Chapter 74 Section 1 Continuing Debate

Social issues loom large in political debates when economic issues, especially inflation, are less of a concern.Low inflation and rapid economic growth are the main reasons why people have turned so much attention to environmental issues, urban regeneration and social health services. After the 1987 election, these issues came to the fore in politics. Low inflation and renewed economic growth in 1994 had the same effect. However, there are three differences between the two periods.First, regardless of the economic outlook, the social policy debates (which have unfolded on both sides of the Atlantic) do not seem likely to wind down inconclusively because they have touched so many vital points.Second, unlike 1987-1989, this time around these debates took place in the traditionally conservative arena of the rule of law, welfare dependency, and the family.Third, there is a new understanding of the impact of crime, unrestrained welfare spending, and the breakdown of families.Company managers are reluctant to relocate to areas with high crime rates and lax school discipline.Explosive spending by single-parent households has driven up the Social Security budget — and ultimately, taxes — relentlessly.First, there was the fear that increasing reliance on welfare would demoralize and demoralize the young men and women who were needed to provide the labor force for industrial development and progress.Even those stubborn people in the world who are more interested in economic growth rates than crime rates are now having to take social policy seriously.

It is therefore all the more surprising that, with few notable exceptions, political leaders have been reluctant to formulate policies based on eerily similar analyzes by scholars and commentators.Part of the reason, perhaps, is that those who attempted to do so were immediately decimated on both sides of the Atlantic.Vice President Quayle and Peter Lilly were ridiculed by the public for saying what is now generally accepted as common sense: the increase in single-parent families is detrimental to fatherless children and places a huge burden on society cost.However, as early as 1987, Michael Novak and several other eminent scholars with different viewpoints reached some thought-provoking conclusions in a publication called "A New Consensus on Family and Welfare Issues" unanimous opinion.Among them: "Money alone cannot eradicate poverty; internalized values ​​are needed, and "The ethos of the nation must encourage self-reliance and responsibility".

Bias and vested interests prevent honest and intelligent talking about these matters in slightly different ways on both sides of the Atlantic. Most senior politicians and professionals in the fields of penology and social work naturally feel some responsibility for the liberalization policies carried out since the 1960s, and they are understandably reluctant to admit their failures.Or, if they admit defeat, it is usually with a reservation that while the current approach may not be effective, there is nothing more effective.Naturally, this is an odd justification for an expensive and complex system that is being implemented at taxpayer expense.Second, the reluctance of pampered politicians to employ a social analysis that blames some of the poor's plight on the poor themselves — "blaming the victim," in the parlance of their peers, is understandable because doing so It is humane.It is also understandable that minorities are especially conspicuously reluctant to apply the social analysis described above when the number of poor people is disproportionately increasing among ethnic minorities.Yet, paradoxically, a policy of not pointing to blame helps to generate more victims.

If not everyone realizes this, it is because the influence of "political correctness" has muddied the waters, especially in the United States.In Europe, the influence is hidden but growing.For example, if blacks were disproportionately overrepresented in prisons, it would naturally be seen as a result of racism in the criminal justice system, and policies requiring more incarceration would be viewed with suspicion.Policies that discourage single father or mother families are unlikely to gain favor if the traditional small family is seen as an institution that enslaves women.There are only two situations in which these powerful obstacles can be overcome.The first is that the public no longer tolerates the personal, social and financial costs of it as it does now.This is becoming increasingly apparent.The second is to have a broad understanding of what happened and why they happened the way they did.