Reform of Taxation, Incentives and the Work Environment

Abstract

Our analysis suggests that the major damage caused by state welfare provision is the creation of welfare dependency. As a consequence of the principles, scale, mode of organisation and practical procedures of state welfare provision, large numbers of people who are fully capable of supporting themselves and their dependents effectively cease to do so, and progressively become incapacitated for future independent participation in social life in a free society. This individual dependency is almost inevitably generalised to whole families, and transmitted by inadequate and inappropriate socialisation from one generation to the next.