Moral Duty and the Welfare State

Bibliographic Data

ID3213237
AuthorsJeffrey Obler (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, corresponding author)
Year1986
Volume39
Issue2
Pages213
Publication date1986-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Western Political Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0043-4078 • E-ISSN: 2325-8675
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/448295
OpenAlexW4236303009
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited12

AID to Families with Dependent Children, Food Stamps, and Medicaid are among the programs in the American welfare system that are intended primarily to help the poor. These programs have been most adversely affected by President Reagan's efforts to spending. They have been so vulnerable, in part, because the poor who benefit from them do not form a large enough voting bloc to protect their interests. Such programs ultimately must rely on the support of the more affluent who are not, and probably will never be, welfare recipients. And this support faded in the late 1970s when middleand upper-income voters became frightened by inflation and economic uncertainty. If one wants to protect welfare from further erosion, such voters must be convinced to act contrary to their short-term, material self-interest by supporting welfare programs for which they must pay but from which they receive no direct benefits. How is this to be done? There seem to be three available strategies. The first plays on bourgeois fears, pointing out that without welfare the poor would be disruptive, committing crimes against property and persons and engaging in violent protests. Welfare, according to this view, mollifies the poor, silencing their opposition to a order dominated by the bourgeoisie. This is called the social control strategy (Piven and Cloward 1971; O'Connor 1973: 162-68). The second strategy appeals to bourgeois compassion, seeking to promote among the more prosperous a concern for the well-being of poor strangers. It then attempts to demonstrate to those who do care that public assistance is the most efficient way for them to transfer their funds to the poor. This is the strategy.2 The third strategy reminds the more affluent that they have a to help the poor. To ignore the needy, this strategy says, is morally wrong. The fairest and most practical way to carry out this is to allow the state, acting on behalf of the non-poor, to assume the to aid those in need. This is the moral duty strategy (Tinder 1979). This strategy differs from the state charity strategy inasmuch as it assumes that state aid to the poor is morally required, and failure to provide such aid is morally wrong. It considers state welfare as analogous to the of parents to care for their small children. For the state charity strategy, on the other hand

Bourgeoisie · Business · Duty · Economics · Law and economics · Opposition (politics) · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science) · Welfare · Welfare state · Computer Science · Law · Political Philosophy and Ethics

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