| Reasonable said: I'd disagree it's a huge part of the picture. The number of people cheating that severly - i.e having kids, etc. - is small compared to the number of people fairly using the welfare system in the UK. I'm pretty sure the lingering effects of the class system and other much longer term aspects of British history, coupled with other more important more recent factors all have a larger effect than the welfare system. I'd say the cheating of the welfare system by some is more of a symptom than a cause and also is more down to the system being open to cheating than anything else. TBH I think any system that can be exploited will be, from the exploitation of of the UK's welfare system to the exploitation in the US of the overly deregulated and uncontrolled financial investment system. In short, people will often exploit any social or commercial system for their own benefit if given the chance. Based on data points I get the impression that we should be seeing a lot more rioting/looting in a lot of other countries if having a major welfare system was a huge part of the picture. As a final point I'm fairly confident that in general UK citizens haven't been conditioned to be "welfare queens" at all in any pervasive sense. Again, other factors in certain demographics have given rise to that situation and the welfare system just happens to be one of many systems such people will try and exploit. |
I do agree that people will find a way to exploit any system, but the welfare system seems far more given to abuse than any other. For one thing it, has a corrupting influence on both the citizenry and the government. The people figure out that they can - per Alexander Tyler - vote themselves largess out of the public treasury, and politicians are only too glad to indulge them in it, and it's only a matter of time before the whole scheme collapses. For another, even if we agree that it's a fine system in theory and put aside any concerns one might have about how just it is for the productive class to subsidize the lives of the unproductive, in practice it is folly to expect any government (especially today's bloated bureaucracies) to properly administrate it. But maybe I've just become cynical after seeing one too many stories like this.
Also, I don't think the problem with the financial system in the US is that it's too deregulated. On the contrary, the housing bubble and personal debt crisis were actually stoked by the government demanding that, if a bank wants to open a new branch or take part in a merger, they will have to relax lending standards to make it easier for minorities to get loans. So the banks figured out a way to make that work to their advantage... at least until it all blew up in everyone's face, at which point they were bailed out by the government and no one really learned their lesson.
