Congratulations James. I was expecting you to get mauled, but your four oponents seemed to concede most of your points, had little imagination concerning the alternatives to the welfare state, and were always falling back on the position, "OK, it's crap, but we've got to make it better." The audience also seemed to be mainly on your side. The only real opposition came from the BBC anchor, and even he wasn't too bad.

Posted by: John East at December 28, 2005 10:06 PM

I'm affraid I must declare myself highly disappointed. Due to geographical circumstances I can't purchase your book (which might have indicated the type of argument put forth) but I'm mostly in disagreement with the kind of aimless consequentialism/utilitarianism being shared by all people taking part in the discussion.

None of the "big questions" ever came into discussion: can an unavoidably-coercive State claim to be any sort of respectable moral agent (claiming that it does what it does out of moral concerns)? Does poverty translate into a claim over the property of free trading and free producting men? Is a rollercoaster of expropriation, State controls, political maneuvering and petty bureaucracy in any position of authority?

Instead, we got the same old argument that the current system it's bad or even the worst. By that logic, if totalitarian communist (as Romanians lived, myself included) was "proved" to be the best welfare deliverer ever, I'd shudder to think that the author would be equally as enthusiastic in a lecture. (I can only dream that the high-brow socialist, post-moderning and marxist-feminist of the British inteligentia would have spent 1 day under Communism so they could understand.)

I don't want to be too critical of the author but I think the dicussion, eventually, was equivalent with arguing if being robbed and given an apple is better or worse than being robbed and given a piece of candy.

On the other hand, I doubt that LSE or the BBC would allow for radical libertarians to express their views in which case we should be thankful, in a way, that a thorny issue did come up.

Posted by: Gabriel Mihalache at December 28, 2005 10:52 PM

Congratulations on the broadcast, James - it was refreshing to hear such arguments being aired on Radio 4.

You say the program was heavily edited, and that might help explain why I felt that the real meat of the discussion was not reached on certain sub-topics. This was also because you had to spend a certain amount of time deflecting some not particularly relevant objections from the panel. I couldn't believe that someone used recent improvement rates in various indicators to counter your point about NHS historic and comparative underperformance - clearly a figure can be increasing, but if it is much lower than it should be, then so what? Rates of change cannot be compared with magnitudes. Also, a short term improvement may or may not be sustainable. This seemed to me to be an abuse of statistics.

I also found Pat's objection that unemployment had been widespread in the 1930s irrelevant - clearly you were not arguing that state welfare is the sole cause of unemployment - as if global economic depression couldn't also be! She was perhaps unfamiliar with the concept of ceteris paribus.

I thought that one weak point in your argument was on the point of comparing education systems with other countries. It is easy to point at the NHS as a state system which has not done well - because other advanced countries do not have an NHS. But they do have state education systems. I felt it was not clear why our state education system is underperforming while theirs are not.

One final comment - one of the panellists remarked that we could no longer rely on the voluntary sector to provide welfare as in the past because we live in a "fragmented society". But there was no hint at an explanation as to why that might be the case to counter your hypothesis.

I look forward to reading the book.

Posted by: Tory Convert at December 29, 2005 09:07 AM

Tory Convert,

Thanks for reminding me concerning this point,

"One final comment - one of the panellists remarked that we could no longer rely on the voluntary sector to provide welfare as in the past because we live in a "fragmented society".

I remember thinking at the time, a corner stone of James's argument is that we live in a fragmented society partly because of the effects of the welfare state. It's therefore a circular argument to use the failings of the welfare state as a reason why we should keep it. James failed to pounce on this point, or maybe his response was edited. Still, one missed opportunity in the course of a 45 minute debate is pretty good going, so I'm in no way criticising James over this.

Posted by: John East at December 29, 2005 03:28 PM

Congratulations, James! You came across very well in the programme against the usual engrained pro-welfare arguments. I hope that Radio 4 listeners at least consider the possibility that using the state to fund and provide services may be a bad thing. Given the interests and opposition you face, this is a great first step.

