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Sweden has cut public consumption as part of GDP,
but most of that happend about ten years ago I think. At that time
Sweden "discovered" that Sweden had an enormous debt, but there was lots of
things to cut. I was driving in northern Sweden in 1980, and the inner parts are
a wilderness, almost nobody lives there, but the roads were of an incredibly
high standard, and nobody was driving there. I hear now that the roads there are
detoriating, but there was no reason to keep those highways in top shape. They
were a mystery to me, somebody said they were "secret" runways for the
Swedish airforce. Sweden has been cutting luxury like that.
Tor
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2003 8:56
PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Re: Retreating
welfare state (was: A conservative Christian economists view of Social
Security)
Hi Tor,
I can't give you a specific
reference but I understand (I think from an Economist of about three months
ago)`that state expenditure in Sweden has been hauled down fom 60% of GDP to
50% and this is still considered too high to be comfortable. The beauty of a
country like Sweden is that its population is small enough that ideas/policies
can be intensively discussed. There's an esprit de corps which is lacking in
larger countries. I don't think it has much to do with being a welfare state
per se. A welfare state in Sweden will always be better/more efficient than a
welfare state in England.
Keith Hudson
At 17:56 12/06/2003
+0200, you wrote:
I will support Ray Harrell.
Sweden is not at all dismantling its wellfare state. And it works very well
in many ways. I read last wednesday (yesterday) that the German
businessmagazin "Wirtschaftswoche" in cooperation with researchers from
"Empirica Delasasse" has ranked 214 European regions, all of EU + Swiss and
Norway, according to innovation, industrial strength etc., and the overall
strongest of all European regions is the Stockholm region. A wellfare
state can produce a strong society!!
And the primary schools in
Sweden are among the very best i the World, much better than both in Norway
and England, according to a new international report that I recently saw,
and it is not private schools. All children in Sweden learn til read and
write and all the other stuff etc. And one important reason to this is
that Sweden spends a very large lot of money on schools. The wellfare state
works if it is properly funded. What happens in England is that funding is
lacking, and then the politicians say that it does not work - it is of no
use - it is just a waste of money. And it gets worse. But it does not have
to be that way. The primary schools in Sweden works very well, and they cost
a lot of money. It happens one gets what one pays
for!!
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: Ray Evans Harrell
- To: Keith Hudson
- Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2003 4:07 PM
- Subject: [Futurework] Re: Retreating welfare state (was: A
conservative Christian economists view of Social Security)
- I don't know about that Keith,
- The one thing we can say is that the
Communists in a perpetual war with the West were not able to do it at
home. Who knows what would have happened if they had tended to their
own people instead of being so evangelical. The same problem
with the churches here. They are being run ragged with the
policies of outreach that fail to minister to the needs of their own
congregations. You should go on the Music Ministry lists and
listen to the decline in graded choirs for example. That's
your constituency. And I don't see where private enterprise
has done jack sh... when it comes to the "music of the spheres" here in a
huge market with weekly performances. They have to keep
running back to their manual because they aren't doing much thinking about
home for themselves. . Eventually it will all break down,
because at its heart even their manual doesn't support them in their
economics. Also, the Americans' who have immigrated to Germany
to work in the Arts speak of it being a heaven while here is a hell.
They aren't immigrating, I might add, to England either in spite of your
14 orchestras in London. Do you have labor laws that keep our
instrumentalists and the Russians out? We have absorbed
a body blow here from the very institutions that the American propaganda
machine demeaned, the old Communist arts system. They have
flooded our market with superb musicians, superbly trained and have driven
down an already low standard of living that is only lower in Capitalist
Russia today. And finally, why are all of those people
marching in France and what about the articles that Tor Forde keeps
sending from Norway and we don't have any Chinese, Swedes or Danes on this
list. I deal with them in my business and they aren't crying
the same tears you and I talk about all the time. So maybe the
issue is cultural. Maybe Soros is right. Or
maybe you are a fundamentalist after all?
