Eugenics is alive a well it seems. What nest force abortions and sterilizations for the long term unemployed, how about the disabled?

building a better class for people.
You need to take a good hard look at yourself.

A dreadfully depressing article, with no worthwhile solutions.
All suggestions seem to target those dreadful women who will have sex and bring children into their 'bad' world.

Another solution could be that only those men with a job be allowed to have sex.
We could give out chemical castration coupons to the unemployed men when they pick up their dole.
No castration, no dole.
Simple.

What's my solution?

As for those already conceived, promises must be kept, but let the state cease to support future children in any way. No more law-enshrined maternal leave, no more state-sponsored health-care, no more state-sponsored child-care, no more state-sponsored schooling, obviously no more state-sponsored direct financial benefits.

People should pay in full for their hobbies, including procreation. There is no greater human-right to procreate than the human-right to play golf.

Contraception is a must for those still at school but sexually active, regardless of their means; and the sexually active unemployed.

People need something to do, rather than resorting to booze; and or, sex to beat the boredom of life in post code poverty traps.

Poverty and disadvantage are indeed generational, and getting extreme right wing/nose in the air academics and their total lack of normal human empathy out of the debate, is the first part of any truly workable solution, Gary!

The second is requiring people to complete year twelve, which would make them more employable, and the third has to be insitu vocational training, so they can enter apprenticeships/skilled work, already with enough work ready basic skills to earn a quid for an employer.

There must be a well worn pathway for brighter kids to chose university; noting that these postcode poverty traps never ever have one.
But rather expect that people minus the means, are somehow expected to cough up with "real" living away from home expenses for kids.

We need compulsory training and boot camps for kids already with a foot in the door of prison.

No amount of dissecting of statistical data is going to change very much Gary, whereas some practical on the ground solutions just might.

And you need to factor in accidental/early death and divorce and their outcomes, before you start yet again blaming the victim Gary, which is almost a team sport these days, in the far right?

Given the children of divorced/dead/absent parents confront the very same issues every day.

Simply put Gary, nobody chooses to be born poor, let alone left in the hands of administrators, who are hopelessly incompetent, or willfully hostile, in dealing with the kids born into post code poverty traps.

Not for nothing are wealthy Australians gaining a deserved rep as being the meanest rich bitches in the entire developed world!

It's really is a case methinks of, "I'm all right jack, the rest of you can just go and visit the nearest taxidermist"!
Rhrosty.

Didn't we just go over this a couple of weeks ago with a John's article?

The remedy for eugenics is Birmingham's article in the SMH.

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/what-cheek-the-unwashed-are-breeding-20150102-12ggcd.html

A part of the picture that I could not see in the article was the proportion of children conceived while neither parent was employed.

Given the nature of the proposal that would be relevant. The proposal won't help at all with families where children were conceived while someone was working and the breakup occurred afterwards (and its my impression that the extra pressures of children can in many cases be the tipping point for relationships that are struggling).

I agree with part of the authors sentiments but very seriously doubt that this is a useful part of a strategy to stop inter-generational unemployment/disadvantage etc.

Options to reduce the government mandated negative impacts in a range of areas including the low financial difference between "benefits" and income from part time work, the cost of re-partnering, tax structures, keeping both parents involved in the childrens care (CSA formulas give reason in some cases to try to keep the other parent from having care) etc might be better places to explore.

No easy answers but this seems a poor place to start while sommuch else is ignored.

R0bert

>>The working class, by and large, waits until they can afford to have children. The non-working class may not. The best way to have the non-working class mimic the working class is to have them practice contraception.<<
What an idiotic claim!

The best way would be to employ them, help them find someone else willing to employ them, or help them start their own businesses.

>>The best time to intervene is at the time someone decides whether to take a benefit. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of intervention.<<
RUBBISH! Taking out a benefit does not mean they'll still be on that benefit a couple of years from now.

