Four Fallacies about the Singapore Welfare State

Ng Kok Hoe

 

    If ever one needed proof that habits of thought are hard to break, we need only look at the way social welfare is treated in Singapore. There is probably no other policy domain which impacts on our lives more directly and yet is less contested.

    The whole question of the well-being of vulnerable members in our society is framed by a core of ideas that over time have become so ossified that we no longer check and challenge ourselves, and because of that, foreclose any chance for change. In times when everything else is changing – from interpersonal communication and family structures to patterns of international migration and global financial systems – static policy thinking is risky.

    At risk of simplification, this static thinking about our social welfare can be roughly summed up in a few statements: Singapore is not a welfare state and should never be, because the Western welfare state is doomed to fail and social welfare is fundamentally un-Asian. As a small country with no natural resources, we have no choice but to define our own style of social welfare, which by and large has worked over the years. So why fix it if it ain’t broke?

    Underlying these statements are four powerful ideas about social welfare and Singapore society. In the spirit of critical reflection, let us now examine the truth in each of them.

1. “Singapore is not a welfare state.”

    There are two ways to read this. If a welfare state is loosely defined as a state that takes steps to redress the inequitable distribution of resources by the free market, then Singapore is surely a welfare state. Our progressive income tax system, highly selective social services, and various means-tested subsidies are clearly redistributive. In fact, our social spending has been rising in recent years, which suggests we are a growing welfare state. Going by this definition, very few countries in the world can claim not to be welfare states. It is only in the extent of welfare provision that nations vary.

     A stricter definition of a welfare state is a social welfare system in the tradition of the Western European societies, where the term welfare state originated. By this standard, Singapore does not fit into the mould. But this notion of a Western Welfare State is more Asian caricature than empirical reality. An influential book by Gosta Esping-Anderson back in 1990, called "The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism", brought attention to fundamental differences among the welfare states of the advanced economies. It later inspired scholars in the region to define an East Asian welfare regime, of which Singapore was a case. Today it is common academic wisdom that welfare states are characterised by diversity of means. So we end up in the same place as with the looser definition: Singapore is a welfare state, even if the extent and manner of our welfare provision is distinctive.

 

2. “The Western welfare model is bound to fail.”

     Singapore usually takes issue with social risk pooling in the mature European welfare states, of which unemployment benefits, nationalised health care, and pay-as-you-go public pensions are prime examples. These three programmes often draw fire from the three main contentions against the welfare state.

    The first is a value argument. It is believed that schemes such as unemployment benefits corrode the work ethic and create a culture of dependency. While this argument might have intuitive appeal, it is helpful to remember that in Northern Europe where social spending is the highest, both labour participation and productivity in terms of GDP per capita are ahead of Singapore according to World Bank data. Helping professionals like social workers would also understand that the value of work to the individual is not merely monetary. Work contributes to personal identity, provides fulfillment, and gives access to social networks. For these reasons, even the most generous unemployment benefits have never attracted masses of workers off the payroll onto the dole.

    Another argument for the deficiency of Western welfare is that schemes like nationalised health care are believed to be prone to abuse. We in Singapore like to think that if people are left to their own devices, demand for health care will be infinite and costs will escalate uncontrollably. While it is easy to see how co-payment like in our health care system encourages prudence especially for elective medical procedures, it is not apparent that people have a naturally insatiable appetite for health care services. How much health care, really, can one consume? The abuse or free-riding argument has also been applied to our public assistance scheme, hence the strict criteria and low rates. But there has never been published evidence in Singapore of the free-riding phenomenon. There is however anecdotal evidence among social workers that social stigma and problems of access sometimes prevent those who need help from reaching out. Considering the size of the unemployed population in Singapore – a crude proxy of potential welfare dependents – is about 65,000 while the number of public assistance recipients is only about 3000, we must be a long way from that slippery slope. In any case, abuse is a problem of implementation, which should not detract from the intent and worthiness of the policy. We do not shut down the 999 hotline for fear of prank calls.