- REH
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: Keith Hudson
- To: Ray Evans Harrell
- Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2003 2:34 AM
- Subject: Retreating welfare state (was: A conservative Christian
economists view of Social Security)
- Ray,
- I am very far from being a member of Terrell's constituency but I
think he has a stronger case than you care to admit. It should be
more than apparent now than the welfare state in developed countries does
not diminish poverty or degradation -- and is a very expensive way of not
doing so also!
- The welfare state in the developed countries can only exist now by the
assent of the non-poor who vote in elections, so those people have to be
bribed, albeit very subtlely. Over my lifetime there have been more and
more ways in which the middle class receive more subsidies and state help
than the poor, whatever complexion of government is in power. However, as
the burden of taxation grows then the bribes have necessarily become less
subtle in order that more of the voters are included in the net.
- However, as in Soviet Russia, there's a limit to how much the state
can tax and redistribute without the whole country falling into a state of
demoralisation. (Of course, I realise that the USSR didn't have a formal
taxation system -- redistribution was done in other ways.) Even in the
arch-welfare states, such as Sweden, they are cutting back on taxation and
welfare redistribution as quickly as they know how. We are probably
reaching the limits of taxation now in developed countries (as the
condition of France and Germany well testifies) and the only way that a
right-wing government in America and a left-wing government in England can
maintain the system is by bribing the middle class.Terrell has a very
telling sentence in his article:
- <<<<
- Cutting benefits will succeed politically only if a large number are
"grandfathered" into the current benefits setup.
- >>>>
- . . . which is exactly what is happening. I don't know the figures for
America, but the latest dodge in England is that a middle-class family
earning up to 75,000 pounds per year (US$120,000 -- a very adequate income
you'll admit) is receiving family credits! I doubt whether the state
system (and, remember that there is a large state-employed lobby whatever
political party is nominally in control) can get away with much more, and
I think there will have to be a retreat fairly soon. Some recourse to
Terrell-type nostrums will have to take place. It will probably produce
more problems than we have now but it will at least be affordable.
- Keith Hudson
- At 00:21 12/06/2003 -0400, you wrote:
- Since we don't have conservative
Christian economists on this list. I think it is a liberal
thing to do to be sure that we read a few of the people who Bush listens
to. This man says he didn't vote for Bush. I
suspect Bush is too liberal for him. I invited him to the
list but he declined not very respectfully. But I think his
view is important to know and answer. I'm sure that Kutlow and
Kramer on MSNBC agree with the gist of what he says although they
probably are not of his faith or rationalization. Both claim
to have the ear of the White House.
- REH
-
- Social Security and the Family
- Timothy D. Terrell
- April 4, 2003
- Families in our society are fragmented in ways that would have been
difficult to comprehend centuries ago. This is all the more strange
because we are better able than any of our ancestors to communicate and
meet with family members. The market economy has produced a wide variety
of machines that allow us to speak with and see people across thousands
of miles, and travel distances in a few hours that would once have taken
weeks. With this capacity to keep in touch with family members, why is
it that we have a greater disregard for family connections than did
previous generations?
- Perhaps one reason is that we are less dependent on one another than
in times past. Before the state began to provide welfare in its various
forms, unemployment insurance, and Social Security, the family and the
church were the primary sources of assistance for an individual
suffering hardship. The family would properly be the first resort when
individual resources were exhausted (I Timothy 5:8, 16). Thus, the
individual who neglected family obligations, was quarrelsome, or
isolated himself geographically from the family became exposed to
greater risk.
- The wider availability of insurance has increased the ability of the
individual to purchase protection from some hazards. Yet even when
insurance can alleviate some risks, there are serious eventualities that
would cause an isolated individual or small family to suffer immensely
if the family or church does not step in. Insurance arrangements are
better suited for those events that are unlikely, expensive, and are not
substantially influenced by the insured's own behavior. Insurance is not
for events that are likely. For example, aging, and a decline in the
ability to earn income, is a likely event in the lives of most people.
Saving is better preparation for retirement than insurance. In the event
that catastrophic loss destroys savings, or higher-than-expected
expenses mean that the savings are inadequate, the family or church may
be called upon for help.
