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April 10, 2007
The CIS is one of Australia's neo-liberal think tanks that has its roots in the work of Hayek. So it has a problem with the centralized state, by which it is meant the welfare state of social democracy that was put in place in the 2Oth century. It is argued that the main driver of big government has been the inexorable increase in spending on the welfare state (not just cash benefits, but also services like health and education). Even though the population is getting more affluent, and should therefore be more capable of looking after itself without government assistance, the welfare state keeps getting bigger.
In his Families under Capitalism article in the current issues of the CIS Policy magazine Peter Saunders points the finger at the welfare state in relation to the decline of the traditional family and face-to-face communities.
CIS contests the social democratic view that government are needed to protect public health, provide welfare and to advance the general welfare. CIS holds that governmental respect for individual freedom and the autonomy of nongovernmental spheres of authority is a requirement of political morality. Government must not try to run people's lives or usurp the roles and responsibilities of families, religious bodies, and other character- and culture-forming authoritative communities. Saunders says:
Many factors contributed to the disruption of family life and the erosion of social responsibility that occurred from the 1960s onwards, but one was almost certainly the growth of big government and the remorseless expansion of the welfare state. Why marry the father of your child if government benefits will provide you with a secure and regular income if you don’t? Why ask the grandparents to help with looking after the baby if the government is willing to give you money to buy child care? Why join a mutual health fund if the government is willing to make free health treatment available through Medicare? Why volunteer your time building up and running community facilities if the government can supply them with a wave of its cheque book? In modern Australia, it sometimes seems the only compelling reason for getting together with other people is to demand that the government do more for you.
This is the nanny state thesis. The state looks after you from the cradle to the grave. So we Australians have no self-reliance and cannot stand on our own two feet. We have lost the rugged individualism prized by classical liberalism. We suck the tit of the welfare state as mommy. Hence we--Saunders means the working class-- are regressive. What is required is limited government.
What is not considered by Saunders is that many Australians in a neo-liberal world may need to use both grandparents and childcare; that single mothers may not marry the father of their child because he is a bastard; that many Australians continue to run community facilities in their own time; and many people use both a health fund and Medicare. 'Many Australians' includes the moral middle class and not just the regressive working class.
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