Rewarding the strivers at the expense of the skivers

In the frame recently have been such institutional villains as banks and utility companies accused of exploiting their monopoly position to hold customers to ransom, and individuals who milk a generous state benefit system – the so-called skivers or scroungers. Apart from crimes involving personal injury, their misdemeanours stand out because they are seen to insult fair play and the moral basis of and ordered society.

If only everything were black and white. Whoever started the ‘striver’ versus ‘skiver’ debate opened a particularly contentions can of worms. Of course there are bound to be those who – if the incentives are strong enough – will choose a path of least resistance, and getting up to do a day’s work may be part of it, even if such an existence limits any real personal fulfilment.

However, there are also those, who as a result of circumstance, don’t have the choice, and who would eagerly grasp any opportunity to join the ‘rat race’.

Sadly, the current economic climate has arbitrarily felled aspirations of the working population across the board, forcing new and painful choices; sweeping away expectations of comfortable living and retirement for some, while preventing others from gaining even the first steps on the employment ladder.

Now, if you rely on publications like the Daily Mail to inform your opinions, you might be led to believe that every refugee, drop-out or EU sponger depends on the UK tax-payer for support.

And when you’ve waded through an accompanying torrent of xenophobia, you’ll be appraised that anyone out of work, on income support, or incapacity benefit is unfairly leaching the state benefit system.

There is no getting away from the fact that as it’s currently operated, the UK cannot in the long term afford its welfare system. It hands out over £120 million in benefits each day, which dwarfs the amount it receives in income taxes, so is forced to pay for other essential services from indirect taxation – oh, and also has to find even more to service its borrowing, which despite all the proposed ‘austerity’ measures, continues to rise.

So it’s a hot political potato, and one which politicians tackle at the risk of rising unpopularity, which, in turn, makes them increasingly less keen to address. And, as we know, at the same time, the labour market is shrinking, reducing opportunities for achieving gainful employment.

Nevertheless, there are a couple of incontrovertible realities. First: What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. Second: The government cannot give to anybody anything that it does not first take from somebody else.

It is therefore vital to break the expectation that state will act in loco parentis because, quite frankly, it will run out of the means to do so. The problem is, how does one break the link that says that if you look after yourself, the state will support you – when those avenues for self-support are increasingly being closed?

Clearly, there’s a responsibility to recognise those in need and reward those who are making every genuine attempt to reduce dependency of the state and, at the same time increase their own self esteem.

Are pensioners shirkers, for example? Well clearly not. Yet they don’t work and they qualify for State handouts. But as a group, they are net contributors who have in most cases invested in the economy and in their silver years make a substantial unpaid contribution to the community.

Are students shirkers, given they have been led to expect that their education will lead them to better, higher paid jobs when qualified, and when that fails to deliver they reject taking menial jobs, which the fear they might be committed to and, frankly, can be done equally well by those whom the state has not already invested in?

Here, we are just beginning to feel the hard realities of the recession – what it means to be unemployed when there are fewer jobs available. The loss of LVCR, which will have only the minimalist effect on the UK economy and was snatched away to placate the baying of a politically embarrassing lobby, has caused a disproportionate wound to local employment.

But it’s gone, and those affected are being offered retraining alongside youngsters anxious to enlist in local schemes. ‘Any job will do’ often means accepting wages well below expectation – which makes the reported difficulties encountered by a pair of motivated mature students anxious to better themselves and reduce the long-term burden on the local system difficult to understand.

Clearly, no longer is any state able to offer cradle to grave support – if ever that was a reality. And there has obviously been a long season of kicking an unpalatable ball further into the long grass. Sloth and deliberate exploitation are socially offensive, but – let’s face it – could be met with more rigorous opposition from regulatory authorities and vote-chasing politicians.

Yet the over-riding message seems to be that faced with the uncertainties, few of which can actually be attributed to individuals, the majority of those affected will be true to their natural instinct to support themselves.

For when half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work if somebody else is going to get what they’re working for, then that is the beginning of the end of any nation.