The language of charity

One way the Welfare State is being eviscerated in Ireland, as elsewhere -provided you accept the premise that Ireland had a welfare state worth talking about- is through the tried and tested language of charity.

Welfare payments get talked about not as a matter of basic entitlement, but as a matter of the state being generous to people in need. So Brian Lenihan in his budget statement talked about how 'we' had 'built up a generous level of welfare provision', and repeated this assertion in interviews yesterday.

This idea of the generous state sits snugly with other ruling class visions of the deserving poor, such as those of George Bush's 'compassionate conservatism'. There are echoes of the 'nanny state': the caring but stern entity who has to look after its charges who are not yet fit to look after themselves.

Thus the 'generosity' of the state -or Fianna Fáil- is like the milk of human kindness: we don't need to ask why a wealthy society -one with 18,100 High Net Worth Individuals with a net worth of €121 billion- has young children looking in bins for food; all 'we' have to do is give generously, like it says on the charity tin.

The objective of the likes of Lenihan and O'Cuiv - who talks disgustingly about how the 'means test for carer's allowance has been significantly eased over the years, and is now one of the most generous means tests in the social welfare system' - is to prevent welfare spending as a treat, an imposition which the state shoulders as best it can, but alas, when times are tight, it must examine whether its excessive generosity is harmful.

But who is being generous to whom? The implication of Lenihan and O'Cuiv's rhetoric is clear: the rich -you know, the ones 'hit hardest' by the budget, as per Wednesday's Irish Times - are being generous to the deserving poor. Yet, as Michael Taft's 'Creepy Millionaires' post shows, it's the poorest who are doing all the giving. That is, if getting sucked dry involves giving.