Why I Am Not Interested In Benefits

Harriet Harman is a skilled and experienced politician, and if she feels the need to support her political opponents' policy to reduce benefits to claimants  I am inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she knows what she is doing.  As to the issue itself, I am inclined to be generous when it comes to benefits.  But I don't really care too much about it.  I am quite sure that a journalist who put his mind to it could come up with a highly outrageous story of people living dreadful lives funded by the public purse.  And likewise, J.K.Rowling is not going to be the only example of someone for whom benefits provided a vital help in an otherwise highly productive life.


To me the big issue is productivity.  If we are productive as a society and can produce plenty of value for each other and which we can sell abroad, then we will be fine.  This is pretty much the case in fact, though we could do a lot better and I am a bit worried about the trend.  I think that productivity should be the lens we apply to all political decisions.  It is easy to get carried away with our own vested interests, or even worse the vested interests of the people who own the media.  But at the end of the day we can only enjoy a good life if everyone is able to contribute as much as possible.

Looked at through this lens benefits are pretty much a non-issue.  They don't consume a huge amount of the public purse.  Increasing them or decreasing them is not going to make much difference to the economy overall.   They do provide a helpful stabilisation mechanism in that they tend to be highest when the economy is doing badly and lowest when it is doing well.  So they even out  the natural ebb and flow of the trade cycle, which is a good thing for long term productivity.

The reason they are big news politically is that they are seen as something to do with fairness. Some people feel hard done by when somebody else seems to be getting something for nothing.  I could come up with all sorts of rational arguments but emotion always trumps reason.  The easiest way round it is to simply dish out a citizen's wage to everyone regardless of income.  That way everyone gets the same and is also not distracted by having to claim it.  If you fall on hard times the thing you should be concentrating on is getting back to doing something productive as quickly as possible.  The less hassle the benefit system gives you the better.  It will also make it cheaper to administer.  That should please the people who like a small state.

Funnily enough the only party who advocate this highly sensible policy are the Greens, the ones least likely to get anywhere near power in the near future.  Oh well.