>>It may be a human right to procreate, but it also a glorious inanity in the context of what to do about those who have children on a public benefit. It is not a human right to raise a family at someone else's expense.<<
Not specifically, but to the extent you're whinging about it it is: see articles 16, 22 and 25 of the UDHR
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

>>Some of the Left are outraged. They are happy, however, to argue for restricting childbirth in the name of saving the world from theoretical damage from climate change in 100 years, but worry not about the child to be born in nine months.<<
ITYF you're conflating the views of two very different groups.

>>The welfare state is here to stay, but it has a downside. It creates the next generation of dependent citizens. What is your solution?<<
Stop treating welfare recipients as a class of undesirables and instead give everyone the assistance they need, including ensuring that appropriate work is available everywhere.

We discussed this last week and my opinion hasn't changed since reading follow up articles on the topic. Forget the rights of women! Consider the rights of children instead.
Children have the right to be safe, to be fed, to be educated, to be loved, to be cared for. If any woman cannot do that for her children then she certainly shouldn't be having any more. And no single woman can provide all those necessities for a large number of children, even with a lot of outside support.
And where are the fathers in all this? If they cannot provide the financially, physical and emotional support for the mother and children then they certainly shouldn't be bringing more children into such dysfunctional circumstances.
Children are the victims here. They have no say, or control over their conception or early life. If adults cannot be responsible about parenthood then they shouldn't be parents.

Satire has been much in the news of late, and at first I thought this article might be in the noble tradition of Swift’s Modest Proposal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal

But no, this peanut is serious.

The State has no role in the bedrooms of its citizens

Strangely enough, Rhian, when Johns' "great idea" first did the rounds on OLO, I raised Swift's Modest Proposal - and reading Birmingham's article, I note he has too.

My other points were the challenges of legislation targeting only one gender - and how to legislate to force "women" to medicate in order to receive welfare?

Poirot
My apologies, the plagiarism was inadvertent.

You’re right, the problems are huge: legislation, gender-specific targeting, enforcement, what happens if someone becomes pregnant (forced abortions a la one child policy, perhaps?). If someone on welfare gets a job, how long before she is permitted to procreate?

The ghastly absurdity of the challenges of implementation pale, though, compared to the ghastly absurdity of the proposition itself.

The most practical solution is also the most simple and ethical: everyone who agrees with the sole parents pension should be forced to pay for it and everyone who doesn't, should not. In fact, no need to even force them. If they agree they pay, and if they don't, they don't. Problem solved. In a worst-case scenario, sole parent pensioners can always work for a living like everyone else, including all other sole parents.

It doesn’t really matter what is said here. The insufferably wealthy leaders of the Western world are determined to destroy the welfare state and any argument will do.

Until the welfare state was formed, the rich lived in tax-free intergenerational wealth splendour. Sadly, for the last hundred years or so, the rich have been forced to pay taxes to support the people they exploit and those who fall between the cracks of the system that keeps the rich wealthy.

Capitalism is a fear-based system. Those who play the game are well rewarded, while those who do not are doomed to lifelong debt, fuelled by the fear of homelessness and starvation. Welfare alleviates the poverty of those who do not measure up to the capitalist system – and we can’t have that, can we?

Intergenerational welfare is the flipside of intergenerational wealth.

Yahoo, I can actually agree with Suse!

Of course contraception should be a 2 way street, the blokes should be chemically rendered impotent while picking up their welfare cheques, the sane as the ladies, that is just as important.

Of course Killarney has it all wrong as usual. Girl, "The insufferably wealthy leaders of the Western world" don't have to do a damn thing to destroy the welfare state. The bludgers, the Ne'er-do-wells & the bleeding hearts are doing that for them, much more quickly than anything they could do.

Add the assistance of the left & Labor, & it won't be much longer now. Greece here we come. Democracy will go with it of course.

Democracy with welfare has it's own built in destruction. Once one of the major parties decides to buy the bludger vote, & the bludger element realise they can simply vote for a living, that working is entirely optional, collapse is inevitable. It is just a matter of time before the vote buying taxpayer money runs out.