    The last and possibly most damaging case against Western-style social welfare is that it is financially unsustainable and will eventually bankrupt the state. At a seminar on Singapore’s Central Provident Fund (CPF) last year, a senior politician likened European pay-as-you-go pensions to political Ponzi schemes that were never going to pay up on their promises. This view is misinformed. It is true that pensions constitute the heaviest fiscal burden among all sources of social spending in Europe and have come under pressure from population ageing and economic stagnation. But this area is complex and dynamic. Research done at the London School of Economics has found that reforms in recent years have addressed policy constraints to different extents across Europe and in some cases have put pension systems back on a more sustainable path. The reference to Ponzi schemes is also disingenuous because it fails to recognise how these pensions have helped many generations of older persons in Europe avoid poverty and retire with a sense of financial independence and personal dignity. Sociological studies have shown that these pensions often enable older adults to contribute to their adult children as they look to establish their own families and careers. In contrast, the majority of elderly Singaporeans are compelled to rely on their adult children for financial security, even though retirees are likely to have fewer children in future.  Can we say that either system is more sustainable?

    The weakest argument against the fiscal sustainability of Western welfare is probably that it led to the current economic crisis. It did not. The current economic crisis gripping Europe may be due to many things, such as negligent regulation of banking practices or even inherent flaws in modern capitalism, but it was not due to the welfare state. The misperception may have arisen from the sweeping cuts to welfare spending that countries have made. But in this case, the site of treatment does not indicate the source of ailment.

 

3. “Social welfare is un-Asian.”

    In the early 1990s, as the world marveled at the rapid economic development of the newly industrialised countries in this region, also branded as the East Asian miracle, a peculiar blend of political rhetoric and cultural theorising shaped the thinking that Confucianist societies such as ours have a natural aversion to state-driven social welfare and prefer instead to rely on the family and the community. Today, this idea no longer holds sway in the wider academic community and is mostly regarded as political opportunism and cultural posturing.

    The reason the cultural argument faded away is that even in East Asia, a variety of welfare states have evolved in the past decade or so. Taiwan and Korea have not taken the CPF’s lead. Instead they have introduced pay-as-you-go pensions, European style. We do not talk about it, but even Hong Kong – which is comparable both in economic positioning and cultural make-up and is often regarded as our closest rival city – has implemented universal pensions for residents aged 70 and above with no means testing. Every elderly Hong Kong resident receives the equivalent of S$160 per month. It is not much, but we can only imagine what difference that might make to poor elderly Singaporeans.

    One school of thought advanced by American scholars Stephen Haggard and Robert Kaufman is that social welfare develops in line with economic development and democratisation. The rapid opening up of political competition in Taiwan and Korea has led to significant growth of social welfare, whereas the unique political situations in Singapore and Hong Kong explain their relative stasis despite abundant fiscal resources. In other words, there is nothing intrinsically un-Asian about social welfare.

 

4. “In spite of what critics might say, our social welfare system has worked.”

    We sometimes take this even further and suggest that our system should be a model for others. For example, we like to point out that we spend less in health care than most developed countries but achieve better outcomes. This is true and reflects the cost-efficiency of most of our social welfare programmes. But global indicators do not tell the full story about the real cost of our social welfare system.

    One way to interrogate the impact of our approach to social welfare is to ask about the spread of outcomes across different segments of society – something which should be second-nature to social workers, with our intuitive attention to individuals, families, and qualitative experiences. For instance, as a population, Singaporeans may be living longer lives. But what are the health outcomes for low-income families compared to richer ones? Does income gap also imply a gap in quality of life? A thought-provoking report by Tan Hui Yee in the Straits Times recently pointed to low social mobility in Singapore, meaning that children of families with poorer economic status are themselves less likely to do well later in life. The European welfare states achieve much better social mobility due to the leveling effect of universal social welfare programmes. If we are concerned about work ethic and competitiveness, then we should be concerned about social mobility. Because nothing dampens aspiration and industry more than the knowledge that you live in a society where you have limited prospect of overturning those disadvantages into which you are born.

