Social Safety Nets

billroper wrote a post about social safety nets that reminds me of some thoughts I've had bouncing around in my head.  Here's the section that triggered my thinking; hopefully I'm not doing Bill a disservice by pulling these two paragraphs out.

But what if the social safety net is really, really good?  What if life on the dole was so comfortable that there was no real incentive to work?  There'd be some people who would work, just because they love what they do.  But how many folks out there really do love what they do?  And how many people who do love what they do would love doing something else even more, except for the fact that they actually like eating regularly?

Now, how good does the social safety net have to be before it's better than a bad job? And what happens if you have multiple generations of a family that have become dependent on the social safety net, because it is better than the bad jobs that are available to them?  Nothing good, I suspect.

Bill seems to be taking the position that it would be bad in principle for people to not feel a need to work, whether or not they can get paid for doing something they feel is a worthy use of their time.  And with all due respect, I disagree.  I think I understand where he's coming from.  It is good for people to actually do something with their lives and damaging for them to spend their whole lives lying on the couch.  But when people are forced to do work that is not fulfilling and meaningful in and of itself (and not just for the paycheck), I think is at least as damaging to the people, and it is also damaging to whatever endeavor they are doing just for the money.  A year ago, I wrote an entry examining this idea at length, and I won't reprise it extensively now.

But the bottom line for me is that I think it is, in fact, a desirable goal to have a "safety net" that is better than working a bad job.  ( Read more... )

POLL: The other pink meat?

I've never done one of these poll thingies, but for some reason I feel inspired to figure out how it works, so here goes:
[Poll #827085]