Child Support & Welfare Reform (was RE: working class civil society)

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Mon Mar 27 06:18:52 PST 2000


Yoshie Furuhashi:
> ...
> I'm all for alternative institutions, but I don't think they can meet the
> needs of poor women and children in Ohio (especially if recession comes).
> Why not make the state pay? They got money!

The problem is that Welfare simply confirms the position of the ruling class, and as long as there's a ruling class they are going to play with Welfare in the time-honored manner. It is true that alternative institutions cannot, at this time, meet the needs of poor women and children in Ohio, but that is substantially because most people still believe in bourgeois social democracy. That being the case, it's much more fun to show up at a cocktail party of the Bar Association than a meeting about defending the rights of the poor, and in fact more meaningful -- if one is going to have a bourgeois state one might as well hobnob with the bourgeoisie and write a check or a letter to one's favorite politician in the morning if one happens to feel like it. One has drawn a line, one is inside the pentagram, safe from the devils.

So, while it is certainly a good thing to try to shake more money out of the government, one shouldn't be under the illusion that anything is being changed -- it's a temporary measure against problems which can be actually solved only by anarchy and communism, organized from the ground up.

Gordon



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