job centre and B&B, and are there primarily to act as a safety net for any persons who come into enough financial difficulty so as to not be able to support themselves. This could be the elderly who have no private pension or savings, it could be families who can no longer afford food and accommodation due to prolonged unemployment.

While my lack of knowledge of the care industry prevents me from giving specific details on how these places should run I have a strong vision of the feel these places should have which may be useful to attempt a description of. I imagine large eclectic buildings dotted all over the country. Most in towns and cities but some more rural. The atmosphere would be homely with smells of home baking and washing. As you entered such a place you would see mostly communal areas coming of a central reception hall. A sitting area with a few elderly people reading and playing games to the left. A few computers are on a desk in a corner being used for internet access. An open doorway leads into a dining area which is simply a large room filled with tables and chairs that leads on finally to a kitchen where a few members of staff and a few residents are preparing a selection of foods. The windows look out to the garden which contains a few fruit trees and a large vegetable growing area. Behind this is a lawn with a few flower beds surrounding them. No staff are in sight but a few children are playing with a ball in the garden while a few more doze in deckchairs placed in the hope of avoiding the children and their ball. Periodically a glimpse is caught of an earthy person stooped amongst the veg. Back inside the far end of the hallway that divides the ground floor in two one can see, to the other side of the kitchen across the hall, lies the communal washing area with baths, showers, toilets and washing machines. Offering privacy yet making good use of space. A small office sits at the far end and beyond that is a more lively communal area with a television and a table football table occupied by what appears to be a couple of extended families engaged in a cacophony of activities. Behind the office in the central hallway is a large open stairway that leads up four floors. Each of these floors contains only bedrooms, the first has some with multiple rooms, a few with two and a few with three. The top three floors have mostly just single rooms. Random pictures and photos dot the walls and surfaces accompanies with curious trinkets and ornaments that look neither cluttered nor designed. The house is very light with big clean windows ascending the atrium containing the stairs. Everything creaks and squeaks but the noises sound like cheeky birdsong as thick patchy carpets absorb any chance of an echo. As people come and go they pass near the window of the office from which a motherly voice can be heard saying things like “you need a coat in the weather” and “good luck with your interview this afternoon” as if the occupant has some sixth sense for who passes as no vision is possible. Out the main door a large friendly looking man in the later years of his life wearing some recognizable security uniform smiles and nods at passers by. With the door closed the man in uniform is the only thing to distinguish this house from any other along the side street of the city centre. The total capacity is around sixty people able to reside there supported by about twenty staff total although it would be rare to find more than about six at any one time and probably only two at times.

This communal housing safety net allows for the removal of cash handouts in the the name of child benefits, state pensions, unemployment benefits, housing benefits and income support. The utopian mechanism for a family that comes into financial difficulties and feels like they will be unable to support themselves is to first apply for loaned aid. Say the main bread winner loses their job the state may offer to loan a similar quantity of money as their salary for a period of time or until new employment is found. If this is not achieved in the time period the loans are stopped and the family moves into the communal housing until they are able to financial support a move out again. State is under no more obligation to provide for people as the communal housing offers all the requirements of life for free. Children would not need subsidy to promote a better provided for upbringing as suitable alternatives would exist, potentially offering a better environment in which to grow up in. By offering residence to a large cross section of those who need it you avoid creating a nexus for certain kinds of problem associated with certain demographics.

The same applies to pensions and unemployment benefits in that they are under no further obligation to assist people with cash with the availability of the communal houses I have described. The utopian state is effectively saying that it will ensure food, warmth, shelter and care are available to each and every citizen in need. Should an individual wish to provide these things for themselves to allow for greater freedom of choice it is better for society but society will not facilitate this choice directly with cash subsidy. The intent is that the social stigma surrounding the requirement for welfare combined with the increased freedoms outside of the welfare system provide enough incentive for people to live within their own means and contribute to society rather than live off it. This means people will still likely save and pay into pensions for when they are no longer capable of work. Various forms of insurance would still exists to ensure that a similar standard of life can be enjoyed by the individual regardless of other events. It also means that people will be less inclined to have children if they might struggle to support them, yet are still cared and provided for if they find they cannot.