    Even when we pull the analytical lens back to examine outcomes across the board and for larger social issues, there are serious implications about our social welfare model which we sometimes overlook. If only we could free up our policy imagination, we might find answers to some of our most pressing problems. One is our low fertility rate, which is one of the lowest in the world and has seemed impervious to policy intervention. Again, we do not talk about it, but Northern Europe might offer some clues. According to data from the United Nations World Population Prospects, the total fertility rate of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark averaged 1.9 during 2005-2010. It was 1.3 in Singapore. Their female labour participation rates are also noticeably higher than Singapore’s. Population policy is as complex as individual decisions about child birth. But it is easy to trace a connection between the healthy fertility rates in the Scandinavian countries and the prominent features of their welfare states: accessible state-run childcare services, institutionalised child benefits, and widely-practiced flexible work arrangements for parents. It then becomes obvious why the Baby Bonus has not made a difference for us. Social welfare policy is not only about helping the poorest, it also shapes social norms and individual decisions across all strata of society.

    In the end, the form that every welfare state takes is a choice that society must make. No policy is a matter of course, every policy is a choice. This choice must be made with thorough consideration of the full range of viable alternatives, and the benefits and trade-offs implied by each option. It is more about picking and calibrating our position along a spectrum of possibilities, rather than choosing between all and nothing.

    The process requires a society of open and engaged minds from the top to the ground that resist old habits of thought, are not afraid to learn, and always demand evidence. There is an obligation of public accountability to present all the options and explain the rationale before making a call. We also have individual responsibilities of citizenship to scrutinise official lines of thinking, ask important questions, and learn to engage constructively in policy debate. There is merit in public engagement itself. But engagement and debate are especially critical to the development of sustainable and stable social welfare systems. Because unlike other more removed and technical domains of policy-making, social welfare is a society’s collective decision about its commitment to solidarity and mutual responsibility. In no other realm of public policy do decisions so powerfully shape the tone and fibre of society.

    Peter Townsend, a renowned British professor of social policy who sadly died in 2009, once remarked that “It may be worth reflecting, if indeed a little sadly, that possibly the ultimate test of the quality of a free, democratic and prosperous society is to be found in the standards of freedom, democracy and prosperity enjoyed by its weakest members.” He might have been talking about us.

Mr Ng Kok Hoe is a doctoral candidate in the social policy programme at the London School of Economics and Political Science and holds a MSc in Public Policy and Administration (LSE) and a B.Soc.Sci in Social Work, National University of Singapore. He has worked at the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) in policy and service planning positions related to juvenile rehabilitation and problem gambling. He also has direct practice experience with juvenile probationers and as a counsellor. He has taught social policy and social work research courses in the Monash university - Social Service Training Institute Bachelor of Social Work programme, and was involved in the development of accreditation for social workers as a previous Chair of Membership in the Singapore Association of Social Workers. 

Comments

[anon]

so many unsubstantiated claims... so much sloppy handwaving.

[Dan]

An excellent and thought-provoking piece. A nation that prides itself on its pragmatism should not be afraid to question conventionally accepted views and assumptions to come to the best solutions to the challenges it faces.

[Youyoungpeople]

Hi, thanks for this piece, but I have a few doubts.

1. 'How much health care, really, can one consume?'

Merely going by the number of times I've been tempted to take MC instead of going to school/work...I would say a lot. Clogged waiting rooms in developed world hospitals are a real problem. Even here in Singapore, when my husband had a sprained ankle, it took more than 7 hours before we could leave Changi General Hospital.

