Recent welfare policies including that of Ontario Works, Workfare policy are central to the ideological debate concerning the appropriate role of the state in the economy. The ideological views of the states role has shifted over time from a view of minimal state interference, to maximum state involvement of the Keynesian policies and recently back towards a minimalist neo-conservative view. Following WWII and in response to the depression of the 1930s, there was an attempt to avoid excessive stagnation as well as a great demand for social services and the need for infrastructure building. In order to accomplish this, Keynesian ideology was adopted. John Maynard Keynes argued that the slumps experienced in capitalist economy were a result of overproduction and insufficient demand. Therefore, governments should encourage consumer demand in low economic periods and discourage consumer demand in booming economic periods by adjusting government spending and taxation, as a result creating equilibrium.
For a long period following WWII the Keynesian Welfare state appeared to be working and the welfare state ideology remained in place. The dominance of the welfare ideology allowed the state to perform economic management functions as a means to redistribute wealth through employment, universal social programs and income maintenance. However, after 1970 inflation and unemployment persisted for a slew of reasons including the oil crisis. The result was a lengthy period of government deficits, a context that provided neo-conservatives fuel for their anti-welfare fire.
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The social spending that is under greatest attack in
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"This neo-conservative ideology promotes, in general, a free market economy and reduction or abolishment of government social expenditures. This ideology rests on the theory that everyone will benefit from free market societies as wealth tends to have a trickle down effect." (4 Social Workers)
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Coming as I do from the U.S., where neo-conservatism was born in the 1970s - the LIBERTARIAN (free market principles) are not a part of the "Neo-Con" philosophy, quite the reverse. In fact, the neo-conservatives were and remain, largely a group of Jewish former-Leftists, who came to see the abject failure of socialism and the command economy.
Politically, the Neo-Con view was best exemplified by Jack Kemp and has been followed by other "Compassionate Conservatives" like G W Bush, John McCain, Rudy Guiliani and others who actually see a major role for government in making people more productive, more responsible and thus ultimately, more Conservative in orientation.
Traditional Conservatism embraces the Milton Friedman Libertarian/free market view that "all skills are NOT created equal" (an engineer is more valuable than a math teacher, a truck driver more valuable than an administrative assistant, etc) and that productivity must be rewarded and sloth penalized via deprivation.
NO Libertarians believe the primary advantage of free market economics is any "trickle down" effect.
They believe that free markets work best simply because they provide the MOST prosperity for the MOST people.
I add an opposition to anything that is dysgenic (favoring non-productivity) in nature. In my view violent crime's PRIMARY outrage is that it's dysgenic, as generally reckless, irresponsible, dumber and less productive violent felons tend to harm, mutilate or kill far more productive and thus valuable people, thus decreasing that nation's collective productivity, the source of its prosperity.
It also follows that in my view, ANY programs that reward sloth (ie. any "guaranteed income," etc) also do incredible harm to any society that embraces them, as they reduce that nation's productivity by de-incentivizing it, while incentivizing sloth.
I posted my response to your article on my blog... but here it is..
After my last post, four Masters Students from Ontario have invited me to critically assess some of their articles they have published on their new blog. They are interested in a counter view point. I can respect that. As Marx proclaimed higher ideas are born out of the synthesis— antithesis dialectic. So let’s give it a shot a roughneck against university academics.
The article historically traces ideology in Canada (from Keynes to Neo-conservatism) and offers us the chance to begin to make some conclusions about the consequences of those changes— albeit through a socialist filter. The conclusions are too broad to argue in 500 words, so let’s start with some of the premises. The article is predicated on popular leftwing misconceptions about the movement toward liberal markets and greater freedoms.
“to maximum state involvement of the Keynesian policies and recently back towards a minimalist neo-conservative view.”
Keynsian economics is a monetary policy not a political one. Keynsian monetary policy dictates that the government should inflate the money supply to match the demands of production. In that sense Keynsian economics is still the order of the day. The Austrian economists would never have advised a 700 billion dollar bailout. In fact Austrian economics predicted the financial collapse which we are now witnessing.
Also neo-conservatism is hardly the Stephen Harper Conservative model. Neo-conservatism believes in world building, big military and are hardly opposed to deficit spending—see George Bush.
“and more specifically Ontario, the reigning political ideology favours minimal state involvement in economic life.”
I don’t consider the Canadian government to be anything near “minimalist intervention”. Powerful unions, crown corporations, wealth transfer payments, some of the highest tax rates in the world… the list could go on, but the point being that any interpretations that are to be made about the Canadian standard of living/economy should be made with the understanding that Canada is closer to socialism than it is to truly capitalist world.
This ideology (free market) rests on the theory that everyone will benefit from free market societies as wealth tends to have a trickle down effect.
Not exactly, the higher premise is that a free individual living in a free world will be better suited to produce wealth without the interfering of a distant bureaucrat. People are better left to making their own decisions than being led about by a powerful government. See the difference between Russia and North America.
The social spending that is under greatest attack in Ontario is income maintenance programs….This program subsequently works to maintain inequalities, not lessen them.
All socialist schemes entrench class rigidity. Since the Paris Union man has been limited in the wealth he can produce he has none to pass onto his children, instead he passes on his title (job status), and his rent controlled apartment. This is all well and good, but what about the immigrants, the youngster with no nepotistic connections? Government control and high taxes have limited the private sphere and the public sphere/ and unions are being blocked by the third and fourth generation workers so what are the options for outsiders?
Thanks for your posts! We will be posting new blogs entries at the end of this week so stay tuned!
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