>
> I'm with you on this, but this is a hard one to get working class support
> for. There's a lot of working class hostility to welfare recipients in the
> U.S. Part of this is the result of propaganda, for sure, but it's also a
> result of real living conditions - "if I have to work why should they get a
> check for doing nothing?" And I think the idea of an income without work
> would strike lots of people as dreamily impractical.
> It's a lot easier to
> find support for jobs programs and a higher minimum wage then it is to find
> support for something-for-nothing.
But, as you know, the whole system is based on something for nothings. Income streams accruing from stock& bonds, interest on one's bank accounts, landlords collecting rent and corporate welfare. Noone who collects income from these sources can be said to be working for or earning their money. The usual defense is that such income is reward for risk or reward for waiting. As David Schweickert convincingly argued in _Against Capitalism_ neither argument holds water. The difference is that one must challenge either the absolute nature of property rights or challenge the very concept of a property right itself in attacking the above sources of income whereas in attacking welfare one defends the absolute nature of property rights.( "it is morally wrong to take from Peter to give to Paul"). The above income streams are ways of transfering income from the poor to the rich and welfare transfers income from the rich to the poor.
Anyway, that's what I always tell'em.
Sam Pawlett