2. 'The rapid opening up of political competition in Taiwan and Korea has led to significant growth of social welfare, whereas the unique political situations in Singapore and Hong Kong explain their relative stasis despite abundant fiscal resources.'

Not all change is good change. It's to be expected that greater competition for popular favour gives rise to social policy that appeals to greater masses of people. How do you distinguish interim populism from sustainable policies?

Perhaps your most interesting argument is that which links TFR with parent-friendly benefits, but certainly more research would have to be done to determine a correlation beyond the Scandinavian countries, with whose economics we have little in common.

[JJ]

Surely you are not saying that monies should be put aside for a deeper system of social citizenship to the detriment of Singapore's amazing investments in UBS, Citibank, Suzhou, Shin Corp etc? Corporate welfare in Singapore and abroad should not be crimped for the benefit of social welfare, whose main beneficiaries have been certified by philosopher kings to have lower IQs.

[Fareez]

What I think the key point in this article (at least for me) is that ideas of state welfarism in Singapore shouldn't just be dismissed as western failures, and destined to create a lazy community. In a sense, all countries are practicing some form of state welfarism, and as conscious citizens we should move away from immediately shunning such ideas, and instead look into ways that social welfare can support the vulnerable, and yet balance economic growth.

This should be something we can explore without being wary of strict boundaries of Welfare VS Self Reliance, as the lines are already so blurred everywhere.

[Kin Lian Tan]

This is an excellent article. It coincides with my personal views about the fallacies widely believed in Singapore against the need for welfare for the weak and the poor people in Singapore. The fear that welfare will be abused is largely exaggerated.

[Kin Lian Tan]

Dear Ng Kok Hoe, please send an email to kinlian@gmail.com. I wish to discuss with you offline.

[Gabriel Goh]

Good description and analysis of the sg welfare landscape.

But the powers that be will need to be convinced that there are benefits to a more inclusive welfare system, and in that the case for improving the TFR is probably key in the sg context.

We need to first make the argument that welfare has benefits. Tangible, immediate benefits. One argument is that in a society with little or no welfare, everyone has to salt away money for a rainy day. Even if only 10% of the population will experience long-term unemployment, everyone will have to save for that eventuality.

Similarly, if you have an enterprising idea, you may want to start your own business. But without unemployment benefits (UB), you are constrained. Most new businesses fail. Andy without the safety net of UB, most people will think twice.

So though only 10% of people need to save for unemployment, most people will do so. And people save for many things - unemployment, retirement, medical emergencies, education, housing, marriage, children, and even to start their own business. Many of these are key pillars of western welfare systems.

Removing just one or a few reasons for saving is not enough to free up capital, resources, and entrepreneurship. Or even the decision to have more babies.

The welfarism that Sg practises is a targeted ameliorative welfare aimed at lessening pain particularly of the low income rather than removing the pain (incentive to improve).

However the problems of new sg is not a problem of the low income. But that of the middle class, and that is where we need a little (or a lot) of the "western welfarism" - unemployment benefits, housing, healthcare, childcare etc. In fact we need a whole ecology of welfare components intended to relieve the anxiety of the middle class in order to convince the middle class that this is a good place to raise a family.

[Hoon Loon Goh]

Old people in Sweden say that to be Swedish means to supply for your own, to take care of your self, and never be a burden on anyone else's shoulders. Independence and hard work was the common perception of a decent life, and the common perception of morality. That was less than one hundred years ago.

My late grandmother used to say something had gone wrong with the world. She was proud to never have asked for help, to have always been able to rely on herself and her husband, proud that they could throughout their lives care for their family. I'm happy that when she passed away at the respectable age of 85, she did so with that dignity still intact. She was never a burden.

My grandmother, born in 1920, was of the last generation to have that special personal pride, of having a firm and deeply rooted morality, of being a sovereign in life no matter what — to be the sole master of one's fate. The people of her generation experienced and endured one or two world wars (though Sweden never took part) and were raised by poor Swedish farmers and industrial workers. They witnessed and were the driving force behind the Swedish "wonder."