- Social Security is a poor substitute for this kind of old-age
"safety net," in addition to whatever we might be able to say about its
being beyond the legitimate scope of the civil government. First, Social
Security is a wealth transfer scheme and not a savings plan or a
charity. Money paid into the system goes to fund the benefits of current
Social Security recipients, and not into actual savings accessible only
by the contributor. Payments do not stop when the total amount received
comes to more than the person paid in over their lifetime, plus any
reasonable rate of interest. Instead, the payments continue, courtesy of
those still working (who have no say in whether they pay in to the
system or not).
- Second, Social Security does not allow for the use of discretion in
relief of the impoverished. Yet the Bible requires us to use discretion
in deciding whether to provide assistance, how much assistance to
provide, and the nature of the assistance (e.g., I Timothy 5:3-16).
- Third, Social Security does not allow unused benefits to be retained
and passed on to heirs as an inheritance. In contrast, family funds
allocated to the support of an elderly family member would remain in the
control of the family if the supported individual should not live as
long as expected.
- Fourth, Social Security is poor stewardship of the resources used to
fund the system. Because it is a wealth transfer scheme instead of
actual savings, the money going into the system is not being invested in
the economy. The economy's rate of growth is substantially slowed by
Social Security, as several economic studies have shown.
- Finally, Social Security eliminates some of the economic benefits
that come from having large families. William Mattox, Jr., writing in
USA Today (July 6, 1999), notes Allan Carlson's argument that
today's smaller families may be related to Social Security:
- [I]t's funny how "maybe one" advocates never get around to
complaining about the fact that their Social Security benefits will be
largely financed by other people's children. Indeed, Allan Carlson,
president of the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, points
out that government old-age programs tend to disrupt the natural
economic incentive for adults to invest themselves in child rearing.
- Carlson says that if Social Security did not rob Peter to pay Paul,
Americans would be more apt to appreciate the long-term social-insurance
value of raising children. And Americans would be more apt to question
various economic projections about how ridiculously "expensive" child
rearing is today.
The presence of Social
Security can serve as an excuse for family members, and the church, to dodge
their responsibilities to widows and orphans. Because Social Security is
available, parents may not be as concerned about maintaining a close
relationship with their children, or church members with their church. When
one is not financially dependent on another, one may be less inclined to
resolve differences and pursue peace.
The church is a backup for the
family when the family cannot provide for its own needy (again, see I
Timothy 5:16). Yet the family should be the first recourse when disaster
strikes. Social Security bypasses the church, and makes the church and the
family unit less economically relevant, and therefore less effective.
How, then can our society move toward a more family- and
church-oriented system of economic dependencies, and away from our current
dependency on the state? The first step will be a renewed recognition of the
mutual responsibilities family members and church members have toward one
another, and a preparation to meet those needs. Families should save not
only for vacations, houses, education, and retirement, but for emergencies
beyond the immediate family. Churches should become sources of practical
assistance, and not simply direct the needy to state programs.
Next,
the state can assist in returning charity and old-age provision to families
by phasing out Social Security. There is no way to do this without someone
losing some benefit they expected. Some group is going to receive less than
it expected, whether those currently receiving benefits or those currently
paying in to the system. Cutting benefits will succeed politically only if a
large number are "grandfathered" into the current benefits setup. But the
sooner Social Security taxes are ended, the sooner money will be freed up to
go into personal savings and charitable efforts. Some nations have phased
out their own Social security systems by moving to required contributions to
individual IRA-type investments. The state has no legitimate authority to
require people to provide for their retirement in any fashion, but at least
the wealth redistribution aspect of old age provision would be reduced.
As difficult as the politics may be, eliminating Social Security is,
I believe, a moral obligation. The closer we move to reestablishing the
family as an economic support network, the stronger our society will be.
Timothy Terrell teaches economics at a small liberal arts
college in South Carolina. In addition, he is director of the Center for
Biblical Law and Economics, on the Internet at http://www.christ-college.edu/html/cble/.
Dr. Terrell can be contacted at [EMAIL PROTECTED].
Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England
Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England
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