Oct 15
The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions?
James Bartholomew. former Saturday Telegraph financial writer, spoke at the ASI last night. In his talk James depressed his audience by explaining to them just how bad the welfare state is at the moment. The trouble is that reform is almost impossible, considering the vested interests, bureaucrats, and weak-willed politicians unwilling to reform the leviathan.
His statistics on the quality of education, healthcare, and helping the poor are most sobering. There were fewer illiterate children in late 19th century than there are now – by a significant extent. From 95%+ literacy the functionally illiterate now have risen to 25% of the population in 2000. 3% of the country were on welfare in 1950; that figured is now up to 24%. The NHS has founded no teaching hospitals in its entire existence. Mass unemployment was not common at the turn of the century, while currently it happens frequently.
He went on to explain that Lloyd-George and Beveridge did not deliberately set out to destroy education, healthcare, and provision for the poor. They meant well despite the fact their policies made things far worse instead of better.
The ”...biggest victim of the welfare state are the poor”, was his stark statement. Of course, this is no surprise to libertarians. James hopes that his new book, The Welfare State We’re In, being serialised in the Daily Mail, will help get his message out to those who don’t necessarily spend their time thinking of such things.
He ended with a fascinating statistic in response to a question. In 1900 the average percentage of income given to charity by the middle classes was 10, that percentage is now down to 1.
I am quite sure every one of the 30 or so people in attendance will buy this book when it is released.
2 Comments so far
Indeed, so is the Road to Serfdom. The trouble is that nearly a century after Lloyd George, the same solutions are being touted by a political class that should know better. I give no credit for good intentions where today’s advocates of the welfare state are concerned. They should know what the consequences are by now and to continue to advocate an overblown welfare state is not just misguided – it is evil.
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