Their morality assured they could survive any condition. If they found themselves not being able to live off their wages, they would only work harder and longer. They were the architects and construction workers in building their own lives, even though it often meant hard work and enduring seemingly hopeless situations.

They would gladly offer to help those in need even if they only had little, but were not likely to accept anyone's help if offered. They felt pride in being competent to take care of themselves; they cherished independence of others, of never having to ask for help. They figured, if they couldn't make it themselves, they had no right to ask for help.

Yet somehow they fell for the promises of politicians to supply for "the weak," a category of people non-existent back then: Who would admit they were unable to take care of themselves? They were good-hearted, hard-working people and probably thought a small contribution to supply for those much worse off would be a Good Samaritan-style deed.

Theoretically, it is perhaps understandable and even enviable. They and their parents were already voluntarily partaking in local private networks arranging financial support for those in need of health care or who had just lost their jobs. In bad times such as recessions or rapid social change this was a burden, however voluntary and in their own interest. A large-scale version of the same kind of mutual help arrangements probably sounded like a good idea, even though it was to be financed coercively through taxation.

The problem is that the welfare state was created and it would dramatically change people's lives and affect their morality in a fundamental way. The welfare state might have been a successful project if people had continued to have the pride and morality to supply for themselves and only seek support if really in need. That is, adding a welfare state could possibly work in a ceteris paribus world, which is what the welfare state really presumes. But the world is ever-changing, and the welfare state therefore requires people to be stronger and morally superior to people in societies lacking a welfare state.

This knowledge, however, was not yet acquired — and still isn't. Instead, they took the state of things, such as their personal pride in work and family, as natural; from that perspective it must have looked like a good deal. All they had to do, they were told, was leave the politics (and a little power) to the politicians. This argument, I'm sorry to report, still seems valid to the Swedish populace; Swedes generally welcome proposals to hand over more power to politicians and they even tend to ask for higher taxes.

Decent morality is long gone. It was completely destroyed in little more than two generations — through public welfare benefits and the concept of welfare rights.

The Children of the Welfare State

The children of my grandparents' generation, my parents among them, quickly learned and embraced a new morality based on the welfare "rights" offered by the social security system. While the older generation would not accept dependence on others (including state welfare benefits) they did not object to sending the younger generation to public schools to get educated. I am certain they never thought in terms of having a "right" to have their children educated. Rather, they accepted and appreciated the opportunity for their children to have a chance they themselves had never had — through "free" education.

So my parents' generation went to public schools where they were taught mathematics and languages as well as the superiority of welfare and the morality of the state. They learned the workings of the machinery of the welfare state and gained a totally new (mis)conception of rights: all citizens enjoy a right — only through being citizens — to education, health care, unemployment, and social security.

Being an individual, they were taught, means having a right to support for your individual needs. Everybody has a right to all the resources necessary to pursue one's own and society's happiness, they were told. And everybody should enjoy the right to put their children in state daycare centers while working, making it possible for every family to earn two salaries (but not enough time to raise their children). The opportunities for "the good life," at least financially, must have seemed enormous to the older generations.

This new morality permeated the populace and became the "natural" state of things, at least in their minds. This generation, born during the two or three decades following World War II, became considerably different from their parents' generation morally and philosophically. They got used to the enormous post-war economic growth (thanks to Sweden never entering the war) and the ever-increasing welfare rights of the rapidly growing state. (To sustain the growth of the welfare state and satisfy the popular demand for benefits, the Swedish government devaluated the currency a number of times during the 1970s and 1980s.)

The effects upon society of this generation growing up and entering the labor market were principally two: increased public pressure for more progressive politics; and large-scale, society-wide failure to raise independent and moral children able to be their own masters in life.

