Keith Hudson: > In much the same way as joining freindly societies, 95% of the workers of > those times also sent their children to fee-paying schools, and paid fees > to their local doctors' and hospitals' panels. > > The fees were moderate, and the workers could afford them because, during > the course of the Industrial Revolution -- never mind the highly selective > views of Dickens, Engels or Marx at that time -- their standard of living > was rising four or five-fold.
Just a very gentle reminder, Keith. Dickens, Engels and Marx were living in those times, you were not. > > But, since the State takeover of charity, the 5% "unworthy" element (my > inference) of the population has now grown to something like 25% (my > present-day estimate) making unjustified claims in one way or another. I wonder how judgemental we should be here? I'm old enough to remember the Great Depression, and the enormous day by day struggle of the "unworthies" of those days, my father among them, to keep their families badly housed and barely fed. "Relief" was a last resort, but ever so many people had to use it, even though they hated to do so. I've done some work at a local food bank and encountered some of the "unworthies" of the present. Some are young immigrant mothers, perhaps the wives of guys like the Slovak immigrant who gets up at four in the morning to make sure I have my newspaper by five thirty. Some are middle-aged men from the Ottawa Valley whose local economy had changed radically, giving them, with their limited skills, no place to fit in. They had come to the city to look for work, but there was nothing here for them either. A few were students, trying to improve themselves, and looking for something to supplement their usual diet of Kraft Dinner. There were a few Native Indians trying to make sense of a world whose culture was alien to them. There may have been some people in that crowd that were in some sense "unworthy", but I would hesitate to try to identify them. > Fact: there is no longer enough money to pay for the continuation of the > Welfare State. Claims will always rise above tax income. I have no problem with the state being in the welfare business, the education business, the health business, etc., etc. In fact, I believe these things are its business, and should be paid for by a fair, progressive tax system. I personally deplore the current ideologically based campaign to weaken, erode and destroy many of the good services that the modern state has come to operate over the past two centuries. It's almost as though educating children has been placed in the same category as selling junk at Walmart. Ed Weick
