Sons and the Welfare State; an update

A few days ago I wrote about my tentative thoughts about applying the parable of the prodigal son to our thoughts about the welfare state. My main purpose was to solicit the thoughts of those more theologically learned than I am, and I was very pleased to get the thoughts of one particularly more theologically learned scholar who doesn't nail his political colours to the mast.

The bottom line was that since Jesus is using a story in the first place, then clearly he has in mind the interpretation he wants to that story, and it's to spiritually lost people, rather than materially lost folk in need of some welfare state and perhaps the intervention of a government. So I guess it's applying an application, one level removed than I'd previously thought about, and that was a good thing to ponder on.

I was seeking objections to making the link, and a few have emerged. One is that the younger son only received the father's welfare state when he came to his senses and recognised how broken he was. In that respect he became deserving rather than undeserving. My favourite right-wing vessel is full of horror stories of families seeking to live off benefits rather than do an honest day's work. Lefties I think do down these stories, righties overstate them. Such folk undoubtedly exist, the question is to what extent - but even that is somewhat moot here. But if these folk do that, taking advantage of the system deliberately and manipulatively, they remain undeserving poor, and if we were to apply this parable to the welfare state, then the objections of righties remain. They haven't returned to the father/Father/government.

What's left then? I thus don't think that the parable can be used as I previously thought; it doesn't change the fact that right wingers think there are millions and millions of scroungers, while lefties think these guys are deserving because of the way the market system has manipulated them. One group is sceptical about those out of work, the other about those that put them out of work, and surely both have their faults.

What are we to be as Christian though? Matthew 5:47 and surrounds point out that if we respond, like for like, we're no better than pagans. So should we be harsh on such scroungers, dock them their benefits, throw them to the dogs? Or should we be gracious?

But should we be a doormat? Equally we shouldn't be doing that; I guess if forced as a non-theologian to find the Biblical reference to back that up, I'd point to 1 Timothy 5:20, but even then I think the context is wrong but that's by the by. Those that are having kids just to get benefits, who refuse to take work because being on benefits is easier, should be rebuked.

I'd like to think that reflecting on the lost sons should make us reflect on whether our attitudes towards those less fortunate to ourselves are not cynical, not judgemental, and instead gracious, but not to the point that things become ridiculous. But I suspect everyone I know who leans to the right would say they already are at that point, whereas all those I know that lean to the left, myself included, would probably say the same. I guess this kind of makes this a rather pointless post!

The Prodigal Sons

It's taken me a little while, but at the end of November I was challenged by a set of talks given by Richard Brewster on our church weekend away about the parable of the lost son. Particularly, it was suggested that there were actually two lost sons, as the elder son who gets upset when the younger son returns and is welcomed, is also lost to his father.

The parable points thus to two sinful sons. The younger is foolish, impatient, aberrant and blows his wealth enjoying the world and all it offers. The elder though is self-righteous and also has a substandard relationship with his father because of this, throwing a strop because the younger son is forgiven, and revealing in doing so that he also doesn't have a good relationship with his father either.

What struck me during these talks was the parallel with the welfare state. The elder son essentially rails on about the deserving poor, wondering why generosity is afforded to those who do not deserve it. It sounds quite familier - a lot like what many are saying about benefits recipients at the moment. The elder son is in the same boat as the folk that complain about the level of benefits: They are forced to live in a system that takes from them and redistributes to others who they see as undeserving of that.

But does the parable really mean that we should thus submit to a government that redistributes? Is the role of the father in the parable, and hence the Father that the parable points to, really to be taken up by governments, or should it just be the role of individuals giving voluntarily? After all, God loves a cheerful givers. I'm not a theologian, so I don't want to push the theological links any further and appeal to those who know much more than I.

My only concern with the privatised situation is that charitable giving, by definition, has positive externalities. This means that the free market outcome will yield a level of giving that is socially sub-optimal, even though it is privately optimal, because private individuals don't realise the full benefit of their giving. Of course though, the solution is not necessarily that we totally nationalise the redistribution system - the optimal solution would be some kind of subsidy to the process, in theory. I haven't really thought fully through whether that would work, nor even bothered to look into what people have written on this in the academic literature. But it intrigues me.

Are those that moan about the excessive levels of benefits simply elder sons, and just as estranged from their Father as those who frivolously waste the Father's good gifts?