At this time, the moral and philosophical change in society became apparent. While in the early 20th century the Social Democrats, a hegemonic power in Swedish politics throughout that century (and beyond), had demanded tax cuts to liberate workers from unnecessary burden, it now swiftly changed into a tax-raising, welfare-embracing party calling for more "liberating" social reform. The voting masses, children of the welfare state dependent on its system of logic, supported the tax hikes, which quickly climbed to 50% and higher. And they demanded social benefits at taxpayers' expense to cover for and exceed these higher taxes.

The political change as the children of the welfare state grew up and started taking part in politics was massive. The rather communist student revolts of 1968 were probably the peak of this radical generation demanding more for themselves through state redistribution; they claimed no personal responsibility for their lives, nor ever thought of having to pitch in themselves. "I'm in need," they argued, and from that claim they directly inferred a right to satisfy that need — be it food, shelter, or a new car.

Whereas my parents mysteriously seem to have inherited much of the "older" form of morality, most people of their age, and especially those younger, are paradigmatically different from their parents' generation. They are children of the welfare state and are fully aware of the social security benefits to which they have a "right." They don't reflect on where these benefits come from, but are skeptical towards politicians whom they believe might take them away. "Change" quickly became a bad word, since it necessarily implies a change to the system on which people are parasitically dependent.

With this generation, the formerly held truth that production precedes consumption is replaced by a belief in having an inviolate and natural "human right" to welfare services supplied by the state. Through the powerful labor unions, wage-earning Swedes were awarded raises every year regardless of real productivity, and in time annual raises of salaries became normality. People who didn't get a raise started considering themselves "punished" by their evil employer, and there were increasing demands for legal help in the struggle against employers. One has a "right" to a better salary next year just as the current salary must be better than last year's; so the thinking goes.

This change in perception was, as we have seen, preceded by a change in values. The societal change also changed the conditions for philosophy, and new strange and destructive theories emerged. The children of this generation, born in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s commonly had a "free" upbringing (based on the ideals of 1968), essentially meaning a childhood "free from rules" and "free of responsibility." For this generation there is no causality whatsoever in social life; whatever you do is not your responsibility — even having children. These are the current younger adults in Swedish society.

The Grandchildren of the Welfare State

I am myself part of this second generation of people raised with and by the welfare state. A significant difference between my generation and the preceding one is that most of us were not raised by our parents at all. We were raised by the authorities in state daycare centers from the time of infancy; then pushed on to public schools, public high schools, and public universities; and later to employment in the public sector and more education via the powerful labor unions and their educational associations. The state is ever-present and is to many the only means of survival — and its welfare benefits the only possible way to gain independence.

The difference to the older generations is obvious. My grandparents lived in a totally different world philosophically and morally, and my parents still wear remnants of their parents' "old" sense of justice and their perception of right and wrong. While my generations' parents are only "partly tainted" (which is bad enough), my generation is totally screwed up. Not having grown up with the sound values of our grandparents, but instead with those propagandized by the nanny state, the grandchildren of the welfare state have no understanding whatsoever of economics.

A common perception of justice among the "grandchildren" is that individuals have an everlasting claim on society to supply one with whatever one finds necessary (or enjoyable). In a recently televised discussion on state television, the children and grandchildren of the welfare state met to discuss unemployment and the common problems facing young people growing up and entering the labor market. The demand of the "grandchildren" was literally that the "old people" (born in the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s) should step aside (i.e., stop working) because their working "steals" jobs from the young!

The "welfare logic" vindicating such preposterous demands goes something like this. The premise is that every individual has a right to a good life. It can be concluded that a good life is made through not having to worry about material wealth, and thus having welfare benefits and gaining financial "independence" is essential. Financial independence, in turn, requires a high-status, high-salary, and not-too-demanding job; a good job is thus an inferred human right. The people who currently have the jobs literally occupy the positions and are therefore in the way — each and every one of them violates my right to that job. This makes anyone who has a good job a rights-violator and therefore criminal.

