A News Junky's Discoveries

...while stumbling through the trees to see the forest:

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Rupert Murdoch Spreads the Infection.

While in Australia Rupert Murdock gave a speech recently that urged Australians to stop middle class social programs. The details about exactly what the middle class gets is not the point here. The point being made here is that Rupert Murdoch's advice will infect Australian society with the kind of resentment that has gutted America's ability to help its poor.

Conservatives in America have waged a successful campaign to exclude all but the most desperate people from having access to social welfare programs. To use an analogy, America's social safety net for people below retirement age is strung so low that those unfortunate enough to fall into it still hit rock bottom. Middle class Americans need to fall a long way before they will be eligible for government assistance.

This is supposedly done to keep government small and save taxes. Let me digress for a paragraph to show the fallacy of this reason: The result of letting so many people become poor has caused an increase in police forces to help cope with petty crimes and chase off homeless people. And it is difficult to hide these populations of disenfranchised people in Urban centers. Their visibility scares the middle class to the suburbs. And the sprawl of the suburbs causes extra expenses. The costs for government that is associated with maintaining residential roads and other infrastructure over vast areas are enormous. And then there are the long term costs on the environment and food production as once pristine farmland and forests are turned into subdivisions. There is not enough space here to list the cascade of expenses that replace the cost of helping people stay in the middle class.

Now back to the point: Breeding resentment is what weakens support for social programs. The only reason why people are against social programs is that they resent having to subsidize other people. The number of people who feel that resentment is directly proportional to the number of people excluded from enrolling in those programs. Exclude more people from enrolling in social programs to increase the number of people against those programs.

Imagine, for example, what would happen to support for America's public education system if only children of poor families were allowed to enroll. All middle class families would have to pay for private education. The middle class would then demand that any family with the remotest chance of affording private school for their kids also be excluded from enrolling in public schools. And then they would demand to minimize and cut corners of services offered by public schools. The injustice of the segregated school system would return. Resentment would keep school taxes down to a minimum.

Rupert Murdoch is a member of the only class of people that benefit from excluding the middle class from participating in the government's social programs. Members of he upper classes are least likely to ever rely on social programs. But they would pay taxes into those programs just like the lower classes. People in these elite classes should be smart enough to know that the social and economic stability these social programs create also protects their property from desperate mobs. But the resentment felt by people like Rupert Murdoch make them complacent.

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