User:Leucosticte/Critique of Rothbard's statements concerning the dole

"Another powerful factor in swelling the welfare rolls is the increasing disappearance of the various sturdy disincentives for going on welfare. The leading disincentive has always been the stigma that every person on the welfare dole used to feel, the stigma of being parasitic and living off production instead of contributing to production. This stigma has been socially removed by the permeating values of modern liberalism"

Actually, I think that stigma will always exist. Your work is part of what makes you an interesting person. You go out and meet people and solve problems. Your mind is stimulated a lot more than if you sat around watching TV. (On the other hand, if you were to actually be learning something from TV, then it wouldn't be all that much different than taking time off work to attend college, which doesn't carry a stigma.)

"The 'classical' view of the social worker was to help people to help themselves, to aid people in achieving and maintaining their independence and to stand on their own feet. For welfare clients, the aim of social workers used to be to help them get off the welfare rolls as quickly as possible."

Where can I find one of these social workers? They sound useful.

"English laissez-faire liberalism, even though it generally accepted 'Poor Law' governmental welfare, insisted that there be a strong disincentive effect: not only strict eligibility rules for assistance, but also making the workhouse conditions unpleasant enough to insure that workhouse relief would be a strong deterrent rather than an attractive opportunity. For the 'undeserving poor,' those responsible for their own fate, abuse of the relief system could only be curbed by 'making it as distasteful as possible to the applicants; that is, by insisting (as a general rule) on a labour test or residence in a workhouse.'"

Making the workhouse unpleasant only drives people out of the workhouse if they have somewhere else to go. If you create a stigma to having done time in a workhouse (or in its modern equivalent, a prison or halfway house) then it narrows the alternatives, and makes it more likely that people will be stuck there.

"Perhaps one of the grimmest consequences of welfare is that it actively discourages self-help by crippling the financial incentive for rehabilitation. It has been estimated that, on the average, every dollar invested by handicapped persons in their own rehabilitation brings them from $10 to $17 in the present value of increased future earnings. But this incentive is crippled by the fact that, by becoming rehabilitated, they will lose their welfare relief, Social Security disability payments, and workmen's compensation. As a result, most of the disabled decide not to invest in their own rehabilitation."

On the other hand, if you take away their welfare, what money do they have to invest in rehabilitation, even if they decide they want to? That problem could be solved by making the welfare, or private charity, terminate after a certain length of time that should've been sufficient for rehabilitation.