We all know what to think of criminals: they should be locked up. Such a sentence is also what a still very limited but rapidly growing number of young people in Sweden demand — for owners of businesses who do not wish to hire them, or for older people occupying positions they themselves desire. There is a "need" for more progressive law-making.

But this is not an idea supported only by ignorant youth. On May 14, the national trade workers' union demanded the state "redistribute" jobs through offering people in their 60s state pensions if they step down and their employers employ young, unemployed people in their stead. In the labor union's calculations, such a stunt would "create" 55,000 jobs.

What this shows is that the only perceivable way of finding jobs for the young seems to be to "relieve" older people of theirs; job positions are scarce and unemployment is increasing even as demand for goods and services is going up – thanks to heavy state regulation in the marketplace. The welfare state creates problems and conflicts on many levels, forcing people to compete for shares of continuously decreasing wealth. The solution: more regulation and even less prosperity. This is what happens when need and want replaces merit and experience in both public and personal morality.

Demanding Social Responsibility

This degenerated morality and lack of understanding for the real and natural order of things is also evident in areas requiring personal responsibility and respect for fellow men and women. The elderly are now treated as ballast rather than human beings and relatives. The younger generations feel they have a "right" to not take responsibility for their parents and grandparents, and therefore demand the state relieve them of this burden.

Consequently, most elderly in Sweden either live depressed and alone in their homes, waiting for death to come their way, or they have been institutionalized in public elderly collective living facilities with 24/7 surveillance so as to alleviate the burden on the younger working generations. Some of them get to see their grandchildren and relatives only for an hour or two at Christmas, when the families make an effort to visit their "problems."

But the elderly aren't the only one's finding themselves in the periphery of welfare society while the state is looking after its working population. The same goes for the youngest who are also delivered to the state for public care rather than being brought up and educated by their parents.

My mother, a middle school teacher, has had to face her pupils' parents demanding she do "something" about their stressful family situation. They demand "society" take responsibility for their children's upbringing since they have already spent "too many years" caring for them. ("Caring" usually means dropping them off at the public daycare center at 7 am and picking them up again at 6 pm.)

They loudly stress their "right" to be relieved from this burden. The problems caused at home by disobedient, out-of-control children are to be solved in the classrooms by school personnel and at daycare centers by kindergarten staff. Children should be seen but not heard, and they should absolutely not intrude on their parents' right to a career, long holidays abroad, and attending social events.

In order to have the adult generation working and creating wealth that can be taxed (current tax rates for low income earners are at approximately 65% of earnings), the Swedish welfare state continuously launches progressive programs to protect them from incidents and problems. Welfarist freedom is a trouble-free, responsibility-free, and benefits-rich existence created by the welfare state.

What we are now seeing in Sweden is the perfectly logical consequence of the welfare state: when handing out benefits and thereby taking away the individual's responsibility for his or her own life, a new kind of individual is created — the immature, irresponsible, and dependent. In effect, what the welfare state has created is a population of psychological and moral children — just as parents who never let their children face problems, take responsibility, and come up with solutions themselves, make their offspring needy, spoiled, and utterly demanding.

The spoiled-children analogy is proving true in the everyday lives of people working in the public sector, facing the populations' demands. I've learned it is not uncommon for young parents to reprimand teachers because homework is an "unnecessary" pressure on the young. The children have a right to knowledge, but apparently they should not be exposed to education since it requires study and effort. The role of teachers is obviously to supply children with knowledge they can consume without having to reflect on it or think about it (or even study). Having to do something yourself is "oppressive." A "must," even if an effect of the laws of nature, is utterly unfair and a violation to one's right to a trouble-free life. Nature itself, along with its laws, becomes a "burden."

