Dismal Sciences: Anti-welfarism and Secondary Gain

There are a variety of contemporary ideological positions used to justify whittling down the welfare state, including market libertarianism, Reaganomics, Randism, Blairite ‘meritocracy’, and so forth. Some of these positions seek recourse to dubious economic ‘science’ (such as the Laffer Curve), whilst others are based on the distorted readings of Nietzsche or Darwin by adolescents. What all tend to have in common, however, is the notion that for the state to assist those in a position of weakness is, in essence, to encourage weakness. The rhetoric of neoliberalism does not pose attacks on the welfare state as the economic elites having won the class war and having their way with political economy, but rather, tries to argue that such attacks are for the benefit of the poor as well. These arguments, and the policies that they support, are often reviled as discredited nonsense, but they persist, nonetheless.

Suicide, selfishness and “illness”

A celebrity has died, apparently by his own hand. Amidst expressions of grief and condolences to the bereaved are a profusion of obviously incorrect, deeply ideological pronouncements on the nature of suicide.