To house and feed everyone who needs and is receiving child, housing, income, unemployment or pension type benefits would cost the state a fortune. I would suggest however that if we already lived in a society which had my utopian welfare system in place that far fewer people would find themselves in need as the responsibility falls more on them and the incentives are greater. A reasonably slow integration of the utopian welfare system would be needed alongside a slow but continuing reduction of cash benefits to make it practicable. I believe that the provision of communal housing and care instead of cash benefits would ultimately cost society a good deal less. About 40% of total welfare spending is on the various things I believe state can justify removing if communal housing as I have described is provided as an alternative. If that is compared to the 27% of welfare spending on the NHS or as a portion of GDP, about 15%, or even in nominal terms of about £80 billion in 1996/7 or almost £200 billion in 2010 we can begin to see both how much money there is to create jobs and infrastructure in communal houses and how much we could save. I cannot imagine a nationwide system of communal houses that could cost more than the NHS, the running and equipment costs are significantly lower and while the capacity may need to be more that is not the significant portion of the cost.

With incapacity benefits I am inclined towards the opinion that it removes individual freedom to force someone to effectively insure themselves against incapacity via taxation. While I think it is very helpful to provide a means to support a person rendered unable to work for a period of time I think the responsibility to do so resides in the worker and the employer and not the state thus providing a choice and therefore greater individual freedom. The employer should probably be obliged to subsidise the living of any worker who becomes incapacitated and thus choose weather they wish to insure themselves against such occurrences or front the cost themselves. The individual may also wish to insure themselves too if they are not consistently employed or stipulations and limits apply to their companies policies. Pensions and incapacity benefits fall into a similar category of cash handouts that I find reasonable and sensible but that I cannot find good reason to provide a state guarantee for with a communal housing safety net in place. State could offer these things but to ensure no loss of personal freedoms they would have to be optional and in being so would be exactly the same as a private pension or insurance.

Disability benefits are the hardest part of the welfare system to work out a sensible system for. Although similar to incapacity in some respects it is different enough to warrant entirely different treatment. In part because many disabilities are from birth and as such one cannot insure against them. A disability is permanent unlike incapacity and therefore may well require a new career should the disability prevent the person from doing their old job. In most cases an incapacity would be waited out until the person could return to their old career. People are unique and disabilities vary greatly, as such I feel the only sensible way to approach this aspect of welfare is to do so on a case-by-case basis. A person with a disability or guardian thereof should be able to apply for support from the state should they feel they will suffer a loss in the quality of life as a direct result of the disability. An employee of state would then work with the applicants and offer support in the form of financial aid for certain things that directly help with the disability and also by offering care worker support. There would need to be some rough guidelines with allowable discrepancies to make it function, and working out reasonable allowances for various conditions would take some time to make both fair and appropriate. The financial aid would only be given in conjunction with a purchase made for a service or piece of equipment to aid with the disability. For example there may be a standard amount the state offers in assistance with the purchasing of a wheel chair. People may wish to spend more than they are given in aid which is fine but they will be required to cover the difference. Not only would the state employee working with the disabled be able to offer various forms of aid but they would have contacts in a variety of other things that can be of help such as therapists, suitable employers and social groups. Included with this service should be a reasonable spread of specialist schools and centres that are government funded. Having no first hand experience of such facilities I have no idea as to the standard and availability of such places anywhere in the world. I suspect the density and quality of these places follow affluence, I should like to see them follow requirement and offer a top rate service where ever they are placed. This level of care and service sounds very expensive and would likely incur a greater portion of the welfare budget than it presently does. I cannot imagine too many people will renounce the suggestion of spending more to help the lives of the disabled, particularly when other suggestions will likely more than offset the additional costs in this area.