Dependence Economics

Perhaps this mentality explains the increasing popularity of anti-reality theories such as skepticism and post-modernism, where nothing can be taken for granted. Logic, it is claimed, is only a social construction which has no relation whatsoever with reality or the world (if it exists at all). These theories are magnificent in that they can never be proved — or disproved. Whatever you say, you never need to take responsibility for your statement — no one can verify your thesis, no one can criticize it, or even use it. It is yours and exists only for you — and it is true only for you.

The uselessness of such a theory should be obvious. It should also be obvious that these theories' proponents take certain things, such as existence, for granted — they never live their lives based only on doubt and the "knowledge" that there is nothing one can know, that nothing is what it seems. But that, it seems, must be the beauty of it.

In a way, the Austrian premise that "values are subjective" has been taken too literally. In these "modern" theories, subjectivity is the principle underlying reality, not the way reality is assessed or perceived. This "understanding" is inferred directly from the relative morality and relative logic of the welfare state's children and grandchildren. There is no need for someone to produce in order for another to consume — and there is not necessarily a burden on someone else to supply the benefits I need in order to live the "good" life. After all, living a good life is a human right; the right being the only fixed point in an ever-changing and subjectively founded universe.

From the perspective of a bystander (as I consider myself) this madness all makes sense — teaching people they do not need to worry about the consequences of their actions makes willingly dependent subjects. The welfare state has created the egotistical monsters it claims to save us from — through handing out privileges and benefits to everybody at "nobody's" expense.

The social engineers of the welfare state obviously never considered a possible change in morality and perception — they simply wanted a system guaranteeing security for everybody; a system where the able could and should work to support themselves, but where the unable too could live dignified lives. Who would have thought the progressive reforms to secure workers' rights and prosperity for all in the early 20th century would backfire philosophically and morally?

It should be obvious that nothing came to be as expected — society simply wasn't as predictable as was predicted.

It can't work.
$25
This new morality is the obvious opposite of that of my grandparents' generation. It is a morality claiming independence can only be achieved through handing over responsibility to others, and that freedom can only be attained through enslaving others (and oneself). The result of this degenerated morality on a social or societal level is a disaster economically, socially, psychologically, and philosophically.

But this is also a personal tragedy for many thousands of Swedes. People seem unable to enjoy life without responsibility for one's actions and choices, and it is impossible to feel pride and independence without having the means to control one's life. The welfare state has created a dependent people utterly incapable of finding value in life; instead, they find themselves incapable of typical human feelings such as pride, honor, and empathy. These feelings, along with the means to create meaning to life, have been taken over by the welfare state.

Perhaps this explains why such a large part of the young population now consumes antidepressant medication, without which they are unable to function normally in social situations. And presumably it explains why the number of suicides among very young people who never really knew their parents is increasing dramatically (the total number of suicides remaining about the same). Still people are totally unable to see the problem or find a solution. Like spoiled children, they call for "help" through the state.

This, my grandmother could never understand. May she rest in peace.

Per Bylund works as a business consultant in Sweden, in preparation for PhD studies. He is the founder of Anarchism.net. Send him mail. Visit his website. Comment on the blog.

[Albert]

For health care in Singapore, I am wondering if foreigners and PRs utilizing govt-assisted hospitals are being subsidized. Although I have yet to look into this in detail, I believe foreigners and PRs are subsidized when they visited the hospitals.

I am puzzled. If the country can subsidize foreigners and PRs, why can't the country waived off medical for the poor or hugely subsidized her people's healthcare bill?

[Sah]

Hi Kok Hoe, you may find this recent TED talk useful. http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html

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Singapore has a very healthy fiscal state and their economy is robust due to sustained growth in the economy. NGO Bankruptcy is a very rare case in their soil.

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What I want to say is that every body may have his own points on certain subjects and things. So sometimes it is really not easy to say who is right or wrong, worse or better. However, what we should always do is that we must consider that everyone's opinion must have his own negative and positive points so that we can learn from each other in any case. Anyway , you do have got a good point and thank you for sharing.

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