The democratic state in general – whether or not “welfare oriented” – is considered to function based on the separation of powers. Traditionally, this system is believed to include three “official” powers – the executive, the legislature and the judiciary – and a fourth “unofficial” power – the mass-media. Of late, the technological progress that made the world wide web accessible to pretty much a world wide community has increased the power of the mass-media by allowing real-time interaction and feedback – both between the authors of the journalistic material or story and its consumers/readers/listeners, etc. and between said consumers themselves. Which gives a whole new dimension to the concept of “mass” in “mass-media” and turns it into a very strong manipulation tool.
The media, however, unlike the other three powers of the state, has emerged right from the beginning as an economic endeavour, aimed at manufacturing products that could be sold and create profit. And when it comes to successful selling, there are a few tried-and-true recipes. Sex sells. Politics sells. Football sells. And, when all else fails, drama sells.
Drama sells because it’s about people and their most profound, private suffering. That makes it very easy for the consumers to relate. So they buy it. But drama also invites debate. Because it is so private and personal, it invites countless interpretations and reactions. Many of them work as a wonderful excuse to either attack or support a given system of governance. More specifically, whenever the press comes forward with a heart-wrenching story about kids starving for days or going to school in rags or not being able to go to school at all because their parents can’t afford it, readers (consumers) jump at the opportunity to (mostly) defend the welfare state and point to how it SHOULD be functioning to help these people.
Keep in mind this is Romania we’re talking about and a campaign led by one of the major national newspapers to uncover stories about human dramas that could easily (at least in theory) be prevented if the welfare state did its job. Properly.
But here is where I don’t agree. I don’t support the welfare state because it CAN’T do a proper job at providing welfare for the less fortunate of its citizens. Nor should it. I am all for helping families in need, but am strongly opposed to the concept of indiscriminately providing welfare to anyone and everyone who claims to need it.
Case in point. Gypsies. Or the Romany community, to keep it somewhat politically correct. They rely on the support of the welfare system to exempt them from working. At the same time, they produce their own income by means that are shady at best. They flaunt the benefits of this income by building huge house, buying expensive cars, brashly disregarding the laws of the same state that provides for their welfare and yelling bloody murder whenever they don’t get their way, all under the very confortable excuse that they are a minority and, as such, are being discriminated against. Harrumph. Allow me to call bullshit on that.
Then there’s the other side of the story. People who, regardless of their ethnicity, truly struggle to stay alive. To move forward. To manufacture a better life at least for their children. These families are not perfect themselves. There’s something to be said about giving birth to eight children in a row and then complaining that you can’t afford to provide for them. But that’s not the issue. The children, whether two or eight of them, are not guilty of the situation they were born in. And some of them do struggle to do better, to learn, to improve, to raise above the hunger and the rags and the cold in their make-shift homes. And what does the welfare state do for these children? The same thing it does for the above-mentioned Romany community. If that. And since these are families with really no additional income, the state-provided help is by no means sufficient. Of course, the state MIGHT be able to help these families more if it wasn’t depleting its resources on people who don’t WANT to work (see-above), but that’s subject to a different debate.
What I’m saying is that the welfare state in general – and the one Romania is trying to implement in particular – is not working at the moment, nor are there any chances of it becoming functional in the near future. So, given the choice, I would choose not to support it by giving away a large part of my hard-worked income. Rather I would like to donate parts of said income to charities that would be in a better position to help these people. The people who really need it and deserve it. People who have earned their right to receive help. In fact, I wouldn’t even mind if the government made it mandatory to give away part of my income to charity organizations of my choice. Hell, I’d more than welcome such an initiative. It’s utopic, I know, but wouldn’t be nice if we could turn our backs to the welfare state and turn ourselves into more humane people?
The media, however, unlike the other three powers of the state, has emerged right from the beginning as an economic endeavour, aimed at manufacturing products that could be sold and create profit. And when it comes to successful selling, there are a few tried-and-true recipes. Sex sells. Politics sells. Football sells. And, when all else fails, drama sells.
Drama sells because it’s about people and their most profound, private suffering. That makes it very easy for the consumers to relate. So they buy it. But drama also invites debate. Because it is so private and personal, it invites countless interpretations and reactions. Many of them work as a wonderful excuse to either attack or support a given system of governance. More specifically, whenever the press comes forward with a heart-wrenching story about kids starving for days or going to school in rags or not being able to go to school at all because their parents can’t afford it, readers (consumers) jump at the opportunity to (mostly) defend the welfare state and point to how it SHOULD be functioning to help these people.
Keep in mind this is Romania we’re talking about and a campaign led by one of the major national newspapers to uncover stories about human dramas that could easily (at least in theory) be prevented if the welfare state did its job. Properly.
But here is where I don’t agree. I don’t support the welfare state because it CAN’T do a proper job at providing welfare for the less fortunate of its citizens. Nor should it. I am all for helping families in need, but am strongly opposed to the concept of indiscriminately providing welfare to anyone and everyone who claims to need it.
Case in point. Gypsies. Or the Romany community, to keep it somewhat politically correct. They rely on the support of the welfare system to exempt them from working. At the same time, they produce their own income by means that are shady at best. They flaunt the benefits of this income by building huge house, buying expensive cars, brashly disregarding the laws of the same state that provides for their welfare and yelling bloody murder whenever they don’t get their way, all under the very confortable excuse that they are a minority and, as such, are being discriminated against. Harrumph. Allow me to call bullshit on that.
Then there’s the other side of the story. People who, regardless of their ethnicity, truly struggle to stay alive. To move forward. To manufacture a better life at least for their children. These families are not perfect themselves. There’s something to be said about giving birth to eight children in a row and then complaining that you can’t afford to provide for them. But that’s not the issue. The children, whether two or eight of them, are not guilty of the situation they were born in. And some of them do struggle to do better, to learn, to improve, to raise above the hunger and the rags and the cold in their make-shift homes. And what does the welfare state do for these children? The same thing it does for the above-mentioned Romany community. If that. And since these are families with really no additional income, the state-provided help is by no means sufficient. Of course, the state MIGHT be able to help these families more if it wasn’t depleting its resources on people who don’t WANT to work (see-above), but that’s subject to a different debate.
What I’m saying is that the welfare state in general – and the one Romania is trying to implement in particular – is not working at the moment, nor are there any chances of it becoming functional in the near future. So, given the choice, I would choose not to support it by giving away a large part of my hard-worked income. Rather I would like to donate parts of said income to charities that would be in a better position to help these people. The people who really need it and deserve it. People who have earned their right to receive help. In fact, I wouldn’t even mind if the government made it mandatory to give away part of my income to charity organizations of my choice. Hell, I’d more than welcome such an initiative. It’s utopic, I know, but wouldn’t be nice if we could turn our backs to the welfare state and turn ourselves into more humane people?
0 comments:
Post a Comment