There are two main criticisms of my utopian idea of removing cash handouts from the welfare system. The first I have tackled lightly already but not covered all of the issues. One cannot simply remove the cash benefits, particularly the pensions which have likely been incorporated into long term plans. Any system needs a appropriate and immediate replacement if one wishes to impatiently do away with one. My proposal for communal housing offering the necessities of life free of charge is neither of these things. One of the most significant costs in such a system is the infrastructure and the get all that in place while still paying full whack on benefits would be onerous on government funds. The influx of people that might need such places to live if one simply removed benefits too would also increase cost in the requirements for more capacity, not to mention the social costs of causing upheaval in so many lives. The solution is still to integrate gradually over a long time period. The problem with attempting to phase out cash benefits over a long period of time is the terms of government most countries with large welfare budgets operate under. The country will change political leadership numerous times and change policy enough to make long terms plans infeasible. This is not to say conditions cannot arise where it could happen but rather to plan for such conditions would be optimistic. The first two places to start enacting changes in the right direction under standard democracies is to reduce cash benefits slightly and reasonably whenever possible and set up state funded services that provide useful support, they can be wildly different from my communal houses provided they provide a non-cash means of useful aid to those in need.

The second concern regarding the communal houses is regarding what disincentives would exist to stop people just living there. Certainly they would have less freedom in regards some choices but the time they could be saving due to not working could be regarded as gaining more freedom. Although not designed with luxury as a priority the intent would be to provide a good standard of living. The trick would be to use an approximate average of the minimum wage standard of living as the upper bar. Should the standard become better than a minimum wage could afford then you might observe an influx of people choosing to live in such places. Getting a good level of service that improves alongside the lowest living standards in society is not something that can guarantee continued success but it does imply that raising the lowest standards of living are an aim for such a society. Other mechanisms could be incorporated to reduce the numbers of people who would choose to live in the free communal housing such as a requirement to move on or make donations upon reaching certain levels of income. Helping out with the running of these places could become common place for residents. My final counter argument to this problem is simply – so what? Society may stand to benefit from supporting certain individuals in this way. It could be cheaper than in other ways, it could be healthier for those people and help prevent them dissociating from society. Those with only apathy towards work are often more counter-productive if forced to do so

and may serve society better to support at minor expense. Finally such places may provide refuge for the creative sorts who enrich society with their works despite finding no commercial interest for them. The greatest of minds often seek little comfort in material objects and wish only to provide their body with the basics so as to free their mind from those mundane tasks of maintenance. The small financial burden upon state may well be overwhelmingly offset by cultural stimulus. All these things taken into account this problem feels like the lesser of the two and while certain to exist, it seems unlikely to be significant.

That concludes the descriptions and arguments of my utopian welfare system exclusive of education and health. In summary it avoids any cash hand out, only ever loaning money as an attempt at providing a time buffer to people who suffer sudden changes of circumstance. Most forms of financial security that can be found in the society are private (or at least optional) such as pensions, life insurance and so forth. To make up for the loss of all financial forms of support to those in various kinds of need the state provides a high standard of those things considered to be the necessities of life. Disability welfare being the only exemption from the communal housing fall back, where more specific aid must be offered despite the greater cost. Overall the system is simpler, cheaper, less bureaucratic and less open to abuses or providing incentives for socially poor choices. In some respects it could be regarded as crueller but I think it needs to be in order to promote the right values in people. It is very easy to draw comparison between the effects that upbringing have on people from parents and from state. To assist parents in their great task of raising children a state must show similar care, support and affection towards its citizens and must do so in appropriately moral ways. A welfare system as I have described is intended to be like the loving home of society one can return to if all else fails, it is a comforting safety net that mimics a loving family and not the kind of parent that is viewed only as an ATM. It wants it's citizens to be able to grow strong and fly free from this homely nest but does not demand it. Where state would have to act unethically to impose on how individuals parent to create good citizens, it may instead act to all as if it were that good parent.