Have a look at the website Your Life Choices some time. It is full of bitching welfare recipients, mostly age pensioners, who continually want more handout. There are other sites catering to other whingers, who do nothing but complain they don't get enough.

Communism collapsed & millions starved because it did not reward productivity enough. Bread & circus destroyed Rome, as it will any community that does not demand responsibility to match entitlement

hasbeen

'it won't be much longer now. Greece here we come.'

For the record, until its economic collapse, Greece had the second lowest per capita welfare spending budget in Europe, but the highest military budget.

You wouldn't know it though, with the incessant cacophony of neoliberal media wankery proclaiming that it wuz the welfare wot did Greece in. As the West sinks deeper and deeper into military debt to finance its endless war on Islam and anything else that defies the Washington consensus ... well, as you say, Hazza - Greece here we come.

That's almost poetic, Killarney.

I have to admit I'm genuinely torn on this one. Over the years I've seen so many situations where innocent kiddies are saddled with appalling parents. While I've never called for sterilisation--actually a common refrain among the working class generally, and not just the professional class--I have thought it's a shame parents aren't obliged to show their credentials as parents prior to conceiving.

I'm against Johns' 'penultimate solution' because so far as I can see it's purely ideological, though in that case it's also contradictory. How does Johns square his government intervention with his beloved libertarianism? I can see why his mates are squeamish.

Having conceded as much, rather than blaming the generationally disadvantaged, or welfare, the spotlight should perhaps be on jobs, or rather the lack of them. There are nowhere near enough jobs to go around and nothing to repair the critical dearth of self-esteem suffered by these people.
The generationally disadvantaged are commonly isolated; geographically, educationally and socially. They are in the gutter and commonly given over to drug abuse, crime, violence and maladjustment generally.
Johns' solution does nothing to address their plight, fostered by the system that propagates it, which offers little in the way of an alternative lifestyle. They either remain on welfare and die of attrition, or they're driven onto the streets. Either is acceptable for Johns and his elitist class of spoiled rich.

These people do not live off other people's earnings; the overpaid live of them!

An alternative solution might be to limit household income, beyond which point one of a couple must cease work, creating job opportunities for others. The like's of Johns could have his pay stopped, or taxed progressively beyond a 'decent' threshold, compromising his incentive to go on working so that another could take his place.

I am sick of these smug bastards sitting back in the lap of luxury, drawing kudos from the chronically disadvantaged.
It's a complacent disease from Johns' professional class right down to cashed-up bogans. You are not there by merit! But the luck of the draw!

Squeers, by limiting the amount of high value work (that few are able to do) done in the country, such a restriction would actually make less work available for everyone else, as funding people's wages would become more difficult.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Hasbeen
>>Democracy with welfare has it's own built in destruction. Once one of the major parties decides to buy the bludger vote, & the bludger element realise they can simply vote for a living, that working is entirely optional, collapse is inevitable. It is just a matter of time before the vote buying taxpayer money runs out.<<

You're making two false assumptions:

• You assume that bludging is what most people want to do. In reality it's not even what most unemployed people want to do!

• You assume most people's voting choices are entirely selfish. In reality that's not the case at all. I've always voted for the party that I think would run the country/state better. Haven't you?

The real problem isn't a lack of incentive, but rather a lack of opportunity.

Dear Aidan,

<<You assume that bludging is what most people want to do. In reality it's not even what most unemployed people want to do!>>

EXTREMELY few sickos want to bludge others - the vast majority, employed or otherwise, simply wants to survive, yet that doesn't imply that they want to be employed, if they can get away from it. Keep in mind that the biggest of bludgers ARE employed!

<<You assume most people's voting choices are entirely selfish. In reality that's not the case at all. I've always voted for the party that I think would run the country/state better. Haven't you?>>

Most people vote for those whom they believe would do less damage - to themselves as well as to others.

So long as it only provides the frugal basics, welfare is good - it provides safety and dignity and most importantly, helps to prevent the creation of unnecessary jobs which are either immoral or just nonsensical which do not contribute towards any real improvement in the quality of life.

