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beral politicians who did in fact point out the dangers publicly were considered to be attacking the pension itself. Although this was not their intention, they rapidly desisted from their criticism in the interest of their parliamentary careers. The banks were understandably perturbed, but refused to voice their reservations in public. Thus a banker, in a moment of confidence: ‘The fund is the ultimate deterrent. It mbts outlet forces us to do what the government wants. It is an instrument of manipulation. Of course, businessmen saw the dangers. But they mbt shoes clearance were afraid to oppose the government. And they compelled the opposition politicians not to do so. The political climate was such that the banks felt that they had to act with restraint. The country doesn’t like opposition.’ He is undoubtedly right. Swedes, of high or low degree, are obsessed with smooth functioning, whether it be of their lives, their work or their society. Their attitudes are exclusively utilitarian. They can afford to ignore all considerations but the grossly material, since <a href="http://www.designershandbag.co.uk/gucci-handbags-c-6.html"><strong>gucci bags</strong></a> they are so truly materialistic. With astonishingly few exceptions they admit of nothing that cannot be seen, measured and priced. Their test of validity is uniquely that of material advancement. While Swedish debates leave no corner of material progress unilluminated, other values are almost completely ignored. The question of the liberty of the individual is rarely touched mbt discount on, mainly because it is vaguely suspected as a disturbance of a properly functioning social machine and hence a threat to economic security. Discussion of the advance of the administrative juggernaut is actually taboo, for the same reason. It is not uncommon to hear (as I have heard) that ‘to be concerned about liberty is pathological’. What the Swedes require therefore is prosperity alone. They have been conditioned to believe that their material security is the gift of the State. They regard political servitude as a necessary condition and a fair mbt price for its continuation. 10. Welfare as an Instrument of Control Even if material security has been essential to the generation of political compliance, it has limitations as a medium of control. Principally, it suffers from the defect that, since it is demonstrably the result of work, the notion of personal initiative is never entirely absent. It will do for the cruder types of political manipulation, but not for the subtler forms of conditioning that lead to changes of mentality, and a supine frame of mind. Something more vigorous and profound is called for for that. In the hands of the Swedes, social welfare has proved an appropriate cheap mbt instrument. This has nothing to do with the once propounded tendency of welfare to dull the will to work. That hypothesis has surely been discredited sufficiently by now; but if yet more evidence is wanted, Swedish experience provides it. In Sweden, social security is not only deeply entrenched, but full employment has been a part of life for so long that anything else lies only in the memories of the middle-aged. The country, therefore, is deprived of those time-honoured gadflies, fear of starvation and the threat of unemployment. Yet the Swedes work, and work so hard that, if medical opinion is to be believed, their health is impaired.* The phenomenon of rising expectations has seen to that. Or, to use unfashionable concepts, the vices of greed, ambi- * Doctors frequently give warnings of the rise mbt shoes of stress diseases. Heart trouble has been increasing, as it has elsewhere among highly industrialized nations. Insomnia and mental strain attributable to pressure of work have also increased. Welfare as an Instrument of Control 183 tion and vanity override that of sloth with ease, at least where the Puritan ethos prevails. What was luxury yesterday is essential today and, although it may perhaps be trite to observe, attitudes shift correspondingly. The angst once concentrated on having enough to eat is transferred to maintaining a share of prosperity. Keeping up with the Joneses will do very nicely as a substitute for keeping the wolf from the door; social insecurity is quite as tyrannous a master as physical survival. And, if this were not enough, official propaganda is there to help, with its insistent message that the rise in the mbt clearance standard of living is the most important thing in the world, and its fall the worst conceivable <a href="http://www.designershandbag.co.uk/burberry-handbags-c-42.html"><strong>burberry leather handbags</strong></a> disaster. In short, the Swede has no lack of goads. And his social benefits are so constructed as not to undermine their strength. Social security will guarantee bread and butter, but you must earn the jam yourself. The old-age pension comes to conscientious worker mbt lami and drone alike. Starvation is impossible. But, as explained in the last chapter, the total pension is related to earnings and arranged in such a way that it is necessary to work hard for some years to ensure retirement in the comfort to which the average man has become accustomed. Likewise, sickness compensation, while proportionate to wages, is always less, so that while ill health does not mean destitution, malingering does not pay. The purpose of social security is to dispel need without crossing the threshold of prosperity. If, in its Swedish form, social welfare does not substantiate allegations of necessarily inducing laziness, it nevertheless has displayed other and more insidious capacities. Provided it is extended so far that it appears to wrap the citizen like a protective garment, it may be used in order to create a feeling of absolute dependence on the State. In Sweden, welfare has become the fount of security in all forms. ‘The Swede,’ to quote Mr Bertil Wennergren,* the * From a private conversation. 184 The New Totalitarians assistant Ombudsman, ‘does not, let’s face it, mbt shoes discount have much respect for the law. Why? Well, all people want security. Now you in England, in America, and I might say in most Cheap mbts Western countries, get your feeling of personal security from the mbt rule of law. But the Swedes get it entirely from social welfare. So that our people regard welfare as you regard the law.’ Starting, then, with the elementary concept of personal integrity as it is understood in constitutional States, the Swede ascribes all security to social welfare. He has the sensation of being looked after in all ways. He feels protected from all the dangers of the world. He is mortally afraid of being deprived of the embrace of omnipresent security. He is like a determinedly unborn baby clinging to the womb, fearful of birth and the unknown outside. This is not inescapably buy mbt shoes a consequence of social welfare. It is the result of the particular use to mbt stockists which it is put. In the form that welfare has taken in the enlightened countries of Western Europe, social security exists as a public service without overtones of conditioning. It is a neutral medium, to be used or neglected like the railways, the telephones or the post office. English social welfare is really an extension of charity. It means giving help to the citizen; giving is the operative word. Welfare in this sense has no direct political aims (although it may have political consequences for those who seem to threaten it), and it neither binds the citizen to a party nor tethers him to the State. Although the Labour party founded, the modern Welfare State in England, that did not prevent, their ejection from office as the benefits started to flow. In Sweden, however, social welfare has had the effect, and has been exploited with the intention, of creating in the citizen a sense of obligation. The Englishman, by and large, regards his social security as a right for which he need make no return; the Swede considers it a privilege for which he must perpetually thank mbt shoes australia its creators, party and State. Welfare as an Instrument of Control 185 Although Sweden is generally imagined the most advanced of Welfare States, in fundamental social security it is not particularly far ahead of other industrialized Western <a href="http://www.tzuv.com/Shownews.asp?id=135"><strong>puma shoes tiniest volume » 420 Solutions</strong></a> countries. In some ways it is behind. Family allowances are more comprehensive in France. Dentistry is free in England, where it is not in Sweden. West Germany and Switzerland offer cheaper medical insurance and better attention. The superiority of the Swedish organization lies mainly in higher pensions, and a flexible system of specialized assistance that enables pockets of deprivation to be cleared.* But that is a matter of degree only. The advanced countries of Western Europe provide their citizens with roughly the same amount of social security, and it is possible to argue that welfare is not so much a socialist invention mbt uk as one of the characteristics of * For example, families with children at cheap mbt shoes home, and earning a gross income of less than 28,000 kronor (?,765 or 4,265) annually, receive a rent allowance of up to mbt 780 kronor (?6 or 185) annually plus 330 kronor (?2 or 78) annually for each child. Needy housewives are provided with cheap holidays. Newly married couples or unmarried parents (no distinction is made between those who are wedded and others) with children who are minors (the age of majority is eighteen) are eligible for an interest-free loan to furnish their home up to