As suspected, the reasoning used against you the most was the good old leftie patronisating “some of your criticisms are true” followed by something along the lines of “the suggestion that it is not possible to improve is ridiculous”. I thought that you deflected this as well as possible considering it is a manoeuvre designed to stifle all debate and to shift the terms of argument back to “how much cash should we shove in one end” despite the fact that the last sixty years have shown ‘cash in’ to be largely irrelevant to the rubbish coming out of the other end. This is an especially topical issue with the massive spending increases from Brown that have made little real difference. Some stats have got better, some worse under labour. We can’t really tell anyway when the government is largely the one reporting on its own performance.

I loved the accusation from one member of the panel that you were “defining unemployment to suit your own purposes”. Good god! Do we honestly have 2.7 million ill people? Are 20% of the people in this town tragically unwell? By any sensible person’s thinking, these people are unemployed, independently of what category they may come under? You didn’t even attempt to link this to the 800k more jobs in the public sector that, in reality, being payments for no real work, might be considered by some (myself included) to be a ruse to reduce the dole queues. It comes down to simple, rational, logical incentives, nothing else. Think as a rational individual (difficult for the panel). Do you work and earn £240 (-£15 NI) a week, or get your £85 + cheap/free accommodation, reduced council taxes, free prescriptions, help with funeral costs and a whole host of other benefits? If you were the chap from the audience, which flat would you be in? I certainly wouldn’t be dumb enough to work. Nor, I suspect, would the panel when it came down to it.

I think your last point was the most important one: that benefits are not the building blocks of a good society. Having temped in a position where I met lots of people on benefits, and in particular on IB, I cannot stress enough how miserable these people are. They are not allowed to do anything with their lives. They are a drain on society and they know it. There simply aren’t the incentives to be a hard working family at the bottom of the income scale. This is the biggest tragedy of the welfare state: the damage done to the lives of those at the bottom of society.

Finally, I love the fact that he had to bring Pat and Ed in again because everyone from the audience was critical of the panel!

Posted by: Alec Hodgson at December 29, 2005 04:40 PM

James
In the time allocated you did a splendid job but it is an uphill struggle to change the mind-set of the so called political elite. You hit a 'bulls-eye' with your comment on the current role of The King's Fund- to provde a good income for executives, just like other quangos.

Timing - between Christmas and New Year was not good. I suspect that only the converted where listening to the broadcast. Can BBC advise you the listening figures.... and does it matter?

Follow up. Will a transcript appear in The Listener?

The change agents who may implement are not yet in political power. You, we and our disciples need to be lobbying the next government, presumably the Cameronians. Simon Heffer made a good start in the Telegraph on 28th December.

On a lighter note, but still relevant, I have just finished reading the novel SPIN by Martin Sixsmith who is ex Director of Communications in Downing Street - New Labour 1997 - 2002. The setting is year 2011. The incidents and characters in the book are not real....YET! The DfS - Dept. for Society is the theme and a frightening prospect.

Peter Crombie

Posted by: Peter Cr at December 30, 2005 07:46 PM

Raw Carrot has somehow set up a magic permanant link for the talk, if anyone is interested. See the post here for more details.

Posted by: Alec Hodgson at January 1, 2006 06:21 PM

Excellent James- I think you did an outstanding job of landing punches despite the...well, heckling.

Like other commenters I think it is at least a step in the right direction that the BBC are mounting a programme like this...even if they did think it necessary to have you surrounded by lefty attack dogs.

What chance you being given a telly prog to really put it across?

Posted by: Wat Tyler at January 3, 2006 09:54 PM

On the subject of benefit dependency leading to moral and cultural decline, I wonder if the replacement of the phrase "equal opportunity" in government policy by "equal incentive" or "equal motivation" would help?

We must make it worth people's while to work for their living. In a just society, labour should bring its rewards - not leave one at evens with a neighbour who does not work, but achieves the same ends on benefits. This could presumably only be achieved by reducing or freezing benefits while wages continue to rise.

Or perhaps, like postmen, all workers could be paid a big bonus for turning up to work on a certain number of days each year!

Posted by: Ruth Sherwin at January 5, 2006 02:56 PM