I don't think you have a picture of what a welfare state is. Sometimes it helps to take it to the extreme:
You have millions of people sitting in their government provided housing, waiting for their government provided payouts, so they can avoid having to get out and work. This sound familiar yet? Then what you have to do, after production grounds to a halt, is to start to force people to work which is exactly how you get labor camps.
I was taking it to the extreme as I said above. Obviously it is possible to have a country that has welfare without labor camps. I was merely trying to point out that by having unemployment benefits, you actively discourage people to get jobs and essentially tax payers pay for people to not work.
At least in the UK, we have an inordinate amount of benefits cheats that live off other people's money. If you only extend benefits to people who physically cannot work -i.e. disability benefits, then you stop this happening.
> At least in the UK, we have an inordinate amount of benefits cheats that live off other people's money
...
> perceptions among the British public were that benefit fraud was high – on average people thought that 27% of the British welfare budget is claimed fraudulently; however, official UK Government figures have stated that the proportion of fraud stands at 0.7% of the total welfare budget in 2011/12
Sorry but my definition of a benefit cheat is much more liberal than the government's:
> Fraud: Cases where all three of the following conditions apply:
The conditions for receipt of benefit, or the rate of benefit in payment, are not being met
The claimant can reasonably be expected to be aware of the effect on entitlement
Benefit stops or reduces as a result of the review. [1] <
Firstly, the data is only from those who got caught. I would say there is probably a lot more that haven't been. Also, you can claim benefits by going to the job centre every so often, but you don't need to actually get a job.
Anecdotally, my mate's dad does this. He has been living off of benefits for 10+ years, even though he is more than able to work. If someone can get away with it for that long, how is the system not broken?
I think this argument makes sense in white collar jobs, but productivity in blue collar jobs is very scalable by capital (e.g. automation). People without much qualifications can make a multiple if there are adequate jobs.
It's a real good thing that all of the money was imaginary in the first place. It can come from wherever. It's just a means to allocate the resources that actually hold the value, but is not valuable itself.
That’s a false argument. Pretty much every employee is productive enough to be living a decent life. The same can’t be said about their bargaining power.
What if they aren’t productive enough to earn that amount of money? Where does the money come from?