[LINK] "From Welfare State to Security State"

[rfmcdonald]

Via MacLean's Aaron Wherry I found Alex Himelfarb's essay. He makes points that I've heard made before, but he expresses them very well indeed.

Neo-conservatives have long railed against the so-called “nanny state”, though in country after country, time and again, they kept losing, at least until recently. The globalized, hyper-competitive economy, however, has given the critics new life. And when economic hard times hit, they almost invariably play to our anxieties to convince us that we have no choice but to reduce the size of the state and cut or dismantle our health and social programs.

In the seventies and again in the nineties, this became the hit song with its predictable lyrics: we cannot afford the welfare state; it stifles initiative; it leads to uncompetitive tax rates; it justifies big government and threatens our freedoms. How galling must be the consistently high performing and robust economies of northern Europe with their high rates of taxation and generous social policies which continue to yield an enviable standard of living and quality of life. Predictably, right-wing commentators are tripping over each other to argue that the Greek meltdown proves that the welfare state is doomed, that Europe has got it all wrong.

In Canada, our current fiscal challenges and the pressures of an aging population have also given new energy to those same neo-conservative views. These critics invariably talk only about the costs of our health and social programs, never the benefits. But Canadians have consistently resisted deep cuts to these services. They understand that medicare and our safety net have helped contain the worst excesses of inequality and reduced poverty among the elderly, and that they are essential to equality of opportunity and to a healthy, mobile, educated labour force. Calling this the “nanny state” doesn’t change the fact that Canada has, until recently, been near or at the top of almost any quality of life index, not in spite of but rather in large measure because of our medicare and social programs.

[. . .]

Canada’s federal system poses some particular challenges but it also gives us a leg up as we have learned a thing or two about how to balance solidarity and flexibility and how to deal with inequality of regions which share a common currency. For us, just as for the Europeans, a commitment to social programs requires a commitment to their reform. Inattention in these changing times will simply mean further erosion and fewer options for future generations. We won’t find the answers in ideology, but rather in the renewal of evidence-based social policy, in intergovernmental collaboration, and in the engagement of citizens, of civil society, in the moral choices before us, including which risks and costs we handle on our own and which we share.

How about the rise of the security state? Again globalization and the asymmetrical threats of terrorism have given new energy to longstanding conservative views that the state’s overriding if not only role is the protection of citizens from external threats and internal wrong doing. And especially since 9/11, we have seen the significant expansion of our military and security and intelligence apparatus . In parallel, we see the increasing use of the criminal law and punitive sanctions, the tough on crime agenda. Here too ideology obscures real discussion and makes good policy, policy that works, less likely.