Calvin

We were led to believe that the modern Western democratic governments give the unemployed money because governments are "good". Run by "good" people.

The real reason however is: The govs. are being ORDERED by their political investors (the elite) to give the unemployed money IN ORDER FOR THE ELITE TO STAY IN POWER. That is the real reason.

Imagine what happens if Social security would be closed down completely. No more state benefits. Finished. Within days you would see millions of hungry and angry poor people coming out of all corners and rebel and take the govs(and with that the sponsoring elite) down. REVOLUTION!

Social security is an ice cold calculation. A compromise. A RANSOM. First the govs coerce as many people as possible into paying taxes to the state corporation. The rest of the population who are either not ABLE or not WILLING to be tax-slaves receive a RANSOM by the gov to shut up, to keep quiet. To prevent the revolution. To keep the system alive, therefore to keep the other slaves producing.

The elite sacrifices one small part of the population doing nothing in order to keep the other major part slaving. That's why they will keep Social Security alive no matter how much the state is in debt. Of course they use the media to always make the unemployed LOOK BAD, to make them feel lazy and selfish, but that is only part of the game to keep the working slaves feel proud of themselves. Pride creation is an important psychological part in successful slavery. Like logo carrying, holding up the flag of the corporation, cheering for it and singing the company song…….

The day Social Security fails, the real revolution begins. The overthrow of today's elite.

The day will come when Centrelink will be closed down. We, the people of this land will take back the land the elite stole from us, we will start building houses without permissions, be autonomous, create our businesses the way we want, grow and trade the way we want, without licence and mafia(gov) crap. We drink raw milk and sell it and nobody will stop us. We stop the fluoride poisoning and organize our own water. We will brew beer and sell it without tax and it will be cheap. All labour will become cheaper, because we won't pay tax to the rich mafia.

Hayek

Or... the motives are actually good and possibly even backed by the logic of chance in achieving success and failure. I think it makes a lot more sense that the intentions are good, but sometimes some policies lead to unintended consequences. Statistically this probably is more realistic than massive collusion on the part of the "elite" to quell the rest.

Simon

Calvin,

You're pretty much spot on regarding the Welfare State.

The Prussian President and later Chancellor of the German Empire, Otto von Bismark essentially invented the system of welfare we have today in the West.

If it strikes you as strange that the so called "Iron Chancellor" would invent and introduce a system of welfare to supposedly look after the poor and sick, you only need to look at the reasons that were given at the time. In those days I guess the art of 'spin doctoring' hadn't been perfected, so we don't really have to read between the lines too much to educe subtle or hidden meaning.

The Chancellor and his supporters were quite clear. The purpose of the welfare state was to bind the people to the State with chains of gratitude, so that they would never have the feeling that they could make it on their own. In other words, it was a system designed by its founder to create and maintain dependence of the people on the State for the purpose of maintaining and expanding State power by undermining individual self-reliance and independence and promoting collective subordination and dependence.

To that end, it works very well, just as the Chancellor intended.