Should able-bodied, mentally capable adults who receive welfare be required to w

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What, exactly, do you mean by 'welfare'? People are often curiously vague about that, which isn't a good thing in social policy.

That aside, this is the sort of thinking that led to the workhouse. Or, more accurately, to what we think of now when we say 'workhouse' (i.e. those that came into existence following the Poor Law Amendment Act). Essentially it is the moralisation of the issue: work is healthy both physically and spiritually and helps to build up good moral character, while idleness is corrosive of both actual and moral health. As is often the way with very dangerous ideas, its kernel is not actually such a bad thought at all, but a fundamental misinterpretation of something very important is made at a foundational level, resulting in trouble. In this case it is the assumption that work is inherently rewarding (and so is a good thing in terms of character and whatever), which is not so. Work that the worker considers to be productive (in any sense), rewarding (in any sense) or both is indeed 'good for you'. Work that the worker considers to be a waste of time, energy and effort is, on the contrary, not 'good for you'. It is typically worse than doing absolutely nothing, and gets worse as it gets more pointless. Making people on state support perform a contemporary version of 'picking oakum' benefits neither the person on support nor society in general.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Which reminds me of the bizarre hypocrisy: very rich people do not actually work at all. Even when technically employed. But apparently this is not corrosive to their moral wellbeing, because, reasons.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I wasn't referring to you (I don't know your life and wouldn't be so crass as to bring it up in this sort of context) and that post was not posted in direct response or reference to any of your posts.