People who do not perform formal work for money can still do lots of good things informally rather than going through the economic mechanism. However, making children is not one of those.

Aidan,
I don't buy that. But even if acknowledge high skill sets, often overated or based on established hierarchies rather than real skills, this class is still way overpaid. I take the Trading Places stand that most of the working elite could be quickly replaced by gutter snipes.

I say the elite is way over paid also though in terms of the Australian economic pie. If the rich minority is taking %60 of the pie, that only leaves %40 for the rest, and only a tiny fraction of that for the lowest of the low--the ones Johns wants to sterilise:

http://www.petermartin.com.au/2011/08/we-think-rich-are-too-rich-but-theyre.html

We are far too accepting of the scandalously disparate wealth distribution in this country.
The effrontery of Johns and his mates is breathtaking! They get over half the pie, they've got the cheek to say they "earn" it, and they complain about the peanuts they largely evade paying to the poorest!
Our most abject citizens are there thanks to the obcene wealth and indulgence of our societies drones.

Squeers, even if you could find guttersnipes with the ability, the value of doing the job well compared with mediocre performance means that the people in the job are not overpaid if they're doing it well.

The objective should be to grow the pie, not just to slice it more evenly.

Those on the Right like to claim that they're more interested in enlarging the pie and those on the Left are only interested in slicing it more fairly. In reality the reverse is USUALLY the case (with the Right regarding non interference as the fairest course of action regardless of outcome) but you seem to be a counterexample!

Whatever you may call it, pensions paid to bureaucrats, academia, & other government employees are still welfare, unless they have paid into a scheme like real people.

The Greeks have been retiring their public sector at age 55 & that is welfare gone mad. Surely you heard the scream when austerity was imposed on them, to secure the EU loans to keep paying some of this.

You may also have noticed they have just voted in a new government who has promised to abandon the austerity program, just as it was starting to work.

That is democracy voting it's own collapse, just as I mentioned in my earlier post.

Of course not everyone are bludgers, but it only takes about 10% to overload the rest, & we are beyond that.

Yes some vote on what is best for the country. However when I suggested I had always done this, & assumed most others did the same, I was howled down by many, including Poirot, who told me I was mad, & no one did.

Hasbeen,

"Yes some vote on what is best for the country. However when I suggested I had always done this, & assumed most others did the same, I was howled down by many, including Poirot, who told me I was mad, & no one did."

Could you give me a link to such - to refresh my memory?

You're as partisan as anyone on this forum - more than most....IMO

Aiden:
"...the value of doing the job well compared with mediocre performance means that the people in the job are not overpaid if they're doing it well."
I don't really follow?
My position is that our mode of production realises a finite gross profit, and that the remuneration to the top end is over the top. I'm not like other lefties in that I don't call for redistribution, though I would certainly insist on universal healthcare and subsistence welfare generally. I say that the wealthy get far too much of the pie, but I don't want it shared out more evenly; I want the surplus retained.

"The objective should be to grow the pie, not just to slice it more evenly".

No, on both counts!
What's the point growing the pie when the profits go to the rich? who reinvest it not in quality of life for all, but in expanding the enterprise: not better, but more infrastructure/consumption/population growth. The welfare class Johns despises is inevitable by-product of growing the economy.
You can't grow the pie indefinitely, and you can't grow it without growing demand. Consumers get sated and jaded; you need the next generation coming on, but that's not enough either. You need growing populations, on or off shore.
Johns doesn't want to stop population growth, the economy demands the population grow perpetually, he just wants rid of the economic drag the welfare class constitutes; it does generate subsidiary economic growth in terms of service industries--healthcare/the judiciary/beaurocracy generally--but this contributes little or nothing to GDP. The class also fosters/depends on the black market, fraud, milking the system etc. to survive, and are otherwise necessarily lousy consumers due to limited means. There's just no money in the welfare class. It was ok during the economic salad days to subsidise their spending, but not anymore, though the system goes on growing its idle rump. No 'efficiency' can change that; welfare is an indicator of the systems inefficiency, to put it in language Johns would appreciate.