Real Welfare Queens wear Armani Suits, not tracksuits

Welfare’s an easy target to many libertarians. Fuck, Old Holborn’s made a career out of mocking the workshy indignantly.

The reason it’s easy is because it’s the most obvious instance of “Giving away other people’s money”. You know, that libertarians rightly hate. I mean, who doesn’t know someone claiming some form of benefit? Not only that, it’s a damn easy headline for the press. Rich White Men Inc can afford lawyers, and get super injunctions to prevent the leaking of embarrassing information on their porking if they really want, but your average Joe who “forgot” to tell the benefits office he’s working again gets treated like a fucking axe murderer by the tabloids. So, not surprising it’s on the tip of every (Right)Libertarian’s tongue, it’s a damned easy shot.

I say, stop this bullshit, and aim higher. Don’t worry about regular benefit fraudsters, go for the ones that really matter: the real Welfare Queens aren’t in Scottish council flats at all, but in suits:

The Ministry of Defence is to try to save millions by re-negotiating the 40-year-old rules on defence contracts.

Procurement Minister Peter Luff told the BBC the current rules were heavily weighted towards the private sector and overdue for reform.

This could lead to the MoD reducing the cost of new military equipment.

At present the rules, dating back to 1968, mean the MoD contributes towards contractors’ office running costs, pensions and redundancy payments.

Defence companies will contribute towards a review of the rules, which is likely to take 18 months.

The State loves war. Defence companies love profit. There’s a mutually agreeable set-up here; except it’s not the government who’s paying out of its own pockets, but rather society who’s being made to pay out of its (By the way, for those Richard Muphyites out there who insist on the virtue and ethicality, and above all, voluntary nature of taxes, ask yourself this: why are you voluntarily being implicated in the mass murder of men, women and children in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc, and why is that so virtuous and ethical?). But it’s more complex than just a simple exchange; oh, Lordy no. This little version of the Military Industrial Complex we have here falls for the same problems that beset all public services when they’re privatized in the neo-liberal fashion that’s so popular nowadays.

What that normally involves is taking an important service previously in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent organization, the government, and putting all its resources into turning that service into one owned and controlled by the most politically connected big businesses. You know, the ones that have already had a million bones thrown its way via government intervention. Oh, and this is all done on terms that are incredibly favourable to the interests of that particular business.

When put like that, the most gobsmackingly obvious thing about it is that it’s not at all a libertarian process. It’s a corporatist, neo-liberal one, that’s spawned of the mindset that, regardless of how legally shielded and privileged an industry is, as long as it’s “private” (which, again, means something very different from what a libertarian means by it), it’s gotta be better. This is true of much industry that’s been “privatized” in recent decades. You can argue that it’s made stuff cheaper/better quality for consumers ’till the cows come home- it may well have. But at the cost of keeping a politically connected plutocracy on the gravy train, and always whispering into the government’s ear about what would be “best for the consumer”. Economics efficiency is but one factor. You’ve got to consider people’s rights as well.

I have no problem with profit, per se, and I have no problem with turning over government controlled services to the market, per se. What I have issues with are profits gained through exploitative practices, special interest lobbying, and regulating others out of the market so as to form a monopoly- or, just as bad, an oligopoly.

This particular example, though, is even worse. Not only are these defense contractors making vast profits at the expense of people who would no doubt never consider investing in their products given a free choice, but they’re making money out of something that is, itself, totally unjustifiable- war. Immoral methods to immorally profit out of an immoral conflict. It really is Capitalism from Hell.

It really doesn’t matter if it’s lucrative public sector contracts selling shit operating systems, Intellectual Property laws that maintain monopolies upon ideas in the name of the advancement of science, abusing licensing laws, tariffs and price fixtures, or even using government police to prevent people taking back their land that’s been stolen and polluted by oil companies, massively subsidized transport cost, or any of the thousands of other examples of Corporate Welfare that have made the economy what is it today, both historically and ongoing, the fact of the matter is that big business gains the vast, vast majority of its wealth and influence not by voluntary trade, but by having friends in high places.

Libertarians of many stripes are prone to giving a nod of the head to anti-corporatism. This is because corporatism is a totally unjustifiable system of privilege. But for many Right Libertarians- the type that may be found hanging around the Adam Smith Institute, or Cato, for instance, it really is no more than a nod of the head. Scratch ‘em, and underneath you find a corporate apologist.

I really, really don’t care about some family with too many kids living off benefits. They’re small fry. They’re not harming anyone. They’re getting on with their lives as well as they can in a rotten system, I’m much more concerned with the big business welfare queens in Corporate offices. And if you consider yourself libertarian, even in the widest possible sense of the word- you should too.

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On a separate note, here’s the problem with the libertarian “Abolish the welfare state, NOW” attitude.

Imagine you find a guy hobbling along, and he’s got both a set of crutches, and a ball chain on his ankle. If you want him to help himself, but can only remove one of those things, or at least, only one at a time, which do you do first?

If you said “The crutches”, well done, you’re the type of Libertarian I described above.

The ball chain is the corporatism that reduces quality of life for the masses. The crutches are the welfare state. They’re a boost to many people, but they only need it thanks to circumstances beyond their control. Get rid of the root causes of the extent of the inequality of wealth and poverty, the ball chain, and they can get rid of the crutches themselves.

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