Giving and receiving

A man I greatly respect once told me this. “Justice is when you get what you deserve; mercy is when you don’t get what you deserve and grace is when you are given what you don’t deserve”.

To understand where we are today, we must pay homage to where we came from. The benefits and social security state that we have today, including the NHS, emerged from a Victorian, philanthropic, ‘Christian’ value base. Genuinely well meaning men (as there were few women in places of power then) gave from their own wealth to support the poorest people in society from the worst that nature and industrialization could throw at them. This unofficial movement eventually emerged into law in the 1940’s through the Beverage report. This created a national health service, national insurance, benefits and pensions for all. They sought to impose a national minimum for all. Most people would agree, this sounds good, however, I would argue that we need a careful look at the values behind, and indeed a radical overhaul of, the system that so many now rely on.

William Beverage gave three guiding principles, one of which was this:

Policies of social security "must be achieved by co-operation between the State and the individual", with the state securing the service and contributions. The state "should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility; in establishing a national minimum, it should leave room and encouragement for voluntary action by each individual to provide more than that minimum for himself and his family".

I write this piece out of an increasing frustration towards those who, either knowingly or through generations of ignorance, believe they have a ‘right’ to long term benefits and support from the state for their entire income. Also, a growing hatred of the system which has now evolved from the early days of the welfare state and not only encourages reliance on itself, but stifles, even opposes independence or indeed more importantly, interdependence.

I do believe in helping people. I passionately believe in showing love towards others around me by giving time, skills and material help to those that need it. The person I give to does not have the right to these, it is my prerogative to give, or not. That said, we have as a nation, decided, through our democratic system, that it is a good ideal and value to corporately look after those who have little or less. We have, though, gone way beyond the bounds of ‘Christian giving’ and charity that the system was founded on. We have now ventured into the realms of some sudo-humanist, pride-driven, individualist ideal. We provide for all, giving everyone the right to live unaffected by others around them in an individual bubble, expressing themselves as they wish, whilst their community / society goes on blindly supporting their lifestyle and bad choices with no influence.

In our quest towards individual human rights and the individual’s right to express themselves, we have forgotten that nobody has the right to grace. Nobody has the right to charity. We have removed the unpopular concept of ‘charity’ and its ugly reliance on other people so as not to hurt or embarrass those receiving the gift. We have sanitized the benefits system and removed all concept of benefits being the same money, earned, and then given up through tax and spending by those others living in our communities. I firmly believe that the stark difference between ‘pay day’ and pay day should be brought home to everyone in the community. This may be the only way we are able to shame (another deeply unpopular/unfashionable word these days) those who are able but choose not, into once again contributing to society.

I have no problem with my money going towards those who meaningfully contribute or try to re-engage with society. Indeed, I have been there myself. Similarly, those who in biblical times were referred to as ‘the widow and the orphan’, who genuinely have no other source of income or hope of one, to whom benefits are essential.

Must we have a system so open to abuse? One where people shout down phones and demand their right to benefits? One where people can spend their benefits on a Blackberry, fags, holidays and booze? I wholeheartedly support the capping of benefits to families and, indeed, would like to see it reduced even further. The equivalent wage is over £35,000 per year, where is the incentive to contribute there?

I do not believe that everyone has the state enforced legal ‘right’ to an income, certainly not by the criteria currently used. However, I also believe that no-one should go without. We need to re-engage as communities, to learn to support and to accept the support of others. We must relearn that we are all interconnected and it is the loss of this reliance that has led to so many of the social breakdowns that we see today. We also need to learn to be strong and reject those from our systems and communities who willfully refuse to contribute to the society that is supporting them. It is this interdependence that we need to re-establish, we need to re-learn how to give and share. We need to re-learn how to receive support. We need to re-learn how to acknowledge the cost to both sides. Just as strong, disciplined, Asset-driven parenting produces a future generation more likely to be socially successful, so we need to do the same with our benefits. Action, consequence and grace.